These are questions that fascinate me greatly, particularly because of my own growing interest in zombies, but also because of my obsession with understanding language and discourse as behaviors and practices in societal context.

I'd like to invite you to join me and a panel of 6 others from the Greater Philadelphia area as we discuss these and other queries on humanity in an experimental, interdisciplinary public conversation on Thursday, April 28, 7:30pm at Swarthmore College.

How did this panel come together? Well, about a month ago, I had the tremendous fortune of meeting Classics specialist Jess Wright while visiting Princeton for a workshop. A mutual friend introduced us over mint tea, and the rest was history. Literally. We talked about how people conceptualized other humans in the past, and she began telling me about her research on medieval understandings of the brain. 

Jess described how her work connected to early Christian conceptions of deviance and the Other, and where in the brain and body 4th century Europeans assumed our capacities for love, thought, and evil were stored. These were like "medieval MRIs," she added.

By Jamie A. Thomas

"Why won't you let me finishing my painting? I'm satisfied with it. I'm proud of what I've done." ​Emily can't understand why her art teacher isn't enthused. Her voice wavering, Dina implores her student to push her  creation by seeking a transcendent level of evocativeness and emotion. She must go beyond the real. "Your work is good," Dina tells Emily. "But it's about getting the work right, it's about the work!" I paraphrase here, but it was in these tense moments between art teacher and student that I began to personally connect with the on-screen story of Words and Pictures (2014). 

Yes, it's loosely a romantic story between an artist and a poet. Yes, I had been shamelessly looking on Prime for a new romcom earlier this afternoon. But no, this movie is not a romcom. It has a brilliant screenplay by Gerald DiPego, and a wonderful, poignant message on the importance of creativity, passion, and teaching.

In the movie, painter Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) develops a friendly rivalry with poet Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) who also teaches at the high school. He finds himself "teaching in the era of the undead," where high school students seem devoid of passion and intuition. Searching for a way to motivate his students, Jack asks them to question: "Are words more powerful than pictures?"

One such word at the center of Jack and Dina's friendly feud is hyperemotionality. As the storyline advanced, I took this word to relate to the exceptional emotional response inspired by evocative artwork, prose, and poetry. While watching the movie, I had to press pause so I could reflect. Already, my mind was recalling the wonder, surprise, laughter, and gloom I've experienced in reading ethnographic encounters. 

From Geertz' thick description of the Balinese cock fight, to Ochs and Schieffelin's account of communication among mothers and their children in Samoa. In ethnography, there's not so much a rivalry between words and pictures, as a combining of these into imagery that recreates lived experience for those of us who were never there. Just like the painted canvas or stanza are crafted to draw audiences into the artist's own worldview.

These days, I'm more and more fascinated by ethnographic writing and creation, because I'm pulling together my very own first book, Zombies Speak Swahili. So now I want to share developing reflections on experimental ethnography as an artistic and cinematic exploration in creation. 

By Jamie A. Thomas

Where do you go when you want to explore at your own pace? When you want to learn with visual interest and engaged focus? You might end up at a museum. A place where objects, stories, and experiences are narrated through artful display and carefully crafted prose.

In Swahili, the word for museum is makumbusho, meaning a physical place of memories, related to kumbuka (remember) and kumbukumbu (memories). I like these Swahili terms because they capture the role of museums in archiving public discourse and stimulating our cultural understanding of our relationship to human events, created things, and natural phenomena. The Guardian recently had a wonderful piece on how a temporary outdoor art museum in a marginalized Mumbai community is challenging mainstream ideas of what counts as art. The Mumbai museum features the avant-garde pottery and intricate tools of local craftspeople, many of whom have never set foot in a museum space. The key revelation? "When you have a museum, you count."

Particularly because I'm chasing my own growing interest in museums, I recently set out to explore a bit of Old Sacramento on a visit with family. What I discovered enchanted me further with museum exhibits as forms of public discourse, and has me thinking about ways more of us can enjoy these spaces. And even though the power went out in one museum, this didn't spell the end of my memorable encounter.

As digital spaces become more ubiquitous, I'm finding it increasingly important to temporarily unplug and make time for physical visits to material collections. So now, I want to share with you some of the insights I gathered on visits to a variety of public history and art museums across Sacramento and Los Angeles. During my spring break from teaching, I experienced firsthand how tactile engagement, play, and ambient inspiration amplified my intercultural learning. Essentially, I found myself noticing and discovering new information during moments of wonder [and wander ] with museum collections. These are curative and educational approaches I now aim to incorporate into my own practice...