Anthropology at A-level. We are delighted to announce that the new GCE A-level in anthropology has finally been accredited by the national regulator, Ofqual. From September 2010, schools will be able to offer anthropology at AS and A2 levels. For the first time, apart from an optional social anthropology course within the International Baccalaureate, anthropology will be available as an examination subject at pre-university level in the UK. The RAI’s Education Committee has worked since 2004 on designing the content of the A-level; and since 2008 has collaborated with the awarding body AQA to develop the course for accreditation. The course will be offered and assessed by AQA, and the RAI will continue working with AQA to develop teaching and learning resources. A dedicated RAI education website, DiscoverAnthropology, will be launched shortly with financial support from the Economic and Social Research Council. The edited text of a joint press announcement is published in this issue of AT.
A very well-attended Huxley Memorial Lecture was delivered on 2 November by Professor Ian Hodder of Stanford University, whose subject was ‘Human-thing entanglement: Towards an integrated archaeological perspective’. The lecture was audio-recorded, and we hope for the first time to make it available via the RAI website.
The second event in the seminar series ‘Reviewer Meets Reviewed’, co-organized by the RAI and British Museum Centre for Anthropology, took place on 12 November. Professor Georgina Born (Cambridge) discussed her book Uncertain vision: Birt, Dyke and the reinvention of the BBC, with its JRAI reviewer, Dr Michael Stewart, before an invited audience at the Centre for Anthropology. Further events in the series are planned for 2010.
Urgent Anthropology Fellowship programme. Departments of Anthropology in the UK and abroad are encouraged to consider offering to host the programme from 2010. Deadline for offers: 4 January 2010. For details please see the separate announcement in this issue of AT.
JRAI Special Issue series. A record number of submissions was received for the Special Issue to be published in 2012. The Publications Committee is drawing up a shortlist of proposals for further development, and a final selection will be made towards the end of 2010. The Committee’s selection of the 2011 Special Issue will be announced shortly. The 2009 Special Issue, Islam, politics, anthropology, edited by Filippo Osella and Benjamin Soares, was distributed to Fellows earlier this year and will be published shortly by Wiley-Blackwell as a free-standing book. The 2010 Special Issue, Making knowledge, edited by Trevor Marchand, is expected to be published early in 2010.
The RAI Film Committee invites anthropology departments in the UK and Ireland and other interested bodies to bid to host the RAI Film Festival 2011. Offers should be received by 15 March 2010. For details see RAI Urgent Announcements on http://www.therai.org.uk or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
We are delighted to announce that the 2009 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing and the 2008 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion have been awarded to Dr Matthew Engelke (former Council member and current member of the Publications Committee) for his book A problem of presence: Beyond scripture in an African church, published in 2007 by the University of California Press.
Holiday closure. The RAI office will close on Friday 18 December and reopen on Monday 4 January 2010. The Anthropology Library will be closed from midday on 23 December until 4 January. We wish all readers an enjoyable and restful holiday period.
2010 Pricing: Fellow/Member fees unchanged from 2009 (see August issue); Premium Institutional subscriptions: £84 (UK), $141 (The Americas), €106 (Europe) and $164 (Rest of the World).
