Anthropology Commons^™

Singulars: Performing The Reverse Turing Test, Halim Madi

ELO (un)supervised 2026

Singulars is an ongoing series of performance systems in which I co-create poetry with a language model trained on an anthology of English poetry alongside my own writing. Across three works—carnation.exe, versus.exe, and reinforcement.exe—I stage live reinforcement loops in which my poems and the model’s responses compete for audience votes. The audience functions as an embodied feedback mechanism, shaping the evolution of both the machine and the human poet in real time.

This paper examines what happens when a poet becomes both author and training data. Drawing from creativity research, metacognition, and social cognition, I reflect …

Creating Space For The Public In Anthropology, Madison Joseph, Grace Tucker

2026 Symposium

This ongoing collaborative research project between Grace Tucker and Madison Joseph aims to evaluate an overlooked gap of knowledge and linguistic understanding concerning how anthropological findings are presented to both disciplinary experts and the general public. We will examine ways to improve public anthropology through improving our understanding of how to utilize everyday speech and specialist jargon simultaneously in the field. This project will include an extensive literature review of educational barriers and language use in anthropological research to identify solutions to remedy accessibility to, and dissemination of, these findings. We argue that museums and libraries are designed with the …

The Eastern Frontier: Border Forts Of The Nile Delta And Sinai During The New Kingdom Period In Egypt, Andrew Cahill

Student Scholar Symposium

Throughout history, nations have always sought to secure their borders in order to control the flow of people and commerce so that the interests of that particular state are served. Ancient Egypt was no exception, with a string of border forts established going back at least as far as the 12^th Dynasty. During the New Kingdom Period (Dynasties 18-20), Egypt wielded great political power in the Near East, and there were two primary lines of access into Egypt from that direction. This paper will give an overview of the major issues related to the archaeology of the forts along …

Proceedings Of The 12th Research Symposium At Mammoth Cave National Park, Pat Kambesis Editor, Lee Anne Bledsoe Editor, Ana K. Celis Editor

Mammoth Cave Research Symposia

Proceedings of the 12th Research Symposium at Mammoth Cave National Park: Celebrating 100 Years of Scientific Research & Resource Management in the Mammoh Cave Region.

Laying The Groundwork: Building Long-Term Community Partnerships Across A Shared Curriculum, Juliana Chow, Eric Robertson, Kate Magargal

Utah Conference on Community Engagement

Maintaining long-term community partnerships is a major challenge for community-engaged classrooms. This poster presents a community-engaged learning (CEL) program template for a project shared between multiple courses and instructors, demonstrating how shared resources, skill sets, relationships, and coordination could result in a long-term community partnership linked to multiple community networks. It shows how 3 courses at the Honors College of the University of Utah can weave together learning objectives and cooperative planning for a course module focused on the Native Plants Program, part of the U of U Climate Action Plan.

“The Best Storyteller In The World:” Gwydion, Court Poetry, And Statecraft In The Fourth Branch Of The Mabinogi, Abigail Fathauer '25

Senior Scholarly and Creative Symposium

Gwydion, the trickster protagonist of The Mabinogi, orchestrates the plot and manipulates those around him. His trickery ultimately results in political shifts, changes, and even wars, reflecting his role as a powerful player in the text. Moreover, Gwydion's use of poetry, knowledge, and words to enact his schemes and manipulations reflects the power of poets in medieval Welsh courts. My thesis argues that Gwydion's use of poetry to manipulate the politics around him reflects the power of poetry to craft nation states, as medieval Welsh poets did.

Plantation Museums, Public Memory, And Historical Narratives: A Comparative Analysis Of Slavery Interpretation At Oak Alley And Lakeport, Gabrielle M. Stockand

ATU Scholars Symposium

Plantation museum sites are important in the public's understanding of the complex sociopolitical labor systems that dominated antebellum lifeways. This study examines modern museums' dilemmas when exploring expansive site narratives at plantation museum sites, using Oak Alley and Lakeport Plantations as case studies. Plantation Museum sites construct historical narratives using comparative exhibit analysis, critical discourse analysis of labor narratives, and landscape archaeology. Specific analysis of interpretive language, narrative construction, and site structure demonstrates a stark contrast: while one site marginalizes slavery in its guided tour with non-inclusive language and a self-guided slavery exhibit, the other integrates extensive research on enslaved …

Addressing Violent Extremism And Implicit Bias: Mindbridge’S Neuroscientific And Psychological Approach, Adriana Lovric, Sarah Lockridge

Thinking Matters Symposium

Violence has long been embedded in American culture and history, often linked to ideological struggles, racial oppression, and religious conflicts (Mayer et al.,2024). In recent years, violent extremism—characterized by the use or threat of violence to advance ideological, political, or social agendas—has surged, particularly in attacks on government institutions, infrastructure, and marginalized communities (Mayer et al.,2024). At the same time, implicit biases—unconscious prejudices—continue to reinforce societal inequalities across race, gender, and class, often manifesting as micro-inequities that have a cumulative impact (Brennan,2014). According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program (2020), 138 law enforcement agencies reported 8,263 hate crime …

Castles, Lands, And Locks: Exploring The Social Capital Of Heritage Sites, Loren Carter

Research Symposium

This Honors thesis aims to analyze the social roles of heritage sites as modes of cultural communication and connection. Through combined ethnographic and archaeological research methods, I argue that while the museumification and industrialization of heritage does provide useful information for populations with little knowledge of cultural processes, the communities most closely related to the heritage sites lose both tangible and intangible cultural connections when their backyards turn to tourist destinations. Studies of heritage have long argued that heritage processes take place not just through tangible heritage artifacts but also through everyday intangible heritage activities (Smith 2006). Throughout this work …

Gendered Rehabilitation: Male And Female Offenders' Experiences In Reintegration, Ellie Hansen

Student Research Symposium

• Gender: Socially constructed roles, behaviors, and expectations assigned to women, men, girls, and boys (World Health Organization).
• Gender specific (responsive) programing: Tailored interventions addressing distinct learning styles, relationship dynamics, and life circumstances of men and women (The Oregon Intermediate Sanctions for Female Offenders Policy Group 1995).
• Recidivism: Relapse into criminal behavior after sanctions or interventions (NIJ).
• Reentry: The inevitable consequence of incarceration (Visher 2015).
• Rehabilitation: Programs reducing crime by addressing root causes and improving reintegration outcomes (NIJ).
• Reintegration: Reconnecting individuals with societal institutions as both a process and goal (Visher 2015).

Designing Field Courses To Teach Few Concepts Effectively, Eunice L. Blavascunas

National Collaborative for Research on Food, Energy, and Water Education (NC-FEW)

How do students learn complex systems FEW concepts in field courses? An overview of field-course practices in the Yakima Valley of Washington State.

The Role Of Sufi Shrines In Local Politics: A Case Study Of Mitthan Kot Rajanpur, Pakistan, Sarfraz Ahmad

CBER Conference

This study investigates the role of Sufi shrines in the local community and in local politics. This study follows a qualitative research strategy and employs in-depth interviews to collect data from different stakeholders such as visitors of the Shrine, local politicians and Sajjada Nasheen. Thematic analysis has been used to analyze data. The findings of this study showed that the Koreja family in Mitthan Kot uses the shrine for their benefit as they are only the caretakers of the Shrine. They are not functioning for the shrine's development or for spreading the teachings of Khwaja Ghulam Farid. The results found …

Atmospheres Of Ableism: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Everyday Encounters, Kelly Parke

2024 Symposium

Campbell and Nario-Redmond explain that ableism entails explicit and implicit biases that manifest at every level of social life. At the same time, Taussig describes ableism as "the atmosphere we breathe." Disability Studies scholarship has done much to identify how ableism operates in the everyday lives of disabled and non-disabled people alike; however, little work has been done to articulate it in terms of the atmospheric quality that Taussig discusses.

Building on Taussig's assessment of ableism in conjunction with Casey's similar articulation of the atmosphere of emotion, this paper addresses the findings of an online qualitative survey distributed to adults …

I’M Conscious Of Time: Pinhole Vignettes Of Human Co-Existence In The Anthropocene, Jennie Moran

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper explores the practice of hospitality in the context of human-induced climate change. In this new and uncertain geological era, we will be required to re-examine our reciprocity with the earth and our fellow humans. We have over-farmed and over-extracted. Our voraciousness has left the soil close to exhaustion with concerns expressed that we have a finite number of harvests left. We have more mouths to feed than ever, villages are drowning under rising seas and our activities have initiated a mass extinction of the species with whom we share the earth. The grief surrounding this crisis is complex …

Sedimented For The Future: Can Technology Sustain Tradition?, Nihal Bursa

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Turkish coffee is unique in its brewing technique and deeply rooted in the culture developed throughout the Ottoman geography since the sixteenth century. The knowledge, skills and rituals of Turkish coffee are transmitted to new generations through observation, participation and practicing. Be it an elaborate ritual at the Ottoman court or a modest peasant pleasure, Turkish coffee requires dedicated time, manual skills and decorum. The pace of industrialization and urbanization in the twenty-first century forced people to acquire new lifestyles. This has put Turkish coffee service in jeopardy especially in public spaces. Owing to the Turkish coffee machine designed by …

Creating A Gastrolinguistic Space: Food In Language Learning Materials Of Jesuit Missionaries During The Sixteenth To The Eighteenth Centuries, Zhongyuan Hu

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This article investigates the intersection of language and gastronomy in European Jesuit missionaries’ language learning materials in China during the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Through the analysis of three key texts, the article emphasizes the significance of food-related content in fostering linguistic and cultural understanding. It provides a thorough examination of how these texts facilitated cultural exchange, highlighting the role of food in creating a space for dialogue between European and Chinese cultures. This article introduces gastrolinguistics, the combination and interaction of food and language, to explore how missionaries adapted to and learned about Chinese culture and introduced …

The Little Black Book: When Recipes Tell Stories, Cordula C. Peters

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

In post-war Germany in the 1950s my grandmother used to collect recipes from magazines, newspapers, and the backs of food packaging that she neatly cut out and saved. Other recipes were carefully copied with pen and ink. At some point, when my mother was still a child and my grandmother still alive, she and her sister compiled all these recipes and tidily pasted them into a black notebook for safekeeping. Growing up many of the recipes from this book became much-loved dishes prepared by my mother and expected by my siblings and I almost religiously for important holidays such as …

No Time For Tea: Hidden Figures Of The Dutch Tea Industry, Annette Kappert, Lysbeth Vink

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper explores the historical role women played in promoting, distributing, and establishing tea consumption in The Netherlands. Despite being the first nation to introduce tea to the Western world, and the abundance of literature and images documenting women as sapless tea drinkers, languishing their afternoons away, entertaining and sipping the amber brew in their tea houses, the latter is far from reality. Preliminary research indicates Dutch women were instrumental in establishing an elite tea industry in The Netherlands and beyond. Aptly the authors utilized the archives to explore visual and narrative data dating from 1610 to present, to find …

The Carbonara Case: Italian Food And The Race To Conquer Consumers’ Memories, Marco Ginanneschi

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Can a recipe divide historians, gastronomes, and chefs? The answer is yes if we are dealing with carbonara, an iconic Italian dish, famous throughout the world. However, so much animosity could have deeper roots than the recently renewed controversy over its authorship suggests. This article aims to study the case of carbonara as an example of the race to conquer consumers’ memories. Following a transdisciplinary methodology, the author identifies three main approaches to the making of carbonara: glocal, regional, and creative. These approaches reflect distinct schools of thought regarding food within the diverse spectrum of Italian society. Their supporters - …

Obedient Bellies And The Coming Of Urbanization In Fourth Millennium Mesopotamia, Saikat Mukherjee

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Hunger has always been a persistent trauma of mankind in every age. As a matter of fact, “hunger” which according to Seth Richardson can be defined as the "routine and everyday sub-nutrition, less than a famine and more than a temporary inconvenience" is “one of the most powerful, pervasive and (arguably) emotive words in our historical vocabulary” (Richardson, 2016; Murton, 1988). Food has been the only way to satiate the mass cry and is overlooked by social and economic historians and/or archaeologists as a potent medium to understand an interdependent mass psychology. We seldom try to study food at the …

An Abundance Of Cakes: How A National Trauma Created A Unique Culinary Practice In Southern Jutland, Nina Bauer

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The southern part of Jutland has its very own distinct food culture and traditions. Its history differs from other parts of Denmark because this region was under German rule from 1864 until the Reunification in 1920. Special laws were imposed to curtail the population’s political and cultural ties to Denmark. Any political gatherings or sentiments were strictly forbidden. However, cooking was free of restrictions and cooking thus became one of the primary ways to hold onto a Danish identity. This led to a conservation of recipes and traditions that were disappearing in other Danish regions. The farm wives became the …

Food And Memory In Literature: A Folkloric Approach, Pola Schiavone

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper analyzes food as a memory device in the novel Doña Flor y sus dos maridos by the Brazilian author Jorge Amado. Set in San Salvador du Bahía in northern Brazil, the novel follows Doña Flor after her husband Vadinho dies. Food and drink – considered here as folkloric forms – play a central role not only in her exploration of memories of her husband but also in the broader bahiana society with its mix of different ethnicities (African, indigenous, European). Drawing on Felix Coluccio’s and Dan Ben-Amos notions of folklore and literature and Arjun Appadurai’s exploration of the …

Food, Memory, And Cuban Society: Unraveling Trauma, Traditions, And Future Imaginaries In Havana, Mallory Cerkleski

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

This paper delves into the intricate interplay of food scarcity and memory in contemporary Havana, Cuba, drawing on a period of immersive fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2022. Situating itself amidst the lived experiences of diverse Cubans, the study examines the enduring impact of historical challenges, particularly the Special Period, on present-day perceptions and experiences. Employing an oral history methodology rooted in collective memory theory, the research explores how food serves as a potent medium for encapsulating past experiences and shaping future imaginaries. Through oral narratives spanning from 1941 to 2022, the paper uncovers diverse memories and emotions associated …

The Legacy Of The Humoral Theory In Modern Culinary Tradition, Andrzej Kuropatnicki

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The humoral theory, an ancient medical doctrine originating in Greece and championed by eminent physicians like Hippocrates and Galen, served as the cornerstone of medical understanding for millennia, preceding the emergence of modern medicine. This enduring theory postulated that an individual's health was intricately linked to the delicate balance of four bodily fluids or humours. Over the course of nearly two thousand years, it not only shaped medical practices but also profoundly influenced the choices people made regarding their diets and overall well-being. Its reach extended far beyond the realm of medicine, leaving an indelible mark on our culture and …

The Wild Arctic Char In Swedish Sápmi – From Staple Ingredient To Nostalgic Food, Julia C. Carrillo Ocampo

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The way food is preserved, prepared and consumed is embedded in cultural symbolism strongly connected to the geographical landscape. This article focuses on the memories of Sami actors within the wild Arctic char value chain to explore how changes in the foodscape influence the way this produce is prepared and consumed in contemporary Sápmi and the use and view of traditional preservation techniques. The empirical material was obtained through interviews and observations with Sami actors as they are the dominant agents related to this produce. Consequently, I traced different narratives attached to the char in the region called Swedish Sápmi …

The Subconscious Of Traditional Practices: Turkish Cuisine, Serife Umay Cicik

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Turkey stands out among the leading countries, particularly in the consumption of meat, milk, and dairy products. In terms of climate and physical conditions, it has the capacity to produce these commodities domestically. Additionally, it is situated in a geographically advantageous position rich in seafood resources. Turkish cuisine is further enriched by dishes and desserts prepared with dough. However, food preparation and cooking methods, equipment, storage conditions, presentation styles, consumption habits, spices, and sauces bear traces of various culinary cultures. Wars, natural disasters, political events, trade routes, and religious structures are among the factors that most significantly influence these differences. …

The Appliance Of Science: Traditions And Change In Food Preparation Using Small Domestic Electrical Appliances, Susan Bailey

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Food preparation in a domestic context has evolved through the application of technology. When electricity became available and motors to power appliances were developed from the late nineteenth century onwards, this made a significant change to the use of appliances for food preparation from post-Second World War onwards. This paper explores the history of and increasing use of small domestic electrical appliances used for food preparation and their development and transition from a commercial to a domestic context. Between the 1950s and 1980s in Britain, the development and promotion of a range of new small domestic electrical appliances were important …

Lost But Not Found: Southern Appalachia, Migration Patterns, And Culinary Tourism, Ashli Q. Stokes, Wendy Atkins-Sayre

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Despite growing acknowledgement of the variety of cultures that developed Southern Appalachia’s cuisine, some popular food writing continues to highlight the so-called insular nature of its food, drink, and culinary festivals. Regional tourists, especially those visiting its Blue Ridge or Smoky mountains, also remain likely to experience a delimited, often problematic Scots-Irish or white-European pioneer past, including when they eat and drink. Billboards advertise the outlaw Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Show, visitors choose from moonshine tastings in dilapidated looking but new distilleries, and diners enjoy gourmet biscuits alongside gravy “flights” at trendy restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina. Appalachian Studies and …

“Ptasie Mleczko,” “Schabowy” Or “Pierogi”? Polish Foods And Dishes In Ireland, Marzena Keating

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Following the accession of ten Central and Eastern European countries to the European Union in 2004, Ireland witnessed the influx of migrants, the largest group coming from Poland. To cater for their culinary needs specialized shops and dining establishments started to emerge in cities and towns across Ireland. Well-established supermarket chains, such as, for example, Supervalu, Tesco and Lidl, began selling typical Polish food products that would appeal to this community. Various events celebrating Polish traditions, including culinary ones, have been organized throughout Ireland. Additionally, Polish recipes have often occurred in Irish local and national newspapers. This research, based on …

To The Taste Of Ghurba: Diasporic Food And Oral Memories Of Tunisia In Europe, Gabriele Proglio

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

During an oral history research on the larger European open-air market in Turin, called “Porta Palazzo,” Tunisian people replied to my questions using the Tunisian-Arab word ghurba in order to define their condition of being in diaspora. Ghurba is a specific emotion about the condition of separation and estrangement. It is used for describing the situation of being a foreigner, migrant, illegal, invisible in a land away from home. For this reason, it evokes a state of abandonment, loneliness, isolation but also it is used for yearning a reconnection and socialization with an idea of community based on memories of …