2010-2011

October 7, 2010
Workshop on "Counterinsurgency and Humanism"
co-sponsorered with HRI and ISPF   

October 22-23, 2010 
Love/Terror Conference

March 3-4, 2011
John Van Maanen Talk
co-sponsors
Department of Informatics, Center for Organizational Research

April 28-29, 2011     
Ethnography of Iran Workshop
"Cultural Knowledge Production and the Public Understanding: Iran Since the Islamic Revolution"
Click here for conference details

May 2, 2011 
Colloquium 
Robert Willim and Tom O’Dell, Lund University
Social and Behavorial Sciences Gateway
Room 1511
12:00-1:30pm

May 4, 2011
Sima Shakhsari
Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Houston
Talk
"Weblogistan Goes to War: Representational Practices, Gendered Soldiers, and Neoliberal Diasporic Entrepreneurship"
co-sponsors
Women"s Studies and Center for Persian Studies
12:00-2:00 pm
1010 Humanities Gateway

May 10, 2011
Mary Weismantel Talk
"Seeing the Sex in the Moche Sex Pots"
Social Behavioral and Sciences Gateway
Room 3323 - 3:30-5:00pm
co-sponsor
Dept of Anthropology, Women"s Studies, Center for Law, Society and Culture
rsvp to:cethno@uci.edu

2009-2010

June 8, 2010
Colloquia: Seminar on Yucatan, Mexico
"Trova music and politics in Yucatan, Mexico" by Dr. Gabriela Vargas- Cetina, Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico
"Food and the making of regional taste in Yucatan" by Dr. Steffan  Igor Ayora-Diaz, Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico
SBSG Room 3323
3:00-5:30pm

May 10, 2010
Co-sponsored Event with Center for Persian Studies and Culture
8:00am-6:00pm HIB 135
In collaboration with University of California, Irvine’s Center for Ethnography, headed by George Marcus (Anthropology, UCI), the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture is organizing a one-day workshop to discuss three generations of American ethnographic work before and after the revolution in Iran. This event includes anthropologists (i.e., graduate students, faculty, and professionals) inside and outside academia, other social
scientists, as well as writers and artists. The list of participants includes Michael Fischer (MIT), Margaret Mills (OSU), Fereydoun Safizadeh (Boston University), Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University), Arlene Dallalfar (Lesley College), Narges Erami (Yale University), Taraneh Hemami (CA College of the Arts), Mazyar Lotfalian (UCI), Philip Grant (UCI), Janet Alexanian (UCI), Orkideh Behrouzan (MIT), and Talieh Rohani (MIT). Our goal is to broaden and deepen US cultural and political knowledge about Iran. The Islamic revolution directly affected American academics conducting research in Iran, as
well as the way research has been performed. Post-revolution ethnographic work was conducted mostly by researchers in collaboration with writers, journalists, political activists, filmmakers, statesmen, scientists, and medical experts. Our goal is to study how strategic knowledge emerged as a result of the severing of diplomatic ties between Iran and the United States. We intend to analyze and disseminate this information for the purpose of training and building collaborative work both for academics and those who seek expertise on Iran and similar Muslim societies.

March 17, 2010
Conversations on Collaboration Series
A lunch time conversation with Bill Mauer, Chair, Department of Anthropology and Mimi Ito (Discussant)
Institute as Ethnographer: Doing Research in Social Philanthropy
SSPA 2112
Time: 12:00-2:00 pm

March 2010 (Tentative )
Shaozeng Zhang, Grad Student
Lunch time conversation
(Invitation only)
"Writing Challenges in Ethnographic Projects"
More details coming soon

April 1, 2010
Janine Wedel, Professor of Anthropology and Public Policy
George Mason University
Talk: TBA
3:30-5:00pm
Place: TBA
Co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology, CGPACS, Center in Law, Culture, and Society

April 22-23, 2010
(Tentative)
Counter Insurgency Event
David Price, Ike Skelton and Sam Popkis, Christoph Zuercher

April 30, 2010
Culture and Theory Graduate Conference
"Quarantine"
Keynote Speaker: Michael Montoya, Assistant Professor, Dept of Anthropology

May 10, 2010
"Difference generations in the production of ethnography on Iran before and after the revolution"co-spnosored with Center for Persian Studies

June 2010
Visting Researchers from Univrsidad Autonoma de Yucatan, Merida
Dept of Anthropology
Gabriela Vargas-Cetina and Steffan Igor Ayora Diaz

February 19, 2010
"Speak, Write, Paint Colonial Scripts and Indegenous Literacies in Latin America"
Humanities Gateway 1010
10:00am-6:30pm
Free and Open to the Public
Co-sponsored by the International Center for Writing and Translation, the Center for Ethnography, the Office of Undergraduate Study, the Center in Law, Culture, and Society, and the History Department

The Center for Ethnography and UC HRI will host a TALK
by Laura McNamara, Sandia Laboratories
Iron Hands in Ethnographically-Infromed Gloves?
12:00noon-2:00pm
UCHRI Conference Room
338 Administration Building

2008-2009

NOW AVAILABLE
DVD of Jamer Hunt Event
Please contact Sandy Cushman at scushman@uci.edu for a copy of this DVD

Report from January 24, 2009
Para-site event now available
THE CENTER AS PARA-SITE IN ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PROJECTS
Abstracts

Phil Grant
"Ethnographic Research on Iranian Activists, Intellectuals, and Secularism"

June 1 and 2, 2009
Jamer Hunt, Parsons School of Design at the New School
Ethnography by Design
Anne Burdick: Dicussant
Chair of the Media Design Program at Art Center, Pasadena
SSPB 4250
12:00-2:30
Light Refreshments

Center Para-Site Workshop
Question/Answer Session
Anthropology Library SSPB 4250
12:00-2:00 pm
By Invitation only

May 14, 2009
Studio Series Event
Militarizing Critical Theory/Militarizing Society

May 21, 2009
"Warring Societies" Remarks by Ghassan Hage, Univeristy of Melbourne and W.J.T. Mitchell,

University of Chicago
and Editor of Critical Inquiry
Thursday 1:00-3:30pm
UCHRI Conference Room 338
Aldrich Hall

April 24-25, 2009
At the Juncture of  Social Theory and Ethnography:  Two Days of Conversations
Co-Sponsored by the Center for  Ethnography, University of
California, Irvine, and the Department of Anthropology, Rice University.

These conversations, held at Rice  University, were intended to examine how social theory
is used to contextualize and give shape to projects  of ethnographic research today. 
Ethnographies have become more  theoretical since the 1980s, but how theory "works" in
relation to ethnographic inquiry is one of the most vexing and interesting questions about
method, the forms of research practice, the identity and authority of ethnography, and the
imaginaries of those who produce and participate in it. 
Participants included  Dominic Boyer (Rice), James Faubion (Rice), Rebecca Lemov (Harvard),
Andreas Glaeser (Chicago), George Marcus (UCI), Kaushik Sunder Rajan (UCI), Kim Fortun
(RPI), and Phil Grant (UCI). Abstracts of the stimulus papers are available and reflections
on the event will be forthcoming.

February 24, 2009
Webb Keane, Professor/Director, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
TALK
"Freedom and Blasphemy: Indonesian Press Bans and Danish Cartoons"
SSPB 4250
3:30-5:00pm
Hosted by Department of Anthropology
Co-sponsored by Center for Ethnography, Center for Asian Studies, Humanitieis Center

February 3, 2009    
Constance Perin, Visiting Scholar, Anthropology, MIT
"The Deep Play of Theatre-Making: Rehearsal Poetics and Pragmatics"
12:00-2:30pm SSPB 4250 (Anthropology Library)

January 29, 2009    
"Enthnography By Design" Conversation with
Kimberly Christen - Washington State University
Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA
Moderated by Chris Kelty, UCLA
12:00-2:30pm - SSPB 4250 (Anthropology Library)

January 29, 2009    
David Pederson, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, UCSD
"The Value of Options: Statistics, Historical Models and the Path from El Salvador to Iraq"
3:30-5:00 pm SSPB 4250 (Anthropology Library)

October 14, 2008
Chris Newfield, Department of English, UC Santa Barbara
"Inside the UC Budget Bureaucracy: An Adventure in Critical Ethnography"
Full video of the event
12:00 noon – 2:30 pm  Light Refreshments
Place: UCHRI Conference Room (338 Admin)
Click here for more information

October 21, 2008    
"Ethnography by Design"
Conversation with Paul Dourish, Professor, Informatics, UCI; Chris Kelty, Information Studies, UCLA; and George Marcus, Director, Center for Ethnography
12:00 noon - 2:30 pm. Light Refreshments. SSPB 4250 (Anthropology Library)
Click here for more information
TBA    

Nov.  24-25, 2008
Fall 2008 Para-site Event – Justin Richland, UCI
Bring in Native law scholars, jurists and tribal leaders in to talk about the ways they employ para-ethnographic theories and methods in the construction of notions of "Indian," "Tribe" and nation, sovereignty, etc. in their work. Red Cents and Indian Country: Native Claims to Things Conference organized by Justin Richland and Bill Maurer. Co- sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the Center in Law, Society and Culture, and the Center for Ethnography. Additional co-sponsors forthcoming. Location: Borrego Springs, CA.

2007-2008

April 18-19, 2008    
Co-Sponsor Event
Gender, Connectivity, & Change in the Gulf Arab States

March 17, 2008    
Co-Sponsor Event with The Center in Law, Society and Culture and The Department of Anthropology
A Dialogue between the Anthropologies of Law and Public Policy
HRI Conference Room 338
10:00-4:00 pm
RSVP by March 10, 2008
scushman@uci.edu

March 14-15, 2008    
The Center for Ethnography will host
"Experimental Systems as Ethnographic Modality"
SSPB 1208
9:00am-5:00pm

Co-Sponsor Event with Native Claims in the (Post) Colonial Americas
Panel Presentation:
11:00-1:30
Roundtable Discussion
2:00-4:00
Location: TBA

Thursday, Feb 21, 2008    
Center co-sponsors The Irvine Seminars in the Anthropology of Modernity Colloquium
Susan Buck-Morss, "Universal History at the Edge of Culture"
3:30-5:00 pm
SSPB Room 4250

February 4-5, 2008    
Two Talks by Luiz Eduardo Soares on Writing and Governing in Rio de Janeiro

Janeiro
February 4, 2008
3:30-5:00pm
HRI Conference Room 338

On Writing Elite da Tropa
February 5, 2008
12:00noon-2:00pm
Social Ecology I Room 112

January 12, 2008    
Para-Site Event
SSPA 2112 9:00am-6:00pm (more details soon)
Conversation with Sylvia Yanagisako and Lisa Rofel
The Twenty-first Century Silk Road: Reconceptualizing the Middle Ground

December 3,2007    
Academia and Military/Intelligence Operations Report
In partnership with the UCHRI, the Center for Ethnography is sponsoring a series of studio sessions that examine the uses and complicities of concepts and theories of culture developed in academic domains in the contemporary conduct of warfare, and of intelligence and security operations. The first studio session: "Militarizing Critical Theory" occurred in May of this year. There will be another studio session of the same character, co-sponsored with UCHRI, on the topic of "Interrogation". We hope to schedule this one for the coming spring. Aside from members of the AAA Commission, we plan to invite others who have practiced interrogation, or been interrogated by state agencies.

November 14, 2007    
Michael Taussig, Professor, Department of Anthropology Columbia University
TALKS
"I Really Saw That"
12:00-1:30pm
SSPB 4240
"Sailing Through Color"
3:30-5:00 pm
UCHRI Conference Room 338
Administration Bldg.
Read Jesse Cheng"s report on the Center"s first Para-site Experiement: Death Penalty
Mitigation and Ethnography as Anti-Discipline
Reports and Responses

August 22-25, 2007    
HOIT 2007
The Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), University of California, Irvine and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, are pleased to announce an international conference on Home/ Community Oriented ICT for the Next Billion. The conference will be held in Chennai, India. This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethnography

2006-2007

May 12, 2007
One-Day Conference
"Problems, Scope and Limits of Ethnography in the Realm of Calculating Elites"
Saturday
SSPA 2112
9:00am-6:00pm

May 4-5, 2007    
co-sponsor with Department of Anthropology
Soft-Law Conference

May 2-5, 2007    
co-sponsor with Center for Law and Society
Chancellor"s Lecture
Sally Engle Merry, Professor of Anthropology and Law and Society, New York University

April 19, 2007    
12:00-2:00 pm
Conversation with Professor Elinor Ochs, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
SSPB 4250
12:00-2:00pm

April 13-14, 2007    
co-sponsor "Experimental Systems, States and Speculations: Anthropology at the Intersection of Life, Science and Capital" Conference

April 4, 2007    
3:30-5:00pm
Collaboration of/and Critique
Conversation with Steven Epstein, Bill Maurer, Deborah Heath and Michael Montoya
SSPB 1208
Refreshments, Coffee/Cocolate

March 20-21, 2007    
CD Available Part 1
CD Avaialable Part 2
James Faubion, Rice Univ.
Dominic Boyer, Cornell Univ.
"The Ethnography of Intellectuals and the Predicaments of Theory Today"

Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Talk and Discussion
3:30-5:00 pm
SSPA 2112
(Open and Free)

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Luncheon and Talk
(by invitation only)

March 2, 2007    
co-sponsor with UC Davis
"Curious Lives of Documents" Symposium and Midnight University
Symposium 9:00am-6:00pm
Midnight University 8:00pm-midnight
Schedule
Poster

November 4, 2006    
9:00-4:00pm, SSPA 2112
Methods of Humanization: Death Penalty Mitigation and Ethnography as Antidiscipline The Center for Ethnography is pleased to welcome eight of the nation"s leading capital defense advocates to begin a dialogue with academic ethnographers at UCI. By setting the knowledge practices of engaged academics and advocates side by side, this event represents an attempt to co-articulate the imaginary of the "human" as a potential point of
convergence for fugitive knowledges. For more information, please see www.capitalethnographyproject.com
Reports and Responses

2005-2006

May 11, 2006
12-1:30pm, 777 SST
Refunctioning Ethnography Redux
Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies
Bill Maurer and George Marcus reflect on the workshop series and discuss possibilities for charting new approaches to ethnography through collaborations between CGPACS and the Center for Ethnography at UC Irvine.

February 10-11, 2006    
Ethnographic Experiments in the Anthropology of Biosecurity. Stephen Collier (New School),

Andrew Lakoff (UCSD), and Paul Rabinow (UC Berkeley). James Faubion (Rice), discussant. This workshop is intended to engage in conversation the three principal investigators of an ambitious, innovative enterprise in collaborative ethnographic research. The forms of ethnographic research are changing within the designs and ambitions of such collective projects. Our interest will be primarily to reflect upon and clarify changes in standard practices and techniques of ethnographic inquiry that this research group is improvizing as it launches its projects within the contemporary trend by government and private agencies of sponsoring research on biosecurity. This group is primarily interested what becomes of basic knowledge when research is sponsored under these auspices. What is distinctive about this Laboratory is the attempt to conduct ethnography within a radically conceived notion of temporality where "the contemporary" defines a condition of dynamism in which structures and norms within familiar institutions and arrangements are in such flux that ethnography can no longer depend on the usual historical precedents and social theoretical framing concepts to launch it. What is required is a more radical derivation of the analytic apparatus of ethnography from working collaborations with subjects whose understandings of events and processes in which they are involved guide the adoption of an analytic apparatus of ethnography itself. Such an operation requires new ways of thinking about designing ethnography which is the challenge that this research group takes up in pursuing subjects through an understanding of contemporaneity that
resists easy conceptual manipulation. As a recurrent feature of this Center, this workshop will be the first of a planned series that engages and follows the course of initiatives which attempt to revive collective and collaborative contexts for projects of ethnography that still remain highly individualistic
in execution.

January 27-28, 2006    
Refunctioning Ethnography: A Workshop on Qualitative Methodologies, Interdisciplinarity and the Professions
This workshop will explore the new functions ethnography has taken on in the study of contemporary cultural, social and technological transformations. Where ethnography previously referred solely to the in-depth participant-observation and description of a social or cultural formation in situ, ethnography more recently has involved multi-sited research on social and cultural milieux that transcend particular places and involve networks of expertise and knowledge linked through new communications technologies and flows of goods, people and ideas. Ethnographers often find the milieux they would study
already analyzed, as it were, by experts within the fields under investigation. Ethnographic research on such fields – generally auto-analytical or auto-documentary arenas like bureaucracy, finance, science and the like – thus takes on the character of
collaboration with one"s subjects rather than empathetic rapport. Second, and implicit in
the preceding observation, ethnography has become a tool in policy and professional fields,
particularly those fields that seek to account for themselves through various qualitative
forms of auto-documentation and audit.
Invited participants include Douglas Holmes (SUNY Binghamton), Christopher Kelty (Rice
University), Hiro Miyazaki (Cornell University), and Annelise Riles (Cornell University)
Sponsored by the School of Social Sciences, the School of Social Ecology, the Paul Merage
School of Business, the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, the Center in Law,
Society and Culture, and the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology

October 23-24, 2005    
Lively Capital 2.0: Ethnographic Method and Techno-Corporate Critique
This workshop will investigate methodological issues relating to the intersection of the
life sciences and capital. “Lively Capital” refers to the ways in which the life sciences
are literally incorporated into market regimes, as well as to the lively affects – the
emotions and desires – at play when technologies and research impinge upon experiences of
embodiment, kinship, identity, disability or citizenship. As a follow up to the first
Lively Capital workshop, in which presenters explored how new legal, social, cultural and
institutional mechanisms are regulating the global emergence of biotechnologies, this
year’s workshop will focus on the relationship between the objects that constitute “Lively
Capital” and ethnography as a method that can be used to trace and investigate these
objects.
Sponsored by: the National Science Foundation, the Newkirk Center for Science and Society
at UCI, the UC Humanities Research Institute, the UC Office of Research and Graduate
Studies, and the Department of Anthropology, UC Irvine
 

 

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