I will present a masterclass at the 2023 Atlantic Anthropological / Antraipeolaíochta Atlantach workshop at the Sacred Heart Dingle Campus in Daingean Uí Chúis, Co. Kerry. Convened by Dr. James Cuffe (University College Cork) and Dr. Fiona Murphy (Dublin City University), the workshop offers a multi-modal exploration of anthropology in its broadest sense, an objective that resonates profoundly with historical and contemporary themes in my research, which Berghahn Books will publish in September 2023.
To explain: In 1895 Haddon called for the study. of anthropology in its widest sense, challenging restrictions placed on the investigation under the name of anthropology of a variety of social, philosophical and political topics, a doctrine enforced by anatomists who advocated a politically conservative construction of evolutionist biology. In 2020, I completed my doctoral research on Haddon’s involvement in the skull measuring business in Ireland, when a similar debate was happening in anthropology and sociology. That focussed my attention on what, practically speaking, becoming an anthropologist means nowadays, especially as I come from a visual arts background, and becoming an anthropologist was somehow accidental. As contradictory as it sounds, that is the theme of my masterclass.
