From intimate workshops and modest gatherings to meetings in exotic places, conferences are a mainstay of academic life. The conferences that are the subject of this book are the week-long international symposia sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, over 150 of which were held between 1952 and 2000. In their totality, they closely parallel the development of anthropology during this period, and indeed played a large part in shaping that development. In revisiting her experiences with the Wenner-Gren symposia over a thirteen-year period, Sydel Silverman examines the conference process as it relates to the production of knowledge and new directions in anthropology.
Sydel Silverman is Professor Emerita at City University, New York and former president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Part 1 Introduction Chapter 2 1: The Life History of the Beast Chapter 3 2. Learning the Ropes Chapter 4 3. On My Own Chapter 5 4. The Beast Comes to Life Chapter 6 5. Advancing Anthropological Practice Chapter 7 6. Anthropological Agendas: What's Missing? Chapter 8 7. Monkeys, Apes, and Hominids Chapter 9 8. Anthropological Agendas: What's Happening? Chapter 10 9. The Afterlife of the Beast Chapter 11 10. Toward an Integrative and Comparative Anthropology Part 12 References
The array of symposia covered offers at least something of interest to any anthropologist and plenty of interest to those seeking a synoptic grasp of the discipline as a whole.