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Posts from the ‘Scholars to Know’ Category

Mar 15

Cultural Property Research Group, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Very happily, I have begun a week-long visit to Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen, Germany. I am very fortunate to be the guest of the Cultural Property Research Group. This is a major interdisciplinary project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I very much recommend their research weblog (here) and the project website (here).

Today I spent time talking to some of the doctoral students in law and in cultural anthropology/European ethnology/folklore studies who are pursuing dissertation projects within the larger research group. They’re all wonderfully smart and very generous in their patience with an American who has never spoken a word of German in his life. In addition to beginning discussions of their interesting projects, they taught me a bit about the changing nature of academic life in Germany and showed me around their beautiful campus and city.

While I will hopefully have something from my own work to offer my hosts, I am enjoying learning about their studies and connecting them with the work of favorite (and very relevant) colleagues back home who are working on similar issues. I was reassured by the familiarity of the topics that we discussed today.  In the usual one-thing-leads-to-another fashion we jumped from geographic indicators to WIPO policy, open source software, cultural appropriation, human rights, heritage lists, and open access.

Thanks to everyone involved in my visit possible.

Jan 7

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Cattelino on Citizenship and Nation in the Everglades

My super-talented friend Jessica Cattelino has written a great piece for Anthropology News on the social dimensions of Everglades restoration in my home territory of South Florida. (Unfortunately it is toll access and thus not easily accessible to non-AAA members.)

A (cc) liscenced image of the Everglades from Flickr. How cool is that?

Dec 20

Congratulations to Dr. Liora Sarfati

I am pleased to report that Dr. Liora Sarfati recently and successfully defended her dissertation on the material culture of contemporary Korean Shamanism, thereby earning her Ph.D. in from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. I was honored to be a part of her committee and I look forward to seeing her fine and innovative work published and discussed in the years ahead.

Nov 23

Dell Hymes Remembered in NYT

At last, a New York Times obituary for Dell Hymes has appeared. Find it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/us/23hymes.html?_r=1

Nov 20

Mayer Kirshenblatt (1916-2009)

I just learned that Mayer Kirshenblatt, a remarkable human being and the father of folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has passed away. If you have not seen it yet, I strongly recommend their jointly composed book They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust (University of California Press, 2007). The paintings and stories gathered therein (and in the companion exhibition) are simply amazing. (The book was reviewed in Museum Anthropology Review here.)

My condolences go to Barbara and to everyone whose life Mr. Kirshenblatt touched. His memory, and his memories, will live forever.

Nov 19

IU Celebrates the Work of Christopher Peebles

One of my graduate school mentors-turned-senior colleagues, Dr. Christopher Peebles has been recognized by the university through the bestowal of the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion by IU President Michael McRobbie. Chris has maintained a remarkable administrative and research agenda, concurrently working as a Southeastern archaeologist (hence our connection) and as a research computing scholar and administrator. He is transitioning into retirement this year after more that 25 years of service at Indiana, where he has directed the Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology and served in a number of key administrative roles. The IU Press Release is available here.  Congratulations Chris!

(Chris was an amazing teacher and supporter of my work during my graduate school career and he has been a generous mentor in the ways of university administration since my return to Indiana.)

Nov 19

Brenda Johnson named Ruth Lilly Dean of Indiana University Libraries

As a person involved in a mix of collaborative projects with the Indiana University Libraries, I am pleased to note that the search for Ruth Lilly Dean of Indiana University Libraries has been concluded and that Brenda Johnson has agreed to join the Indiana University community in this key role. I look forward to working with her in the months and years ahead. Read the IU Press Release here. Congratulations to Dean Johnson and to the university.

Nov 17

Karl Kroeber (1926–2009)

In the Native American communities in which I live off and on, it is a common observation that deaths–always deeply felt–often seem to occur in groups or clusters. This pattern seems characterized by my discovery just now that Karl Kroeber, another leading student of Native American verbal art, has just passed away. Professor Kroeber long taught at Columbia University, where his father, A. L. Kroeber, earned his doctorate in anthropology under Franz Boas. His sister, author Ursula K. Le Guin, is well known to many. His son Paul pursues his own studies of American Indian linguistics here at Indiana University, where he and I are both affiliated with the American Indian Studies Research Institute.

Karl Kroeber’s linked the Americanist tradition of Native American verbal art studies (in folklore, ethnopoetics, field linguistics, etc.) to the wider field of literature studies. Representative works include Artistry in Native American Myths (University of Nebraska Press, 1998) and Traditional Literatures of the American Indian: Texts and Interpretations (University of Nebraska Press, 1981). Like his mother Theodora, he (with his brother Clifton Kroeber) sought to make sense of the story of Ishi, with whom his family’s life entwined. (See: Ishi in Three Centuries, with Clifton Kroeber. University of Nebraska Press, 2003.)

Condolences go to the whole Kroeber family.

Nov 16

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Dell Hymes’ Passing

While no obituary has appeared yet, there seems to be conclusive understanding via the moccasin telegraph that Dell Hymes has passed away. So soon after the death of Claude Lévi-Strauss, this is another significant loss in the fields of Native American studies, anthropology and folklore studies. Dell Hymes was a amazingly influential folklorist, anthropologist, and linguist who revolutionized the study of language in (/and) culture in general, and of Native American narrative traditions in particular. He made important contributions to the history of anthropology, to descriptive and theoretical linguistics, to sociolinguistics, to folkloristics, and to Native American studies. He essentially created the areas on inquiry known as (1) the ethnography of speaking and (2) ethnopoetics and he played a key role reshaping linguistic anthropology from the 1960s onward. His work is at the root of the performance orientation central in contemporary folklore studies and he directly influenced the work of a great many folklorists, including Richard Bauman, Henry Glassie, and Lee Haring, among many others. His influence in the field as practiced in the United States is pervasive.

Dell Hymes was an especially central figure for his fields of study at Indiana University, where I earned my Ph.D. and to which I returned in 2004 to join the faculty in Folklore and Ethnomusicology. At Indiana, Hymes earned his Ph.D. in 1955, studying under Carl Voegelin, a student of Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir, both themselves students of Franz Boas. He was deeply immersed in the Americanist tradition and he took the task of understanding, enriching, and conveying that tradition to new generations to be a key task. When he left Indiana for jobs at Harvard, California, Pennsylvania and Virginia, his impact and influence kept flowing back and influencing the faculty and students here. At Pennsylvania in particular, he worked closely with scholars that have gone on to play a key role in shaping the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. Evidence of the breadth of his influence and his commitment to the Boasian vision for the study of language, culture and society can be seen in the fact that he served as president of the American Folklore Society, the American Anthropological Association, and the Linguistic Society of America.

More coherent and elaborate remembrances will be written by scholars and friends who knew him well, but I wanted to acknowledge his passing and record my appreciation for his many contributions that have enriched the fields of study in which I work.

Nov 14

Jon Kay Wins Warren Roberts Prize

Congratulations to Jon Kay, Director of Traditional Arts Indiana, who has been awarded the Warren Roberts Prize from the Pioneer American Society/Association for the Preservation of Artifacts and Landscapes. Learn more here.

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