Uppsala University
Schedule, fall 2017
Time: Thursdays at 10.15-12.00
Venue: ENG 3-2028
Papers will be made available one week in advance.
English is default seminar language
Information: mats.hyvonen@antro.uu.se
Schedule, spring 2016
Schedule, fall 2016
Schedule, spring 2017
Schedule, fall 2017 [this page]
Schedule, spring 2018
Schedule, fall 2018
Schedule, spring 2019
Schedule, fall 2019
Schedule, spring 2020
Thursday September 7, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Our two new postdocs, Stefan Sunandan Honisch and Mahmoud Keshavarz, present their research projects.
Thursday September 14, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Theme: BOREDOM, 1st seminar: A Philosophy of Boredom. The seminar discussion will focus on “The Problem of Boredom”, chapter one in Lars Svendsen’s book A Philosophy of Boredom (2004). Seminar participants are invited (but not demanded) to read the whole book. Mikael Kurkiala (associate professor of cultural anthropology, Church of Sweden) will introduce and contextualise the book and its main arguments. Reading: Chapter one in Lars Svendsen (2005) A philosophy of boredom. London: Reaktion.
Thursday September 28, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Vulnerability as emancipation: Undocumented migrants as European minority
Guest seminar, Magdalena Kmak, Åbo Akademi University. Download abstract and bio. Readings: If you want to read Magdalenas text, send an email to mats.hyvonen@antro.uu.se (Magdalenas text – a work in progress – will not be distributed outside the seminar)
Tuesday October 3, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Updated Saturday 1 October: Paper for Tuesday’s seminar
Guest seminar: John Nixon, honorary professor, Education University of Hong Kong, presents his research on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy. Download abstract.
Nixon will be talking to some of the major themes in his book Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Friendship (Bloomsbury, 2015). See also Nixon’s article published in the Times Higher Educational Supplement.
Thursday October 12, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Theme: BOREDOM, 2nd seminar: Animal Boredom. Readings: pp. 1-38 in Françoise Wemelsfelder (1993) Animal boredom: Towards an empirical approach of animal subjectivity. Seminar introduction by Don Kulick.
Cancelled. Thursday October 19, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Guest seminar: Carole Vance, professor of Anthropology at Columbia University presents her research. More information to come.
Thursday October 26, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Theme: BOREDOM, 3rd seminar: On the anthropology of (urban) boredom. Reading: Bruce O’Neill (2014) “Cast Aside: Boredom and Downward Mobility in Post-Communist Bucharest, Romania”, Cultural Anthropology, vol.29, Issue1, pp.8–31.
The seminar discussion will focus on Bruce O’Neill’s article “Cast Aside: Boredom and Downward Mobility in Post-Communist Bucharest, Romania” (2014, Cultural Anthropology, 29(1): 8-31). Seminar participants are welcome (but not demanded) to read also The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order (Duke UP, 2017), Bruce O’Neill’s new anthropological monograph. In the monograph O’Neill explores further how people cast aside by globalism deal with an intractable symptom of downward mobility; an unshakeable and immense boredom that O’Neill theorizes as an enduring affect of globalization in order to provide a foundation from which to rethink the politics of alienation and displacement. Seminar introduction by Sverker Finnström.
Thursday November 16, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Theme: BOREDOM, 4th seminar: Boredom as the Rhythm of Time and the Everyday in Henri Lefebvre. Readings: (1) Lefebvre (1947/1958) Critique of Everyday Life (excerpt), (2) Gardiner (2012) Henri Lefebvre and the “Sociology of Boredom”. Seminar introduction by Erik Hallstensson & Kasper Kristensen.
Thursday November 23, at 10.15-12.00, ENG 3-2028
Theme: BOREDOM, 5th seminar: Regarding Boredom as a Function of the Aesthetic Life. Readings: Kierkegaard, Søren, “Rotation of Crops – a Venture in a Theory of Social Prudence”, excerpt from Either/Or – Part 1. Seminar introduction by Karl Ekeman.
