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Posts from the ‘In the Media’ Category

Aug 31

Florida Folklorist Stetson Kennedy (1916-2011)

I wish to note the passing of fellow Floridian and folklorist Stetson Kennedy. I did not know him, but I admire his work and his remarkable career. As the detailed obituary published Tuesday in the New York Times will suggest, he is very much a person worth knowing about. To have hung out with Woody Guthrie and Zora Neale Hurston, married seven times, and crippled the Ku Klux Klan via a Superman radio show and lived to 94–that’s a life. Rest in Peace.

Aug 25

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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 7

More on the Protests in Israel, Ethnographically

White City Streets continues to report from the field in Tel Aviv where the multifaceted protests continue to unfold. Anthropologi.info offers a rich post remixing these reports with news accounts and additional reflections.

 

Aug 4

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Mathers Museum, Glenn Black Lab Merger Yields Cultural History Powerhouse

IU news announced back home:

Mathers Museum, Glenn Black Lab Merger Yields Cultural History Powerhouse

This is a big deal for the students with whom I work, the colleagues with whom I collaborate, and the collections that I have been studying.

Feb 3

Kim Fortun Reflects on the Open Folklore Project

Anthropologist and science studies scholar Kim Fortun has written an essay discussing the Open Folklore project for Anthropology News. Her piece is currently accessible (toll free) via the AAA website. Kim is the outgoing co-editor of  Cultural Anthropology and a thoughtful advocate for rethinking scholarly communication work in anthropology.

Jan 18

The View from Commerical Scholarly Publishing

Barbara Fister is a consistently wonderful voice on scholarly communications and libraries issues. I strongly recommend her discussion of the recently published interview with Derek Haank, former chairman of Elsevier Science and current head of Springer.  I read the interview via Richard Poynder’s blog Open and Shut (the full interview is linked to from that site) and learned of it from someone’s recent tweet. Without getting frustrated and spending a lot of extra words on it, I will just say that I think that the disbelief among librarians is justified and that this articulate voice from commercial scholarly publishing makes clear why I oppose commercial scholarly publishing as we have known it and we now still experience it.

Jan 17

Hinari in an Open Access World

Hinari and other schemes to provide free or reduced cost access to scholarly journals in resource poor and developing countries are a key means by which the publishers of toll access journals: (1) achieve an important good for humanity and/or (2) whitewash their business practices in the face of charges of exploitative conduct and in the context of ethics-based calls for open access. The withdrawal of a number of journals from the Hinari scheme has prompted a great deal of frustrated commentary from those who watch the scholarly publishing scene. Find an account of the controversy and a reflection on the future status of such endevors here: http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2011/01/14/what-next-for-hinari-in-an-open-access-world/.

For AAA participation in such initiatives, see: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/AAA-Gives-Back.cfm .

UPDATE: Springer explains that the program at issue in the recent debate is INASP program rather than HINARI. See: http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/pressreleases?SGWID=0-11002-6-1067521-0.

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.

Jan 6

Lorenz Khazaleh on Public Anthropology

A valuable commentary on strategies for fostering a more public anthropology by Lorenz Khazaleh.

Oct 31

Excellence in Folklore Scholarship Leads to Utah State University Joining HathiTrust

An important Utah State University Press release:

LOGAN — In an agreement called transformative, Utah State University Libraries has joined the HathiTrust, a shared digital repository that more than doubles the available books in USU’s collection.

“With the scope and range of HathiTrust, a national digital library is coming into being and Utah State University is among the first ranks in that effort,” said Rick Clement, dean of libraries at USU. “This is an exciting development, not only for the main campus but for the five other campuses in the USU system and for our distance education students.”

Utah State University signed a partnership agreement with HathiTrust, becoming the 35th school in the country to become a partner institution. The previous three partners to join HathiTrust are Cornell, Dartmouth, and the Triangle Research Libraries Network (including Duke, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central and North Carolina State).

“Utah State University now has a seat at the table at this important enterprise,” Clement said. “We join important and diverse partners, including Google, Microsoft and the Internet Archive.”

HathiTrust is a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in a digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to the published record in digital form. It was launched in 2008 and has a growing membership of visionary schools.

Utah State University is the first university in the state of Utah and the region to become a partner member of HathiTrust.

“Utah State brings a unique perspective to the HathiTrust,” said John Wilkin, executive director of HathiTrust. “Our collection will be enhanced by the hundreds of open access titles that USU Press will deposit, and we welcome their contribution to digital preservation and services as a sustaining partner.”

HathiTrust was originally conceived as a collaboration of the 13 universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (the Big Ten schools) and the University of California system to establish a repository for the universities to archive and share their digitized collections.

As the 35th partner school, Utah State University has access to 1.6 million electronic, or digitized, items in the public domain. For comparison, on-site, USU has the same number of books in the Merrill-Cazier Library collection.

“This doubles the number of books in our collection,” Clement said. “For a university like Utah State University, this is such a good fit.”

The move is not only a valuable resource for students and faculty at the Logan campus, but at the five other campuses and distance education sites throughout the state.

“The access this provides is invaluable for our students,” Clement said. “The library is being used more, but not always by students coming through the door. Library usage is up but there is more and more available in the electronic world. The resources made available through HathiTrust can be tapped via our library website by students throughout the USU system.”

Over the past two years, HathiTrust member schools have contributed more than 7 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through a number of means, including Google and Internet Archive digitization and in-house initiatives. Of that 7 million, more than 1.6 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and are freely available on the Web.

An advantage of being a partner school is that students and faculty at USU can both view and print all or a portion of each available book. Non-member schools can view the items but cannot produce printed copies. And while a book from the stacks of the Merrill-Cazier Library can only be used by one individual at a time, the digital volumes in HathiTrust can be viewed and used by an infinite number at the same time.

HathiTrust serves a dual role. First, as a trusted repository it guarantees the long-term preservation of the materials it holds, providing the expert curation and consistent access long associated with research libraries. Second, as a service for partners and a public good, HathiTrust offers persistent access to the digital collections. This includes viewing, downloading and searching access to public domain volumes and searching access to copyright volumes.

USU’s road to joining HathiTrust began with a partnership with Indiana University, Clement said. Indiana, among the founding schools of HathiTrust, has digitized its folklore collection creating an Open Folklore website.

“Indiana and USU are considered among the top folklore programs in the country,” Clement said. “We’re digitizing a great deal of our folklore archive, and Indiana was interested in making available the folklore books published by USU Press. Indiana’s request for this material morphed into our full partner association with HathiTrust.”

USU Libraries’ effort to join HathiTrust was supported by two important offices on campus.

“Executive Vice President and Provost Raymond Coward and the Vice President for Research Brent Miller have been extremely supportive in this move,” Clement said. “USU Libraries appreciates their support and effort in this endeavor. When the partnership agreement was announced, President Albrecht was highly enthused.
“Our partnership with the HathiTrust will bring an ever-growing number of digital books to our students, faculty and staff,” Clement said. “While we continue to value traditional books, we also understand that the HathiTrust is the future for providing access to our multi-campus system and our many distance-education students. It is truly transformational.”

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