6 and 7 May 2011
University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece
Department of History, Archeology and Social Anthropology

Many anthropologists working in Greece seem reluctant to use a camera in their fieldwork and to prefer writing texts in order to communicate their work. As a result, the production of ethnographic films that have been shot in the field remains extremely limited. At the same time, although ethnographic or fiction films are often used in the teaching of folklore, anthropology and sociology, university teachers get rarely involved themselves in their production. Could this reluctance be interpreted as a simple lack of technical know-how or is it rather due to the concern of Greek anthropology to distance itself from salvage ethnography and descriptive folklore studies and to claim for itself the status of a theoretical discipline? Or may it be linked to the fact that many anthropologists see the camera as an unfriendly and distant means, more appropriate for artistic or journalistic than for academic purposes? Or is it because they think that film offers only limited possibilities for analysis with respect to text and guides the spectator to more streamlined meanings?
The conference intends to explore these issues and at the same time to document the available ethnographic audiovisual data (footage and films) that concerns the Greek context. It welcomes oral presentations and films, concerning, for example, the use of ethnographic film in the classroom, filming (in) the field and the role of anthropologists as academic advisors in documentary films.

Keynote Speakers: Giorgos Aikaterinidis (Centre of Greek Folklore Studies), Peter Loizos (L.S.E.) Collette Piault (C.N.R.S).

Organizing Committee:
Athena Peglidou (peglidou@hotmail.com)
Riki Van Boeschoten (rvboe@yahoo.gr)

Call for Papers: 2010 American Anthropological Association Meeting/
Society for Visual Anthropology

“Perception, Production and Circulation: Sensory Ethnography through Media”

Key Words: sensory ethnography, media production, anthropology of the senses, aesthetics, practice, circulation, affect

Session Abstract:
This panel is organized by graduate students at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab in conjunction with the launch of a new academic journal of sensory ethnography. Selected projects/papers will have the opportunity to be published in the first edition of the Journal of Sensory Ethnography (working title).

Through this panel we aim to recognize and problematize the relationship between theoretical abstraction and material concreteness, to reimagine the relationship between sensing, knowing, and thinking, and to reexamine the implications of this for ethnographic media. "Sensory ethnography" holds promises of engaged scholarship that explores the evocative and representative, the affective and effective, the feeling and the meaning of salient features of everyday life.

Today the potential for innumerable combinations of media promises innovative modes of producing, transmitting, circulating and generating ethnographic material. This panel seeks to discuss these various modes and mediums vis-à-vis its relevance to improving our understanding of culturally mediated apprehension of sensoria. Submitted abstracts may include but are not limited to paper presentations, video, audio recording, and multimedia projects with a goal to elaborate the capacity of these modes for critical engagement with the emerging scholarship of sensory ethnography. Panel abstracts can explore (but are not limited to) such themes as:

- image production and circulation
- senses and religion
- senses and the city
- memory
- place-making
- affect and publics
- senses of home
- sound/soundscapes
- senses and the built environment
- senses and gender
- media and perception
- ethnographic methodologies/ethics/research
- sensory engagement.

Please submit abstracts, no later than March 26th, to:

Julia Yezbick yezbick@fas.harvard.edu and Aryo Danusiri danusiri@fas.harvard.edu

Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, France)
2010, April 9th and 10th.
http://www.quaibranly.fr/fr/programmation/manifestations-scientifiques/colloques-et-symposiums.html

The abstract including 2500 signs must be sent until 2009 October 31.
This is the link to down load the call for papers and the application form :
http://phanie.ethno.image.free.fr/index.htm

Send abstracts to:

Sylvaine Conord : s.conord@ivry.cnrs.fr
Fabienne Duteil-Ogata : duteilogata@yahoo.fr
Baptiste Buob ; baptiste.buob@gmail.com

New directions in visual anthropology and cross-cultural mediamaking.
This weeklong festival at Temple University engages the question, what next? in the arts and praxis of cultural representation. The festival includes screenings, lectures, and a daylong symposium of scholars and mediamakers. The event is free and open to the public.

Web Site and program