Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Current Events’ Category

Jan 18

1 Comment

The American Folklore Society Expresses Support for Public Access to Federally Funded Peer-Reviewed Research #RWA @whitehouseostp

Bad news abounds, but from the good news file comes today’s release of a letter sent by the President of the American Folklore Society, Diane Goldstein, on behalf of the society. (Diane is also my colleague here at Indiana University). The letter was a response to the recent Request for Information issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (part of the executive branch of the U.S. government charged with advising the president). The RFI focused on “Public Access to Peer-­Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting From Federally Funded Research.”

In the American Folklore Society’s response to the RFI, the society did two things of note. The AFS pointed to, and endorsed the careful and valuable submission that had already been made by the Association for Computers and the Humanities. In addition to supporting public access policies, the ACH statement (and by extension the AFS view) stresses the need for research policy makers working on this (and neighboring issues) to keep humanities research in mind as part of the larger (and relevant) research landscape.

The other theme brought out in the AFS statement is that the society has committed itself to sustainably pursuing public access goals as exemplified by its adoption of an author agreement for the Journal of American Folklore that is consistent with green open access practices (including repository deposit of the publisher’s final version) as well as its work (with the IU Libraries) on the Open Folklore project.

On a day in which SOPA and PIPA were prominent points of discussion, in a moment in which there are powerful interests also pushing the terrible Research Works Act, and on the day that the Supreme Court handed down a decision that signs off on a law that allows works to be taken out of the public domain and moved back into copyrighted status, I am proud to be a member of the AFS Executive Board working with colleagues who share a commitment finding pathways forward toward the full realization of open access scholarly communication in the public interest. Thank you to the Association for Computers and the Humanities for its leadership and for drafting an excellent position statement. Thank you to the White House for soliciting input on this vital public issue.

When the Association for Computers and the Humanities website comes out from under today’s SOPA blackout status, readers should be able to consult the ACH response to the RFI there. If you are in a hurry, the AFS website presents it alongside the AFS letter as a downloadable PDF.  See here: http://www.afsnet.org/news/81409/AFS-Advocates-for-the-Humanities-in-Federal-Research-Policy.htm

Jan 17

Joining the SOPA Blackout

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA H.R. 3261), the Protect IP Act (PIPA S. 968) and the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) are terrible proposed laws that, if enacted, will greatly harm the public interest. If I can make things work, Shreds and Patches will be offline tomorrow (1/18) as part of the wider SOPA Blackout. Get online and learn more about these proposals and their likely impacts. Here is a video to get started with.

Jan 4

1 Comment

Association of American Publishers Issues Horrible New Press Release in Support of a Horrible Bill: Where Do You Stand?

The Association of American Publishers has issued a awful new press release expressing enthusiasm for the Research Works Act, H.R. 3699 describing it as “significant legislation that will help reinforce America’s leadership in scholarly and scientific publishing in the public interest and in the critical peer-review system that safeguards the quality of such research.”

This is just the latest in an endless, dispiriting series of commercial publisher FUD campaigns and efforts at the further corporate enclosure of public resources. Advocates for the public interest in scholarship will resist H.R. 3699 and those with vested profits in the terrible status quo will support it. As with FRPAA, as always, a key question is where will the scholarly societies stand? Another is whether any more academic authors and editors will wake up and consider their role in the perpetuation of a system that is not only dysfunctional but also increasingly corrupt and immoral.

Money in politics? Corporate personhood? Policies that harm the poorest and help the most affluent? Academic authors–many of you are not connecting the dots that lead to your own practices.

Another question is where do those AAP members that are not-for-profit university presses (Chicago, California, Hawaii, North Carolina, Illinois (sigh), Texas, Tennessee) stand? Is the AAP speaking for you on this one? Don’t forget PRISM, y’all.

Oct 26

2 Comments

Scholarly Communication and the Occupation of Everything

In the current context of global protest, economic failure and political transformation, anthropologists of many backgrounds are finding their voice and addressing the critical issues of the moment. For those with jobs that are being given the speedup treatment, it is hard to keep up with all of the thoughtful and provocative work being created and shared (especially online) right now. The evocative opening line of Jason Antrosio’s recent essay “Anthropology, Moral Optimism, and Capitalism: A Four-Field Manifesto” hints as the gestalt.

A spectre is stalking Capitalism–the spectre of Anthropology. All the Powers of Capitalism have bound themselves in a crusade against this spectre: the Florida Governor and the U.S. President, Dominique-Strauss Kahn and the IMF, Wall Street and Congress.

My thanks go to everyone who is tracking, discussing, fostering, and hosting these discussions. I hope other key nodes in the conversation will forgive me if I single out the Neuroanthropology bloggers Daniel Lende and Greg Downey for their vital work.

Open Access Week and Occupy Everything both continue and I still cannot muster time to read or say much. Rex Golub at Savage Minds is right when he observes that I always bury my lead. He might also note that I say everything too obliquely. So, for tonight, here is a restatement of my previous post in less opaque language.

Going forward from here, if your anthropological research tells you that large corporations are part of the problem, then please do not publish your discoveries or your proposals on this point in books and journals published by large corporations.

 

Oct 10

#OccupyWallStreet Discussion at the American Folklore Society Meetings (#AFS11)

#OccupyWallStreet Discussion at the American Folklore Society Meetings (#AFS11)

Saturday, October 15
12:30-1:15 p.m.
Alumni Hall
Indiana Memorial Union

Want to process the current moment of social protest and global revolution? Want to discuss the prospects for a human economy? Have stories, questions, fears or hopes to share? Does this moment speak to the concerns of our field? Does our field have something distinctive to offer those seeking social and economic change?

Interested folklorists are invited to gather for a lunchtime discussion of such themes. In the spirit of the current protests, we’ll find our path to open-ended conversation in an informal way. Think of it as a potluck, but for ideas, comments, and questions. Everyone is welcome, even those who just want to listen. Bring a box lunch if you want more than food for thought.

This gathering has been organized quickly, informally, and unofficially, but has been put together in consultation with leaders of the AFS and in collaboration with its Politics, Folklore, and Social Justice Section.

Questions:

Jason Jackson: jasonbairdjackson@gmail.com or @jasonjackson2
Christina Barr barrchristina@gmail.com or @barrchristina

Aug 25

2 Comments

On “Options Dim for Museum of Folk Art”

The New York Times is reporting that the American Folk Art Museum in NYC will probably go under. This is mainly about financial issues, both the larger economy and mismanagement, but there is also an intertwined intellectual one and this can be seen clearly in the NYT story.

Billie Tsien, an architect who designed the new building, said the museum’s capacity to raise money was in part limited by its subject matter; New York’s movers and shakers do not tend to collect quilts and weathervanes.

The American Folk Art Museum has been pretty consistently hostile to the field of folklore studies–those scholars who actually study the vernacular arts of the United States, the Americas, and the world in context. On intellectual grounds, this day could have been foreseen long ago. That the architect who designed their (former) brand new building understands the museum so narrowly to be a thing of quilts and weathervanes speaks to how out of sync with contemporary folk art scholarship the museum was. There are no shortage of potential donors interested in folk art in New York City, its just that their folk arts of interests were not central to the agenda of the museum.

On more than one occasion, American Folk Art Museum staff told graduate students with whom I work that if they wanted a real museum job working with folk art they needed to get degrees in art history, not folklore studies. Well, those students are doing just fine and are studying and working with folk arts and artists everyday while the American Folk Art Museum is going under. Financial foundations are important, but so are intellectual ones. An elitist art history was not the best platform upon which to erect a museum nominally dedicated to the arts of diverse peoples and communities. I am not against art history, but I am against an art history that is opposed to folklore studies without even knowing what the field is about.

Aug 3

An Ethnographer Among the Protesters (in Tel Aviv)

A wonderful, talented doctoral researcher in my circle has been in Tel Aviv over the past year pursuing dissertation research and also blogging beautifully about life in her chosen corner of the city at White City Streets. It has been an eventful year for the city, for Israel, and for the region. Her most recent posts focus on the large-scale protests in Israel, developments that have been getting no attention in the U.S. as we have been held captive–distracted and immobilized–by the House of (not) Representatives. If you would like an ethnographic glimpse of what is happening on the streets and in the parks there now, check out the recent narratives, photos, and video posted by “folklorist” on White City Streets.

Jan 15

Amy Jackson On Sarah Palin’s Blood Libel Remark

My wife Amy was so frustrated when she heard Sarah Palin’s now widely discussed blood libel remark that she immediately felt compelled to capture her feelings in written words. She authored this piece and circulated it to family and friends before reading the flood of other commentaries that have since appeared. I feel that it is a unique reaction that deserves to be more widely read and I share it here with her permission.

I just read something this morning, which has impacted me to the core.  It is a quote from Sarah Palin, which carries with it so much intense power (at least for me).  Here is a link to her quote:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/sarah-palin-accuses-journalists-of-blood-libel-calls-loughner-apolitical-video.php?ref=fpa

Palin has chosen to use the expression “blood libel” to refer to journalists who would draw a line between incendiary political speech and action (namely hers) and what has happened in Arizona to Rep. Giffords and to the others who so tragically lost their lives or were wounded by the shooter.  Here is a link to some basic information on this term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel

Her use of this term is either demonstration of extreme ignorance (ignorance of the dangerous kind) or monumental manipulation – or both.  That she would use this expression specifically in the case of a  targeted shooting of Representative Giffords – WHO IS JEWISH – makes it ironic and painful.  But what is most painful to me is the misappropriation of this expression (knowingly or unknowingly).  The blood libel was a heinous false accusation that was (and in some cases is still) foundational thought in the violent persecution of Jews for centuries. To misappropriate this term and remove it from its historical context is to weaken or destroy its meaning.

I truly believe that there are words and symbols that hold so much historical power that it is egregious to use them in other contexts.  To use them in such a way makes them de-legitimate, and weakens or denies the cultural and historical memory of those who have been so wounded by them.  I believe that it is only by continuing to connect these types of words and symbols to their history that we have any hope of learning from the past and educating future generations about what is good, and right and just in the world.

It is true that some words and symbols have been hijacked by history – the swastika is the example that most quickly comes to mind.  Although a symbol of beauty and strength found in ancient and some modern cultures around the world, I believe that the Nazi use has made it irrevocably connected to genocide, at least within a Western context.  I am saddened that the symbol, which had such beautiful connotation in non Western cultures, has become taboo in much of the world.  But I believe that it is right that this symbol no longer be used in a Western context except in reference to the atrocities of WWII.  It has become a mark of hatred and evil – which must be remembered as such.  When the symbol no longer causes a pained emotional and physical response in people (again, in a Western context), it will sadly signify that the history of the Holocaust is no longer relevant.

My heart breaks for what has happened in Arizona; and it aches that in the aftermath of this tragedy a term with such horrific and history-specific meaning would be tossed around with such disregard.  Sarah Palin has now single-handedly introduced this term to millions of people who will never before have heard of it.  The majority of these people will infer a general (and incorrect) meaning, and will not bother with investigatory research.  It will simply become an expression that enters public consciousness and gets mindlessly regurgitated by the masses.  And as such, it will begin to lose the very power needed to keep alive the memory of centuries of religious persecution.  She has violated the humanity of us all.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 379 other followers