Royal Anthropological Institute

The President of the RAI, Professor Roy Ellen FBA, delivered his Presidential Address on 9 April in Bristol, during the Annual Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists. Professor Ellen’s title was ‘Theories in anthropology and anthropological theories’. We are grateful to the ASA and the University of Bristol for hosting this event.

A fascinating Wellcome Medal Lecture was delivered on 8 December by Professor Luigi Capasso of Chieti University, Italy, on ‘The paleobiology of the victims of the volcanic eruption of Herculaneum’ on 25 August, 79 AD. The event was jointly organized by the RAI and the Wellcome Trust, which funds the biennial RAI Wellcome Medal award. The venue was the Wellcome Collection, London. We look for-ward to a new stage of close co-operation between the RAI and the Wellcome Trust in the field of medical anthropology. We are pleased to announce that the Leach-RAI Fellowship for 2008-09 has been awarded to Dr Jamie Cross. The Fellowship pro-gramme is currently hosted at the University of Maynooth, Republic of Ireland. A call for applications for the 2009-2010 Fellowship is published in this issue of AT.