BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//ical@bgc.bard.edu//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.16.12// METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Bard Graduate Center X-WR-CALDESC: X-WR-RELCALID:f X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_269@www.bgc.bard.edu DTSTAMP:20260518T181450Z DESCRIPTION:Susanne Kuechler will be coming to speak in the Indigenous\nArt s in Transition Seminar\, Wednesday\, April 14\, 2010 on: “Pacific History from\nAnother Point of View: Material Translation and its Social Effects. ”\n\nDr. Kuechler is currently the Professor of Anthropology at\nthe Unive rsity College London\, a position she has held since 2006. She received\nh er M.A. in Anthropology from the Free University of Berlin\, Germany and h er\nPh.D. in Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Politica l\nSciences. She has lectured at the University College London since 1990 and\nprior to that she was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Art History at\nThe Johns Hopkins University\, Baltimore.Professor Kuechler ha s received many honors\, scholarships\nand grants. Most recently\, she was the principal organizer of the 07-08 ESRC\nCompetitive Seminars Series Aw ard on New Materials & New Technologies:\nInnovation\, Future and Society. Just last year Dr. Kuechler published Tivaivai:\nThe Social Fabric of th e Cook Islands\, British Museum Press\, with Andrea Eimke.\nIn 2005\, with Graeme Were and Photographer Glenn Jowitt\, she published Pacific\nPatter n\, Thames & Hudson\, and in 2002\, Malanggan: Art\, Memory and\nSacrifice \, Berg\, which was short-listed for the Folklore Prize of the Warburg\nIn stitute 2003. She is currently working on The Material Mind: An\nAnthropol ogy of Materials.This talk presents a novel perspective on the social hist ory\nof the South Pacific by positioning artefact collections into the ver y centre\nof interdisciplinary\, historically sensitive research\, with im plications that\nreach far beyond Pacific studies. Whereas much has been w ritten on Pacific\nHistory from perspectives that draw on the role of indi vidual actors or the\ncomplex narrative surrounding warfare and exchange\, the role of materials in\nthe social imaginary has remained largely unack nowledged. The paper will fall\ninto two parts: A brief survey of key arte fact collections from the Pacific\nIslands will support what anthropologic al theory\, built on the back of\nMelanesian ethnography\, had long suspec ted\, namely that properties of\nmaterials\, including their capacity for reactivity and transformation\, figure\nprominently in meta narratives on ‘elective affinity’. Charged with moral\nimperative\, the possession of ma terials provides the hidden subtext for the\ndynamic of social processes t hat register their effects in the political\neconomy in societies in which persons are ‘made’\, not born. Taking stock of\nthis insight\, the paper will compare and contrast two case studies that\nexemplify so called skeuo morphism or material translation\, occurring when a\ngiven prototypical fo rm\, capturing the ‘social body’\, is realized in a\ndifferent material. S ometimes\, so not always\, brought about by the introduction\nof a ‘new’ m aterial\, the testimony of material translation in Pacific artefact\ncolle ctions will be shown to be a vital\, but as yet un-analyzed factor in the \nreconstruction of social and historical change. The paper will conclude by\nconsidering the implication of validating the social efficacy of mater ials\, one\nthat arguably brings anthropology and the analysis of museum c ollections into\nconference with materials science and history of science\ , as well as with\nstudies of design.Please join us in the Lecture Hall at 38 West 86th Street\,\nbetween Columbus Ave and Central Park West\, at 5: 45pm for a reception before\nthe talk. DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20100414T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20100414T200000 SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: Pacific History from Another Point of View: M aterial Translation and its Social Effects END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR