This lecture reconstructs the process by which "Inca trepanation" became an accepted scientificfact, and the looting and trade in "Inca" and Andean ancestors and crania it relied upon to provide further museum "specimens" to prove or disprove Indigenous skill at this high-risk maneuver. Central to this process was the work of Andean collectors and Peruvian surgeons like the anthropologist Julio C. Tello, whose authority was sought but effaced by Americanist anthropologists in the United States.

As a relatively new and evolving field within anthropology, multispecies ethnography challenges traditional human-centric perspectives by engaging with the complex web of relationships between humans and non-human entities, including plants, fungi, and animals.

Mexican anthropologist Aída Hernández, currently a Fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute, will join us to discuss her feminist activism-research in Mexico through the work of a creative writing project for imprisoned women she has helped lead. The event will feature a screening of a short film about the project: Semillas de Guamúchil (“Five women who discover creative writing in prison share their poetry now in their life at large”). We hope you can join us!

Come relax with us and enjoy some fun conversation! No need to RSVP, just show up and bring your friends!