Open Access
The Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) is the annual gathering of scholars working in and around the field of Generative Anthropology. It brings together researchers from literary studies, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and related disciplines who share an interest in the originary hypothesis and its applications to culture, language, and the human sciences.
For the official GASC website, including membership, conference registration, and archives, visit gascwebsite.wordpress.com.
Next Conference
GASC 2026 — Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
June 22–24, 2026
Scenic Thinking and Group Behavior: Agency, Identity, Intelligence
The 19th Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference is hosted at Stockholm University — the city that welcomed GASC in 2017 as well. Full information on registration, accommodations, and the call for papers is available at the GASC conference website.
Conference attendance is open to all interested scholars. Participants may attend in person or online via Zoom. Fees are charged in Canadian dollars; PayPal will convert at the current rate.
Registration
| Member | Non-Member | |
|---|---|---|
| In-person | $CDN 100 | $CDN 110 |
| Online | $CDN 70 | $CDN 80 |
Annual GASC membership dues are separate from the conference fee: $CDN 60 (regular) or $CDN 40 (student, retired, or under-employed). Payment is made through the GASC payments page via PayPal, or in cash at the conference.
For registration and membership inquiries, contact: idennis@uottawa.ca
About GASC
The first Generative Anthropology conference was held at UCLA in 1990, organized around the emerging framework that Eric Gans had been developing since the publication of The Origin of Language in 1981. A sustained annual conference sequence began in 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Generative Anthropology Society was formally constituted in 2010, at the conference co-sponsored by Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. The conference has continued without interruption since — with the sole exception of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a suspension.
GASC has met on three continents. Past conferences have been held in the United States, Canada, Japan (three times), Poland (twice), Sweden (twice), and Israel, among other locations. The conference has no permanent institutional home; it moves each year, hosted by scholars and institutions sympathetic to the work of Generative Anthropology.
The Society maintains a modest membership structure, with annual dues that support the continuity of the organization and help subsidize conference participation. Membership is open to any scholar with an interest in Generative Anthropology.
The Talking Stick
At the inaugural GASC in Vancouver in 2007, Kwantlen University College — one of the conference’s host institutions — presented GASC with a talking stick, hand carved from yellow cedar by Joe Becker, a Musqueam artist. The stick has traveled with GASC to every conference since, carried from city to city and continent to continent as a symbol of the community’s continuity and shared purpose.
The cedar box in which it is housed bears the following inscription:
Talking Stick
For thousands of years West Coast Natives used Talking Sticks during Potlatches and other ceremonial occasions as a symbol of speaking authority and respect for communication by Chiefs, Elders and all other witnesses.
These sticks were carved from yellow cedar with various animal and mystical family crests signifying human attributes.
The Talking Stick affords the holder the honour and responsibility to speak uninterrupted. It also serves as a reminder to the witnesses of their vital role of listening thoughtfully. Once the stick has been passed, the honour of speech has been transferred.
Hand Carved by: Joe Becker, Musqueam Artist
At GASC, the talking stick passes from presenter to presenter during discussion. Whoever holds it has the floor; everyone else has the responsibility to listen. It is a fitting emblem for a conference dedicated to thinking carefully about the origin of language, representation, and the human capacity for symbolic communication.
Proceedings
A version of the conference proceedings appears annually in Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology. Each year, one issue of the journal is substantially drawn from presentations given at that year’s GASC, giving the work of the conference a permanent, citable, open-access home.
Presentations Archive
Video recordings of selected GASC presentations are being prepared for the archive. [This section will be expanded as recordings are processed and published.]
Previous Conferences
| Year | Location | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Warsaw, Poland | “Generative Anthropology, the Originary Scene, and the Wellspring of Human Science” |
| 2024 | Tokyo, Japan | “Rapprochements East & West: Culture, Philosophy, Religion” |
| 2023 | Palo Alto, California, USA | “Improbable Futures of the Sacred” |
| 2022 | Ottawa, Canada | “Victimhood, Desire, Polarization” |
| 2021 | Online — Bar-Ilan University, Israel | “Generative Anthropology, Religions, and Sciences” |
| 2020 | (not held — COVID-19) | |
| 2019 | New York City, USA | “Returning to the Linguistic Turn” |
| 2018 | Warsaw, Poland | “Generative Anthropology and Transdisciplinary Inquiry: Religion, Science, Language, Culture” |
| 2017 | Stockholm, Sweden | “Pre-Human, Human, Post-Human: GA and Mimetic Theory in Conversation with Cognitive Studies” |
| 2016 | Nagoya, Japan | “Cultural Universals, Cultural Specifics and Globalization: On the Applicability of Generative Anthropology” |
| 2015 | High Point, North Carolina, USA | “Models and the Human, Analog and Digital” |
| 2014 | Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | “Deferral, Discipline, Knowledge” |
| 2013 | Los Angeles, California, USA | “Putting the Human Back into the Humanities” |
| 2012 | Tokyo, Japan | “Apocalypse, Utopia and Cultural Change” |
| 2011 | High Point, North Carolina, USA | “An Anthropology of Exchange: The Market Model of Human Society” |
| 2010 | Salt Lake City / Provo, Utah, USA (Society founded) | “The Anthropology of Modernity: The Sacred, Science and Aesthetics” |
| 2009 | Ottawa, Canada | “The Question of Transcendence: The Sacred, the Human and Modern Culture” |
| 2008 | Orange, California, USA | “Esthetic History and Knowledge of the Human” |
| 2007 | Vancouver, BC, Canada (modern sequence begins) | “Generative Anthropology Thinking Event” |
| 1990 | UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (inaugural GA conference) | “Generative Anthropology: Origin and Representation” |
Join GASC
Annual Society membership is open to all scholars interested in Generative Anthropology. Members receive notice of the annual conference, access to GASC communications, and the satisfaction of supporting an independent scholarly community now in its fourth decade.
To become a member or for more information, contact: editors@anthropoetics.org
Anthropoetics is the journal of the Generative Anthropology Society & Conference. About the journal →