REVIEWER MEETS REVIEWED

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM’S ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

Fusions: Masquerades and Thought-Style East of the Niger-Benue Confluence, West Africa

Thursday 25 April at 10.00 am (tea & coffee served from 9.30 am)

Anthropology Library and Research Centre, British Museum

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

The British Museum’s Anthropology Library and Research Centre, in conjunction with the Royal Anthropological Institute, is pleased to present the fourth seminar in the 2012-13 series of ‘Reviewer meets Reviewed’, a discussion between Professor Richard Fardon, author of ‘Fusions: Masquerades and Thought-Style East of the Niger-Benue Confluence, West Africa’, and Dr Ferdinand De Jong, who reviewed the book for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Fusions takes the masks of West Africa’s Upper Benue River region out of the museums and private collections, where many accumulated in the twentieth century, and restores their cultural and social contexts. The book argues that Benue masquerades deserve appreciation as the materialised forms taken by the thought styles of their original creators and users. Masquerades are ‘theranthropic’: they fuse characteristics of animals with those of living and dead human beings to create entities to perform the powers and dangers inherent in people’s lives.

NB: attendees will have the opportunity to purchase ‘Fusions’ for a special price of £15 as opposed to the list price of £45. There will also be an opportunity to purchase Fardon’s earlier work – ‘Column to volume: formal innovation in Chamba statuary’ – for the special price of £10 instead of £24.95.

Bookings/enquiries: Ted Goodliffe ( TGoodliffe@britishmuseum.org)