Christiane Schürkmann’s talk: “Undergrounds of Disposal: Sociogeological Processes in Nuclear Waste Management”.

Dear colleagues,

we hereby we invite you to the upcoming ETROD session on Thursday 22nd February 2024, 4:00 pm sharp, CET.

We are looking forward to Christiane Schürkmann’s talk: “Undergrounds of Disposal: Sociogeological Processes in Nuclear Waste Management”.

Abstract:Referring  to the case of nuclear waste management the presentation asks how  societies relate to their undergrounds in order to develop permanent  repositories to store their produced toxic objects. In this way,  undergrounds are addressed as ‘bedrocks of hope’ by scientists,  politicians, and the public with regard to their potential of isolating  radionuclides in the long run. Based on a perspective located at the  interface between Environmental Sociology and Science and Technology  Studies the presentation suggests to investigate sociogeological  relations in the context of such long-term projects in their  processuality.

About the speaker:Christiane  Schürkmann is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology  at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Since 2023 she is  also head of the DFG-funded project Undergrounds of Disposal / Untergründe der Entsorgung.

To prepare the discussion please find a recent paper by Christiane here    and attached.

In the session an input by Christiane will be followed by a moderated discussion between you and Christiane.

To join us online, please use the following link:https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/65020988539?pwd=Wlc2WGdSVXRQOW1PWEl2Q1YyV0d2dz09   Meeting-ID: 650 2098 8539Kenncode: 639066

We are looking forward to the discussion!

Olaf Zenker's Fellow Lecture at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity & Pluralism” on Land Restitution in South Africa

As part of his fellowship at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity & Pluralism” at the University of Münster (WWU), Professor Olaf Zenker recently gave a lecture on current debates and political dynamics around land restitution, expropriation without compensation and the quest for redistributive justice in South Africa. Here's the recording   .

Invitation to the inaugural lecture

Am Mittwoch, den 15. November 2023, 18:00 Uhr hält Prof. Dr. Anita von Poser ihre Antrittsvorlesung zum Thema:

"Affekte und Im-/Mobilität: Eine spannungsvolle Relation aus psychologisch-anthropologischer Perspektive"

Ort: Hallischer Saal, "Tulpe", Universitätring 5.

Alle Studierende der Ethnologie sowie Kolleginnen und Kollegen sind herzlich eingeladen.

Semesterauftakt am Seminar für Ethnologie

To kick off the winter semester, the Department of Social Anthropology cordially invites all new and old students to two events on Thursday, 11 October: First, the departmental group will organise a get-together with coffee and cake between 3pm and 5pm. At 8pm the institute will celebrate the start of the new semester.

Our Institute participates in the new Max Planck Research School "Global Multiplicity. A Social Anthropology for the Now"

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, together with the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Leipzig and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, is founding the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) "Global Multiplicity. A Social Anthropology for the Now". The IMPRS was inaugurated on 17 July in a ceremony attended by the Saxony-Anhalt Minister of Science, Prof. Dr. Armin Willingmann. It will initially run for six years and  accommodate up to 40 doctoral students, making it one of the largest graduate schools in Social Anthropology in Europe. The spokesperson of the IMPRS is Prof. Dr. Ursula Rao, Managing Director of the MPI and honorary professor at MLU and the University of Leipzig. Prof. Dr. Asta Vonderau, Prof. Dr. Anita von Poser and Prof. Dr. Olaf Zenker from our Institute as well as the legal scholar Prof. Dr. Dirk Hanschel are participating on behalf of the MLU.

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New collegue: Max Müller

Mobile Worlds“ (SFB 1171) with two scientific  subprojects under the co-leadership of Prof. Dr. Anita von Poser. In the  sub-project D03 "Mobilizing Carescapes", she and colleagues from  sociocultural anthropology and the psy-disciplines  are investigating the  affective dynamics of multiple crises in  psychosocial health care in  transnational spaces of Vietnam and  Germany. In a second sub-project on  "Project Biographies:  Affective Archives", she and colleagues from media  and communication  studies and theatre studies are dedicated to  collaborative forms of  knowledge transfer and public outreach. https://www.sfb-affective-societies.de/en/index.html   

ETROD: Kali Rubaii on "War is a Toxic Relationship: Finding of US Empire in Iraq”

ETROD hereby invites you to the upcoming ETROD (Extractivism and  Transition Research Online Dialogues) session. On Thursday, the 22th of June  2023 from 4-5.30 pm (Central European Time) ETROD welcomes Kali Rubaii (Purdue University). Kali will share his research will discuss two figures of toxic exposure receiving popular attention since the US invasion and military occupation: burn pits and birth defects. To join the session, please use the following Zoom link    (Meeting ID: 612 3787 5002, Password: 984654).

If you have any troubles accessing the texts or further questions  regarding the session or the ETROD series, please contact Janine Hauer (etrod@zirs.uni-halle.de).

Open Lecture by Professor Robert Desjarlais on 12 Juni

The Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology cordially invites interested parties to the Open Lecture by      Professor Robert Desjarlais on Monday, 12 June 2023, 6:00 p.m., Seminar Room, Reichardtstr. 11. Professor Desjarlais (Sarah Lawrence College, New York, USA) is currently      visiting the Institute for Social and Cultural         Anthropology as part of his Humboldt Research Award and will give a lecture on "The Palimpsestic Moment: Walter Benjamin, Digital Filmmaking, and Multimodal Phenomenality.”

Public Lecture by Kim Fortun

On Wednesday, June 14, at 4:15 p.m., Kim Fortun (Irvine) will give a public lecture entitled “Late Industrial Ethnography Redoubled – Form Politics to Methods and Back”. The lecture will take place in the main seminar room of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36, in Halle. For further information, please see the file below.

Inaugural Lecture of Professor Olaf Zenker

On Tuesday, June 6, at 6:00 p.m., Olaf Zenker will give his inaugural lecture, in German, in lecture hall I at the Steintor campus. Under the title „mensch must begin somewhere: About the possibility(ies) of an anthropology", he will engage various conceptions of the human underlying concrete anthropological arguments and discuss, which possibilities may open up when anthropology self-critically deals with its „menschvergessenheit“ (forgetfulness of the human). The lecture and subsequent reception are open to the public: everyone is cordially invited!

The Institute welcomes Professor Amanda Kearney as a Visiting Scholar in May 2023!

Amanda  Kearney is a socio-cultural anthropologist and Professorial Fellow at  the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is also the Editor-in-chief  of the Journal Anthropological Forum (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/canf20   ). Her  research is distinguished by over 23 years of collaborative and  ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous communities in northern  Australia, including members of the Yanyuwa and Marra language groups.  Her research specialties include maritime lifeworlds, kincentric  ecology, plural knowledges, cultural wounding and healing. In collaboration with Yanyuwa Amanda Kearney has written several books, including ‘Cultural Wounding, Healing and Emerging Ethnicities’, ‘Violence in Place, Environmental and Cultural Wounding’, ‘Keeping Company: An Anthropology of Being in Relation’ and most recently 'Indigenous Law and the Politics of Kincentricity and Orality' (open access, available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-19239-5   ).

AMO LECTURE N°10 by Professor Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò on 23 May

This year’s ANTON WILHELM AMO LECTURE, will be held on site in Halle (Saale) and online on 23 May 2023, 6:15 p.m. CEST. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Cornell University) will be speaking on the topic of “Rewriting the History of Modern Philosophy: On Philosophy of History, Political Philosophy and Liberal Education in 19th Century West Africa”. More information at: https://mlu.de/3lrik   .