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A CONVERSATION:
The Meanings of Health and Dirt
THURSDAY,
MARCH 15th, from 3-5 PM, in 389 Newcomb Hall.
Featured
Participants: Richard Handler, Wende Marshall, Ravindra Khare, Helen Chapelle, and Claire Snell-Rood
Often,
health is discussed as a matter of development, of inequities or disparities,
or as a subject of knowledge and healing. But we also understand health in
terms of dirt and its opposite, cleanliness. How do we understand health in
terms of dirt and how do some people get seen as more dirty--and
thus less healthy?
For
instance, much imagery around mom/pop Chinese restaurants describes the dirtiness
of their facilities--what does this mean in terms of space and in
terms of social relationships? While trash on Rugby Road is
just college
students
being slobs, on Ridge Street
and in urban Detroit
it is taken as a
sign of immorality, but also public health problems. We
limit ourselves by
not
acknowledging the overlaps between the dirtiness of public health and
the dirtiness of social relationships.
During
the course of the discussion, here are a few things that could be
helpful
to think about:
--As
anthropologists, should we separate what is physically embedded (germs, pollution)
from what is symbolically there ("low" or "dirty"
people)? Is
this a fair distinction to make?
--We
make a break between "real" dirt and "symbolic" dirt. Can
we do this?
--The
problem of "dirtiness" is discussed within the frames of public
health, of urban planning, of caste, class, race, and gender.
What are the
overlaps in how "dirtiness" is understood? What
overlaps are we comfortable
with? What overlaps are unjust?
--Dirt
might be "matter out of place" for some people, but for others who
are
relegated to live in spaces that are considered dirty (the ghetto, the
slum, the dump), they have to deal with it. How do they deal
with it? Does
dirt get re-made as "gritty" toughness? As
potential allies of these people,
how
do we come to reach them where they are at and overcome our own
hesitations?
--Within
the clean halls of academia, where other people clean away our
waste and where we "tidy up" arguments, are there
ways that we should or can really understand dirt?
Ellen Messer:
“Ending Hunger: An Idea Whose Time Has Come (and Gone?)”
LECTURE Thursday, March 22,
3-5pm -- Brooks Hall Library (3rd floor)
Sponsored
by the Department of Anthropology, the Center for Global Health, and the
Center for Critical Human Survival Issues.
For
more than thirty years, UN organizations, nation-states, and non-governmental
organizations have addressed "ending hunger" as a goal for
concerned individuals and society at all political levels. Nevertheless, in
2006, FAO and IFPRI count some .9 billion people "undernourished",
and World Food Summit and millennium-development-goal efforts to cut hunger
in half by 2015 are far below targets. This presentation examines how
"hunger" was redefined, reframed, and reassessed as "food
insecurity" over the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s; with attendant changes in
rhetoric, monitoring, and policy response; and the rationales and strategies
by which NGOs, who arguably have failed to end hunger, persist and network
more intensively with intergovernment and
government organizations into the 2000s. The presentation draws on official
and gray documentary literature, personal interview data, and participant
observation in events.
Ellen
Messer is a visiting Associate Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition
Science and Policy, Tufts
University.
Ph.D.
in Anthropology, University
of Michigan
Research
Interests: Cross-cultural perspectives on human right to food; biocultural determinants of food and nutrition intake;
sustainable food systems (with special emphasis on the roles of NGOs);
impacts of agrobiotechnology on hunger; and
cultural history of nutrition, agriculture, and food science.
Project Presentations by the
2006 Undergraduate Distinguished Majors in Anthropology
Friday, April 21st, 2006,
4-6 PM
Brooks Hall Library
Click here for more
information.
The Center is located in the Department of
Anthropology, with the approval and support of the Chairperson and the Dean,
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University
of Virginia.
Complementing its small Executive Committee, the Center draws on the University of Virginia's faculty for its programs,
representing different disciplines, schools, divisions, Centers, and related
programs.
A small
interdisciplinary Standing Committee of scholars guides the Center,
while its director is responsible for running it. The director also invites
experts to discuss specific projects and participate in particular programs
and activities. The Center actively promotes scholarly collaboration within
the University and, as appropriate, at national and international levels. The
Center's specific programs normally run in two, three or five year
cycles.
Main activities of the
center currently are:
- small round table
faculty-student discussions/presentations, often with a designated
speaker or discussant, on a previously announced subject or issue
- promotion of new courses and
seminars on suitable subjects
- publication of books,
manuals and occasional policy research reports
collaborate with other similar
organizations for promotion of public awareness on specific issues
Disasters and the Nation-State: Changing Strategies and
Interpretations
Roundtable Discussion
22 February 2006
Minor Hall, Room 225, 2:30-4:30 PM
H.L. Seneviratne, Professor of Anthropology
A year after the
tsunami, and despite a massive out pouring of help and goodwill, the large majority
of the victims in Sri Lanka are still
in tents and in other ways destitute. My comments are on this paradox. The
reasons for this are bureaucratic obstacles and politicization. The broad
cultural context of the problem is a general decay in the social fabric which
has prevented the formation, crucial to nationhood, of the idea of a national
interest and a consensus to achieve and maintain it. I examine the media
coverage of the tsunami as an aspect and reflection of this national failure.
George Mentore, Associate Professor
of Anthropology
"The Delinquent Father: State Power in the Time of
Disasters"
I have a very
simple assumption. Hopefully it will be able (1) to explain the ways in
which the modern state prepares and responds to "natural" disasters
and (2) identify the cultural template guiding such genres of administrative
agency. My case takes as its test the disastrous flooding of the Guyana coastland from
heavy rains immediately after the tsunami of 2005. I would like to discuss
the postulate of the modern state imagining itself as a rational protective
masculine power. That in its filial caring role it has sought to
replace or subordinate the "irrational" and "natural"
relations of kinship issuing forth from within the family. To achieve
this replacement or effect of power it has preoccupied itself with the
modernist project of instilling in its citizens a sense of autonomous
individualism. While I would agree with the obvious view that in many
respects the modern state has not succeeded in completely defeating familial
loyalties, it certainly has worked aggressively -- and some would say
succeeded -- in subordinating them to those of nation-ness.
Yet in this success of subordination, it has equally failed to replace the kinds
of substantive procedures and quality of care traditionally identified with
the family. In crisis situations, like the disastrous floods in Guyana,
the principal mode of expressive response from surviving victims may
not have been so much the grief and suffering from the facts of death
and sickness, but rather the total bewilderment at the lack of support from
the fictive father.
Suggested Readings : Go on line to the "Guyana
Chronicle" or any of its national newspapers for the dates on and subsequent
to January 17th 2005
Josh Yates,Fellow for Global Studies at the
Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
"Affronted by
Disaster: The Meaninglessness of
Suffering in the Western Social Imaginary"
My current research focuses on that galaxy
of international humanitarian institutions that now encompass the world
and who have become the primary institutional vehicles for how the so-called
international community organizes its moral concern for the victims of
misfortune. Throughout this research I've discerned a marked change in the
how those most responsible for managing disaster understand and engage
(or, if you prefer, construct) human suffering. To put it simply, once the
occasion for heated debates about theodicy, today the world's response
to disaster is confined (without question) to the immanent--to empty,
synchronous, "world" time. Human suffering itself has been emptied of
any inherent or redemptive meaning. It is an assault to human dignity and in
most cases avoidable if only political will or distributive justice could
prevail. I'd like to highlight certain aspects of this changing understanding
of suffering by contrasting elite accounts of the 1759 Lisbon tsunami that rocked the Atlantic world and last year's Indian Ocean tsunami. It needs to be emphasized that this would be a highly exploratory
conversation.
Suggested Readings:
Susan
Neiman's article in the New York Times, "The Moral Cataclysm,"
(January
16, 2005); Hendrik Hertzberg's Comment, "Flood
Tide," in the New
Yorker's
Talk of the Town (January 14th, 2005); and Ignacio Ramonet's
"The
World
Turned Upside Down," in Le Monde Diplomatique
(January 2005).
SherriLynn Colby-Bottel, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
" New
Orleans Roots-Music
Communities and Recovery Pre/Post-Katrina"
In
post-Katrina New Orleans
, roots-music communities find them selves in a precarious position. Of
course, their position was not unprecarious before
the storm. Roots-music communities exist "in between," that
is, in socially mediating and/or marginal positions: they engage both
publicly consumed and privately maintained practices; they are at an
intersection of Black and white culture in New Orleans where Creole is still
a meaningful racial category; and they are cultural icons of the city's
tourism industry although many of their practices are socially marginalized
or racially stigmatized.
There are several styles of roots-music played in New Orleans
which claim a musical and social heritage "rooted" in the civil war
era including early jazz, Brass Bands, and Mardi Gras Indian music. The
communities invested in these musics take an active
role in the preservation and continuation of their "traditional"
musical and social practices. In the private realm, these communities
engage music as part of daily life; they perform and parade for their own
communities and neighborhood events. They live in a creative,
subaltern, improvisational, and often socially subversive space. There
is community pride in cultural wealth despite conditions of racialized poverty. In the public realm, early jazz
is iconic of New
Orleans claimed cultural
contribution to American music and as such is fairly well supported by the
tourism industry. The Brass Bands and Mardi Gras Indians are also held
high as proof of New
Orleans cultural uniqueness
and their musical and social practices are presented for the tourists' gaze
doubly-articulated as both exotically interesting and dangerous.
Such "in betweens" are clearly not new, nor
are the racialized and exoticized
positions of Black culture workers in the scope of New Orleans
' largely white tourist audience. But the social fallout of Hurricane
Katrina has brought these circumstances to sharper focus. New Orleans
is struggling with long-standing racialized poverty
as it debates how to rebuild and who to rebuild. I am interested in
considering how the telos of American progress and
social betterment will be articulated in the post-Katrina social landscape of
New Orleans
roots-music communities. And, to see how their precarious position of
"in between" will be improvised and played out in the remaking, rebuilding,
and the "bringing back" of New Orleans
.
Suggested Readings
: See the website of New Orleans' newspaper, the Times Picayune at http://www.nola.com/ for information
regarding the activities of these communities. Search for any of the
music communities listed above; see also the section on Mardi Gras activities
and commentary, Mayor Nagin's "Bring Back New
Orleans Commission," and editorials by Lolis
Eric Elie. For further information go to http://www.wwoz.org/ which is the web site
for the New Orleans private radio station which focuses on roots-music and
community events.
Wende Elizabeth Marshall, Assistant Professor,
Department of Anthropology, Discussant
Conversations on the Field and Fieldwork
of
Chris Colvinh.D.,
University of Virginia, Department of Anthropology
and
Vicki Brennan, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology
Friday, December 9th
3:30-5:30 PM
Brooks Hall
Library
¨ Chris Colvin recently
completed his Ph.D. at UVA and a post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia
University
. Chris conducted his dissertation fieldwork in South Africa
with a support group for victims of political violence.
He will talk about the methodological and ethical challenges of negotiating
and carrying out research on the storytelling practices of the members of
this group.
¨ Vicki Brennan is a Predoctoral Research Fellow at UVA's
Carter Woodson Institute for African & African American studies. She is
currently completing her dissertation, entitled, "Singing the Same Song:
Music, Migration and Translocality in Yoruba
Churches," which is based on 18 months of fieldwork in Lagos
and Ibadan,
Nigeria.
Vicki will discuss the challenges involved in doing fieldwork in a large
urban area, as well as ethical and methodological issues concerning research
on religion.
Branding Gods and Consuming
Goods: The Commodification of Religion and Culture
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
4:30-7:30
PM
KaleidoscopeCenter for Cultural Fluency on the
Third Floor of Newcomb Hall
Sponsored by the Center for
Critical Human Survival Issues
- Cool Drink and Tin Lizards:
Consuming Southern Africa Through Study
Abroad - Clare
Terni, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
- Crafting and Commodification in the Maya Homeland - Kamaren
- Jesus: Homeboy or Savior? - Makeda
Lulseged
- The Commodification
of Hinduism - Esha Pandya
- 'Necessities' for the
Ancestors: Burnt Offerings in the Macau, Southern
China - James Roane
Cool Drink and Tin Lizards:
Consuming Southern Africa Through Study
Abroad
Clare Terni, Graduate Student,
Department of Anthropology
For the past three years, University
of Virginia undergraduates have
traveled to southern Africa through a
for-credit summer program run by the University. Each year, the students and
staff of the program purchase a variety of handcrafts and mass-produced items
in some way emblematic of South Africa
and Mozambique.
They also purchase access to various cultural events: township tours,
elementary school performances, visits to traditional healers, and other
experiences available only in southern Africa.
The purchases say something about how tourists from the United States view South Africans, and also
something about how South Africans view visitors from the United States.
I will discuss which objects travel from South
Africa, and which objects do not, while reflecting on
the mutual imaginings of South
Africa and the States as evidenced in
student and staff purchases.
Crafting and Commodification
in the Maya Homeland
Kamaren Suwijn
My presentation will focus on the commodification
of textile and handicraft production in contemporary Mayan markets.
Throughout centuries of oppression in Latin America,
the Maya have striven to maintain their cultural identity through a
profoundly resilient maintenance of tradition. They are peoples who have
withstood tremendous political and social change in their historic homeland,
particularly over the last century. One fundamental change that has altered
the cultural lifestyle of the Mayan peoples is an influx of tourism in the
nations of Guatemala, Mexico and Belize within the last two to
three decades. Today, European and American tourists seek to purchase
traditional Maya handicrafts in these regions as a form of tourist commodity
- as a result, the fundamental methods of production surrounding these
traditional items has changed, and, debatably, so has the identity for the contemporary
Mayan person. Through my presentation, I will principally show how
economic and tourist pressures have changed traditional crafts of the Mayan
people. I will raise questions of whether or not the essential traditions of
these peoples have been uprooted as a result of the commodification
of their native goods.
Jesus: Homeboy or Savior?
Makeda Lulseged
"It
used to be that Jesus helped to only enable shady evangelists and pastors get
rich, but this is no longer the case. The entertainment industry has turned
Him into, of all things, a brand."
- Vibe Magazine Online
Christianity in the United
States has become a means of economic
gain. The most prevalent argument against the sale of Christian-based
products is grounded in the idea that the production of T-shirts, hats, and
bracelets bearing humorous puns on/of Jesus Christ takes away from the deep
spirituality of Christianity. Reflecting on commodities that advertise
Christian religious principles, figures, and symbols, it becomes apparent
that Christianity as a religious institution undergoes a level of
exploitation and manipulation. American culture, expressed in its various
forms, presents differing levels of such exploitation. Whether presented by
popular music figures, cartoons, clothing or even house wares, all such
productions firmly direct Christian symbols towards the economic market
rather than towards religious growth. Regardless of the mode of expression,
the result is of viewers and consumers emulating this 'cool' and 'popular'
culture through purchase of packaged Christian religion. It is the fear of
popular culture taking over Christianity that can be summed up in a simple
question: Is Jesus my homeboy or savior?
The Commodification
of Hinduism
Esha Pandya
Icons of Hindu gods and goddesses, symbols, mythology, sacred texts, rituals,
sacred chants and devotional songs have become commodities among Hindus in India and
abroad. During this discussion I will explore several questions: when did
this trend of commodification become entrenched and
what are its economic implications? What response has this commodification generated among Hindu activists? Finally,
I will discuss whether the commodification of gods,
goddesses, mythology, sacred texts, rituals, etc., has diminished their
significance and sanctity in the eyes of common Hindus.
'Necessities' for the Ancestors:
Burnt Offerings in Macau, Southern China
James Roane
Buddhists in Macau, Southern China, believe
that when a person dies, he or she goes to an afterlife not unlike Christian
visions of hell. In order to be rescued from this uncomfortable
situation, the dead must be sent offerings from their descendants on
earth. These burnt offerings include paper money and other paper
sculptures made to resemble everyday "necessities" of modern life,
including watches, cell phones, and cars. In addition, people send their
ancestors burnt offerings of incense to make their daily lives in the other
world more pleasurable.
In Southern China, businesses have developed that devote
themselves entirely to the manufacture of these paper goods and incense.
Because these items are quite often expensive, the owners of these businesses
can become quite wealthy, as can fortune- tellers who specialize in
predicting the future and communicating with dead ancestors. Both
demonstrate the commodification of religion in Macau.
"Fanaticism: Changing Grounds,
Expressions, and Dynamics"
Thursday, March 31st,
2005
3:30-5:45
Minor Hall 225
Sponsored by the Center for
Critical Human Survival Issues
- Rhetoric and the Political
Unconscious: Democracy and Fundamentalism in the BerlinRepublic -- Volker Kaiser,
Department of German
- Fanaticism and the Rhetorics of Evil -- Jennifer L. Geddes, Department of
Religious Studies
- The Image of the Fanatic in
Hollywood Cinema -- Daniel Lefkowitz, Department of
Anthropology
- Fanaticism, Political
Violence, and Democracy in the KashmirValley
-- Gerald Meyerle, Graduate Student, Department of Politics
- Intersections of Religious
Tolerance, Fanaticism and Civil Society in India -- R. S. Khare,
Department of Anthropology and Moderator
Rhetoric and the Political
Unconscious:
Democracy and Fundamentalism in
the BerlinRepublic
Volker Kaiser, German Department
I will
look at the symbolism employed by the political establishment of the
so-called BerlinRepublic in its attempt to redefine
and reconstitute its raison d'ětre after the
end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The
vicissitudes of the reconstruction of its political culture, the search for a
new role, a new identity and the redefinition of sovereignty, are prominently
displayed in the arena of "Ausländerpolitik",
i.e. the fiercely contested treatment of foreigners, immigrants, and asylum
seekers. It is here that the dynamics and politics of cultural
differentiation (with its different facets reaching from integration via
assimilation and acculturation to exclusion and expulsion) are unleashed
within a democratic framework. Special attention will be given to the
most recent German reaction to the "global war on terror" and the
democratic opposition to "fundamentalism" and
"fanaticism" as it shifts from the arena of foreign policy to the
domestic scene of "Ausländerpolitik".
A close reading of the documents (mainly from the conservative Christian
Democratic Union) will reveal the linkage between the usage of a particular
rhetoric, the mobilization of affects and the generation of the political and
ideological effects of integration and exclusion. Here the figure of the
"fanatic" plays a pivotal role.
Fanaticism and the Rhetorics of Evil
Jennifer L. Geddes, Department
of Religious Studies
While
fanatics are often identified by their actions, I would like to argue that
they can also be identified by the particular ways in which they represent
their actions in language. Fanatics use specific rhetorical strategies to
represent their actions in a meaningful, transcendent framework that
justifies extreme behavior, including the use of violence and the infliction
of suffering on others. I will ground my argument about the relationship
between fanaticism and rhetoric by focusing on some speeches by Nazi
perpetrators that serve as examples of ways in which fanatics represent (or
misrepresent) their actions in language.
This
presentation is part of a larger research project that focuses on the rhetorics of evil. While the word "evil" has
undergone a resurrection of sorts in public discourse recently, little
attention has been paid either to what is meant by the term or to the ways
that language is shaped by, participates in, or resists the evil that it
seeks to narrate. An understanding of the complex relations between evil and
language will deepen the theoretical and empirical studies of fanaticism that
now exist by giving scholars tools to recognize how fanatics use language in
achieving their ends and in shaping perceptions of their actions both by
others and themselves.
The Image of the Fanatic in
Hollywood Cinema
Daniel Lefkowitz, Department of Anthropology
This paper looks at changing representations of the fanatic (and therefore of
fanaticism) in mainstream Hollywood movies.
A close examination of representative films involving fanatical characters
playing central roles will highlight the changing images Hollywood has made of the relationship of
society's outcasts to society's stalwarts. Taking recent depictions of Arab
and Muslim fanaticism, as well as much older depictions of East-Oriental
fanatical antagonists, as comparative points of departure, I will look at the
depictions of fanatical characters in an American setting and their posited
roles vis-a-vis mainstream society. One thread will
focus on images of charismatic leadership from the 1950s to the 1980s. A
second thread will focus on the embedding of the fanatical plot element
within the broader film, with special attention to the role of the newspaper
reporter in American cinema as objective arbiter of rationality-and, therefore,
quintessential foil for the fanatic.
Fanaticism, Political
Violence, and Democracy in the KashmirValley
Gerald Meyerle,
Graduate Student, Department of Politics
What commentators today call Islamic fundamentalism was once a grand ideal
that brought together Islamist militants from around the world to fight the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The fanatical jihadis of today were the freedom
fighters of the 1980s who brought down the 'evil empire' and ended the Cold
War. They fought a great cause, defending Muslims against a brutal occupation
by a totalitarian, atheistic army. The stories of this epic battle and the
culture of jihad to which it gave rise continue to enthrall young people
across Southwest Asia and elsewhere in the
Islamic world. Yet today it is associated with sectarianism and terrorism.
What happened? How did the freedom fighters of the 1980s become the fanatics
of today? The aim of this talk is to point out how a changing political
context affected the rise and transformation of this movement in the 1980s
and 90s. A brief look at this fascinating history may yield some insights
into the complex relationship between violence and fanaticism, rebellion and
extremism.
Intersections of Religious Tolerance, Fanaticism and Civil
Society in India
R. S. Khare,
Department of Anthropology and Moderator
In independent India,
religious tolerance has come under increasing social scrutiny and political
debate. No influential sector of the society remains untouched any longer.
The two main (most numerous) religions, Hinduism and Indian Islam, have
adopted attitude of religious rigidity toward each other, and while
conversing within their own communities. Major Indian grounds, expressions
and consequences of fanaticism lie in this crucial change. Equally important,
the change has been so far quite uneven demographically, socially and
politically. Not all Muslims everywhere in India are equally attuned to
messages of religious rigidity or religious intolerance; the same is true of
the much larger Hindu population. Yet Hindus, the Indian majority, very often
feel more vulnerable and defensive in both religious and cultural terms. The
roots of Hindu fanaticism (kattarta) lie here. In
such a picture, Indian civil society and its institutions try to play a
mediating 'fanaticism limiting' role in this ongoing contest, but only with
limited success. Indian civil society is still weak, sometimes an ambivalent
and tardy mediator.
As the major upheavals have shown, however, fanaticism
in India
is hardly of garden variety. The four major instances are: the 1947
Partition; the 1984 anti-Sikh riots; the 1992 temple-mosque conflict; and the
2002 Godhara (Gujarat)
communal killings. These events well illustrate both the depths as well as
the range of religious fanaticism reached in the Subcontinent. Equally
importantly, on the other hand, the deeper currents of religious tolerance
and cultural sharing have bounced back, often with the help of Indian civil
society, to encage fanaticism. Religious fanaticism in Indian popular
conception implicates disproportionate, unjust violence and killings of the
innocent. It is always narrated as evil, sinister and unjust by the opposing
side.
HIV in Context:
Images, Expressions, and Interpretation
Wednesday, October 27th, 2004
Minor Hall * Room 225
4:15-6:15 PM
Sponsored by the Center for Critical Human Survival Issues
Panelists:
Lisa J. Stewart
Holly
Donahue
Leslie
White
Jalan Mandi
Washington
Shubha Venkatesh
Nidhi
Sachdeva
Prof.
Hanan Sabea
Prof. R. S. Khare
Presentations
"Narratives of Denial: Magic Johnson, National Politics &
HIV"
Lisa
J. Stewart, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
The paper examines the denial of the HIV
crisis in the U.S.
across class, race and education distinctions through two perspectives. How
is it that despite the gaping distance between the positions of wealth and
authority of a low-income, uninsured Virginian woman and the Vice President,
their perspectives refract and reproduce multiple levels of denial about the
epidemic?
"Media and the Complexities of Advocating HIV Awareness in North India"
Holly Donahue, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
My presentation will focus on a youth
entertainment program produced by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
in Uttar Pradesh, NorthIndia. Given contemporary
cultural norms about expressions of sexuality, what challenges did this
international team of radio producers face in attempting to bring discussions
about HIV into public discourse? I will address issues relating to
entertainment value, standards for radio broadcast, and political
disagreements about advocating safer sex versus advocating abstinence.
"Hii ni Dunia: Youth perspectives on poverty and HIV in Kigoma, Tanzania"
Leslie White, Undergraduate Student
Leslie White traveled to Tanzania a
second time to research the impact of structural adjustment and foreign debts
on HIV prevention. She focuses on the problems presented by declining public
services such as health are and education, increasing
privatization, and urban labor migration. She uses youth street language,
sayings, and songs to narrate this context of HIV in Tanzania's
urban centers. Leslie's aim has been to understand why young people continue
to contract the disease despite widespread awareness efforts.
"Understanding Sexuality and Concepts of Adulthood: a Case Study of
Ugandan Youth"
Jalan
Mandi Washington, Undergraduate Student
I spent approximately 6 weeks in a small
village in Uganda
working with a UVA alumni and professor of Anthropology at WashingtonUniversity studying sexuality in adolescents. I
spent time working with a small focus group at a secondary school,
interviewing and shadowing public health officials at non-governmental
organizations, at a local hospital, and attended and participated with youth
sessions at a Family Planning organization. Participant observation was done
at local discos, a concert, and at the Miss Uganda Pageant to get an in depth
and personal understanding of the climate in which many youth relationships
grow.
"HIV/AIDS in India:
The Context of Culture, Poverty and Urban Life"
Nidhi Sachdeva and Shubha Venkatesh, Undergraduate
Students
This presentation aims to illuminate truths
about the paradigms of traditional Indian culture in relation to sexual
diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and how societal stigmas about these diseases are
exacerbated through poverty and urbanization. The focus here is on Bangalore, located in
the south Indian state of Karnataka, and on the high risk populations of Commercial
Sex Workers
(CSWs), the migrant trucker population as well as
the permeation of HIV/AIDS from these traditionally high risk groups to the
general population.
Discussion and Commentary
Assistant
Professor Hanan Sabea and
Professor Ravindra
Khare, Department of Anthropology
Sponsored by the Center for Critical Human Survival Issues For more
information, please check out http://www.virginia.edu/cch-surv
or e-mail
hd6w@virginia.edu
Cultural
Lens:
Student Photography Showcase
Thursday,
April 8, 2004
7:00 PM
Kaleidoscope Center for Cultural Fluency
Newcomb Hall Third Floor, former Informal Lounge
Refreshments will be provided
Featuring the Photography of:
Jennifer Beyer, CLAS IV
Amber Marcum, CLAS IV
Leslie White, CLAS III
More information to be posted shortly. Please e-mail Elizabeth Argeris at argeris@virginia.edu with any questions.
Fanaticism:
Issues of Definition, Changing Forms and Major Messages
Wednesday,
March 24, 2004
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Newcomb Hall Room 389
Panelists:
Volker Kaiser
Lisa Aronson
Daniel Lefkowitz
Yuri Urbanovich
Holly Donahue
Moderated by R.S. Khare, Center Director
Speaking on:
"On the Origins of Fanaticism -- Approaching a Definition"
Volker Kaiser, Associate Professor, German Department
The presentation reflects on a variety of social, political,
ideological and psychological sources in order to describe and delimit the
complex phenomenon of fanaticism. It will draw on several texts from authors
representing various disciplines, centuries and nationalities. Among them are
Voltaire, Camus, Cannetti, Arendt and Hoffer.
"Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers"
Lisa Aronson, J.D., Ph.D., Director of the Center for the Study of Mind and
Human Interaction, School
of Medicine, UVa
Lisa Aronson will discuss some of the psychological forces which
create the phenomenon of Palestinian women suicide bombers including the
concepts of "martyrdom," traumatized parenting, and religious
extremism.
"From Fanatical Fringe to Mainstream Model--and Back?"
Daniel Lefkowitz, Assistant Professor, Departments
of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Languages
Drawing on the example of the history of
political and religious zealotry in Israel, Daniel Lefkowitz raises the question of what happens when
marginalized discourses of fanaticism come to pass for mainstream norms.
"Fanaticism and the inability to mourn large-group traumas:
The case of Chechnya"
Yuri V. Urbanovich, Lecturer, Department of
Politics
For almost two
centuries since their conquest by the expanding Russian Empire, Chechens have
been transmitting accumulated grievances from one generation to another.
Recent conflicts between Russia
and Chechnya
were primed by a revival of traumatic historical memories. This case study
demonstrates how, under certain circumstances, unmourned
large-group traumas are translated into violent behavior bearing certain
features of fanaticism.
"Defining
Fanaticism: A South Asian Perspective"
Holly Donahue, Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology
Based on linguistic materials from Hindi and Urdu, Holly Donahue will make
suggestions about the historical basis of ideas about fanaticism in South Asia. A South Asian perspective adds different
nuances to the concept of fanaticism, as well as offering internal critiques
of the phenomenon.
For more information, please e-mail Elizabeth Argeris
at eja2s@virginia.edu
---------------------------------------
"The Cemeteries Are Filling:" Facing AIDS in Africa
Thursday, October 30, 2003
3:30-5:30pm, Newcomb Hall Board Room
Join us for multimedia presentations and
discussion based on the work of Bethany Garrison and Edmund Etheridge, two
undergraduate students who spent this past summer in hospices in South Africa.
We have read the media reports. We have heard the statistics. We
have seen the photos. But what does AIDS in Africa
really look like? Bethany Garrison , a 2nd year Religious Studies major, undertakes an
ethical analysis of prevention, treatment, and care of hiv
in Africa as well as addresses the issue of whether it is more efficacious to
provide funding for treatment or prevention.
Edmund Etheridge is a 4th
studying English and Religious Studies. A Harrison Research award
winner, and intern at the U.Va Center for
Palliative Care, he recently traveled to Grahamstown,
South Africa to research HIV/AIDS palliation, and complete the
photo-documentary "The Faces of AIDS: The Grahamstown
Hospice Project." The collection of photographs -- many of faces
-- and interviews by patients and hospice workers take us beyond the
collective statistics with which we are all familiar into illness, poverty,
risk, struggle, faith and love, and raise probing moral and ethical
questions. What does AIDS look like in South Africa? Who is
affected and what kinds of care are available? How are local health
institutions and social services meeting the challenge of so many sick and
dying persons, so many impoverished families, so
many orphaned children? Where are the prospects for individuals and
communities deeply affected by the AIDS pandemic? Where does hope
reside? What should be the role of the rest of the developed world in helping
South Africans address the pandemic and the suffering it has brought?
Edmund's faculty sponsor for the project is Dr. Carlos Gomez, who chairs the U.Va Center for Palliative Care, has written extensively
on palliative medicine and ethics, and recently appeared on Bill Moyers'
series, "Dying on Our Terms" on PBS.
Suggested readings:
The
Cost of HIV Prevention and Treatment Interventions in South Africa
Nathan Geffen, Nicoli Nattrass
and Chris Raubenheimer
What is
Hospice and Palliative Care?
Refreshments will be provided.
For more information, please contact Elizabeth Argeris
at argeris@virginia.edu
Center
Celebration
Planning is currently
underway for a culminating dinner. Details to come-- but for now plan
on attending a Center dinner on Monday, April 28th, at around 4:30-6pm!
Share thoughts about the past year over pizza with fellow students,
graduate students, and faculty members. Now's also a great time to start
planning for next year!
If you are interested in becoming involved with the Center, please contact R.S. Khare ,
Center director.
Religion,
Violence, and Human Rights Part II:
Live Issues with Difficult Paradoxes
Thursday,
March 27, 2003
3:00 - 5:00 PM
Newcomb Hall Board Room
Sponsored
by the Center for Critical Human Survival Issues
Panelists:
Dustin Batson, on National Churches and Elected Peoples: Issues of
Collective Responsibility
Rebeen Pasha, on Issues of Ethnic
Violence in Kurdistan, N. Iraq
Austen Givens, on The Paradox of Ethnic Conflict: Kurdish/Turkish
Tensions in Turkey
Amy Nichols-Belo, on Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Issues in
Tanzania
Jamie B. Falik, on Women, Sexual Violence,
and the Media: The 2002 Communal Riots of Gujarat
Faculty Discussants:
Professor Yuri Urbanovich, Dept. of Politics
Professor Anna Bigelow, Dept. of Religious Studies
Professor R. S. Khare, Dept. of Anthropology
Light refreshments will be served.
Part of Human Rights Awareness Week 2003 sponsored by Amnesty International
at UVA.
For more information, please e-mail rsk3m@virginia.edu.
Religion,
Violence and Human Rights:
Diverse Directions, Unsettling Issues
Thursday, February 20th, 2003
Newcomb
Hall Boardroom
3:00
to 5:00 PM
Panelists
Professor Anna Bigelow, Department of Religious Studies
Yuri
Urbanovich, Senior Faculty Fellow,
International Residential
College,
and Adjunct Professor, Department of Politics
David
Strohl, Department of
Anthropology, graduate student
Asiya
Malik, Department of
Anthropology, graduate student
Rebeen
Pasha, Interdisciplinary/International Health,
undergraduate student
Dustin
Batson, Depts. of Religious Studies and Politics,
undergraduate student
Moderated
by R.S. Khare, Center Director, Dept. of
Anthropology
Speaking
on:
Asiya
Malik: I am going to broadly focus on women
and human rights and its intersection with religious/religious practices and
culture. Case studies I will discuss are from India and Nigeria (the stoning of women for
commiting adultery, most notably the recent case of
Amina Lawal 2000-2002).
Yuri Urbanovich:
I am planning to speak about Stalin's WWII period deportations of certain
ethnic groups and how in some cases it is still an unsettling question.
David Strohl: The
notion of individual human rights often does not translate across cultural or
national boundaries. This problematic notion, however, is of central
importance to efforts by international and local organizations working to
prevent communal violence. I will look at the use of human rights discourses
in the wake of the disastrous communal riots in Gujarat, India.
Rebeen Pasha: Will be speaking of personal
experiences of growing up and surviving Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, the Kurdish
Liberation Revolt, and numerous civil wars in Northern
Iraq. Rebeen will also draw on
experiences of human rights abuses by the government and its effects not only
on the individual but also in shaping society. The use of
religion to manipuslate the masses and/or
legitimize crimes against humanity by the secular Ba'th
regime will also be a focus of his talk on living in Northern
Iraq pre-1996.
Dustin Batson: Religion as totemism in the Balkan wars of the 1990's; viewing genocide
and torture in a Christological context.
Discussion and light refreshments to follow panel.
Genetic Engineering and Eugenics:
Facing Old Issues that Never Went Away
Thursday, Nov. 14th, 2002, Room #389 Newcomb
Hall, 3:00-5:00 P.M.
Speakers:
Dr. Paul Lombardo, Dir. Law & Medicine Ctr. for Biomedical
Ethics
Dr. John Fletcher, Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Ethics
Dr. John C. Herr, Dir. Ctr. for Research in Contraceptive and
Reproductive Health
Dr. Ravindra S. Khare,
Dept. of Anthropology, Dir. CCHSI, (moderator)
Ms. Holly Donahue, Dept. of Anthropology, graduate student
Dr. Farhat Moazam,
Religious Studies, graduate student/visiting physician
The daily news is filled with stories on the "new
genetics" ranging from stories about human cloning, to regular updates
concerning potential new cures for old diseases. A regular topic for
discussion is "genetic engineering"-a phrase used not only to
describe tinkering with DNA for medical purposes (such as developing
therapeutic interventions at the molecular level), but also manipulation of
the process of conception. At one level, genetic engineering might
involve an artificial combination of genetic material to produce new types of
animals, or even new types of human beings.
Some prominent scientists have proposed that we will be able to
use this technology in the foreseeable future to treat genetically based
diseases or choose favorable (or eliminate unfavorable) characteristics for
our unborn children.
Similar suggestions concerning "population quality
control" were made during the heyday of the eugenics movement of
1900-1940.
Do concerns commonly expressed about "eugenic" thought
also apply to the "new genetics" and promises of genetic
engineering?
Suggested reading for presentation: The
Return of Eugenics: Ideographic Fragments and the Mythology of the
Human Genome Project
Information coming soon concerning
the event on October 24, 2002.
Ethical Issues and Environmental Impact
February 24th, 3-5pm in Newcomb Hall Room
389
A roundtable discussion by faculty and students on the conflicts
of economic development and environmental sustainability with Patricia H. Werhane, Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics and Senior
Fellow, Ollson Center at the Darden School of
Business Professor Werhane will be presenting her
view on "Environmentally Sustainable Business and the Rashomon Effect," dealing with the role free
enterprise plays in the overconsumption and degradation of natural resources
and the responsibility it has in rethinking strategies for environmentally
sustainable business.
The "Culture" of Human Rights
March 19th, 4-6 pm in Newcomb Hall Room
389
Herbert (Tico) Braun, Professor of Latin
American History Volker Kaiser, Professor of German Literature Spencer Moore,
Anthropology, German Immigration Policy Chris Colvin, Anthropology, South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The culture concept has long been considered by anthropologists to
be one of their unique fields of expertise, while the concept of human rights
has mostly been the province of those philosophers and political activists
committed to the kinds of progressive reforms demanded by a theory of human
rights. In recent years, however, governments and politicians
themselves have been trying to find ways to foster the creation of the kind
of civil society that would respect human rights. The question of what
a "culture of human rights" might look like has become central to
their efforts to foster peace and ensure survival in numerous parts of the
world struggling to overcome recent histories of extreme violence and
political and economic chaos.
The roundtable asks: Can a culture (of human rights,
or of anything else) be "created?" What "parts" of
culture might be considered essential to guaranteeing human rights? Is
there only one "culture of human rights?" Who gets to create this
new culture? This new moment provides specialists in culture and
specialists in human rights another chance to learn from each other without,
hopefully, getting caught in the perennial trap of universal humanism versus
cultural relativism. The discussion will examine the intersection
between anthropological notions of culture and the discourse of human rights
that has become so important. It attempts to give those working for
human rights a new angle on recent anthropological innovations in the concept
of culture while challenging anthropologists to critically examine their own
notions of culture in light of the massive upheavals in peoples' lives and
communities brought to our attention by human rights activists.
The Culture(s) of Human Rights: Regional Issues
THURSDAY, APRIL 16th, from 4 to 6 PM in
Newcomb Hall, Room 389.
The title of the roundtable is "The Culture(s) of Human
Rights: Regional Issues" and is an opportunity to continue the
discussion begun last month at the previous roundtable. If you weren't
able to attend last month, please feel free to come April 16th as we have a
new round of speakers and new issues to deal with. The participants and their
areas of specialty are listed below. Michael Smith, Professor of Government
and Foreign Affairs Abdulkader Tayob,
Visiting Professor of Religious Studies (U. of Cape Town/UVA) Arun Rao, Government and
Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Kashmir Identity Cristopher
J. Colvin, Department of Anthropology, South Africa's TRC
Memory and the Topography of Terror:
Debating a National Holocaust Memorial for Germany.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28TH, Newcomb 389, 4-6pm.
The object of this discussion are the
recent and current debates in Germany
concerning the commemoration of the Holocaust. The roundtable will
focus on a variety of discursive formations and reflections upon the act of
commemoration, its embodiments and its relation to violence. Roundtable
Participants: Volker Kaiser, Department of German Langauge
and Literatures Marta Hanewald, Department of
German Langauge and Literatures Susanne Bach,
Department of German Langauge and Literatures Alon Confino, Department of
History and discussant, Richard Handler, Department of Anthropology Readings
Include: Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia", Chapter VIII
from General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology
James E. Young, "Memory and Monument" from "Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective,"
Geoffrey Hantman, ed. Theodor Adorno, "What does coming to terms with the past
mean?"
Explaining Tuskegee:
Eugenics, Public Health and the University
of Virginia.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER
11th, Clemons 201 | 