Thursday 15 October, 2026
6:00pm BST - 7:00pm BST
Online lecture via Zoom.
50 min lecture followed by Q&A.
Free and open to all, booking essential.
To check your time zone conversion if you are joining from outside the UK, click here.
If you have limited access to the internet but would still like to view the lecture, please email sisjac@sainsbury-institute.org or call us on +44 (0) 1603 597507 to book to attend our livestream from 64 The Close.
Speaker
Marion Di Santi (Sorbonne Université / Centre André Chastel)
About the Talk
André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986) was a prominent figure in 20th-century French humanities. He is best remembered for his pioneering contribution to the field of “technology” in the context of anthropological studies of techniques, as well as for his pivotal role in transforming prehistoric archaeology and cave art research in the aftermath of World War II. He has influenced several generations of researchers, who recognise him as one of the leading thinkers on the relationships between humans, technology, and the environment.
A significant yet often disregarded period in his career is his two-year stay in Japan, between April 1937 and March 1939. As a scholarship student sponsored by the Japanese government, he was also commissioned by the Musée de l’Homme to assemble a collection of ethnographic materials. This mission to Japan constituted a pivotal moment in the trajectory of his academic career. Aged just twenty-five, this was Leroi-Gourhan’s inaugural foray into fieldwork. Through meticulous field observations, systematic artefact collection, photographic surveys and a deliberate process of acculturation, Leroi-Gourhan constructed and refined his understanding of the relationship between culture and environment. Almost none of his work on Japan was ever published, but the collection of ethnographic materials remains. The objective of this presentation is twofold: firstly, to showcase the collections of Japanese materials assembled by Leroi-Gourhan; and secondly, to highlight the more theoretical contributions that this trip to Japan made to his research, particularly in the field of the study of techniques.
About the Speaker
Marion Di Santi is a Doctor in Art History and Archaeology. Initially a specialist in Japanese prints – a subject she taught at the Sorbonne while pursuing her Ph.D. – she subsequently turned her attention to the history of Japanese collections in France (19th–20th centuries), with a particular focus on ethnographic collections. The subject of her doctoral dissertation was the materials assembled by André Leroi-Gourhan for the Musée de l’Homme during his mission in the Japanese Archipelago (1937-1939).
Image: André Leroi-Gourhan visiting the Kamikaizuka shell midden alongside archaeologists from the Imperial University in June 1937. Kyoto University Museum, Kyoto
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The Third Thursday Lecture series is funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Yakult UK.