The School of Anthropology and Conservation event is pleased to offer an online Being Human Taster Event for undergraduate applicants and enquirers on Wednesday 2 December 2020, 14:30-16:00. Book your place here.
Dr Sarah Johns is a Reader in Evolutionary Anthropology, her research focuses on human sexual and reproductive behaviour, including teenage motherhood and sexting. She will introduce you to our comprehensive and dynamic Anthropology programme, how it provides a holistic approach to “Being Human” and will explain all the choices open to you when you take our degree. Dr Johns convenes a module that includes a work placement opportunity in a local school, and she will also tell you all about this opportunity. She will detail the skills you will gain from becoming an Anthropologist at Kent, and where Anthropology can take you after your degree and how it can shape your future.
Dr Devin Finaughty is a Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, specialising in forensic anthropology and taphonomy. His research interests are centred around understanding the decomposition ecosystem to help inform ever more-accurate estimates of time since death to help the police solve cases of unnatural deaths. Part of achieving this understanding requires an intimate knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of our bodies and how this changes when we die. As such, Dr Finaughty’s foundational training is in human anatomy and skeletal biology, training which has revealed the fascinating secrets of our skeletons. He will be sharing some of these secrets with you via a live-streamed practical laboratory demonstration with real human skeletons, the aim of which will be to highlight the marvellous evolutionary relationship between form and function which has crafted our incredible bodies!
Dr Raj Puri is an Environmental Anthropologist and Ethnobotanist, he researches local knowledge and adaptation to forests among indigenous peoples in South and Southeast Asia. He has studied hunting, palms, rattan baskets, and El Nino events in Borneo, invasive species and cattle herding in India, farming in Kent and cork forests in Spain. In today’s talk he will uncover the nature of cork, and the significance of cork woodlands in planning for a more sustainable future.
Dr Judith Bovensiepen is a Social Anthropologist, who studies the complex and, at times, fraught relations of humans with their environment in periods of rapid social and historical change. Her first period of long-term fieldwork took place in central highlands Timor-Leste, only three years after the country officially regained independence from occupation by the Indonesian military. Judith examined how people remade their lives after more than two decades of violence and forced dislocation. In the short Taster Lecture, she will share with you some insights from her research in Timor-Leste and introduce you to the anthropological concept of ‘animism’.
A presentation from the student-led Anthropology Society, with an opportunity to ask questions about studying at the University of Kent, will round off what promises to be an engaging and insightful event.