You should go to Denver!

For the AAAs!This year’s annual meeting of the American Association of Anthropology will be in beautiful, Denver, Colorado, from November 18-22. As the Biological Anthropology Section program chair, part of my responsibility was to organize the symposia, papers, and presentations within our section. I think the program we have is fantastic (see below), and I think you should go. If you are student, you should consider applying for the BAS student paper/poster award, which has a cash award and special recognition among the BAS membership. As with any meetings, there is a real cost (and AAA is more than many), but I think it provides real opportunity for value in return.

Preliminary BAS program for the 2015 AAA meetings, Denver CO, November 18-22.

Wednesday, 11/18

4:00-5:45
A MOVEABLE FEAST: TRANSFORMATIONS OF WHAT’S GOOD TO EAT.
Lawrence M Schell, Julia Ravenscroft and Lawrence M Schell

• To be Food Secure or Not: Food Desirability As a Factor in Perceptions of Food Insecurity
  David A Himmelgreen (University of South Florida, Department of Anthropology)
• Old Foods, New Cuisines: Globalization and Changing Production Regimes in the Andes
  Thomas L Leatherman (University of Massachusetts, Amherst – Department of Anthropology) and Morgan Hoke (Northwestern University)
• The Centrality of Food in Children’s Concepts of Health: A Cross-Cultural Study
  Jonathan N Maupin (Arizona State University, School of Human Evolution and Social Change) and Jillian Renslow (Arizona State University)
• Milk Consumption in India: New Life for an Old Food
  Andrea S Wiley (Indiana University)
• Transforming the Familiar to the Strange: Is Adulterated and Contaminated Food the New Normal?
  Lawrence M Schell (University at Albany, State University of New York)
• The New Three Sisters: The Transformation of Food Choice and Dietary Patterns at Akwesasne
  Julia Ravenscroft (University at Albany, State University of New York)
• Getting “Dumped”: Bariatric Patients’ Strange Eating of Familiar Food
  Alexandra A Brewis (Arizona State University), Sarah S Trainer (Arizona State University) and Amber Wutich (Arizona State University)

Thursday, 11/19

8:00-9:45
THE BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF ETHNOGENESIS: INTEGRATING THEORY, NARRATIVE, AND BIOCULTURAL HISTORY
Tiffiny A Tung, Matthew Carlos Velasco, Scott G Ortman and Christopher Stojanowski

• Cultural Affinity and Ethnic Identity Along the Great Wall of China
  Christine Lee (California State University, Los Angeles)
• Bioarchaeology, Ethnogenesis and the Construction of Social Identities in Late Antiquity
  Jorge López Quiroga (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
• A Bioarchaeological Contribution to Early Medieval Gentes
  Charisse Carver (Arizona State University)
• Ethnogenesis on the Eve of Inka Expansion: The Case of the Collaguas, a Late Prehispanic Ethnic Group from the Southern Peruvian Andes
  Matthew Carlos Velasco (Vanderbilt University)
• Migrating People and Moving Ideas: Reevaluating the Ethnogenesis of Aztec Ruins
  Ryan P Harrod (University of Alaska Anchorage) and Alyssa Willett (University of Alaska Anchorage)
• Discussant
  Scott G Ortman (University of Colorado-Boulder)
• Discussant
  Christopher Stojanowski (Arizona State Univ)

1:45-3:30
PURPOSEFUL PAIN: THE EMBODIMENT OF INTENTIONAL SUFFERING
Charlotte A. Roberts and Susan G Sheridan

• Pious Pain: Repetitive Motion Disorders Associated with Excessive Genuflection in a Byzantine Monastic Community from Jerusalem
  Susan G Sheridan (University of Notre Dame)
• Binding, Wrapping, Constricting, and Constraining the Head. a Consideration Ofcranial Vault Modification and the Notion of Purposeful Pain
  Christina Torres-Rouff (UC Merced)
• Pain As Performance: The Suffering Elites at Chaco Canyon (AD 850-1150)
  Meaghan Kincaid (University of Alaska Anchorage), John J Crandall (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Ryan P Harrod (University of Alaska Anchorage) and Debra L Martin (UNLV)
• Meaningful Play, Meaningful Pain: Traumatic Brain Injuries in Youth Sports
  Gabriel Alejandro Torres Colon (University of Notre Dame) and Sharia Smith (University of Notre Dame)
• Purposeful, Anticipated, Intermittent, and Normal: Grappling with the Familiar/Strange Dichotomy of Childbirth Pain
  Vania Smith-Oka (University of Notre Dame) and Nicholas James Nissen (University of Notre Dame)
• Addiction, Pain and Pleasure
  Daniel H Lende (University of South Florida)
• Pain As Power: Pain As a Mechanism for Social Control
  Anna Osterholtz (University of Nevada)

SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES TO BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: THE STRANGE AND FAMILIAR
Cathy Willermet, Sang-Hee Lee, Sang-Hee Lee, Cathy Willermet and Rachel Caspari

• The Strange (?) Fuzziness Inherent in Familiar Population Biodistance Models
  Cathy Willermet (Central Michigan University)
• Parsing the Paradox: Examining Heterogeneous Frailty in Bioarchaeological Assemblages
  Sharon DeWitte (University of South Carolina)
• Methods without Mechanisms: Moving Beyond Body Counts in Human Biology Research
  Robin G Nelson (Skidmore College)
• Paleoanthropology and Analytical Rigor: The Need to Do Less with More
  Adam P Van Arsdale (Wellesley College – Department of Anthropology)
• Hegemony and the Central Asian Paleolithic Record: Perspectives on Pleistocene Landscapes and Morphological Mosaicism
  Michelle M Glantz (Colorado State University)
• Defamiliarizing, Unpacking, and Rethinking Modernity: A Case of the Korean Early Late Paleolithic
  Sang-Hee Lee (University of California, Riverside – Department of Anthropology) and Hyeong Woo Lee (Chonbuk National University)
• Discussant
  Rachel Caspari (Central Michigan University)

4:00-5:45
HIDDEN MOTIVATIONS AND GLOSSED JUSTIFICATIONS: PROBLEMS AND PRIORITIES IN BIOCULTURAL FIELD RESEARCH
Lesley Jo Weaver, Lesley Jo Weaver, Christopher D Lynn and Robin G Nelson (INVITED SESSION)

• Disasters in the Field: Learning from the Challenges of Fieldwork Gone Wrong
  Gillian H Ice (Ohio U Coll of Osteopathic Med), Darna L Dufour (University of Colorado Boulder) and Nancy J Stevens (Ohio University)
• Anthropologists, Kids, and Careers: When Family Is Strange and the Field Familiar
  Christopher D Lynn (University of Alabama) and Michaela E Howells (University of North Carolina Wilmington)
• Considering the Whole Person As Ethnographer
  Eileen P Anderson-Fye (Case Western Reserve University, Department of Anthropology)
• Vicarious Trauma: Bearing Witness in the Field
  Rebecca J Lester (Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Anthropology)
• Raced Encounters in Fieldwork: Reflections and Questions
  Lesley Jo Weaver (University of Alabama)
• Discussant
  Robin G Nelson (Skidmore College)

6:15-7:30
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION BUSINESS MEETING
Adam P Van Arsdale

Friday, 11/20

8:00-9:45
BIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON NORMAL, PHYSIOLOGIC BIRTH
Nicole L Falk, Courtney L Everson, Wenda Trevathan, Nicole L Falk, Courtney L Everson, Melissa Cheyney, Courtney L Everson, Nicole L Falk, Holly Horan, Elizabeth Miller and Kirsten Resnick

• Introductions:
  Wenda Trevathan (New Mexico State University)
• Chairs:
  Nicole L Falk (University of South Florida) and Courtney L Everson (Midwives College of Utah and Oregon State University)
• Roundtable Presenters:
  Melissa Cheyney (Oregon State University, Department of Anthropology), Courtney L Everson (Oregon State University), Nicole L Falk (University of South Florida), Holly Horan (Oregon State University), Elizabeth Miller (University of South Florida) and Kirsten Resnick (Boston University)

THE ZOONOTIC CONDITION, PART I: PATHOGENESES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE
Catherine E Bolten, Genese Marie Sodikoff and Alex M Nading

• Hominin Carnivory, Tapeworms, and Cooking: Zoonoses in the Paleoanthropocene
  Robert Scott (Rutgers University, New Brunswick)
• The Infectious Optimism of the Mining Giants: Biodiversity Offsets and Pathogenesis in Madagascar
  Genese Marie Sodikoff (Rutgers University, Newark)
• Emergent Disease in an Emergent Democracy: Livestock and Land Tenure in Laikipia, Kenya
  Rebecca D Hardin (University of Michigan)
• Co-Production of Chagas Disease in Panama
  Caitlin E Mertzlufft (University of Georgia)
• Food from the Forest, Food from the Farms: Ethnographic Explorations of the Zoonotic Disease Interface in Sierra Leone
  Catherine E Bolten (University of Notre Dame, Department of Anthropology)
• Discussant
  Alex M Nading (University of Edinburgh)

10:15-12:00
INSECTS AS FOOD: THE FAMILIAR, THE STRANGE, AND THE FUTURE
Julie Lesnik, Julie Lesnik, Margaret J Schoeninger and Darna L Dufour

• Food Choice in White-Faced Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus capucinus): Variability in Insect Use Across Age and Sex Classes
  Katherine C. MacKinnon (Saint Louis University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology)
• The Role of Insects in the Diet of East African Chimpanzees
  Robert C O’Malley (The George Washington University), Carson M Murray (The George Washington University) and Michael L Power (Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute)
• The Evolution of Insects As Food, from Hominids to the United Nations
  Julie Lesnik (Wayne State University) and R. Nathan Allen (Aspire Food Group)
• Chapulines in the Mexican Marketplaces: The Socio-Economics of Grasshoppers As Food and Fad
  Jeffrey H Cohen (The Ohio State University) and Nydia Delhi Mata Sánchez (Universidad Tecnológica de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca)
• Insects As an Alternative to What and for Whom? Ethical Considerations for the Insects-As-Food Movement
  Yuson Jung (Wayne State University, Detroit, MI)
• Discussant
  Margaret J Schoeninger (University of California, San Diego – Department of Anthropology)
• Discussant
  Darna L Dufour (University of Colorado Boulder)

1:45-3:30
STRESS AND HEALTH FROM GENES TO CULTURE: GENETIC, EPIGENETIC, DEVELOPMENTALAND BIOCULTURAL INTERACTIONS
William W Dressler, William W Dressler and Jason A DeCaro

• Doing Faith: Prosperity Theology and Health in a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church
  Henri J Dengah II (Utah State University)
• Introducing the “Index of Vulnerability”: Operationalizing Vulnerability and Predicting Health Outcomes in the Amazon
  Paula Skye Tallman (The Field Museum of Natural History, Integrated Research Center)
• Is Chronic Maternal Psychosocial Stress Linked to Neonate Outcomes in American Samoan Women? the Intergenerational Effects of Stress on Neonate Body Size
  Michaela E Howells (University of North Carolina Wilmington), Darna L Dufour (University of Colorado Boulder), Richard L Bender (University of Colorado Boulder), Margaret Sesepasara (Department of Health American Samoa) and Alex Lloyd (University of North Carolina Wilmington)
• Culture As a Mediator of Gene-Environment Interaction
  William W Dressler (University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology)
• Chronic Psychosocial Stress Among Forager-Farmers: Culturally Salient Status, Income and a Retrospective Measure of Cortisol
  Alan F Schultz (Baylor University – Department of Anthropology), Gideon Koren (The Hospital for Sick Children) and Stan Van Uum (University of Western Ontario)
• What Constitutes a ‘constitution?’ Biological Sensitivity, Canalization, and the Biocultural Substrates of Differential Resilience
  Jason A DeCaro (University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology)

IN SEARCH OF WOMEN IN THE PALEOLITHIC
Caroline VanSickle, Virginia Hutton Estabrook, Virginia Hutton Estabrook, Caroline VanSickle, Karen Rosenberg and Silvia Tomaskova

• Some Theoretical Musings on Finding Women in the Paleolithic:Why and Where?
  Margaret W Conkey (University of California, Berkeley)
• A Census of Women in the Paleolithic
  Melanie Lee Chang (Portland State University) and April Nowell (University of Victoria – Department of Anthropology)
• In Search of Mothers in the Paleolithic
  Caroline VanSickle (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Bioarchaeology of Gendered Labor in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic
  Virginia Hutton Estabrook (Armstrong State University)
• In Search of Men in the Paleolithic
  Kathleen Sterling (Binghamton University)
• Discussant
  Silvia Tomaskova (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
• Discussant
  Karen Rosenberg (University of Delaware)

4:00-5:45
UNFAMILIAR LANDSCAPES OF BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
(VOLUNTEERED PAPERS)

• Trekking Made Us Human II
  Carol Lauer (Rollins College)
• Human-Animal Relationships in a Zoo-Setting
  Janni Pedersen (Ashford University) and Kathryn Sorensen (Ashford University)
• Using Exploratory Factor Analysis to Aid Interpretation of Anthropometric Variables: A Reanalysis of Data from Cali, Colombia
  Richard L Bender (University of Colorado Boulder), Paul A Sandberg (University of Colorado Boulder) and Darna L Dufour (University of Colorado Boulder)
• Cultural “Beauty” As Evidence of Pain: Progression of a Healing Pseudo-Jones Fracture from a Heel Fall
  Serrin Brianne Boys (Florida Gulf Coast University) and Heather A Walsh-Haney (Florida Gulf Coast University)
• Changing Student Misconceptions about Evolution in Introductory Biological Anthropology Courses
  Susan L Johnston (West Chester University, Department of Anthropology & Sociology), Josh Auld (West Chester University, Department of Biology), Maureen Knabb (West Chester University, Department of Biology) and Loretta Rieser-Danner (West Chester University, Department of Psychology)
• Campfires, Television, and the Social Milieu: The Social Synergy of Fireside Relaxation
  April Boatwright (University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology), Melinda Carr (University of Alabama), Ashley Daugherty (University of Alabama) and Christopher D Lynn (University of Alabama)

7:45-9:00
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION (BAS) AWARDS CEREMONY AND DISTINGUISHED LECTURE
Rachel Caspari

Saturday, 11/21

8:00-9:45
STRANGE AND NEW NONHUMAN PRIMATE BEHAVIORS: IMPLICATIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN
Karen B Strier, Kerry McAuliffe Dore, Kerry McAuliffe Dore, Karen B Strier and Carolyn A Jost Robinson

• Primates of Least Concern: Ecological Flexibility, Phenotypic Plasticity, and Variability Selection
  Andrea R Eller (University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology), Stephen R Frost (University of Oregon), Frances White (University of Oregon) and Trudy R Turner (University of WI-Milwaukee)
• Rolling Stones Gather No Moss: Stone Handling Behavior in Macaques and the Value of Being Forever Young!
  Michael Alan Huffman (Kyoto University) and Charmalie AD Nahallage (University of Sri Jayawardenepura)
• Dietary Ethanol Ingestion By Free-Ranging Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi): An Evaluation of the ‘Drunken Monkey’ Hypothesis
  Victoria Weaver (California State University, Northridge – Department of Anthropology) and Christina J Campbell (California State University – Northridge)
• Vervet Monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) in New Geographic Areas: Preliminary Data from Florida, St. Maarten/St. Martin, and Tortola
  Deborah Williams (Florida Atlantic University) and Kerry McAuliffe Dore (Marist College)
• Strange Locomotion? When Rare Becomes Interesting in Primate Positional Behavior Studies
  Michelle Bezanson (Santa Clara University, Department of Anthropology)
• Arboreal Primates on the Ground: Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Human Evolution
  Karen B Strier (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Discussant
  Carolyn A Jost Robinson (University of North Carolina, Wilmington)

IDENTITY, BELONGING AND THE BIOPOLITICS OF DNA IN COLONIAL MODERNITY – PART I
Deborah A Bolnick, Rick Wayne Aldon Smith and Jonathan M Marks

• Imposing Colonial Modernity on the Past: Narratives of Identity and Race in Ancient DNA Research
  Deborah A Bolnick (University of Texas at Austin) and Jennifer Raff (University of Kansas)
• Can the Subaltern Genome Code? Examining Power and Participation in Postcolonial Genomics.
  Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University)
• In Cold Blood: Scientific Silence and the Constitution of an Indigenous Past
  Rick Wayne Aldon Smith (University of Texas at Austin) and Deborah A Bolnick (University of Texas at Austin)
• Selling Identity: The Commercialization of Genetic Ancestry Testing and Scientific Claims of Human Difference
  Sandra S Lee (Stanford University)
• Rehabilitating Genomics? Indigenous Governance of Genomic Research in Australia
  Emma E Kowal (Deakin University)
• Discussant
  Jonathan M Marks (University of North Carolina, Charlotte – Department of Anthropology)

10:15-12:00
IDENTITY, BELONGING AND THE BIOPOLITICS OF DNA IN COLONIAL MODERNITY – PART II
Rick Wayne Aldon Smith, Deborah A Bolnick and Dorothy Roberts

• An Empirical Examination of Race in the Life Sciences: 1950-2000
  Osagie K Obasogie (University of California, Hastings, College of Law)
• “No Harm Can Come from Knowledge”: Working with Communities to Build Living Memories
  Jada Benn Torres (University of Notre Dame)
• Missing Histories of Colonial and Diasporic Genetic Research
  Lauren Springs (University of Texas at Austin), Deborah A Bolnick (University of Texas at Austin) and James Garber (Texas State University)
• Faces: The Politics of Becoming Native American in the Genomic Age
  Jessica Kolopenuk (University of Victoria)
• Molecular Death and Redface Reincarnation: Indigenous Appropriations in the U.S.
  Kim TallBear (University of Texas, Austin)
• Discussant
  Dorothy Roberts (University of Pennsylvania Law School)

12:15-1:30
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION (BAS) STUDENT NETWORKING FORUM
Rachel Caspari

Sunday, 11/22

8:00-9:45
STRANGE BODIES, FAMILIAR DIVIDES: EMBODIMENTS OF OTHERNESS
Pamela K Stone, John J Crandall, Pamela K Stone and Alexis Boutin

• Foreign Laborers, Familiar Suffering: The Construction and Othering of Coolie Laborers in the 19th Century American West
  John J Crandall (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
• The Invisible and Vulnerable: Investigating Famine in Past Communities
  Kalyna Horocholyn (McMaster University) and Megan Brickley (McMaster University)
• The Dissected Dead: Social Marginalization, Anatomization, and the Disappeared in the Hamann-Todd Anatomical Collection
  Carlina de la Cova (University of South Carolina)
• Riding into Battle: Personhood and Otherness in Early Medieval “Warrior” Burials
  Lauren Hosek (Syracuse University) and Vanessa Reeves (Syracuse University)
• Anatomical Collections As the Bioanthropological Other: Some Considerations
  Rachel J Watkins (American University)
• Discussant
  Alexis Boutin (Sonoma State University)

10:00-11:45
STRANGE BODIES, FAMILIAR DIVIDES: EMBODIMENTS OF OTHERNESS, PART 2
John J Crandall, John J Crandall, Pamela K Stone and Molly Kathleen Zuckerman

• From Womb to Tomb? Narrating the Reproductive Female Body
  Pamela K Stone (HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE)
• ‘Til Poison Phosphorous Brought Them Death’: The Construction and Othering of Working Class Bodies in 19th Century England
  Rebecca Gowland (Durham University), Charlotte A. Roberts (Durham University), Tina Jakob (Durham University), Anwen Caffell (Durham University) and Kori Filipek-Ogden (Durham University)
• Crisis, Disruption, and Othering in the Indus Age of South Asia
  Gwen Robbins Schug (Appalachian State University)
• The Poetics of Processing: Deviant Performances and Memory Making in the Ancient Southwest
  Debra L Martin (UNLV) and Anna Osterholtz (University of Nevada)
• Corporeal Estrangement of Child Poorhouse “Inmates:” Embodiments of Institutionalization, Isolation, and Perceived Disability
  Jennifer Muller (Ithaca College)
• Specimen 2032: The Doings and Undoings of an Other Victim of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
  Alanna Warner (Syracuse University) and Shannon A Novak (Syracuse University)
• Discussant
  Molly Kathleen Zuckerman (Mississippi State University)

Awesome! And this list only includes those sessions officially sponsored by the BAS or Executive Committee sessions involving BAS membership. There is certainly much more of interest within the broader AAA program, including to those like me who are more biologically-oriented.