Generative Anthropology Conferences

GASC 2011

May 19-21, 2011, High Point University, North Carolina

Abstracts for papers of 20 to 25 minutes should be sent by attachment in MS-Word to Professor Matthew Schneider at mschneid@highpoint.edu.  Deadline:  March 1, 2011.

An Anthropology of Exchange:
The Market Model of Human Society

Generative Anthropology, which hypothesizes that human culture originated in the exchange of linguistic signs, offers keen insights into the powers and pitfalls of that most human of institutions:  the market.  Eric Gans, who in his books Science and Faith (1990), Originary Thinking (1993), Signs of Paradox (1997) and The Scenic Imagination (2007) has modeled this new way of thinking about the human, has proposed:  “The exchange of goods and related values in the marketplace is complemented by the exchange of representations in the cultural sphere.”  There is an essential link, in other words, between linguistic and material exchange, giving the market a peculiarly troubled reputation in contemporary academic and critical discourse:  though the market originated in the free exchange of signs, the increasing materialization of exchange and the institutionalization of value-based competition make the market a contested space, arousing and then attempting to recycle mimetic desire and resentment.

Proposals for papers deploying, developing, critiquing or otherwise engaging with Generative Anthropology and its theory of the market are invited.  Please see the complete  Call for Papers for possible topics.

GASC 2010, Salt Lake City Utah: The Anthropology of Modernity: The Sacred, Science, and Aesthetics

GASC 2010 is the fourth in a series of annual academic conferences dedicated to Generative Anthropology, a minimalist theory of the human that seeks to understand language, religion, art, and all other forms of cultural phenomena as emerging and evolving from a hypothetical scene of origin.

The theme this year is The Anthropology of Modernity: The Sacred, Science, and Aesthetics , but we welcome papers on any topic related to Generative Anthropology.  Please see the Call for Papers for more details.

Generative Anthropology: Origin and Representation, UCLA, April 20 and 21, 1990

The first Generative Anthropology colloquium, Generative Anthropology: Origin and Representation was held at UCLA on April 20 and 21, 1990.

Articles from the conference can be found published in Paroles Gelées 8.1 at the Internet Archive or at PG’s new home at eScholarship.

Generative Anthropology Thinking Event, Vancouver, July 26-29, 2007: A Conference for Fundamental Reflection on the Human

In 2007, members of the group Sparagmos! Andrew Bartlett and Christopher Morrissey organized the Generative Anthropology Thinking Event, the first of the Generative Anthropology Summer Conferences, in Vancouver, Canada.

Visit the conference site at Kwantlen University

Selected proceedings were published in a special issue of Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, Issue 13.2 (Fall 2007) guest-edited by organizer Andrew Bartlett.

2nd Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference, Chapman University, Orange, California, June 26-29, 2008: Esthetic History and the Knowledge of the Human

The Second Generative Anthropology Summer Conference was organized by GA stalwart Matt Schneider with the endorsement of the Wilkinson College of Letters and Sciences at Chapman University.

Generative Anthropology Summer Conference 2009, June 19-21, Ottawa, Canada: The Question of Transcendence: The Sacred, the Human, and Modern Culture

Organized by Professor Ian Dennis and his assistant Amir Khan, the conference was co-sponsored by the Department of English of the University of Ottawa and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The conference was the largest yet. Visit the conference website and view the series of videos capturing the plenary roundtable discussion among Andrew McKenna, Mark Vessey, and Eric Gans moderated by Matthew Schneiderhere

Proceedings were published across two issues of Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology: Issue 15.1 (Fall 2009), Guest Edited by organizer Ian Dennis and Issue 15.2 (Spring 2010).