Abou Farman | The New School University (original) (raw)

I am an anthropologist, writer and artist currently teaching at the New School for Social Research. My interests are the anthropology of religion and secularism; science, technology and culture; anthropology of death; and more recently a particular slant on the anthropology of art. My in-depth fieldwork has been on Immortalism, the rise of a movement, mainly in the U.S., committed to transcending through technology the limitations that bring about the biological end of a person. It includes strategies like cryonics, biogerontology and mind-uploading.

Here is a more expansive bio of sorts:

A writer, anthroplogist, and artist, Abou Farman teaches in the Anthropology Department at Princeton University. He has previously taught at Bard College, SUNY Purchase and Hunter College. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, a Banff Centre literary journalism residency, two Critic’s Desk Awards from Arc Poetry, Canada’s national poetry magazine and honorary mentions for the Canadian National Magazine Awards. As part of the artist duo caraballo-farman, he has received a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, and residencies at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, LMCC and Art Omi.

He is the author of the recent book, Clerks of the Passage, a literary essay on movement and migration.

His written work has appeared in a variety of academic and other publications, including Anthropological Quarterly, Anthropology Now, Utne Reader, and Best Canadian Essays 2010.

He is producer on Amir Naderi’s Vegas: Based on a True Story, which was in competition at the Venice and Tribeca Film Festivals, and is co-writer of Naderi’s CUT!, (Venice, Toronto, and Tribeca Film Festivals); other features and short films that he wrote, directed, or produced have been shown at festivals in Paris, Hamburg, Berlin, and Montreal.

And his work as part of the art duo caraballo-farman has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada. He previously taught at SUNY Purchase and Hunter College. He also worked for the United Nations, where he created an award-winning online education program.

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