Society for Psychological Anthropology

Boyer Prize

Allen Tran — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:28:28 +0000

The SPA is now accepting nominations for the 2013 Boyer Prize for Contributions to Psychoanalytic Anthropology. The Boyer Prize is awarded annually to a book or article—published in the preceding three years (in this case, Jan 2009 to July 2013)—that addresses psychodynamic process in their cultural context. It seeks to encourage and reward work that takes a psychodynamic approach to cultural phenomena, provides an anthropological perspective on the psychodynamically-oriented clinical context, or in some way integrates the theoretical and/or clinical insights of psychoanalysis with the traditional methods or subject matter of anthropology. The prize carries a cash award of $500, which will be presented at the SPA Business Meeting, during the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago.

Click here for more information.

Condon Prize

Allen Tran — Mon, 06 May 2013 18:08:05 +0000

The Society for Psychological Anthropology is now accepting submissions for the 2013 Condon Prize for Best Student Essay in Psychological Anthropology. The winner will be awarded $500 and one year’s free membership in the Society for Psychological Anthropology. The winning essay will be published in Ethos after working with the Editor to revise and prepare the final manuscript.

Click here for more information.

Prizes announced

Allen Tran — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:29:16 +0000

The results of the SPA-sponsored prize competitions were announced at the business meeting/reception at the AAA’s in San Francisco.

Cheryl Mattingly received the Stirling Prize for Best Published Book in Psychological Anthropology for The Paradox of Hope: Journeys through a Clinical Borderland (University of California Press).

The Condon Prize for Best Student Essay in Psychological Anthropology went to Sara Lewis for her essay “Trauma and the Making of Flexible Minds in the Tibetan Exile Community.” Look for a version of this in an upcoming issue of Ethos!

Douglas Hollan received the Boyer Prize for Contributions to Psychoanalytic Anthropology for his 2012 paper “On the Varieties and Particularities of Cultural Experience.”

Congratulations to Cheryl, Sara, and Doug!

Student-faculty workshops at AAA

Allen Tran — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:01:41 +0000

The Society for Psychological Anthropology will sponsor five student-faculty workshops at the AAA meetings in San Francisco this November.
The workshops are informal settings for graduate students to discuss their research with like-minded students and leading scholars in the field.

Each workshop can accommodate three students and the workshops are free and open to all SPA student members. The workshops are:

1. Linda Garro (University of California, Los Angeles)
Topic: Bridging Psychological and Medical Anthropology
Thursday, November 15 @ noon
Lunch will be provided.

2. Bambi Chapin (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Topic: Ethnographic Research with Children and Families
Thursday, November 15 @ Noon
Lunch will be provided.

3. Claudia Strauss (Pitzer College)
Topic: Methods of Discourse Analysis
Thursday, November 15 @ 12:15pm
Lunch will be provided.

4. Eileen Anderson-Fye (Case Western Reserve University)
Topic: Employing Multiple Methods in Psychological Anthropology Research
Friday, November 16 @ Noon
Lunch will be provided.

5. Ted Lowe (Soka University of America)
Topic: Getting Your Work Through Peer Review
Saturday, November 17 @ 10 am
Brunch will be provided.

To apply to a workshop, email a brief description (250-300 words) of your research and the general aims of your participation in one of the workshops to Kristi Ninnemann (kmn24@case.edu). You do not have to be a member of the SPA at the time of application, but we request you join the Society for Psychological Anthropology should you be selected to participate.

Participants will be accepted on a first-come, first-serve basis so please submit your application as soon as possible. The student-faculty workshops at the AAA meetings filled up very quickly last fall and are anticipated to do the same this year.

New editor for Ethos

Allen Tran — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 14:58:24 +0000

Ethos has a new editor! After many years of distinguished service, Janet Dixon Keller is retiring. The SPA is pleased to welcome the new editor, Edward Lowe (Soka University). Manuscripts should still be sent to http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1548-1352/.

SPA Biennial 2013

Allen Tran — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:14:26 +0000

The next SPA Biennial will be held April 4 – April 7, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. For the first time the meeting will be held jointly with the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group. More information to come soon. Inquiries can be sent to Claudia Strauss (claudia_strauss@pitzer.edu).

New board members added to the SPA

Allen Tran — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:21:37 +0000

The results of the 2012 elections are in, and the SPA welcomes three new members to its board of directors. The new President-Elect is Byron Good (Harvard), who will take on the position of President in 2013. Bambi Chapin (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and Jason Throop (University of California, Los Angeles) will serve as elected board members from 2012-2016. Congratulations to all.

Also, the amendment to the by-laws that changes the student representative to the board from an elected to an appointed position has passed.

Stay tuned for news on more changes coming to the SPA and further details on the next SPA Biennial Meetings!

Another successful MerBear!

Ted Gideonse — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:02:39 +0000

A note from the organizers of the UCLA-UCSD Graduate Student Conference on Culture and Mind, affectionately known as “MerBear”:

The UCLA-UCSD Graduate Student Conference on Culture and Mind held its second annual meeting on Friday, March 2, 2012. This joint series was designed as a forum for graduate students at all stages to open new discussions and continue conversations on emerging perspectives in psychological anthropology. In future years, we hope this will become an ongoing series of exchanges providing a space to share intellectual resources from two of the leading centers for psychological anthropology.

Hosted in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, it was an exciting day filled with stimulating presentations by nine graduate students, as well as a keynote address from Professor Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University, one of the prominent voices in psychological anthropology today. At the conclusion of the day, we adjourned to the Glendon Bar & Kitchen to celebrate our time together and continue conversations generated by the talks. Hopefully everyone left reinvigorated to continue blazing the trail in their respective research areas!

More information on the conference can be found on our blog: http://cultureandmind.wordpress.com/

This conference was made possible through generous support from the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, the UCLA Department of Anthropology, and the UCSD Graduate Student Association.

Looking forward to next year’s Graduate Conference on Culture and Mind at UCSD!

Devin Flaherty (UCLA), Kathryn Hale (UCLA), Nofit Itzhak (UCSD), Genevieve Okada (UCSD), and Aidan Seale-Feldman (UCLA)

Graduate Student Organizers

Photos by Christopher Stephan (UCLA):

AAA Annual Meetings 2012

Allen Tran — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:10:10 +0000

The submission portal for the 2012 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco is now open! Click here for this year’s theme.

The deadline to submit Invited Panels, Invited Roundtables, and Innovents is March 15, 2012. The deadline for volunteered panels, individual papers, roundtables, and posters is April 15, 2012. Click here for more information on the submission process.

Feel free to use the comments section below or our Facebook page to find panelists or a panel to join yourself. See you in San Francisco!

Boyer Prize 2012

Allen Tran — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:42:16 +0000

The Society for Psychological Anthropology is pleased to announce the 2012 Boyer Prize for Contributions to Psychoanalytic Anthropology, awarded annually to a book or article published in the preceding three years that addresses the psychodynamic process in a cultural context. Further guidelines can be found here.

Nominations should be emailed to Steven M. Parish (sparish@ucsd.edu) by July 15, 2012.