Prof. Paige West, Barnard’s Tow Professor of Anthropology, has been selected to lead this year’s Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures, a series presented by The University Seminars. Each fall, a faculty member is selected to deliver three lectures on a topic of their choosing, and The University Seminars awards a grant to Columbia University Press to publish a book by the lecturer from the original scholarship presented during the series. Prof. West is only the second Barnard professor to participate in this esteemed program since its inception in 1993. Her first lecture will take place on Monday, November 11. See below for information on additional dates and specific topics she will discuss.
This year’s Schoff Lectures is entitled, “Accumulation by Dispossession?: Loss, Change and the Future of the Melanesian Pacific.” Prof. West will present three lectures on aspects of this topic, leveraging her expertise in field-based research in New Guinea to discuss the usefulness of analytic abstraction in contemporary anthropology, where it is used to describe and understand multiple forms of contemporary social and economic inequality. Read more about Prof. West’s topic.
Each lecture will take place at 8:00 p.m. at the Columbia Faculty House, located at 64 Morningside Drive. These events are free and open to the public. There will be a reception immediately following each lecture. For more information please call 212-854-2389 or visit the Schoff Memorial Lectures website.
Tourism and Fantasy in the Contemporary Pacific
November 11, 2013 8:00 p.m., Faculty House
Scientific Discovery and Indigenous Ontology
November 18, 2013 8:00 p.m., Faculty House
The Elusive Concept of “Capacity Building” in International Development
November 25, 2013 8:00 p.m., Faculty House
