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Michael Herzfeld, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, will speak about "Masculinity, Tradition, and Marginalization in European Cultures," on Thursday, Nov. 14, at 4 p.m. in Kirner-Johnson 109 at Hamilton College.  The lecture is part of The Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture at Hamilton College 2002-2003 series "Masculinities."  This lecture is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow the talk.  It is co-sponsored by the departments of Anthropology and Classics.

Michael Herzfeld is one of the leading thinkers within anthropology today.  His many books include Anthropology through the Looking Glass; The Poetics of Manhood; The Social Production of Indifference; and Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State.  Well-known for his facility with languages, he has written and published numerous articles and reviews in English, French, Italian, Greek, and Thai.  His research interests include semiotic theory, narrative, metaphor and symbolism, local politics, the anthropology of the past, bureaucracy, and nationalism.   He is currently writing and conducting research on apprenticeship and historic conservation in Greece and Italy, and is now initiating new research in Thailand on gentrification and the management of the past.

Herzfeld's talk will address the social construction of masculinity and, in particular, the ways in which aggressive masculinity, used to gain small victories, actually increasingly becomes a source of political marginality.  Herzfeld will draw on his extensive field research in Crete, the basis for his book, Poetics of Manhood, as well as on his current research on apprenticeship.  He analyzes how apprentices learn their skills in spite of the apparent determination of their masters not to teach them anything but only to exploit them as cheap labor.

The Kirkland Project has chosen "masculinities" as its theme for the 2002-2003 academic year.  Because there is no single masculinity, the series emphasizes the ways in which masculinities are shaped, performed, experienced and perceived through differences of race, class, sexual orientation and sex/gender.  For more information about this lecture or other programs in the series, please contact the Kirkland Project at (315) 859-4288.

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