Michelle Scalise Sugiyama Talk

AAGS is pleased to announce our spring speaker. The abstract for the talk follows and a flyer is attached. Refreshments will be served.

June 14th at 4:00pm, Condon 360
Art and Human Evolution: Art Behaviors as Information Technology
Michelle Scalise Sugiyama

From a biological standpoint, art behavior is puzzling: it involves a large investment of time and energy yet doesn’t appear to provide any survival or reproductive benefits. Several researchers have challenged this assumption, each advancing a different hypothesis regarding the evolved function of art behavior and the selection pressures that produced it. While each is compelling in its way, none of these hypotheses is entirely consistent with the ethnographic record, which indicates that art behavior is used in multiple fitness-enhancing ways. The common thread among these hypotheses is information transmission, which suggests an alternative source and function for art behavior. Tooby and DeVore (1987) argue that humans are characterized by a highly elaborated ability to make, deploy, and communicate cognitive models (i.e., representations) of their environment, and that “culture” is the transmission of these models between and across generations. Whether directed at prospective mates, exchange partners, allies, enemies, or kin, art behaviors involve the generation and transmission of information-rich representations of the physical, social and/or psychological environment. I therefore propose that the study of art behavior be grounded in an information-based conceptualization of the human ecological niche, and that instances of art behavior be parsed as expressions of adaptations that subserve the generation and transmission of cognitive models of the environment.

Rob Quinlan Feb 1st

Rob Quinlan is a biocultural anthropologist specializing in the behavioral ecology of family, kinship and life history "strategies." For the last decade his research has examined parental care and children’s reproductive development. Recently Quinlan has focused on personality development and reproduction. He is also exploring “dialogues” between quantitative and qualitative analysis in “evolutionary ethnography.” Since 1993 Quinlan has conducted fieldwork in a rural community in the Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies.

Quinlan is from Washington State University and will be giving a talk will @ 4 PM on Thursday, February 1st in 301 Condon, and a brown-bag discussion on Friday, February 2nd @ 1:15 PM in 143 Straub.

The talk will relate to a recent paper:
Quinlan, R. & Quinlan, M. 2007. Parenting & Cultures of Risk: A Comparative Analysis of Infidelity, Aggression & Witchcraft. American Anthropologist, 109(2):164-179.
The talk is sponsored by ICDS and AAGS. More details to follow.

James Ferguson: January 11th, 2007

Dr. James Ferguson of Stanford University will be delivering the Baobab Lecture entitled 'Neoliberalism for the Poor? Reflections on Poverty Policy in Southern Africa' on Thursday afternoon at 4pm. Dr. Ferguson has also graciously agreed to hold an open discussion of his work during a lunch sponsored by AAGS with the help of the African Studies Program at 12:30 pm, Friday 1/12 at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History (thanks also).

ALL faculty and graduate students are invited to attend this event, which offers a great opportunity to meet one of the brightest anthropologists around. We will have box lunch catering so: PLEASE let me (Brendan: bculleto@uoregon.edu) know if you will attend, if you would like vegetarian or non-veg items, relatively quickly. I hope to see you there.

AAGS colloquium series begins Friday...with Dr. Phil Scher

The AAGS fall colloquium series kicks-off this Friday. Dr. Phil Scher
will present his talk,
Playing in the Brand: Culture in the Caribbean after Neoliberalism

Time: Friday, October 27. 4-5pm
Place: 260 Condon Hall
Abstract:
"This paper examines the growth of heritage tourism in the Caribbean paying special attention to changing notions of culture in the wake of neoliberalism and globalization. Using examples drawn from several case studies and focusing on Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, I am interested in showing how culture becomes a marketing force in the wake of increasingly difficult economic times in the Caribbean region. My thesis holds that the decrease of economic options in the region not only creates a market for culture and tourism; it spawns a form of national identity that marks its success against foreign consumption and recognition. This change in the ideology of culture is in part spawned by the "market-ization" of discreet aspects of social life. These are, in turn, influenced by neoliberal ideology. The paper attempts to forge a profitable link between theories of commodification of culture and neoliberalist political economy. Drawing on examples of institutional rhetoric generated by various official and unofficial Carnival bodies in Trinidad, the emergence of UNESCO World Heritage sites and efforts to legally protect intangible heritage in the Caribbean, I engage with what Michel Foucault has termed the “changing discursive fields within which the exercise of power is conceptualized."

Please also note that Dr. Snodgrass will be delivering his talk in the
"Arctic Vignettes" Lecture series at the Knight Law Center, entitled
"Out in the Cold: Native Siberian Health in the Post-Soviet Era."

Time: Friday, October 27. 5:30-6:30pm
Place: Room 175, Knight Law Center, 1515 Agate Street

Hope to see you at both of these events!

Update on Penton-Voak talk

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The Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences and AAGS are hosting a visit by Professor* Ian Penton-Voak* to campus on October 17th-20th. Penton-Voak is a senior lecturer in experimental psychology at Bristol University and studies human facial attractiveness in a Darwinian framework.

Professor Penton-Voak will present a colloquium entitled* "Evidence for 'special design' in human face preference"* beginning at* 4 PM on Thursday, October 19th, in 146 Straub.* An announcement about the colloquium is attached to this message and here is Professor
Penton-Voak's description of what he will address in his talk:

"Firstly, can biological models of mate choice be applied to women's preferences for male faces? Research in evolutionary biology has generated robust theories of sexual selection. I'll present a review of my work trying to apply these theories to women's judgements of male facial attractiveness. I'll be paying particular attention to variation in preferences within individuals, between individuals, and between populations. Secondly, I'll discuss these findings in the context of what I perceive to be the strongest criticism of the evolutionary psychology approach: namely that 'mere consistency' with adaptationist hypotheses is accepted as evidence in support of a given theory. Just how good is the evidence that our preferences for faces represent psychological adaptation rather than some other process?"

Professor Penton-Voak and his collaborators use computer graphics and "morphing" software to reveal the features that characterize "attractive" faces and how judgments about attractiveness vary across cultures (e.g. is there a 'universal' standard of beauty?) and with hormonal status. He has found, for example, that women express preferences for male faces that have been masculinized and that women's preferences change across their menstrual cycles.

Professor Penton-Voak will also participate in a 'brown-bag' discussion of his work starting at 1 PM on Friday, October 20th, in 143 Straub. All are welcome.

I hope that you will be able to attend one or both of these events.

Regards,

Warren Holmes

Speaker sponsored by ICDS and AAGS

The Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences and AAGS are sponsoring a visit with Ian Penton-Voak's on October 18th, 19th and 20th. Penton-Voak, a senior lecturer in experimental psychology at Bristol University, studies facial attractiveness in a Darwinian framework. His research seeks to determine whether facial attractiveness signals important information about an individual's value as a potential mate. He is also interested in individual differences in attractiveness judgments and how these might be related to different mating strategies. He and his collaborators use computer graphics and "morphing" software to determine the features that characterize "attractive" faces and how judgments about attractiveness vary across cultures and with hormonal status. He has found, for example, that women have general preferences for male faces that have been masculinized and that women's preferences change across their menstrual cycles. Ian will present his "formal" colloquium on Thursday, October 19th at 4PM and he will participate in an Evolution Focus Group discussion on Friday, October 20th at 1 PM. There will also be a meeting with grad students at a time TBA.

First AAGS Meeting

Welcome to the AAGS webpage. The first real AAGS meeting of the year will be held Thursday, October 12 at 4:00 pm in the grad lounge.