Catchy title for a lecture, eh?

It’s being presented by Vanderbilt University anthropologist Beth Conklin at the University of Regina tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. In the brief synopsis on the university’s website, it says that Conklin intends to discuss cannibalism in the context of death rites that force mourners into close contact with the deceased.

The lecture’s subtitled “Sensory Ecologies of Death in Amazonia and Beyond” so the Amazon rain forest is presumably one geo-cultural locus she’ll be examining. In addition to her duties at Vanderbilt, Conklin is President of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA). Her lecture is being held in Rm 112 of the Classroom Building and more information can be obtained by calling 306-585-5405.

While Conklin is in town she will also host a workshop titled: A Conversation Between Old and New BioLogics:  Relational Biology in Native Amazonia and Emerging Paradigms in Genetics and Immunology. It’s described as an anthropological discussion on resonances between new research in Western medicine and native Amazonian thinking about the body. It will be held at AdHum 527 on Friday from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

To give you a bit of a sense of what Amazonia is like as an eco-system here’s the trailer for a 2013 Brazilian-French pseudo documentary by Thierry Ragobert that follows the adventures of a cute capuchin monkey named Sai who was born in captivity and must fight to survive when he gets stranded in the jungle: