Speakers

Profile

Prof. Jane Harris is a distinguished anthropologist and professor at the University of Chicago, renowned for her groundbreaking work on ritual and memory in isolated cultures. Her lectures are celebrated for their theatrical storytelling and academic rigor, offering audiences a rare blend of humor, insight, and innovation. Her latest book, “Rituals of Time: An Ethnographic Memoir,” has been hailed as a masterpiece, earning critical acclaim from The New York Times and The Guardian. Harris’s research on the Følyar Archipelago has uncovered profound insights into how isolated societies conceptualize time, space, and tradition, shaping the broader field of cultural anthropology.

Profile

Prof. Terry Friedman is a Harvard-educated historian and anthropologist specializing in cultural linguistics and cartographic traditions. A tireless explorer of remote societies, Friedman’s most notable expedition was to the Følyar Archipelago in 1979, where he documented the unique “singing cartographers”—a cultural phenomenon where maps are sung rather than drawn, preserving oral histories in melodic form. Friedman’s work, blending meticulous field research with an engaging narrative style, has earned him a reputation as one of the most innovative thinkers in contemporary anthropology. His forthcoming book, “Sonic Maps: Voices of the Uncharted,” is eagerly anticipated by scholars and enthusiasts alike.