phd

We meet the last Friday in April and May.

Friday 25th of April
Cicilie F. will make a 15 minutes presentation of a paper called either “Postcolonial reappropriation of French history” or “The concept of minority and the inclusion in national memory in France” or something else in that vein. (The paper will be sent to those interested at the 20th of April, but the presentation should also be accessible for those who have not read the paper).

She will also propose to read an article related to the topic, thus something on history and anthropology.

Friday 30th of May
We read Thinking through things (Amazon.co.uk )

4th of April at 10:15, the usual place

We will discuss two texts by Daniel Miller.

Yin Tao will give a short presentation of “A manifesto for a study of Denim” (if somebody who would like to come haven’t got it, please let me know, by e-mail or by writing a comment here…)

Christian will give a short presentation of the “Introduction” to Materiality, of which a master copy will be available in the reception at SAI from Thursday

We should also discuss the creation of an e-mail list as the usual university list doesn’t work when the moderator is on vacation…

*) 22nd of February at 10:15: Methods
Alex Stewart: The ethnographer’s method
-85 dry but inspiring pages on how to tell if a particular ethnography is good, scientific work or not…

Cicilie F. will present the book briefly and everybody is encouraged to make a short presentation discussing to what extent Stewart’s criteria of scientificness are useful in their own material. (I’m thinking about posting my presentation either here or on my own blog…).

AK also suggested that we read Paul Stoller’s The taste of ethnographic things, as it is highly relevant in a methods discussion (It’s also interesting for us that Tim Ingold criticized exactly Stoller’s phenomenology for not being able to provide explanations, and explanations in anthropology was also one of the points that came up in today’s discussion). We haven’t decided yet whether we’ve got time read it or not… What do the rest of you think?

*) 14th of March: a monograph on power by Paul Farmer… which one?

*) 4th of April: something by Daniel Miller
as he will have a seminar with us (the phd-candidates the 10th of April). Hopefully he will provide us with a reading list in time for the seminar, or some of us – Christian for instance – can suggest a text of general theoretical and/or methodological interest.

We haven’t yet decided for the rest of the semester, but it’s probably about time we have some presentations of our own work…

Hope to see you all in three weeks!

Vi som var tilstede sist fredag bestemte oss for å følge opp Foucault med to andre tekster som diskuterer makt: Steven Lukes lille, men innflytelsesrike essay, Power: A radical view og Eric Wolfs korte og kompakte “Facing Power: Old Insights, New Questions”. Kenneth tok på seg å gi en kort presentasjon av Lukes.

(Lenke til Facing Power… i American Anthropologist 1992. Den fins også i R. Borofsky (ed.): Assessing Cultural Anthropology, 1994).

Dette blir 1. februar (ble vi enige om klokkeslett?). Gangen etter, 29.februar, står åpen.

PhD-kollokvie fredag 11/1:
Vi leser Bind I av Foucaults Seksualitetens historie: Viljen til viten. Seminarrommet på SAI kl 14:15

Vi planlegger også for videre kollokvier dette semesteret – tenk gjennom hva dere vil lese av klassikere/bøker av almen interesse, eller temaer dere ønsker å diskutere/legge frem. Vi møtes 1- 2 ganger i måneden, på fredager (norkmalt kl 10): leser ett verk/tidskkrift hver måned, og møtes evt en ekstra gang for lavterskel presentasjoner/diskusjoner rundt bestemte temaer vi jobber med internt i gruppa. Bruk muligheten til å øve på presentasjonsteknikk eller diskutere problemstillinger du jobber med!

…og foreslår at vi avrunder med en Nyttårspils!

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Friday 11th january at 14:15 – PhD seminar: we read Foucault, Bind I of the History of Sexuality – and round it off with a beer.

We should also plan for the coming meetings this semester – think about books/journals/themes… We meet once or twice a month, on fridays (usually at 10:15). We read one book/journal each month. The other meeting can be used for excercicing presentation techniques or discussing problems/ideas which we are working on, within the peer group. Use the opportunity!