Events & Speakers

The Department of Anthropology has multiple student clubs and groups that are very active throughout the year organizing and running various events and educational activities for Western community and general public. Among those are:

Western Anthropology Outreach Team
Western Anthropology Graduate Society (WAGS)
WE-ColLab
Undergraduate Anthropology Club

Each year the Department of Anthropology also invites distinguished speakers to address the department in conjunction and consultation with the undergraduate Anthropology Society. This lecture series was established in 2010 in the name of two former professors who had been crucial contributors to undergraduate education during their years at Western.

Because sociocultural/linguistic anthropology and biological anthropology/archaeology represent two main streams in the field of Anthropology, the Gehman Lecture will be delivered by a sociocultural anthropologist or linguistic anthropologist, and the Spence Lecture will be delivered by a biological anthropologist or an archaeologist. It is part of the mandate of this series that lectures be on topics of broad interest and open to all undergraduate students in the Department.

Additionally, the Darnell Distinguished Lecture in Theory, Ethnography and Activism in Anthropology, established in 2018, is our annual Distinguished Lecture series

Information will be updated on a regular basis as new speakers and events are added to our line-up.

Upcoming Lectures and Events

DARNELL LECTURE

GEHMAN LECTURE

SPENCE LECTURE

Graduate Events

Graduate Research & Development Sessions - 2026-27

The Graduate & Research Development Sessions (GRaDS) are held on Fridays and feature graduate students (and sometimes faculty) speakers presenting their research results on a wide variety of topics. On some Fridays, other kinds of workshops or sessions may also be held in this time slot. The GRaDS are held on Fridays, 1:30-2:30pm in SSC 2257.

2026-27 Schedule coming soon

Past Lectures

Darnell Distinguished Lecture in Theory, Ethnography and Activism in Anthropology

This annual distinguished lecture was established in 2018 through the donation of Dr. Regna Darnell.

Dr. Darnell is the Project Director and General Editor for a SSHRC Partnership Grant: 'Franz Boas Papers: Documentary Edition' (2013-2020) and was also a previous Chair in the Department of Anthropology at Western University from 1990-93. She became a Distinguished University Professor in 2005 and was the founding Director of Western's First Nations Studies Program (2003-2006). Currently, Dr. Darnell is a Professor Emeritus at Western University.

For more information on Dr. Darnell CLICK HERE.

Previous Speakers Include:

2026 - Dr. Pilar Riaño-Alcalá. Remembering the Fragmented: Ethnography on the Move and Political Violence
2025 - Dr. Diana Allany. Living Archives: Palestinian Displacement in Lebanon
2024 - Dr. Andrea Ballestero. Joining Forces with Water! Deciphering Aquifers and Stretching the Imagination Downwards
2022 - Dr. Adia Benton. Inoculating history, salvaging what is held: race, epidemiology and immunity from Freetown to Atlanta
2020 - Dr. Elizabeth Povinelli. The Ends of Art, A Karrabing Perspective

John Gehman was a sociocultural anthropologist who was one of the initial cohort of faculty in the department, and had taught undergraduates from the 1970s until his retirement in 2009 (shortly after which he passed away). John Gehman inspired and guided students throughout their careers, and through this Lecture Series we honour him and the department’s commitment to the best undergraduate education possible.

Previous Speakers Include:

2025 - Dr. Darcie DeAngelo (U Alberta). Use of Rats in Bomb Detection in Cambodia.

2024 - Dr. Rae Jereza. Considering Online Hate As "Noise"

2023 - Dr. Danilyn Rutherford. The Wenner-Gren Foundation and What's Next in Anthropology

2022 - Dr. Ilana Gershon. The Pandemic Workplace.

2021 - Dr. Anne Meneley. Plants of Resistance and Hope

2021 - Dr. Nicholas Harney. Crowds, Mobility & Governing Migrants

2020 - Cancelled due to Covid-19 Closure

2019 - Dr. Michael Cepek. Standing with Oil: Anthropological Ehtics and Activism on an Amazonian Petro-Frontier

2018 - Dr. Jason De Leon. Soldiers and Kings: Phtoethnographic Practice in the Context of SMuggling Across Mexico

2017 - Dr. Katja Neves. Post-Normal Conservation: Reordering Biodiversity Governance

2016 - Dr. Heather Paxson. The Life of Cheese: Negotiating the Values of an Unfinished Commodity

2015 - Dr. Luke Eric Lassiter. Doing Ethnography Today

2014 - Dr. Alex Golub. Cause and Effect: Responsibility for Social Disorder at the Porgera Gold Mine

2013 - Dr. John Barker. The First and Last Place: How New Guinea Matters

2013 - Dr. Lindsay Dubois. Angry Old Men and Women: Argentina's Activist Pensioners

2012 - Dr. Jane Hill. The Shoshonean Wedge: Language Dynmaics and the Uto-Aztecans in California

2011 - Dr. Joshua Bell. The Sorcery of Sugar: Intersecting Agencies and Materialites of the 1928 USDA Sugarcane Expedition to New Guinea

2010 - Dr. Joel Robbins. Keeping God's Distance: Sacrifice, Possession, and the Politics of Religious Mediation

Michael Spence is an archaeologist and bioarchaeologist. He has made major contributions in two separate regions – the Woodland period of the Great Lakes and in MesoAmerica. He has published well over 125 works including monographs, chapters and articles; making regular appearances in top journals such as American Antiquity, Current Anthropology, World Archaeology and Canadian Journal of Archaeology. It’s been said for Dr. Spence, “[his] love of archaeology – whether in the field or lab – is utterly infectious. Many of the students he taught now enjoy careers in the field because he shared his curiosity and fascination with us."

Past Speakers Include:

2026 - Dr. Krysta Ryzewski. Community Archaeology in Practice and Theory: Lessons from Detroit

2025 - Dr. Edward González-Tennant. Digital Technologies for Sympathetic Archaeologies

2024 - Dr. Tina Lasisi. Hair as a Model for Phenotypic Complexity

2023 - Dr. Kisha Supernant. Indigenous Archaeology as Restorative Justice

2022 - Prof. Jeffrey McKee. Taung: The Nexus of African Paleoanthropology

2021 - Dan Hicks. Necrography: Material Culture Beyond the Paradigm of Object Biographies

2019 - Dr. Shari Forbes. What happens after Life? Taphonomy of human decomposition and the role of ‘body farms’

2018 - Dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten. Wooden Spears and Broken Bones: Lower Paleolithic Hominin Subsistence at Schoningen, Germany

2017 - Dr. James Conolly. It's about time: Radiocarbon modelling and the absolute chronology of Ontario's archaeological culture history

2016 - Dr. Michael E. Smith. Teotihuacan Society

2015 - Dr. Peter Dawson. Smart Heritage and the future of digital archaeology in northern Canada

2014 - Dr. Carl Knappett. Modelling Belief in Minoan Art; and Dysfunctional Design and Poor Substitutes - A seminar on Material Culture

2014 - Dr. Andrew Roddick. From Ethnography to Radiography: Constellations of Potting Practice in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
Sponsored by the Social Science Student Donation Fund.

February 6, 2025 - Ibtesum Afrin PhD Public Lecture
November 1, 2024 - Beth Compton PhD Public Lecture
July 3, 2024 - Tamara Britton PhD Public Lecture
June 19, 2024 - Franziska Albrecht PhD Public Lecture
October 17, 2023 - Dr. Andrea Allen, "Joy & Healing: Indigenous & Black Perspectives"
December 13, 2022 - Federica Guccini PhD Public Lecture
December 1, 2022 - Dr. Hannah McElgunn (Queen's University) "What Does Indigenous Repatriation Sound Like? An Example from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office"
November 14, 2022 - Dr. Jonathan Rosa (Department of Anthropology, Linguistics and Comparative Literature, Stanford University) - "Latinx Languages & Identities Beyond Borders"
February 28, 2020 - Dr. Craig Cipolla (Royal Ontario Museum/University of Toronto) - "In Search of Different Pasts"
February 6-9, 2020 - Dr. Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan)
January 16, 2020 - Lauren Gilhooly - PhD Public Lecture
August 23, 2019 - Casey Kirkpatrick - PhD Public Lecture
August 21, 2019 - Danielle Alcock - PhD Public Lecture
August 16, 2019 - Diana Moreiras Reynaga - PhD Public Lecture
May 28, 2019 - Kelly Linton - PhD Public Lecture
April 18, 2019 - Jennifer Spinney - PhD Public Lecture
April 18, 2019 - Bimadoshka Pucan - PhD Public Lecture
April 4 & 5, 2019 - Christine Hegel (Western Connecticut State University) & Luke Cantarella (Pace University) - Collaborative CoDesigning Presentation & Workshop
March 22, 2019 - Dr. Pamela Block - Stony Brook University - "How Should Anthropologists Occupy Disability?"
March 20, 2019 - Bruce Lawrence - PhD Public Lecture
December 4, 2018 - Anthro Lecture Series - Dr. Adrienne Lo, University of Waterloo, "Encountering the Global"
October 22, 2018 - John Moody - PhD Public Lecture
October 5, 2018 - Nathan Dawthorne - PhD Public Lecture
October 4, 2018 - Mingyuan Zhang - PhD Public Lecture
June 18, 2018 - Elaine McIlwraith - PhD Public Lecture
March 29, 2018 - Dr. Scott MacEachern - Bowdoin College, “The Landscapes of Boko Haram" - Co-sponsored by Western's Africa Institute and the Dept. of History.
December 15, 2017 - Jordon Munizzi - PhD Public Lecture
October 26, 2017 - Catherine Villar - PhD Public Lecture
October 20, 2017 - Mathew Teeter - PhD Public Lecture
October 20, 2017 - Lina Johnston - PhD Public Lecture
September 8, 2017 - Michael Carter - PhD Public Lecture
April 24, 2017 - Paulina Johnson - PhD Public Lecture
February 24, 2017 - The Franz Boas Speakers' Series - Dr. Mark Turin - University of British Columbia, "Collaborations in Language: From Documentation to Resurgence"
December 8, 2016 - Joshua Dent - PhD Public Lecture
December 7, 2016 - Dr. Andrea Waters-Rist - Leiden University "Novel Biorachaeological Research on Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices in Past Populations"
November 23, 2016 - Dr. Jay Stock - University of Cambridge "Skeletal variation, behaviour, and ecology: Interpreting human adaptability and resilience in the past"
October 12, 2016 - Lecture -- Professor Sahar Saleem, University of Cairo, Egypt "Scanning the Pharaohs"
October 12, 2016 - Laura Kelvin - PhD Public Lecture
May 24, 2016 - Maricarmen Vega - PhD Public Lecture
December 16, 2015 - Megan Lowthers - PhD Public Lecture
December 3, 2015 - Joshua Smith - PhD Public Lecture
August 27, 2015 - James Keron - PhD Public Lecture
August 19, 2015 - Ian Puppe - PhD Public Lecture
May 19, 2015 - Zoe Morris - PhD Public Lecture
April 22, 2015 - Flannery Surette - PhD Public Lecture
March 3, 2015 -- Historian Greg Smithers - Virginia Commonwealth University
"The Elimination of the Negro Type": Franz Boas, Anthropology and the Plasticity of Humankind".
January 8, 2015 - Jordan Downey - PhD Public Lecture
October 2, 2014 - MER presents Professor Dan Jorgensen - Chair, Department of Anthropology
“First Phones in Last Places: Mobility and Cell Phone Use in Papua New Guinea”

Please see below the most recently recorded lectures:

Regna Darnell Distinguished Lecture in Theory, Ethnography & Activism in Anthropology

Gehman Lecture in Anthropology

Spence Lecture in Anthropology

Brazil-Canada Disability Speakers Series

Past Events

June 20, 2026 - "Anthropology Day: The Bone Zone" at the London Children's Museum
November 8, 2024 - High School Outreach Event

March 14, 2026 - WAGS 13th Annual Graduate Student Conference - in person at Weldon Library, and via Zoom - Teaching & Learning Anthropology: Translating our Knowledge to Public Spaces. Keynote speaker: Dr. Jess Hider
March 22, 2025 - WAGS 12th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Weldon Library - Entanglement in the Digital Era: Technology's Imprint on Society, Research, and Humanity in the 21st Century
September 14-15, 2024 - Anthropology Camping Trip
March 16, 2024 - WAGS 11th Annual Graduate Student Conference (in person and via Zoom) - Defining Ties: Relationships at the Heart of Anthropological Research
March 11, 2023 - WAGS 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference (in person and via Zoom) - Choosing our Words Wisely. Keynote speaker: Aja Lans
March 5, 2022 - WAGS 9th Annual Graduate Student Conference (via Zoom) - Looking at the Future: Reckoning with Anthropology's Past
March 13, 2021 - WAGS 8th Annual Graduate Student Conference (via Zoom) - Humanity in Transition. Keynote speakers: Dr. Madeline Mant (the University of Toronto Mississauga), and Dr. Sarah Shulist (Queens University) who is a graduate of our Ph.D. program.
March 20-21, 2020 - WAGS 8th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Cancelled - Supporting Sustainability and Conservation in Anthropology. Keynote speakers: Dr. Lisa Stevenson and Dr. Madeline Mant
February 14, 2020 - Valentine's Day Bake Sale
October 28-31, 2019 - Door Decorating Contest
October 30, 2019 - Scary Stories from the Field
October 31, 2019 - WAGS Hallowe'en Bake Sale
March 1-3, 2019 - Western Anthropology 7th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Negotiating Multiplicities and Polyvocalities. Keynote speakers: Dr. Denielle Elliott (York University) & Dr. Bonnie Glenncross (Wilfrid Laurier)
October 31, 2018 - Halloween Bake Sale
November 1, 2018 - Horror Stories from the Field
February 14, 2018 - Valentine's Day Bake Sale
March 9-10, 2018 - Western Anthropology 6th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Towards a "Boundless" Anthropology. Keynote speakers: Dr. Karen McGarry (McMaster University), and Dr. Christopher Watts (University of Waterloo)
October 31, 2017 - WAGS Halloween Bake Sale
March 29, 2017 - Writing Group Meeting
April 13, 2017 - WAGS Annual General Meeting & Pot Luck
March 3-5, 2017 - Western Anthropology 5th Annual Graduate Student Conference - Community and Anthropology: An Exploration of Collaborations and Engagements Inside and Outside of the Field. Keynote speaker: Dr. Anne Meneley (Trent University)
February 14, 2017 - WAGS Valentine's Bake Sale
January 20, 2017 - WAGS Movie Night
November 18, 2016 - WAGS AGM Potluck
October 31, 2016 - Halloween Bake Sale
October 31, 2016 - Scary Stories from the Field
September 30, 2016 - Student-Faculty Picnic
March 4-6, 2016 - WAGS 4th Annual Graduate Conference at Western - Competing Voices in Cultural Spaces. Keynote speaker: Dr. Roger Ivar Lohmann (Trent University)
October 22, 2015 - Scary Stories from the Field
March 6-8, 2015 - WAGS 3rd Annual Graduate Conference at Western - Confronting Categories. Keynote speaker: Dr. Chris Krupa (University of Toronto)

October 6, 2025 - Back From the Field (Part 1)
February 26, 2025 - WE-Collab Workshop, Dr. Kendra Coulter, Huron UC

November 21, 2025 - Graduate Program Open House
March 21, 2025 - Mini-Conference "Mapping and Memory"
November 22-26, 2022 - Exhibit "Defiça Portrayals: a Brazilian Gaze on Disability", organized by visiting scholar Nadia Meinerz & Pamela Block
April 4 & 5, 2019 - Christine Hegel (Western Connecticut State University) & Luke Cantarella (Pace University) - Collaborative CoDesigning Presentation & Workshop
March 14, 2019 - Visualizing Fieldwork Lecture & Workshop - Ethnocine Film Collective
March 13, 2019 - Bad Feminists Making Films - Ethnocine Collective
November 22, 2017 - Graduate Program Open House
October 9, 2015 - Symposium: Will the Real Franz Boas Stand Up?
September 19 & 20, 2015 -- Museum of Archaeology Annual Harvest Festival & Pow Wow