Call For Proposals
The Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is hosting a four-day conference, Engaging Anthropology, October 3-6, 2019 as part of our 50th Anniversary celebrations. Our conference theme, Engaging Anthropology, is meant to highlight a history of engaging with the many challenges of the day. At this moment of escalating precarity and deepening inequalities, of resurgent nativisms, social dislocations, and ongoing colonialism—and with climate change threatening life as we know it—how can we approach anthropology and mobilize anthropological theory and methods to help us make sense of and respond to these conditions, as well as identify and work towards alternatives?
Proposal Submissions
We seek papers, presentations, events, workshops, posters, and other activities that engage the discipline of anthropology in critical dialogue and mobilize anthropological theory and methods towards transformative practice. Complete session proposals are preferred but we will also accept individual abstracts.
In-line with our department history and the field's diversity of approaches and orientations towards research and teaching, sessions and conversations around our theme of Engaging Anthropology might include any of these areas (though you need not limit your submissions to these areas).
- Bio-Cultural Synthesis
- New Directions in Archaeology and Social Justice
- Marxism today
- Engaged Pedagogy
- Evolutionary Anthropology
- Critical Heritage Studies
- Activism and Organizing
- Medical Anthropology and Global Health
- Whiteness and Racism
- Feminist & Queer Theory's impact for Anthropology
- Indigenous Epistemologies & Methods
- Anthropology of Europe
- Political Ecology and Environmental Anthropology
Proposal Submission and Registration will open April 1 and remain open through June 30. See website for more details, (https://www.umass.edu/anthro/
Confirmed Plenary Events
Distinguished Lecturer in the Anthropology of Europe
Lilith Mahmud, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California Irvine
Archaeology of the 21st Century
Jason De León, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Black Feminism Today
Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amanda Walker Johnson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dana-Ain Davis, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society, Graduate Center, CUNY
Engaging the Present, Envisioning the Future panel including:
Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Stephen Healy, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and member of the Community Economies Collective.
Special Events
Through your proposals we are putting together a number of exciting events that currently include a tour of the area landscape, dinners and socials, community engaged workshops, and professional development sessions for students.
For more information or questions, or to propose a preliminary idea for a session, workshop, or event please contact the conference planning committee at UMassAnthro50@
Join the Facebook event site athttps://www.facebook.com/
