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Posts from the ‘Interlocutors’ Category

Feb 9

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Major Article Published by Flory Gingging

Congratulations to Flory Gingging on the publication of her paper “”I Lost My Head in Borneo”: Tourism and the Refashioning of the Headhunting Narrative in Sabah, Malaysia.”
as the lead article in the new issue of Cultural Analysis (volume 6, 2007). It is a major paper made even more interesting in publication by the detailed commentaries provided by two very prominent scholars in the field–Beth Conklin and Cristina Bacchilega. Flory’s paper began as an fine essay in the Contesting Culture as Property seminar I taught in 2004. Congratulations to Flory and to the excellent folks who are working to build and sustain a major open access journal for folklore and anthropology.

Feb 8

Reviewed: The Flood Myths of Early China

Congratulations to Xiaohong Chen on the appearance of her review of the book The Flood Myths of Early China by Mark Lewis in JFRR. Find Xiaohong’s review online here.

Jan 26

Two Great Papers

IU Folklore graduate students Teri Klassen and Selina Morales gave very fine papers this morning during the Conversations: 2007 POAET Grantees Report on their Research conference here on campus. POAET stands for Project on African Expressive Traditions and is a initiative to support research on the arts of Africa and the African diaspora by IU graduate students and faculty. POAET is directed by IU professor of comparative literature Eileen Julien.

Teri and Selina each benefited from POAET grants and each gave wonderful accounts of the fieldwork that they conducted last summer. Teri’s project focused on the nature of quilting among African American and European American women in two southern communities, one in Tennessee, the other in Alabama. Teri’s presentation and her POAET project are part of a larger doctoral research effort examining the complexities of American quilting across space, time, and sociocultural diversites. Selina’s paper considered aspects of her larger M.A. research and exhibition project on botánicas in New York City. This work will result in a major exhibition being curated by Selina and staged by the Mathers Museum. (Learn more about her project on her weblog, here.)

Congratulations to both Teri and Selina for their fine efforts.

Nov 7

More Congratulations

Following closely on the heels of Gabe McGuire’s recent M.A. Thesis defense, Jeremy Stoll, also a graduate student in the Department of Folklore and Ethnology at Indiana, has completed his M.A. with a successful defense last friday.  His thesis, titled: “Through the Page Darkly: Japanese Comic Art and Vernacular Religion” examines the culture history of comic art in Japan in route to an exploration of Japanese worldview, particularly regarding questions of human-environmental relationships. Congratulations Jeremy!

Oct 28

Matthew Bradley at SEAC

IU doctoral student in anthropology Matthew Bradley will be presenting a paper in what looks like an amazing, marathon panel on “Mississippian and Contact Period Archaeology” at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Knoxville. His paper is titled “What Gabriel Arthur Saw” and he will be sharing the program with many leading scholars on the the archaeology and history of the native Southeast of North America. Find the conference program here. Matthew’s work focuses on the language, culture and long-term history of his home community of Cherokee, North Carolina.

Oct 21

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Congratulations

Congratulations to IU folklore graduate student Gabriel McGuire, who successfully defended his M.A. thesis on this past Friday. Gabe’s topic was “A System of Affinity: Research in the Line of Morgan’s Progression from Ancient Society through Engels to Soviet Ethnography.” The study explores the way that Lewis Henry Morgan’s anthropological work came to have such a powerful conditioning effect on Soviet ethnography in the wake of Friedrich Engels’ reworking of Morgan’s ideas. Gabe’s project, which caused him to confront Morgan’s legacy in both American and Soviet scholarship, as well as significant chunks of American and Russian intellectual history more broadly, is an outgrowth of broader work he has been doing in preparation for soon-to-be undertaken doctoral fieldwork in Kazakhstan.

Oct 9

Gabrielle Berlinger Wins Essay Prize

Congratulations to Gabrielle Berlinger, who is the co-winner of the student essay prize awarded annually by the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society, in collaboration with the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. A graduate student in the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Gabi won with her essay “770 Eastern Parkway: Brooklyn Brownstone, Sacred Space.” The paper is part of her larger research project, which seeks to understand the nature and significance of contemporary Jewish architectural practices. According to prize committee chair Simon Bronner: “The committee praised its exploration of an emergent tradition and its construction by a folk group.” The paper, which looks at the worldwide replication of the Brooklyn building that is the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, is now slated for publication in the Jewish Cultural Studies book series.

Sharing the 2007 prize with Berlinger is Irit Koren of Bar-Ilan University, whose essay is entitled “The Power of Discourse: Issues of Gender and Social Control Regarding Changing the Jewish Wedding Ritual.”

During AY 2006-2007, Berlinger served as editorial assistant for Museum Anthropology. This semester she is pursuing her own research and coursework with the help of a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship.

The Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society is devoted to studies of Jewish folklore, folklife, and ethnology. It cooperates with the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. The Committee for the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism is a committee of the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association. Its purpose is to promote communication and cooperation among anthropologists interested in the study of Jews and Judaism.

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