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2014 SIMA Syllabus

Week 1 ORIENTATION TO THE FIELD SITE Faculty resources: Josh Bell, Marit Munson, Jason Baird Jackson (F)

DAY 1 – ORIENTATION

Lesson #1, NMNH Orientation and Walkabout (Greene and Godby Ingalsbe) Lesson #2, Program Overview (Greene) * Grant proposal to NSF for support of SIMA.

[rationale for material culture and museum based research within cultural Anthropology; types of research questions; goals for the training program]

* Gosden, Chris and Frances Larson 2007 What is a Museum? In Knowing Things: Exploring the Collections at the Pitt Rivers

Museum 1884-1945. Pp. 3-13. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [consider collections as the material residue of particular sets of social relationships]

* Greene, Candace S. 1992 Documentation, Attribution and the Ideal Type. In Art and Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture

and Museum Studies, In Honor of Jane Powell Dwyer, Harold David Juli, ed. Research Papers in Anthropology Number 5. Pp. 9-18. Providence: Brown University.

[focus on assumptions about culture that inform ideas of ‘documentation’ or ‘attribution’] Sturtevant, William 1966 Ethnological Collections and Curatorial Records. Museum News 44(7): 16-19. [focus on issues of documentation, which remain the same in spite of being computerized] * Thomas, Nicholas 2010 The Museum as Method. Museum Anthropology 33(1): 6-10. [consider alternatives of moving from questions to objects, or from objects to questions] Lesson #3a, Methods from My Research (Greene) Greene, Candace S. 1996 Structure and Meaning in Cheyenne Ledger Art. In Plains Indian Drawings 1865-1935: Pages

from a Visual History. Janet Berlo, ed. Pp. 26-33. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in Association with The American Federation of Arts and the Drawing Center.

[quantitative study based on hundreds of items] 2009 One Hundred Summers: A Kiowa Calendar Record. University of Nebraska Press. (selections) [qualitative study based on work with community members plus archival sources]

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Lesson #3b, Methods from My Research (Bell) Bell, Joshua A. In Press The Veracity of Form: Transforming Knowledges, their Forms in the Purari Delta of Papua New

Guinea. In Museums as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges. R Sliverman, ed. Pp. 105-122. London: Routledge.

Bell, Joshua A. et. al. nd “We're Almost Like Therapists for People with Electronics": Fetishization, Cell Phones, and Repair.

Paper to be submitted to Anthropological Quarterly as part of a special issue edited by the authors about the materiality of the cell phone.

Bell, J.A. and H. Gesimar 2009 Materialising Oceania: New ethnographies of things in Melanesia and Polynesia. The Australian

Journal of Anthropology 20 (1): 3-27. <https://www.academia.edu/196054/Bell_J.A._and_H._Gesimar_2009._Materialising_Oceania_New_ethnographies_of_things_in_Melanesia_and_Polynesia._The_Australian_Journal_of_Anthropology_20_1_3-27>

Lesson #4, Object Database Orientation (Greene & Buhrow) No readings

DAY 2 – SPEED DATING - OBJECTS

Lesson #5, Collections Resources: Artifacts (Greene and staff) * Guide to Collections Records, Ethnology and Archaeology Collections. Smithsonian Institution, National

Museum of Natural History, Department of Anthropology. [read this one carefully; keep it for continual reference] *Review of Anthropology Collections home page, available at http://anthropology.si.edu/cm [critical before any museum visit!] Jones, Reba 1998 Handling. In The New Museum Registration Methods. 4th edition. Rebecca A. Buck and Jean

Allman Gilmore, eds. Pp. 45-48. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums. Flynn and Hull-Walski 2001 Merging Traditional Indigenous Curation Methods with Modern Museum Standards of Care.

Museum Anthropology 25(1):31-40. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Department of Anthropology Object Handling

Procedures Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Department of Anthropology Statement on Potential

Hazards (Inherent and Acquired) Associated with Collection Objects [Tuesday-Friday: arranged small group lunches with Godby Ingalsbe]

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DAY 3 – SPEED DATING - ARCHIVES Lesson #6a, Collections Resources: Archives (Greene and staff) * Review of National Anthropological Archives home page, available at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/ * Review of public version of online database, available at http://siris-archives.si.edu *NAA documents: Visitor form Digital camera use Photocopy order form * Lindsay, John A., Gina Rappaport, and Betty A. Lindsay. 2009 Pribilof Islands, Alaska, Guide to Photographs and Illustrations. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS ORR 20, August 2009. Seattle, WA: NOAA Oceans and Coast Office of Response and Restoration. [considerations of photos as historical primary sources] Parezo, Nancy J. 1996 The Formation of Anthropological Archival Records. In Learning from Things. Method and Theory

of Material Culture Studies, edited by W. David Kingery, pp.145-172. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

[provides understanding of the materials in anthropological archival collections] * Redman, Samuel J. 2013 Historical Research in Archives: A Practical Guide. American Historical Association. [read chapters 2-3 for an introduction to archival research] Lesson #7, Learning from Photographs (Bell) Bell, J.A. 2009 For Scientific Purposes a Stand Camera is Essential: Salvaging Photographic Histories in Papua. In

Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame, 143-170. Morton, C. and Edwards, E. (eds). Ashgate. <https://www.academia.edu/203619/Bell_J.A._2009._For_Scientific_Purposes_a_Stand_Camera_is_Essential_Salvaging_Photographic_Histories_in_Papua._In_Morton_C._and_Edwards_E._eds_Photography_Anthropology_and_History_Expanding_the_Frame_143-170._Ashgate>

Edwards, Elizabeth 2012 Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image. Annual Review of Anthropology 41:221-234. Pinney, Christopher 1992 The Parallel Histories of Anthropology and Photography. In Anthropology and Photography

1860-1920. Elizabeth Edwards, ed. Pp 74-95. New Haven: Yale University Press. [background for those interested in how collections are formed and data have been used]

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DAY 4 – FIELD NOTES, DATA COLLECTION PLANS Lesson #8, Photographing Collections (NMNH Photographer Don Hurlbert) [critical technical skills] Lesson #9, Managing Your Image Files (Nault, NAA) [data management strategies and best practices] Lesson #10, Collection Notes and Work Plans (Greene and Munson) Sanjek, Roger 1990 A Vocabulary for Fieldnotes. In Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology. Roger Sanjek, ed.

Pp.92-121. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Lesson #11, Meet and Greet: Smithsonian Resource People

Day 5 – DEFINING QUESTIONS, DEFINING DATA Lesson #13, What’s Your Data? (Munson) Banning, E. B. 2000 "What are data?" In The Archaeologist's Laboratory: The Analysis of Archaeological Data, pp.7-8.

New York: Kluwer Academic. [read pp.7-8 only; think about your collection and consider what you want to measure and why]

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Week 2 VISUAL COMPETENCY: LEARNING TO LOOK Faculty resources: Josh Bell, Marit Munson (M-W), Jason Baird Jackson

Lesson #14, Introduction to my Methods (Jackson) Boas, Franz 1887 The Occurrence of Similar Inventions in Areas Widely Apart. Science 9(224):485-486.

[The opening salvo in the Boas-Mason-Powell debate on typological versus historical presentation in museums.]

Kroeber, A. L. 1948 Distributions. In Anthropology. Revised Edition. Pp. 538-571. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

[A textbook account of distributions in the anthropological study of culture history.] Dundes, Alan 1986 The Anthropologist and the Comparative Method in Folklore. Journal of Folklore Research. 23(2- 3):125-146.

[A comparative folklorist introduces various comparative strategies, comparing and contrasting folklore and cultural anthropology in their use.]

Jackson, Jason Baird and Raymond D. Fogelson 2004 Introduction. In Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 14: Southeast. Southeast. William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed., Raymond D. Fogelson, vol. ed. Pp. 1-13. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. [A localized introduction to culture areas as conceptual units and to the culture area where I work. Touches on one of my in-class case studies.] *Choose one of the following three readings based on your topical interest Jackson, Jason Baird 2000 Signaling the Creator: Indian Football as Ritual Performance among the Yuchi and their Neighbors. Southern Folklore. 57(1):33-64.

[My interests reflected in a consideration of a ritualized game in context and in light of its regional distribution]

2002 Spirit Medicine: Native American Uses of Common Everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium) in Eastern North America. Occasional Papers of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. 12:1-17.

[My interests reflected in a consideration of a medicinal plant in context and in light of its regional distribution]

Jackson Jason Baird and Victoria Levine 2002 Singing for Garfish: Music and Woodland Communities in Eastern Oklahoma. Ethnomusicology. 46(2):284-306.

[My interests reflected in a consideration of a music and dance performance form in context and in light of its regional distribution]

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Lesson #15a, Close Looking: Single Objects Part 1: In the Classroom (Greene) *Banks, Marcus 2001 Reading Pictures. In Visual Methods in Social Research. Pp. 1-12. Los Angeles and London: Sage

Publications. [think how to apply his analysis of a postcard to museum objects] Caple, Chris 2006 Investigating Objects: Theories and Approaches. In Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past. Pp.

1-43. London and New York: Routledge. [consider what technical analyses can reveal] *Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan 1890 The Science of Deduction. In Sign of Four.

PDF made from text at

http://www.literature.org/authors/doyle-arthur-conan/sign-of-four/chapter-01.html <accessed 9 May 2012>. [not just for fun – we’ll discuss this one]

Prown, Jules David 1982 Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method. Winterthur Portfolio

17(1): 1-19. [another systematic way to approach objects; consider whether observations are answers or

questions to apply to further sets of objects] Lesson #15b, Close Looking Part 2: In the Collections [small groups learning to look] Lesson #16, Research Funding: Guest Speaker Deborah Winslow, NSF * Dissertation Improvement Abstracts on NSF Site

Michael Jordan, NSF Proposal Catherine Nichols, Wenner Gren Proposal

[samples of successful proposals for you to keep on file] Lesson #17, Models and Assumptions (Munson) Munson, Marit K. 2011 The Archaeology of Art in the American Southwest. Chap.1 and 2, pp. 1-42. Lanham, MD:

AltaMira Press. [how considering something “art” versus “artifact” raises different questions] Wisker, Gina. 2008 The Postgraduate Research Handbook. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ch. 5 (Research Questions

& Hypotheses, pp. 48-64) & 7 (Conceptual Frameworks, pp. 78-85)

[especially section on operationalizing a concept]

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Lesson #18a, Looking at Sets, Seeing Patterns (Arnoldi) * Arth, Kim 2005 Keeping Traditions: Change, Innovation and Continuity in Kenyan Kyondo Baskets (MA Thesis) [general background for work with baskets collected by Arth] Lesson #18b, Looking at Accessions and Collectors (Bell) O'Hanlon, M. 2000 Introduction. In Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in

Melanesia, 1870s-1930s. M. O'Hanlon and R.L. Welsch, eds. Bell, J.A. 2013. “Expressions of Kindly Feeling”: The London Missionary Society Collections from the Papuan

Gulf. In Melanesia: Art and Encounter. L. Bolton, N. Thomas, L. Bonshek, and J. Adams, eds. Pp. 57-63. London: British Museum Press. <https://www.academia.edu/3495037/Bell_J.A._2013._Expressions_of_Kindly_Feeling_The_London_Missionary_Society_Collections_from_the_Papuan_Gulf._>

Bell, Joshua A., Alison K. Brown, and Robert J. Gordon, eds. 2013 Introduction. In Recreating First contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture. Joshua A.

Bell, Alison K. Brown, and Robert J. Gordon, eds. Pp. 1-30. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.

Lesson #19, Collectors and Collecting (Jackson) Sturtevant, William C. 1977 Guide to Field Collecting of Ethnographic Specimens. Vol. 503. 2nd edition. Smithsonian Institution

Press: Washington DC. [Skim]

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Week 3 HOW COLLECTIONS ARE SHAPED: DATA CRITIQUE Resource people: Josh Bell, Jason Baird Jackson (M-T), Jennifer Kramer (W-F)

Lesson #20, Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Godby Ingalsbe and Jackson) *Kurin, Richard. 1989 Why We Do the Festival. In Festival of American Folklife Program. Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service. [An official introduction to the Festival. The Festival allows us to interact with makers and users of objects as we study material culture. There is much literature and debate around the topic of festivals as sites of representation. But for our purposes, we’re focusing on the Festival as a field site analogous to the museum and archives.] Lesson #21, Ethics in Museum Research (Godby Ingalsbe) *AAA Committee on Ethics 2012 “Principles of Professional Responsibility,” posted on AAA Ethics Blog: A forum sponsored by the AAA Committee on Ethics. PDF created from website; Accessed 30 May 2014 http://ethics.aaanet.org/category/statement/ [It’s useful to see what your relevant professional organization has to say about ethics; this provides a useful baseline.] Bounia, Alexandra 2014 “Codes of Ethics and Museum Research.” Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies, 12(1): 5, pp. 1-7. PDF created from website; Accessed 30 May 2014 <http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jcms.1021214>. [Do you see these theoretical views impacting your work? Are there other theoretical views that should be considered?] *Fowler, Catherine S. and Steven J. Crum Nd “Some Ethical Issues to Consider When Depositing Your Records,” CoPAR Bulletin 9. [PDF

created from website; Accessed 27 May 2014, <http://copar.org/bulletin9.html>] Nd “Ethical Use of Anthropological Records,” CoPAR Bulletin 10. [PDF

created from website; Accessed 27 May 2014, <http://copar.org/bulletin10.html>] [Ethical research impacts how you interact with the communities you study, what you do with your data, and what you can access at other institutions. You should consider all of these issues when planning research projects.]

*Smithsonian Institution Office of Sponsored Projects 2009 “Human Subjects Research FAQs,” posted at

<http://www.si.edu/osp/policies/Compliance/Human.html> under “Resources for Researchers,” Accessed 3 June 2014.

[Is the research you’re engaged in human subjects research? This document provides helpful criteria for deciding.]

Lesson #22, Material Culture in/as Cultural Performance (Jackson) * Babcock, Barbara 1992 Artifact. In Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications- centered Handbook. Richard Bauman, ed. Pp. 204-216. New York: Oxford University Press.

[A folklore-studies friendly, communications-centered introduction to material culture.]

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* Bauman, Richard 1992 Performance. In Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-centered Handbook. Pp. 41-49. New York: Oxford University Press.

[A folklore-studies friendly, communications-centered introduction to the concept of performance.] *Stoeltje, Beverly J. 1992 Festival. In Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications- centered Handbook. Richard Bauman, ed. Pp. 261-271. New York: Oxford University Press.

[A folklore-studies friendly, communications-centered introduction to festival, a key performance "genre."]

Lesson #23, Museum Systems of Classification (Greene) *Edwards, Elizabeth and Janice Hart 2004 Mixed Box: the cultural biography of ‘ethnographic’ photographs. In Photographs Objects

Histories. Eds. E. Edwards and J. Hart. New York: Routledge. Pp.47-61. [the contingent ways in which things are assembled within a museum or archive] *Pearce, Susan M. 1994 Introduction In Interpreting Objects and Collections. Eds. Susan M. Pearce. New York: Routledge.

Pp. 1-6. Lesson #24, Objects in Circulation: Beyond Biography (Bell) Tsing, Anna 2013 Sorting out commodities: How capitalist value is made through gifts. HAU 3(1): 21-43.

Accessed 16 June 2014 <http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/issue/view/hau3.1/showToc>.

Weiner, Annette B. 1994 Cultural Difference and the Density of Objects. American Ethnologist 21: 391-403.

Accessed 16 June 2014 <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.1994.21.2.02a00090/abstract>.

Latour, Bruno 1999 Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest. In Pandora's Hope: Essays on the

reality of Science Studies. Pp. 24-79. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lesson #25, Introduction to my Methods (Kramer) Bunn-Marcuse, Kathryn 2013 Form First, Function Follows: The Use of Formal Analysis in Northwest Coast Art History.

In Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds, Pp. 404-443. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Jonaitis, Aldona 2013 Museums and Northwest Coast Art. In Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing

Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds. Pp. 757-784. Vancouver: UBC Press.

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Lesson #26, Mini-symposium - informal student presentations [time to think about how your projects have grown, changed, or gotten stuck]

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Week 4 NEXT STEPS: PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Faculty resources: Josh Bell, Jennifer Kramer Lesson #27, From Museum to Field: Working with Source Communities (Bell and Kramer) [whom to work with, how to engage people, what people may or may not know] Kramer, Jennifer In Press Mobius Museology: Curating and Critiquing the Multiversity Galleries at the UBC Museum of

Anthropology. In Museum Transformations. Ruth B Phillips and Annie Coombs Eds. Wiley-Blackwell.

Smith, Paul Chaat 2013 "Stop Listening to Our Ancestors" In Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing

Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds, Pp. 936-946. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Lesson #28, Variously valued material culture (Kramer) Kramer, Jennifer 2013 "Fighting with Property": The Double-edged Character of Ownership" In Native Art of the

Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds, Pp. 720-756. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Duffek, Karen 2013 Value Added: The Northwest Coast Art Market since 1965. In Native Art of the Northwest Coast:

A History of Changing Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds, Pp. 590-632. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Ki-ke-in 2013 "Art for Whose Sake?" In Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing

Ideas. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-Ke-in, eds, Pp. 677-719. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Lesson #29, Final Symposium with Student Presentations Discussants Lesson #30, SIMA Course Evaluation

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RUNNING THROUGHOUT PROGRAM Individual data collection, based on weekly plans Research visits to other area collections by appointment Individual advising on research project Individual time in collections with faculty Informal small group gatherings for discussion on various topics, organized by faculty or by students