The 2009 Annual General Meeting will have taken place by the time this issue of AT goes to press. The Rivers Memorial Medal for 2009 has been awarded to Professor Wendy James FBA. A double award of the Lucy Mair Medal for 2009 has been made to Professor Tom Selwyn and Dr John Palmer.
The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2009 is Professor Ian Hodder of Stanford University. Professor Hodder’s Huxley lecture, entitled ‘Human-Thing Entanglement: Towards an integrated archaeological perspective’, will be given on Monday 2 November at 5.45 pm in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, London WC1. An abstract is posted on the RAI website.
We are delighted to announce that the newly redesigned RAI website went ‘live’ on 31 August. The web address remains unchanged at www.therai.org.uk, but the new site is designed to be a much more powerful and versatile tool for communication and the provision of services to RAI Fellows and the broader anthropological community. The new site is the result of dedicated work over more than four years, and we thank all who contributed to its design and delivery. Special thanks are due to Dominique Remars and Amanda Vinson. Comments and feedback on the site from AT readers are welcome, and should be addressed to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . A linked educational website, www.discoveranthropology.org.uk, is under construction and will be launched shortly.
We are delighted to announce that the Economic and Social Research Council has extended its funding for the RAI Education Outreach Programme for a fourth year.
Following a successful launch in February, the British Museum’s Centre for Anthropology, in collaboration with the RAI, will resume its Reviewer Meets Reviewed seminar series, in which authors of works reviewed in the JRAI meet their reviewers. For more information contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
The RAI has received a generous donation from Mrs Leslie Hill, to whom we wish to record our thanks. This gift will be used across a range of projects bringing lasting value to the RAI.
Readers are reminded that 30 October 2009 is the submission deadline for proposals for the Special Issue of the JRAI to be published in 2012; see separate announcement in this issue of AT.
Athens password: correction. In the August issue of AT, we suggested that enquiries about this new service should be addressed to Gary Steele at the British Museum. They should instead be addressed to the RAI Office Manager on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Office Christmas/New Year closure. The RAI office will close on Friday 18 December and reopen on Monday 4 January 2010.
RAI logo. Have you ever wondered what the RAI logo represents, and when it first came into being? At the end of 1972 it was felt that it would be desirable to have a ‘house symbol’ to make all RAI publications instantly recognizable, and Mr Richard Thorn of the Learning Resources Centre was chosen to work on this. Richard Thorn was teaching in the Graphics Department of what was then the West of England College of Art and Design, and recalls that he had been fascinated by Malinowski’s plan of the layout of the village of Omarakana. Because of the significance of Malinowski’s work, it was agreed that this would be an appropriate idea to work up. He says that on the train home, he discussed this with a 3rd year student, Liz Keeley, who literally sketched the logo on the back of an envelope. The design was approved and by 1974 appeared on all RAI stationery and publications. (See also explanation by Peter Riviere, Man, March 1974, 9.1, p.4 of front matter.) Sarah Walpole.
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Fig. 1. Omorakama village (from Malinowski, B. The sexual life of savages in North Western Melanesia.H. Liveright, 1929, Plate I on p 9) compared with the RAI logo. |
