BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Date iCal//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.2//
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Toronto
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:20251102T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:20260308T020000
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
END:DAYLIGHT
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:calendar.2716.events_uoft_date.0@www.anthropology.utoronto.ca
CREATED:20260302T170823Z
DESCRIPTION:\nWhen and Where: \nFriday, March 20, 2026 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm
  \n AP246 Boardroom or online \n\nSpeakers \nAmanda Logan \n\nDescription:
  \nAbstract: In recent years, archaeologists have argued for the relevanc
 e of our disciplinary perspective for addressing modern day problems, ech
 oing applied archaeologists of a generation ago. In this talk, I explore 
 the potential and limits of ‘pastcasting’ – the idea that we can plan for 
 possible futures based on scenarios and paths taken (and not taken) in the
  past. To do so, I build off of my long-term research on food security in
  West Africa, which attests to the importance of indigenous African grain
 s for weathering severe, prolonged drought and speaks directly to recent 
 attempts to promote these grains as climate resilient alternatives to comm
 odity crops. At the same time, my work also complicates the notion that A
 frica’s ancient grains can solve future food security problems. I show how
  chronic hunger emerged as a structural problem in the last two centuries\
 , underscoring the importance of understanding historical and social conte
 xts in recent times. Building on this work, I explore how we can use past
 casting to grapple with the complexity of the past and present and our dis
 ciplinary silos. I illustrate how a direct historical approach that center
 s community engagement helps us avoid the pitfalls of our applied archaeol
 ogy ancestors. I argue that to create truly usable pasts, we must also do
  the critical bridging work between social, historical, and environmenta
 l archaeologies. Speaker Bio: Amanda Logan is Associate Professor of Anthr
 opology at Northwestern University, USA. She received her PhD from Univer
 sity of Michigan in 2012. Logan uses archaeobotanical data to address food
  security, gender, trade, and structural violence in West Africa over t
 he last millennium. Her current fieldwork projects are based in Nigeria an
 d southern Benin. She has published in Proceedings of the National Academy
  of Sciences, American Anthropologist, and Journal of Archaeological Met
 hod and Theory, among others. Her first book, The Scarcity Slot: Excavat
 ing Histories of Food Security in Ghana, was published by the University 
 of California Press in 2020 and won the First Book Award from the Associat
 ion for the Study of Food and Society. In 2022, she was named a Carnegie 
 Fellow to support a multi-sited archaeological exploration of food securit
 y across West Africa. Zoom Link:  https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/83450857706 
 \n\nCategories \n Colloquium Series \n\nAudiences \n Alumni and FriendsFac
 ultyGraduate StudentsStaffUndergraduate Students
DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260320T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260320T170000
LAST-MODIFIED:20260310T184236Z
SUMMARY:Colloquium Series - Pastcasting Food Futures through Archaeology: A
 n Example from West Africa
URL;TYPE=URI:https://www.anthropology.utoronto.ca/events/colloquium-series-
 pastcasting-food-futures-through-archaeology-example-west-africa
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR