Fall 2008 Speaker Series
Monday, November 10, 2008 - 3:15 p.m.
White Hall 206
Peter Benson
Assistant professor of Anthropology
Washington University in St. Louis
“Growers, Migrant Farmworkers, Health Capitalism, and the Changing Face of Big Tobacco”
A reception in Anthropology 206 will follow the talk
Peter Benson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds a Ph. D. in Anthropology from Harvard University (2007), where his dissertation was titled To Not Be Sorry: Citizenship, Moral Life, and Biocapitalism in North Carolina Tobacco Country. In 2006, he published with Edward Fischer Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala (Stanford University Press), which looks at neoliberalism, political violence, and export agriculture in Guatemala. He has a manuscript based on his dissertation currently under review. Dr. Benson’s research interests include tobacco; public health; global capitalism; international agricultural restructuring; social theory; neoliberalism and biopolitics; and the social, moral, and emotional lives of farmers and farmworkers.
Monday, September 8, 2008, 3:15 p.m.
103 White Hall
Dietrich Stout
Lecturer in the Archaeology of Human Evolution, University College London
Technology, language and the brain: complex intentional action in human evolution
A reception will follow the talk
Dietrich Stout is a lecturer in the Archaeology of Human Evolution at University College London. His research investigates cognitive and brain evolution related to lithic technology. Dr. Stout uses functional neuroimaging, including PET and fMRI, to investigate the neural bases of early stone age tool making skills. He is also investigating the technology and material selection of the earliest stone toolmakers as part of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Afar, Ethiopia to learn about the evolution of human cognition.