con­nec­ted to Lo­renz Löff­ler. Ap­proa­ches to the work of the Zu­rich eth­no­lo­gist

"They excused the fact that I was able to write and take notes all the time because of my inability to retain something in my memory." (Lorenz Löffler, 1986)To mark the 50th anniversary of the Ethnological Seminar at the University of Zurich, we are dedicating an exhibition to the first chair, Lorenz Löffler. Many of his former students and employees are still connected to the dedicated professor today. But how should he be remembered as an ethnologist? We think: above all through his research at the Schwendbau companies of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the extreme east of Bangladesh. He remained deeply connected to these peasant societies throughout his life. Under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, we shared Lorenz Löffler’s tape recordings with representatives of ethnic groups in Bangladesh. In Zoom conversations, we began to work through these unique documents together.