The Skomp Distinguished Lecture Series in Anthropology is made possible by an endowment provided to the Indiana University Anthropology department in 1983 by David Skomp (A.B. 1962; M.S. 1965). Mr. Skomp studied under the direction of Dr. George Neumann. He left the remainder of this estate for the use of the department. The Skomp Endowment currently provides support for anthropology students in the form of first-year fellowships, summer field research grants, dissertation-year fellowships, and distinguished lectures.
Skomp Distinguished Lecture Series
Past Skomp lectures
- 4/22/2024, Shalini Shankar, "The Incommensurability of Caste: Transposition and the Limits of California Love"
- 12/01/2022, Sarah Tishkoff, “Genomic Evolution and Adaptation in Africa: Implications for Health and Disease”
- 9/25/2020, Deborah A. Thomas, “Can Black Lives Matter in a Black Country? Dispatches from Jamaica”
- 3/22/2019, Kent G. Lightfoot, “Catastrophic Fires, Colonialism, and Indigenous Landscape Practices: The Relevancy of Archaeology in Rethinking the Stewardship of Public Lands in California”
- 2/23/2018, John Rickford, “What Anthropology, Linguistics and Life taught me, once I learned to listen: Poets surround us; Black Lives Matter; Justice should be blind, but not deaf”
- 4/13/2017, Hendrik Poinar, “Yersinia, Variola, Vibrio oh my! Using genetics to help uncover the origins of pandemics past.”
- 3/23/2016, Sherry Ortner, “Dark Anthropology: Theory and Ethnography Since the Eighties”
- 3/3/2015, Fiona Marshall, “Animal made us human”
- 4/28/2014, Joel C. Kuipers, “Fixing Connections: Repairing Language in the Culture of Cell Phone Use among Millennials in Washington DC”
- 3/28/2013, Kim R. Hill, “Origins of Human Uniqueness”
- 4/03/2012, Jane Guyer, “Intricacy and Impasse: Dilemmas of Value in Soft Currency Economies”
- 4/21/2011, Penelope Eckert, “Doing Adolescence: Linguistic Variation, Stylistic Practice, and the Construction of Social Meaning”
- 4/2/2010, Meg Conkey, “Marginal Practices: A Feminist Voice From Outside of the Cave”
- 4/24/2009, Nina Jablonski, “Darwin’s Birthday Suit: The Evolution of Human Skin and Skin Color”
- 11/9/2007, Jean Comaroff, “Ethnicity, Inc”
- 4/10/2006, John B. Haviland, “Icepicks and Amulets: Merolicos in Mexico”
- 4/12/2005, Barry Cunliffe, “So-Who are the Celts?”
- 4/23/2004, Cynthia Beall, “Tibetan Adaptation to High Altitude”
- 4/30/2003, Sidney Mintz, “Devouring Objects of Study: Food and Fieldwork”
- 4/22/2002, Regna Darnell, “Languages and the (Re-)Formulation of Culture/Society”
- 4/19/2001, Charles Keyes, “Cultural Difference, the Nation State, and Rethinking Ethnicity Theory”
- 2/18/2000, Ian Hodder, “Archaeology and Globalism”
- 11/19/1998, Katherine A. Dettwyler, “Evolutionary Medicine and Breastfeeding: Implications for Research and Pediatric Advice”
- 9/17/1997, Wallace Chafe, “The Importance of Native American Languages”
- 1/29/1997, James A. Boon, “The Cross-Cultural Kiss: Edwardian and Earlier, Postmodern and Beyond”
- 3/21/1996, Jane H. Hill, “Languages on the Land: Toward an Anthropological Dialectology”
- 2/25/1994, Alison Wylie, “Pragmatism and Politics: Understanding the Emergence of Gender Research in Archaeology”
- 4/16/1992, C. Loring Brace, “Modern Human Origins: Narrow Focus or Broad Spectrum?”
- 4/15/1991, George W. Stocking, Jr., “Books Unwritten: Turning Points Unmarked: Notes for an Anti-History of Anthropology”
- 2/00/1989, Chatherine Perles, “From Stone Procurement to Neolithic Society in Greece”
- 11/13/1987, Michael Silverstein, “Linguistic Categories and the Tropology of Culture”
- 3/30/1987, J. Desmond Clark, “Blood from Stones”
- 10/00/1986, Roy A. Rappaport, “The Construction of Time and Eternity in Ritual”
- 3/11/1986, David Pilbeam, “Human Origins”
- 2/20/1986, Clyde Collins Snow, “Bones of Contention: Forensic Anthropology Investigations of Argentinas Desaparecidos”
The College of Arts