Our annual Robert Layton Lecture celebrates what anthropology can bring to understanding human life past, present and future by integrating or juxtaposing methods, questions and areas of enquiry across its sub-fields.
Named in honour of Prof. Robert Layton FBA, Prof Layton has exemplified the integration of multiple anthropological perspectives in his wide-ranging research interests. He has played a vital role in shaping the Department to reflect that interdisciplinary ethos.
Upcoming event
2026: 'Beyond Words'Wednesday 9 December, 3pm Lecture Room D110, Ground Floor, Dawson Building
Joshua Reno (Binghamton, Social Anth) & Cat Hobaiter (St Andrews, Primatology/Psychology)
Abstract: Despite moves across the humanities, social, and natural sciences to decentre the human, certain reductive understandings of what it means to be human persist alongside the idea that non-humans, whether fellow primates or material objects, lack the human qualities we value most. Linguistic ideologies, if not language itself, are one of the key culprits of this deficit model: the idea that speech is the gift possessed by humans, all humans, and only humans and which grants them reason, morality, self-awareness, and culture. This idea of humanity as the species defined by unique access to a symbolic world has had profoundly pernicious consequences. For centuries the human sciences, including linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, political science, and certain political discourses, have routinely compared or directly equated disabled people and non-human animals.1 The elevation of a certain view of language to supreme importance in the measure of humans and animals alike is arguably key to the acute problem of animalising people and humanising animals.
This dialogue aims to counter such logics by exploring how they work through interlinked speciesism/ableism to harm both people and animals – and the rich communicative possibilities of gesture, signs and non-linguistic vocalisations used by humans and non-humans alike. The implications of emphasising alternative, creative ways of communicating are immense, not only foregrounding capacity rather than dis/ability or lack, but also addressing anthropocentric biases in the study of our fellow animals, and questioning how we learn and teach, how we understand political agency (qua speaking for oneself), how we compare, and finally, how we recognise who we are and relate to one another as social beings.
Previous Robert H. Layton Lectures:
Prof Beth Rose Middleton Manning (University of California Davis) and Prof Jay Mistry (Royal Holloway) with Dr Penelope Anthias (Geography, Durham) and Dr Andrew Clelland (Imperial College London).
Professor Marianne Lien (University of Oslo) & Dr Kerry Dore (Millbrook School, New York) with Dr Simona Capisani (Department of Philosophy, Durham)
The video recording of the 2024 Layton Dialogue can be found here.
Professor Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford University) & Professor Daniel Nettle (Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris) with Dr Anna Stenning (Department of Education, Durham) and Professor Rob Barton (Department of Anthropology, Durham)
Professor Louise Barrett (University of Lethbridge, Canada) & Professor Joao Pina Cabral (University of Lisbon, Portugal) with Professor Michael Carrithers (Department of Anthropology, Durham) and Dr Sally Street (Department of Anthropology, Durham)
Professor Clarence C. Gravlee (University of Florida)
Dr Juno Salazar Parrenas (Ohio State University) & Professor Catherine Hill (Oxford Brookes University) with Dr Ben Campbell (Department of Anthropology, Durham)
Dr John Bunce (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) & Dr Matei Candea (Cambridge University) with Professor Catherine Alexander, Professor Helen Ball and Professor Rob Barton (Durham University)
Dr Dan Sperber (CEU, Budapest)
Professor Rita Astuti (London School of Economics)
Professor Howard Morphy and Dr Frances Morphy (Australian National University, and Fellows of the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University)
Professor Roy Ellen (University of Kent)
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