Anthropology

Remarks and awards for seniors and their families in McCardell Bicentennial Hall room 220 followed by a joint reception in the Great Hall in McCardell Bicentennial Hall at 4:30 p.m.

Sponsor: Anthropology Department

The Anthropology Department presents Bennington College’s Dr. David Bond, who will talk about his research with victims of PFAS contamination not far from Middlebury. Toxicity is a hot topic in anthropological theory, as a window on impending experimental, planetary and queer futures. Are these theories of any use to working-class Vermonters and New Yorkers in their struggle for justice?

An interdisciplinary team at the University of Vermont has been awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneering Ideas: Exploring the Future to Build a Culture of Health grant.

Biologist Richard Goldsby and anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson discuss their new book on the genetic and social structural aspects of race and racism.

Filmmaker Raúl O. Paz Pastrana and anthropologist/artist/activist Jason De León answer questions about their film documenting the stories of immigrants who have disappeared along the trail running from southern Mexico to the US border.

What is it like to live with a disability in Russia? What happens when an ethnographer sets out to write a play based on the stories of fieldwork participants? What happens when American theater-makers with disabilities stage a play about Russia? I WAS NEVER ALONE is an ethnographic play about the experiences of people with mobility and speech impairments in contemporary Russia. Playwright-ethnographer Cassandra Hartblay reflects on the process of developing the script, bringing an anthropologist’s sensibility to examining disability studies and performance ethnography.

Fragmented stories from individuals crossing through southern Mexico assemble a vivid portrait of the thousands of immigrants who have disappeared along the trail running from southern Mexico to the US border. “Border South” reveals the immigrants’ resilience, ingenuity, and humor as it exposes a global migration system that renders human beings invisible in life as well as death. (Guatemala, Mexico, USA, 83 minutes. Director: Raúl O. Paz Pastrana.)