Kanzi, user of language and maker of stone tools and perhaps the most famous bonobo in the world, died at age 44 in March. A Humanities Lab Workshop devoted to Kanzi and the relation between great apes and language will be held on April 19, from 1-6 pm in Rm. 142, Goldwin Smith Hall. The event is free and the public is welcome. A livestream will also be available via Zoom; registration is required.
“Kanzi’s fame mainly derived from the outstanding symbolic and linguistic abilities he first developed in the experiment Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh led,” said event organizer Laurent Dubreuil, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences (A&S). “His life, the research he facilitated, and the remaining members of his family still have a lot to contribute to future scholarship intersecting the sciences, the arts, the humanities, and the social sciences.”
During the workshop, a dozen researchers from around the world will meet at Cornell and online to remember Kanzi and to discuss the relation between apes and language, past and future.
Panel participants include Savage-Rumbaugh, founder of Bonobo Hope; Cathy Caruth, Class of 1916 Professor of English and professor of comparative literature (A&S); Itai Roffman, Yezreel Valley College, Israel; Tristan Garcia, Beaux-Arts, Paris; Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto University, Japan; and Paul Thibault, University of Agder, Norway. Dubreuil will give the opening talk on Kanzi’s legacy.
The event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Psychology and Comparative Literature, the Cognitive Science Program, and the French Studies Program, all in the College of Arts and Sciences.
