University of Florida Homepage

Friday Scrapbook October 17, 2019

Hi All,

The Friday Scrapbook is back after a two-week hiatus, so it is only fitting it comes out on a Thursday! Some Items from around the Department:

Coffee Symposium Starts Today!

The University of Florida Coffee Research Symposium will be held October 17-19.  Organized by our very own Chris LeClere, the deadline to submit a presentation or poster proposal for the first ever UF Coffee Research Symposium is quickly approaching! This three day event is being held at Aloft Hotel and will bring together international industry professionals and researchers who have a common interest in coffee (or caffeine). There will be coffee tastings, demonstrations, and discussions. The cost is free for all UF students, faculty, and staff and lunch is provided Saturday and Sunda.  Email the conference organizer Chris LeClere cleclere@ufl.edu for more information.

Publications

Dr. Dan Contreras has a new publication in the newest issue of Science Advances, “Earliest occupation of the Central Aegean (Naxos), Greece: Implications for hominin and Homo sapiens’ behavior and dispersals.”  You can find the article here.

2019 Doctoral Travel Research Awardees

Congratulations to Josefina Vasquez Matt Rooney, and Taylor Polvodore, all of whom were winners of the 2019 Summer Graduate School Doctoral Research Travel Award.  The awards provide funds for student travel to support their dissertation research.

Potlatch Success!

This year’s Potlatch was a tremendous success, with a fundraising total in excess of $4800!  As you know, the funds raised at Potlatch go to support the graduate student travel fund.  I understand that winning bids in the auction came from as far away as Hong Kong.  And special thanks to Brittany Mistretta for doing tremendous work in planning and organizing the event, and to all of the students who volunteered their time and labor to make it such a success.  Special thanks to Mark Brenner and Susan Milbrath for hosting.

Dr. Barbara Purdy in the Florida Gator

Dr. Barbara Purdy was recently featured in the Florida Gator, the UF Alumni Association Magazine. Dr. Purdy was UF Anthropology’s first Ph.D. graduate, and the article makes it clear that the only thing she’s “failed” at is retirement.  The website for the magazine is here, but the new issue is right off the presses and not posted yet. I’ve attached the article to this email.

Upcoming talks

Please join us Friday afternoon, October 18th, for the next seminar in the FLMNH seminar series at 3PM in the Dickinson Hall seminar room, 371. Dr. Andrea Lucky (Assistant Professor, Entomology & Nematology, University of Florida) will be presenting “Pavement ants to population genomics: how public participatory science can benefit invasion science”

On Friday, October 18th at 4pm in Smathers 100, Prof. Simon Goldhill, a renowned humanist and Classicist from the University of Cambridge will be talking about “The Infrastructure of Tolerance.” Find the link here.  ​This lecture examines how we might understand the relationship between urban infrastructures, and the logics of exclusion and inclusion around which the category of citizenship is understood and cultural identities are formed. It looks in particular at the role of city planners and some past urban planning projects that had the effect of brutalizing social life in urban areas. In studying these examples, we can see how the politics of fear play a major role in the shaping of urban atmosphere.

Please join the Humanities Center on October 24 and 25 for two events with Professor Ana-Lucia Araujo (Howard University, Department of History) as part of the Center’s 2019-20 speaker series: Rethinking the Public Sphere: Part 1 – Race and the Promise of Participation.  Dr. Araujo’s public lecture, “Museums and Slavery: Engaging the Past and the Present in the Public Sphere” will be held at 4:00 pm Thursday October 24, 2019 in Smathers Library 100.  More information here.

Job Board

The Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (Germany) is seeking qualified applicants for a postdoctoral project on subsistence strategies in mixed economies.  The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology unites scientists with various backgrounds (natural sciences and humanities) whose aim is to investigate the history of humankind from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The overarching aims of the project are to consider the relationships between socioeconomic status, kinship, environmental variability and subsistence decision-making in mixed economies. From an applied perspective, the research also seeks to identify cultural factors that promote Inuit food security and well-being. The primary responsibilities of the successful candidate will be to conduct analyses of existing foraging, social network, economic, and/or qualitative interview data from an Inuit community in Nunavik, Canada. Potential topical foci for the postdoctoral research may include food transfers, land use patterns, prey and patch choice during foraging, among other possibilities.

The contract period is for 3 years, and the appointment is based in Leipzig.  More details here.

 

Enjoy the coffee conference!

Pete Collings

Associate Professor and Chair

Jessie Ball duPont-Magid Term Professor

Department of Anthropology

University of Florida