Workshop organized by Catherine Wanner, Professor of History, Anthropology and Religious Studies at Penn State University and Jacyk Distinguished Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
A PDF file of the full program is available below and includes speaker bios and paper abstracts (scroll to the bottom of the page).
IN-PERSON and ONLINE via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online.
*In-person seating for the panel presentations on November 1st is very limited. However, the film screening (November 1st at 5:30pm) and keynote lecture (November 2nd at 5pm) can accomodate much larger in-person audiences.
Given growing ecological crises driven by climate change and the Russo-Ukrainian war, this workshop brings together the insights of animal studies, environmental humanities, and the anthropology of religion to rethink how interrelatedness, hierarchies of obligations, and communities of care might be changing at this critically important historical juncture. The rise of multispecies ethnography has heightened our awareness of the astounding diversity of human-nonhuman relationships and sharpened our understanding as to how human and non-human animals affect each other’s lives. This turn in anthropological research to move beyond the human suggests that moral acts of empathy, stewardship, and responsibility for the natural world should increasingly be framed as an interspecies endeavor and studied accordingly. Anthropologists of religion have long recognized the role of nonhuman agents in shaping everyday life. Plants and animals figure prominently in religious iconography and reflect the import of human-nonhuman interactions in the formation of beliefs, practices, and what is held to be sacred. The powers of deities are often represented in natural elements, and animals and plants are often understood as manifestations of otherworldly power and presence. By combining consideration of how the natural world affects otherworldy experiences and multispecies ethnography, this workshop aims to come to a greater understanding of the dynamics that continue to shape human experience. The presentations that are part of this workshop explore the material and symbolic ways in which the natural world is domesticated, rewilded, and generates transcendence; the aesthetics and poetics of human interactions with sacralized elements of nature; and how such processes and encounters between the natural and supernatural worlds inform the formation of communities and the bonds that sustain them.
The papers presented throughout the day are part of a two-day workshop. More information about other included events:
Film Screening of The Dogs That Survived
Wednesday, November 1st at 5:30pm
Room K-354, CGIS-Knafel (North)
https://huri.harvard.edu/event/engaging-nature-film-2023 (in-person only)
Keynote Lecture by Kate Brown
The Soviet Everyday was Green! How urban farming restored the metabolic rift and fed the Soviet Union
Thursday, November 2nd at 5pm
Belfer Case Study Room (S-020), CGIS South
https://huri.harvard.edu/event/engaging-nature-keynote-2023 (in-person only)
A PDF file of the full program is available below and includes speaker bios and paper abstracts.
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This event is hosted by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) and organized by Catherine Wanner. It is co-sponsored by the Working Group on Lived Religion in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the Center for Governance and Culture in Europe at the University of St. Gallen and the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at HURI.
Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Megan Duncan Smith, HURI Programs Coordinator, at duncansmith@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks in advance of the session.
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LOCATION:Pritsak Memorial Library at HURI, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20231101T140000Z DTEND:20231101T210000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR