Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Good News’ Category

Aug 5

AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus Now Part of @openfolklore

An exciting development in the Open Folklore project is the inclusion of the AFS Ethnographic Thesaurus within the Open Folklore portal. This great advance was announced on the AFS website and at the Open Folklore portal. The ET is a valuable resource for folklore studies, ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, and other ethnographic disciplines. Thanks to everyone at AFS, LoC, and IU who worked to make this next phase of both projects possible.

May 10

(Double) Ph.D. Success: Kimberly Marshall Edition

Congratulations to Kimberly Marshall on the successful defense of her Ph.D. dissertation today. Up until today, Dr. Marshall was a doctoral student in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and the Department of Anthropology, both at IU. Her doctoral fields are ethnomusicology and cultural anthropology (she has a folklore M.A. already!)  and her research is focused on the expressive and religious lives of Navajo Christians. As noted previously, Kim will soon begin work as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Congratulations Kim!

May 10

M.A. Success: Rachel Biars Edition

Congratulations to Rachel Biars on the very successful completion of her M.A. degree in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Rachel has also completed her concurrent work on her M.L.S. degree in the IU School of Library and Information Science. Rachel did a fine job in her folklore M.A. exam a week ago last Friday. Her M.A. project was a public folklore/exhibition project pursued collaboratively with artisans of the Miami Tribe of Indiana. Well done Rachel!

May 6

Ruth Finnegan’s New Book on Quotations Available in Gratis OA Form

Ruth Finnegan’s book Why Do We Quote? The Culture and History of Quotation has just been published by Open Book Publishers, a not-for-profit, academic run publisher that combines no-cost online access to published works with the sale at modest cost paper and PDF versions. The no-cost online version is (interestingly) accessible via the Google Books platform. I highlight this book both because it is a contribution to the fields in which I work by a very senior and well respected scholar and because it is the first instance of an Open Book Publishers title that I have learned about and have had an chance to study. The business model, goals, and production framework of the publisher are all noteworthy and worth further study. It is important to note that the World Oral Literature Project, a “Friend of Open Folklore” organization is announced as a partner on the Open Book Publishers website where a new Oral Literature Series is announced.  These are major developments for the Open Folklore and open anthropology communities. Congratulations to everyone involved in these efforts.

(Thanks to D.N. for the tip.)

Apr 27

New Jobs: Carrie Hertz Edition

I am thrilled to have more happy job news to report. Carrie Hertz has just been appointed to the post of Curator of Folk Arts at the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University. This is a great curatorial position for a great museums and material culture scholar in folklore studies and anthropology. Carrie is also a doctoral candidate in folklore studies (major field) and anthropology (minor field) at Indiana University.  In her research, her special emphasis is on dress and adornment in the United States.  For her dissertation, she is completing conducting an ethnographic study of wedding dresses in the Midwest. She has held a range of museum posts previously and also served with me as editorial assistant for Museum Anthropology and Museum Anthropology Review. The Castellani Art Museum has excellent collections and a remarkable track record of research and exhibition work on folk and vernacular arts. Congratulations to both Carrie and the museum!

Apr 23

New Jobs: Michael Jordan Edition

In still more great job news, friend and collaborator Michael Jordan (a Ph.D. student in anthropology at University Oklahoma) has just accepted a tenure track job in anthropology at Texas Tech University.  Mike is a native Texan and he collaborates in his research with the Kiowa people. The Kiowa live today in not-too-distant Southwestern Oklahoma and Texas Tech is in their ancestral homeland, thus from the point of view of family life, research work and easy and sensible travel/geography, this is a perfect fit.  It looks like an ideal job in many other ways.  Mike is a hardworking scholar and I am so happy for him and his family. Congratulations to Mike and to all of this season’s other job getters and job changers.

Mar 16

Share Anthropology!

Share Anthropology is the brand new place to go when you want to share anthropology. The site is for “sharing and disseminating open access anthropology.” What does that mean?

The simple site has a “submit” button at the upper right. If you click it you can get some clear and helpful guidance.

Please help share and disseminate open access anthropology articles, books and dissertations by linking to blog posts, reviews, and discussions about that work. DO add a short “description.” DON”T link to the primary Open Access works themselves. Rather, link to blog posts, reviews, and discussions of that work. (Linked discussion should contain at least one link to an Open Access anthropology article, book, or dissertation.)

So, what this new tool is built to do is to aggregate and circulate open access discussions of scholarly works in anthropology that are themselves made available in open access form. It is not an aggregator of the scholarship itself (as the Open Folklore search tool is in the neighboring field of folklore studies) but is instead an aggregtor of value-added discussions of that underlying open access scholarship. Thus is it a place to discover, but also to call attention to, articles, blog posts, etc. that build on or comment upon open access works. (As open access scholarship continues to expand, this distinction might break down, but for Share Anthropology’s startup phase, it seems clear.)

The other main part of the site is an RSS feed so that you can learn about what others are sharing via a feed reader.

Congratulations to Kerim Friedman for getting this going! Kerim has introduced the project in a Savage Minds post. Check it out and check out Share Anthropology.

Very promising!

Mar 15

4 Comments

Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool + Ethnobiology Letters

Two things that I am happy and excited to learn about are:

The Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool being held this summer at Michigan State University.

Ethnobiology Letters, a gold open access publication of the Society for Ethnobiology.

Feb 18

New Jobs: Terri Jordan Edition

In more great job news from Oklahoma, Terri Jordan, an MA graduate of the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology who has been working as collections manager in the Native American Languages Division of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (at the University of Oklahoma), has just taken a new job as Curator of the Julian P. Kanter Political Commercial Archive, also at the University of Oklahoma.  During her time at IU, Terri pursued the double MA/MLS degree with a focus on archives, museum work and public folklore. I had the unusual honor of working with Terri both at the University of Oklahoma, where she was an undergraduate student and at IU at the final phase of her MA work. Congratulations go to Terri on the occasion of this promotion to a position of greater responsibility. Curating an archive of political advertisements!  What a great opportunity for a folklorist (and archivist, of course).

Feb 13

1 Comment

New Jobs: Kimberly Marshall Edition

I am super pleased to learn that Kimberly Marshall, an excellent anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, folklorist and Native studies scholar with whom I work at Indiana University Bloomington has just accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma. Kimberly is presently finalizing a dissertation for the IU Departments of Anthropology and of Folklore and Ethnomusicology that focuses on music and cultural performance in the context of contemporary Navajo Christian communities. She is a great fit for Oklahoma and she is joining a vital anthropology department with great students and colleagues, as well as a deep history of important work across her many fields. Congratulations Kim!  Congratulations Oklahoma!

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »