DR. S.T. LEE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE IN THE HUMANITIES

“Concrete”

Anna Tsing, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Concrete is a material—and an adjective pointing to the physical existence of things. To be concrete is to have form in the material world. In this talk, renowned anthropologist Anna Tsing considers the material form of concrete as a building material, that is, the concreteness of concrete. Concrete repels water, and in the city of Sorong, Indonesia, where her current research has taken her, it calls forth floods, distributing mud. The concreteness of concrete is foundational to our current condition, stuck in the infrastructural lock-in of this dangerous time, the Anthropocene.
Cosponsored by Penn's Department of Anthropology and EnviroLab.

Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum, 3260 South Street