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Posts from the ‘Museums’ Category

Jan 20

Time to Apply: Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology #SIMA

Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA)
Supported by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation
June 27 – July 22, 2011
Application deadline: MARCH 1

SIMA is a graduate student training program in museum research methods offered through the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.  During four weeks of intensive training in seminars and hands-on workshops at the museum and at an off-site collections facility, students are introduced to the scope of collections and their potential as data.  Students become acquainted with strategies for navigating museum systems, learn to select methods to examine and analyze museum specimens, and consider a range of theoretical issues that collections-based research may address.  In consultation with faculty, each student carries out preliminary data collection on a topic of their own choice and develops (and continually refines) a prospectus for research to be implemented upon return to their home university.

Application Information

Who should apply?

Graduate students preparing for research careers in cultural anthropology who are interested in using museum collections as a data source. The program is not designed to serve students seeking careers in museum management. Students at both the masters and doctoral level will be considered for acceptance. Students in related interdisciplinary programs (Indigenous Studies, Folklore, etc.) are welcome to apply if the proposed project is anthropological in nature. All U.S. students are eligible for acceptance, even if studying abroad, as are international students enrolled in universities in the U.S.A. NOTE: First Nations people of Canada are eligible.

Costs

The program covers students’ tuition and housing, which is provided at a local university. A small stipend will be provided to assist with the cost of food and other local expenses. Participants are individually responsible for the cost of travel to and from Washington, DC.

Application deadline – MARCH 1, 2011

SIMA dates for 2011: June 27 – July 22

For more information and to apply, please visit http://anthropology.si.edu/summerinstitute/
Additional questions? Email SIMA@si.edu

Dec 20

Mukurtu: An Indigenous Archive and Content Management Tool | New Website Announcement

From a December 20, 2010 Mukurtu Project Press Release:

Mukurtu: An Indigenous Archive and Content Management Tool
New Website Announcement
http://www.mukurtuarchive.org

Project Director: Dr. Kimberly Christen; Director of Development: Dr. Michael Ashley; Lead Drupal Developer: Nicholas Tripcevich

In March 2010 the Mukurtu project was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Start‐Up grant to produce a beta‐version of an open‐source, standards‐based community digital archive and content management platform. As the third phase of an ongoing software production project, the Mukurtu team is aware that indigenous and tribal libraries, archives and museums are underserved by both off‐the‐shelf content management systems (CMS) and open source CMS and digital archive/web production tools. Over the last decade as web technologies have diversified to include user‐generated content and more sophisticated digital archive and content management tools the specific needs of indigenous collecting institutions have been left out of mainstream productions.  Based on long‐term research and collaboration with indigenous communities and collecting institutions, Mukurtu’s development and production has focused on producing a digital archive and content management tool suite that meets the expressed needs of indigenous communities globally. Specifically, Mukurtu:

  1. Allows for granular access levels based on indigenous cultural protocols for the access and distribution of multiple types of content;
  2. Provides for diverse and multiple intellectual property systems through flexible and adaptable licensing templates;
  3. Accounts for histories of exclusion from content preservation and metadata generation sources and strategies by incorporating dynamic and user‐friendly administration tools;
  4. Provides flexible and adaptable metadata fields for traditional knowledge relating to collections and item level descriptions; and
  5. Facilitates the exchange and enhancement of metadata between national collecting institutions and related indigenous communities through robust import/export capabilities.

The Mukurtu software tool suite is under development now with a system demonstration site planned for Spring 2011. Our informational website, development blog, and wiki are now live. These sites allow us to chronicle our development progress, provide updates and engage with users as we move forward to a full launch in August 2011.

Please visit the new site at: www.mukurtuarchive.org and follow the links to learn more about the Mukurtu project goals, development, and collaborations.

Oct 2

1 Comment

Congratulations to Curtis Ashton!

Congratulations go to Dr. Curtis Ashton who very successfully defended his Indiana University Ph.D. dissertation in folklore today. The title of his important and innovative study is: Interpretive Policy Analysis in Beijing’s Ethnographic Museums: Implementing Cultural Policy for the 2008 “People’s Olympics”. I hope that everyone will be reading it as a book very soon.  In addition to finalizing his dissertation, Curtis has been teaching a course in museum anthropology at Brigham Young University.

Sep 22

The Wolfsonian–FIU Fellowship Program

Re-posted…

The Wolfsonian–Florida International University is a museum and research center that promotes the examination of modern visual and material culture. The Wolfsonian’s fellowship program is intended to support research on the museum’s collection, generally for periods of three to four weeks. The program is open to holders of master’s or doctoral degrees, Ph.D.candidates, and others who have a significant record of professional achievement in relevant fields.

The focus of the Wolfsonian collection is on North American and European decorative arts, propaganda, architecture, and industrial and graphic design from the period 1885–1945. The United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are the countries most extensively represented. There are also smaller but significant collections of materials from a number of other countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Japan, the former Soviet Union, and Hungary. The collection includes works on paper (including posters, prints, and design drawings), furniture, paintings, sculpture, glass, textiles, ceramics, lighting and other appliances, and many other kinds of objects. The Wolfsonian’s library has approximately 50,000 rare books, periodicals, and ephemeral items.

Applicants are encouraged to discuss their project with the museum staff prior to submission to ensure the relevance of their proposals to The Wolfsonian’s collection. For more information about The Wolfsonian and its collection, visit the website at http://www.wolfsonian.fiu.edu, call 305-535-2686, or email to research@thewolf.fiu.edu. Applications for the 2011–12 academic year must be postmarked by December 31, 2010.

Lisa Li
lisa@thewolf.fiu.edu

Sep 17

New Issue of Museum Anthropology Focuses on NAGPRA

Congratulations to the contributors to, and editors of, the new issue of Museum Anthropology, which has just appeared online in Wiley Online Library. The issue focuses specifically on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA).

Jun 21

Deaccession and Accreditation in University Museums

As reported in Inside Higher Education, the AAM is moving to strengthen university and college accreditation standards to stress the importance of host institutions not treating museum collections as disposable assets. While this will be discussed mainly in connection with university and college art museums and galleries, it is equally important for museums of ethnography and other collections of cultural heritage.

Jun 9

Congratulations Smithsonian Anthropology

Today I received the email newsletter of the Department of Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Their lead story is a big deal. Congratulations to the department on the successful conclusion of a curatorial hiring effort that has brought four new colleagues to the department. Department Chair Dan Rogers writes:

With the arrival of Gwyneira Isaac (curator, North American indigenous cultures) in early June and the arrival of Gabriela Perez Baez (curator, linguistics) in December 2009, the department has successfully concluded its search for four new curators over the past three years. (Curators Joshua Bell (globalization) and Torben Rick (human-environmental interaction) were hired in 2008.) This represents the largest influx of curatorial staff in several decades and we are delighted to bring in another generation of scholars. These hires bring the number of anthropology curators to 23.

This is great news for Smithsonian anthropology specifically and for museum anthropology generally. Congratulations and good luck to the new members of the curatorial staff.

Mar 5

CMA Seeks Proposals for Invited Sessions at AAA 2010

Council for Museum Anthropology members are invited to submit session proposals for consideration for CMA sponsorship. Sessions sponsored by CMA are assured a place in the annual meeting program. Any topic relating to museum anthropology will be considered, but sessions that speak to broad issues in the field or engage the AAA membership more directly in issues of museum practice or representation are particularly solicited. Please send a session abstract and list of proposed speakers (need not be confirmed yet) to Candace Greene, CMA VP, at greenec@si.edu. Information exchange about sessions that are still in development is also welcome. Our goal is to continue to develop a robust discourse around museum anthropology as  part of the AAA annual meeting program.

Feb 16

New Prizes for Students and Practitioners in Museum Anthropology

The board of the Council for Museum Anthropology has just announced two new developments of interest to the museum anthropology community. They have established a Student Travel Award that will fund student participation in the CMA’s annual meeting (at the AAA meetings). Two $500 awards will be given annually. Learn more on this award here on the Museum Anthropology weblog.

Also newly established is Michael M. Ames Prize for Innovative Museum Anthropology. The Prize will be: “awarded annually to individuals for innovative work in museum anthropology, which is understood to entail outstanding single or multi-authored books, published catalogues, temporary and permanent exhibits, repatriation projects, collaborations with descendant communities, educational or outreach projects, multimedia works, and other endeavours.” Learn more about the prize on the Museum Anthropology weblog here.

It will be exciting to see what projects are recognized with these important new awards.

Dec 21

Material Culture | Museum Job at Bard Graduate Center

JOB POSTING: Head of the Gallery Laboratory Project

The Gallery at the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture is expanding its established exhibition program to include a second area called the Laboratory Project that is devoted to experimentation and innovation in all aspects of exhibition practice, particularly display and interpretation. This project seeks to re-define the identity of the curator by integrating exhibition practice in the academic life of the Center and academic investigation in the practice of the Gallery. The idea of a laboratory implies openness to thinking in new ways about the gallery as a space for faculty and students to engage in exhibitions as an intellectual endeavor and as a craft. Read more

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