Author: Lillia McEnaney

The Peabody Essex Museum is pleased to announce the search for the George Putnam Curator of American Art. The successful candidate will be a dynamically engaged American Art specialist who is focused on exhibitions and programming and is excited by the opportunity to create new ways of interpreting the complexities and presenting the nuances of American art and culture. Collaborating closely with the PEM curatorial team and broadly across the Museum, they will create innovative experiences that promote audience engagement, as well as scholarship, publications and acquisitions that support the Museum’s mission.

PEM’s American Art collection has expansive holdings of sculpture and paintings as well as fashion, textiles and design that span four centuries of creative expression in the United States. Supported by historic works that celebrate the rich and diverse artistic and cultural heritage of Essex County, Massachusetts, the collection has continued to grow to embrace a broader representation of the art and creative expression of this country. Together, these objects tell compelling stories of American life and the ongoing cultural exchanges between the people of the region, the country, and the wider world.

The Curator of American Art will bring bold, imaginative thinking to PEM’s cross-departmental programs and exhibitions that are drawn from or related to collections. Some recent examples include: In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting, co-organized with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 2021; Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle Series, 2020, Georgia O’Keeffe: Art, Image & Style, 2018 the first exhibition to explore the art, image and personal style of one of America’s most iconic artists, and American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood, 2015. They will be encouraged to partner within the American art network, encompassing a variety of perspectives and diverse narratives. The George Putnam Curator of American Art needs to be an experienced, energetic, and creative storyteller with an ambition to redefine the field, be open to a new way of working across media and time and have a genuine desire for authentic community engagement. They will enjoy cultivation of donors and bring with them a large professional network which can help reinvigorate PEM’s American Art Visiting Committee.

Omni Hotel, Oklahoma City, OK/USA, October 24-26, 2023

Deadline to submit Session Proposals is February 13, 2023. Proposals submitted after the deadline will be considered on a space available basis.

Call for Proposals: The ATALM Conferences fulfill the educational and networking needs of indigenous peoples from throughout the world. Known for delivering practical and culturally relevant training, the conferences provide a unique opportunity to share knowledge and build networks.

Program decisions will be announced by April 17, after which the Program Committee will work with presenters to finalize session descriptions and content. The preliminary program will be announced to the public by June 1.

• Session Proposal Form
• Past Programs

ATALM conferences provide innovative, interactive sessions that create highly-valued learning experiences for participants. This is accomplished through a variety of session formats of varying lengths and styles. Click on each title to view a description. Priority is given to sessions that allow the audience to connect with each other and learn about important topics in new, engaging ways. Proposals should describe how the audience will benefit.

• Educational Fieldtrips
• Pre-Conference Workshops
• Concurrent Sessions
• Forums/Listening Sessions
• Skill Building Labs
• “Inspire” Talks
• “Flash Talks”
• Posters
• Topical Roundtable “Conversations”

Minimum Qualifications: Applicants must have a terminal degree (Ph.D.) in Anthropology (ABD will be considered) with a geographic area of study in the culture of the American Southwest.

Preferred Qualifications: Academic specialty in Native American Studies and experience in Applied Anthropology. Research areas of specialization in environment, land use, cultural resource management, indigenous methodologies, traditional ecological knowledge material culture, political and economic systems, policy and governance, colonization, and/or intercultural relations.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Candidate should demonstrate excellent written and oral communication skills. Ability to teach undergraduate and graduate level courses, supervise graduate student research, interest and commitment to working with diverse populations.

Via The Minnesota Daily, December 1, 2022

The University of Minnesota possesses collections of Native American ancestor remains and associated funerary objects that were supposed to be repatriated to their respective Tribes more than 30 years ago.

The Board of Regents approved the University to begin the repatriation process at the February board meeting. The University began an initial inventory in June and the final inventory is due in December.

The Mimbres-cultural collections the University possesses are from grave sites the anthropology department excavated in New Mexico nearly 100 years ago and are most likely affiliated with Pueblo Tribes, including the Hopi Nation.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990 required the University to inventory and return the collections under federal law, however, the University did not comply with these regulations for 32 years.

Melanie O’Brien, the national NAGPRA program manager, sent a letter to University President Joan Gabel in December 2021 urging for the University’s immediate compliance with NAGPRA.

“The University’s confusion might have been understandable in 1993, when it submitted its summary to the National Park Service,” O’Brien said. “But from December 4, 1995 and thereafter, the University knew or should have known that the funerary objects in question are associated funerary objects, and that they must be included in an inventory.”

More here.

Via the New York Times, November 28, 2022

With its monumental Art Deco facade overlooking the Eiffel Tower, the Musée de l’Homme, or Museum of Mankind, is a Paris landmark. Every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to this anthropology museum to experience its prehistoric skeletons and ancient statuettes.

But beneath the galleries, hidden in the basement, lies a more contentious collection: 18,000 skulls that include the remains of African tribal chiefs, Cambodian rebels and Indigenous people from Oceania. Many were gathered in France’s former colonies, and the collection also includes the skulls of more than 200 Native Americans, including from the Sioux and Navajo tribes.

The remains, kept in cardboard boxes stored in metal racks, form one of the world’s largest human skull collections, spanning centuries and covering every corner of the earth.

But they are also stark reminders of a sensitive past and, as such, have been shrouded in secrecy. Information on the skulls’ identities and the context of their collection, which could open the door to restitution claims, has never been made public, but is outlined in museum documents obtained by The New York Times.

More here. 

Via CBC, December 1, 2022

The National Museum of Scotland says it will return a memorial totem pole taken nearly a century ago from the Nisga’a Nation in British Columbia.

The museum says its board of trustees approved the First Nation’s request to transfer the pole to its home in northwest B.C.

A delegation of Nisga’a leaders travelled to Edinburgh last August to request the transfer of the 11-metre pole back to their territory.

Nisga’a Nation Chief Earl Stephens says in a statement their people believe the pole, which was hand-carved in the mid-1800s, is alive with the spirit of an ancestor, and it’s now coming home to rest.

The Ni’isjoohl memorial pole is “a living constitutional and visual archive,” said Noxs Ts’aawit (Dr. Amy Parent), a Canada research chair in Indigenous education and governance at Simon Fraser University and part of the delegation that visited Scotland earlier this year.

“So to have it removed is like having someone rip out a chapter of Canada’s constitution and your most treasured family photo album and place it in a museum in another country to be viewed by foreigners on a daily basis,” she said.

More here.

Overview

The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) at the Smithsonian seeks to promote broader and more effective use of museum collections – artifacts, audio recordings, art works, still and moving images – in anthropological research by providing graduate students with an immersive, four-week training program and research experience at the Smithsonian Institution. In addition, fellowships are awarded to teaching faculty who are interested in learning how to incorporate museum collections into their teaching.

June 20 – July 14, 2023

The program is offered by the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, with major funding from the Cultural Anthropology Program and the Documenting Endangered Language Program of the National Science Foundation.

Working intensively each summer with 12-14 students, the institute:

• introduces students to the scope of museum collections and their potential as data
• provides training in appropriate methods to collect and analyze museum data
• makes participants aware of a range of theoretical issues relating to collections
• positions students to apply their knowledge within their own research and at their home university
• advances pedagogical training and methods that helps reposition museum collections as critical data for anthropology

Application information

Application Deadline: March 1, 2023

Applicants must submit a short statement of interest and an initial proposal for an individual research project. A letter of commitment is required from a faculty member who will supervise further development and implementation of the project in the year after the student’s participation in SIMA. Students will be notified of acceptance 4 weeks after the application deadline.

Contact Email: SIMA@si.edu

Via PBS, November 30, 2022

The debate over who owns ancient artifacts has been an increasing challenge to museums across Europe and America, and the spotlight has fallen on the most visited piece in the British Museum: The Rosetta stone.

The inscriptions on the dark grey granite slab became the seminal breakthrough in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics after it was taken from Egypt by forces of the British empire in 1801.

Now, as Britain’s largest museum marks the 200-year anniversary of the decipherment of hieroglyphics, thousands of Egyptians are demanding the stone’s return.

‘’The British Museum’s holding of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural violence against Egypt,” said Monica Hanna, dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, and organizer of one of two petitions calling for the stone’s return.

More here.

February 23-26, 2023

The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives. In 2023, the festival returns in person! Join us in Washington, DC, February 23 to 26. The full program and schedule will be announced in the coming months.

Our Mission

Through digital storytelling, the festival amplifies the work of diverse practitioners who explore the power of language to connect the past, present, and future.

Contact Email: mothertongue@si.edu