Working Groups

Rajarshi Sengupta (IIT Kanpur)

Hyperrealism in James Forbes’ Studies and Chintz Textiles: Through Research and Practice 

From the eerie vision of the owl to the radiant vision of man: Study and conservation-restoration proposal of three tri-color carbon prints by Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, c.1907-1912, by Isaak Cecchetto González

Abstract:

A discussion with José Alberto Nochebuena, author of Obra Oculta: Historia Política y Artífices Del Sistema de Drenaje Profundo de La Ciudad de México (Fundación ICA, 2025). 

Amy Woodson-Boulton (Loyola Marymount University), "The Question of Kinship: Totemism, Animal Ancestors, and the Evolution of Culture"

Speaker: Camille-Mary Sharp

Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Visual Arts /Center for Sustainable Curating, Western University -- https://cmsharp.ca/ 

Session title: Petro-museologies

Manon Raffard, "'We may perhaps avoid the plague, but die from phenol': Phenol disinfection in French cities during the 1884 cholera epidemic"

Al Coppola (John Jay College, CUNY)/Anita Guerrini (Oregon State University)

Color in antiquity

In this meeting, we will explore color in antiquity through recent scholarship, both from the material and theoretical perspectives. The eight invited speakers will briefly present current work-in-progress or recent results of their work on different aspects of archelogical investigation on color, followed by a final discussion.

Dr. Omid Oudbashi, University of Gothenburg, Color technology in Ancient Iran –  

Remi Gandoin, “Windpower Siting in Denmark”

New Methods in Mining Studies II

Environmental Lifeworlds of Extraction in Africa: Methodological Insights by Iva Peša (University of Groningen)

Speaker: JJ R. Strange, PhD Candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Title: Crisis in the Garden: How War and Environmental Loss Transformed Chinese Pharmaceutical Research (1935-1955)

Format: Presentation followed by Q&A

*Note Special Date*

"How to Draw the Buddha and Dissect a Corpse: Iconometry and Anatomy in Early-Modern Tibet"

Briana Brightly (Harvard University)

Commentator: TBC

Jan Gerris (University of Ghent)

Tandulaveyāliya - An ancient Jain philosophical reflection on life

Daniella McCahey (Texas Tech University) and Sam Robinson (University of York), TBA chapter from their in-progress book on the Discovery Investigations. 

Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College)

A discussion with Edward Beatty and Israel G. Solares, the co-editors of the open-access An Engineered World: The Role of Engineers in Global Modernity (MIT Press, 2025).

Rohan Deb Roy, (Associate Professor in South Asian History, University of Reading) ‘Nobody here… will look at a mosquito’: Entomo-political surveillance in late colonial India

Chloé Laplatine (CNRS, Histoire des théories linguistiques)

History of language documentation in the Pacific Northwest

Seminar on The Authorities of Cosmetic Knowledge with Montserrat Cabré (University of Cantabria) and Mónica Durán (University of Granada)

Henry Schmidt (University of California, Berkeley), "Invention and Federal Ethnology in the US"

In the final third of the nineteenth century, ethnologists engaged in new ways with the matter of how and why human culture develops. In the United States, a community of ethnologists based in Washington, DC articulated their answers to those questions by drawing on the concept of ‘invention.’