lectures

Jonathan Dollimore is one of Britain's greatest cultural critics. In his early work, he recovered the subversive and revolutionary potential of early modern drama, and went on to co-found the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence at Sussex; his book Sexual Dissidence recovers the lost histories of perversion from Augustine to Wilde. His work, whether on death and loss, or sex and censorship, consistently provides new directions in thought and punctures over-easy pieties. In Desire, he brings his intelligence to bear on his own life – and has produced a rigorous, wise and daring account of desire's many and changing forms. 

He joins James Butler to discuss sex and sexuality, the power of literature, domesticated transgression – and learning to think beyond the academy.

Desire: A Memoir is available now from Rowman & Littlefield.

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

#NovaraFM: Sex, Desire, Dissidence

The Ellison Center presents the panel "Feminist Anthropology of Old Europe: Celebrating the Centennial of Marija Gimbutas" on April 30, 2021.

This panel was part of the virtual 2021 REECAS Northwest Conference. Find more information about the conference here: jsis.washington.edu/ellisoncenter/reecas-nw/

Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994), Professor of European Archaeology and Indo-European Studies at UCLA, wrote numerous popular and controversial books about the prehistoric gods and goddesses of Old Europe. Her research was a source of inspiration for environmentalist, feminist, neo-pagan, and other social movements on both sides of and transgressing the “Iron Curtain.” Born in Lithuania, educated at the Universities of Vilnius, Tübingen and München, Gimbutas immigrated to the United States to teach at Harvard University before moving to the West Coast. This roundtable celebrates the Centennial of her birth.

Moderator & Organizer:

- Guntis Šmidchens, Kazickas Family Endowed Professor in Baltic Studies; Associate Professor of Baltic Studies; Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington-Seattle.

Panelists:

- Rasa Navickaitė, Visiting Lecturer, Central European University; Navickaitė's 2020 dissertation examines the transnational reception of Gimbutas’s work and persona in diverse feminist and women’s activist contexts on both sides of the “Iron Curtain.”  Among her other publications are “Postcolonial Queer Critique in Post-Communist Europe -Stuck in the Western Progress Narrative?” Tijdschrift Voor Genderstudies (2014); “Under the Western Gaze: Sexuality and Postsocialist ‘Transition’ in East Europe,” in Postcolonial Transitions in Europe (2015), and numerous articles and essays in Lithuanian scholarly publications.

- Ernestine Elster, Associated Researcher, UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archeology; Elster was a graduate student of Marija Gimbutas and participated in four of her archeological expeditions.  She has authored numerous publications on Italy and Greece in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, among them Excavations at Sitagroi, a prehistoric village in northeast Greece (1986), coauthored with Marija Gimbutas and this panel’s discussant Colin Renfrew. 

- Colin Renfrew, Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge; Renfrew was a friend and colleague of Marija Gimbutas. He is author of many articles and books, among them Before Civilisation: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe (1973); Transformations: Mathematical Approaches to Culture Change (1979); Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins (1990); Loot, Legitimacy and Ownership: The Ethical Crisis in Archeology (2000); and Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind (2008).

This panel is cosponsored by the Lithuanian Culture Institute, the University of Washington Baltic Studies Program and the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. The 2021 REECAS Northwest Conference, an ASEEES Regional Conference, is organized by the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Image courtesy of Ernestine Elster. From left to right, Ernestine Elster, Colin Renfrew, and Marija Gimbutas in 1986 at the publication celebration for the first volume of the Sitagroi excavations.

Ma Vlast: Vltava (Moldau)

2021 REECAS Northwest Panel | Feminist Anthropology of Old Europe: Marija Gimbutas (4.30.2021)

This lecture responds to criticisms that Spinoza cannot account for vulnerability since he does not have a strong enough conception of negativity that could account for loss and mourning (Butler). This lecture argues that affects, as with the social in Spinoza, support the conception of relational individuals, and that elements of negativity both in Spinoza and in Deleuze’s conception of death can help us redefine social vulnerability.

Kim Sang Ong-Van-Cung is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy at the University Michel-de-Montaigne of Bordeaux-III in France. More information can be found at http://criticaltheory.berkeley.edu.

Introduction: Judith Butler, Professor of Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley

Affect and Vulnerability: Spinoza and Deleuze on Negativity | Kim Sang Ong-Van-Cung | 9/6/12

Michael Vicente Pérez is a professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Washington. His research interests include migration and displacement, ethnicity and nationalism, memory, violence, human rights, Muslim societies and Islam.

https://anthropology.washington.edu/people/michael-vicente-perez

#024: Sociocultural Anthropology (From Cuba to Palestine & Beyond) w/ Michael Vicente Pérez

In Episode 13, we hand over the microphones to Mythily Meher, Hannah Gould, Martha Macintyre and Tanya King for a special roundtable on the place of the #metoo movement in the work-lives of anthropologists. Mythily and Hannah are part of the #metooanthro campaign, advocating for a safer, more just, discipline. They use this conversation with feminist anthropologists of different generations to consider how the #metoo movement against sexual assault and harassment might affect, or even alter, the cultures and institutions surrounding anthropology, and to imagine the possible futures that may come of this. Mythily Meher is an anthropologist and sessional academic, currently lecturing in Gender and Culture Studies at Sydney University. She tweets at @tythily. Hannah Gould is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Melbourne. Get in touch at hannahgould.com and twitter @hrhgould. Martha Macintyre is an Associate Professor and Honorary Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Melbourne and Adjunct Professor at The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland. Tanya King is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Deakin University. 

Follow (or join) the activities of the #metooanthro collective: www.metooanthro.org or @metooanthro (on twitter and instagram).

Conversations in Anthropology@Deakin is produced by Timothy Neale and David Boarder Giles with support from the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin University.

Episode #13: #MeTooAnthro with Mythily Meher, Hannah Gould, Martha McIntyre and Tanya King

In this episode, Dr. Dána-Ain Davis — activist, anthropologist, poet, doula, mother, grandmother— discusses citation as spiritual practice, poetry, love, birth and Black Women's storytelling with CBW's Christen Smith. This reflective and insightful conversation takes on a journey from her research to the possibilities and horizons of storytelling as radical engagement with Black women’s lives.

Dána-Ain Davis is Professor of Urban Studies and Anthropology.  She is the director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center. Davis’ work covers two broad domains: Black feminist ethnography and the dynamics of race and racism. With regard to the latter, she has examined the ways race and racism animate neoliberalism and reproduction. This project has resulted in one co-edited volume with Shaka McGlotten, Black Genders and Sexualities(2013) and two single authored books Battered Black Women and Welfare Reform: Between a Rock and Hard Place (2006) and Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (2019).Davis has co-edited or co-authored two books on feminist ethnography with Christa Craven, reasserting the importance of feminist ethnographic production as intervention. The most recent being Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges and Possibilities (2016).

#NovaraFM: Sex, Desire, Dissidence

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