Anthropology and arts speaker series to begin
The Museum of Anthropology is presenting a diverse lecture series this semester, featuring four guest speakers in its Anthropology and the Arts series.
Melanie Dixon, coordinator of the program, said, “The presentations are to bring anthropology and art together, and to help put the department and anthropology into focus.
“Anthropology is not something that people know a lot about,” Dixon said.
One objective of the series is to introduce and give people an experience to see non-Western art, and to reinforce the links between anthropology and the humanities by focusing on the arts, she said.
“We want people to get exposure of what anthropology is all about, to see art and be able to get an anthropological aspect of it,” Dixon said.
The first lecture of the series was on Thursday, featuring guest speaker Lydia Nakashima Degarrod from UC Santa Cruz. The presentation she gave was titled “Souls of Bandits, Virgins and Victims: Searching for Miracles and Justice.”
Her lecture focused on the urban residents of Santiago, Chile, who searched for miracles from the “animatas,” or souls of people who have died unjust and violent deaths.
Growing up in Chile, Degarrod knew a lot about the animatas, and would see them often. That was part of her interest in her series of artwork devoted to the animatas.
“Anthropologists like to study exotic cultures, and by doing this project, I got to study a culture close to me,” Degarrod said.
She said that the Chilean culture believes when someone is killed in an unjust way, the place where they died becomes a place for that animata to be worshipped. People who are searching for miracles, or help in their life go to the place where the animata died and pray.
The Chilean people bring presents for the animatas and give sacrifices. They believe that by doing this, they will receive their miracle and the animata will eventually go to heaven, Degarrod said.
In Degarrod’s lecture she presented some of her artwork she created about the animatas, miracles, and the people in Chile. She has made about 20 pieces of art for this series, and is still working on more.
Cassidy Bull, a junior majoring in anthropology, said she was involved in the group that put the program together. Bull thought Degarrod’s lecture was amazing.
“I wasn’t very familiar with her work before this, but it was very insightful,” she said.
Pedro Rincon, a senior majoring in business, thought it was a very good presentation. He found that there were a lot of similarities between the Chilean culture and that of his own culture in Mexico.
The next lecture for the Anthropology and the Arts series is: “The Perceptive Potter: An Ethnoarchaeological Case Study in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” presented by Brenda Bower from Washington State University. This lecture will take place on Feb. 26 at 4:30 p.m.
On March 18, at 6:30 p.m., the third lecture of the series will be by David Lancy and Rebecca Tomlinson from USU. Their lecture is titled: “Art in Trobriand Islands: The Story of a Canoe Prow.”
And the final lecture of the series is called “Navajo Sandpainting: From Religious Act to Art” by Nancy Parezo. It takes place on April 8, at 4:30 p.m.
Next semester, the Museum of Anthropology will be putting on another lecture series focusing on anthropology and film.
-kbanks@cc.usu.edu