Anthropology Major,
Reuel Daniels, gets published!
Union anthropology major, Reuel Daniels, collaborated on an article published in the April 2001 issue of Earthwatch with her senior thesis advisor, Dr. Sharon Bohn Gmelch. Reuel’s thesis topic on the Internet’s effect on indigenous peoples was the basis for the article.
In the article, Reuel shows that by sharing information, the Internet provides indigenous people with exposure to other cultures that allows never-before possibilities for participating in the global economy. It provides for cultural diversity and contributes to the exposure of human rights abuses and allows minority groups to share information. However, there is a downside. Confusion and discontent can be created by exposure to other cultures. Illiteracy limits access and protection of intellectual property rights is a concern.
For a look at the full article, stop by the Anthropology Department bulletin board sometime during the Spring term.
Apryle Pickering Sets Union All-Time Record!!!
Apryle in action
By: George Cuttita III
Union College Sports Information Director
Senior Anthropology major, Apryle Pickering, set the College’s career victory standard by winning 35 games during her outstanding 4-year career as a starting pitcher for the Union College Softball team. This year, she helped Union win its first-ever New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association championship and was the winning pitcher in the championship game, beating St. John Fisher, 3-2.
For her career, Apryle started 56 games with 49 complete games. She pitched 377.2 innings, allowed 347 hits and just 99 earned runs for a career earned run average of 1.83 (which is OUTSTANDING). She walked just 80 batters and struck out 174.
She was MVP of the 1998 team here at Union and in 1999 was selected to the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association’s All-Conference second team.Apryle is from Brandon, Vt., and a graduate of Otter Valley Union High School.
Ian Condry gets Post-Doc at Harvard
In April, Prof. Ian Condry was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship by Harvard University to work on his research for the 2001-2002 academic year.In taking a one-year leave from teaching, his major goal is to complete his book manuscript Japanese Hip-Hop: Language, Performance, and Power, which is under contract with Duke University Press. Prof. Condry also hopes to develop a new line of research looking at Japanese artists and performers in New York City, such as the Japan-based double Dutch team that has for the last two years won the annual competition in Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater. The post-doctoral grant is under the auspices of Harvard's Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies.
Prof. Condry plans to return to Union College in Fall 2002 to continue teaching courses in popular culture, the digital revolution, globalization, and contemporary Japan
Union Anthropology Faculty Plans for the Summer
We asked the Anthropology Department faculty about their general plans for the summer. Here’s what they told us:
George Gmelch: "I'll be working on my research on the work and impacts of tourism in Barbados. I have a summer research fellow, Megann Denefrio, working with me."
Ian Condry: "I’ll be writing my book Japanese Hip-Hop: Language, Performance and Power. I will also travel to Tokyo to do follow-up research on hip-hop and R&B in Japan."
Stephen Leavitt: "I'm working on my book manuscript and revising an article for a possible collection dealing with the Fiji coup attempt."
Karen Brison: "I’ll be working in my garden and running, and will also be working on a book on ethnic identity in Fiji."
Sharon Gmelch
: "This sumer, I’ll be finishing as much as I can of a book manuscript on early photography of the Tlingit in Sitka, Alaska. I’ll also be getting ready to go to Ireland in August to begin my Research Fulbright and a re-study of Irish Travellers, a formerly nomadic ethnic minority. Many things have changed in Ireland since I was last actively engaged in research there in the mid-1980's: the economy is now booming (Ireland is known as the Celtic Giant), new immigrants from other parts of Europe (including Gypsies from Eastern Europe) now form part of the Irish population, and European Union legislation and programs are having an impact even on minority populations like the Travellers. Amanda Haag, who was awarded a summer research fellowship, will be working with me on both of these projects. She will be a great help."Linda Cool: "I will spend the summer working on data entry and analysis from the research I did last year on senior faculty retirement planning and
decision-making and working on the first draft of a proposal for a plan to create and fund post-retirement medical benefits for employees of liberal arts colleges (both studies are funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation). In terms of data entry and analysis, I am looking for a student who would be interested in a summer job to assist with this work."
Anthropology Majors share future plans
As the end of the school year approaches, we'd like to update you on where some of our graduating seniors are headed. These are the students who responded to our e-mail:
Missy Matusewicz plans on continuing her education at graduate school to reach her goal of a Masters of Science in Education. She will also be coaching a girls’ soccer team this summer.
Reuel Daniels will be traveling in Europe this summer, before moving to the West Coast where she hopes to find work with a firm or global communications organization dedicated to bringing the Internet to the Third World.
Andrew Spitz will complete his degrees in anthropology and geology this Fall, and hopes to apply for the Watson Fellowship in order to work with photography and culture in the South Pacific.
Lena Jackson will be attending Columbia University in the Fall, concentrating her graduate studies on Social Work.
James Schaefer in University
of Montana Alumni Magazine
Union Anthropology Research Professor, James Schaefer, who graduated from the University of Montana - Missoula in 1966, wrote an amusing article on his experiences in the fall of 1964 at the University. He was getting failing grades in forrestry and was called in for an interview with the dean who suggested some "cross campus" courses. He says, "With mixed feelings I scanned the course catalog. One course jumped off the page. It was Native American something-or-other, a 400-level course with Professor Verne Dusenberry. Ah hah! I thought, this sounds easy."
As he sat in the professor’s home, devoid of furniture in a circle with other students on the floor with a large fire in the fireplace with other, mostly anthropology majors, he began to learn to interact with Salish elders in the spoken Flathead Salish language. He switched his major to anthropology, finished his masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology at SUNY Buffalo and returned to teach anthropology at UM from 1969-1978. After a Fulbright in India and an NIH postdoc at the University of North Carolina Medical School, he became a senior administrator at the University of Minnesota. Now he has returned to upstate New York where he is running a consulting business on alcohol and gambling problems and affiliating as a research professor at Union — "teaching classes on Native American something-or-other and trying to stimulate students Dusenberry style."
Prof. Schaefer also recently had an article published in the Times Union about a study on smoking in public eateries. The study was commissioned by the Capital District Tobacco-Free Coalition to educate people about the dangers of second-hand smoke.
Reginald Byron will do U.S. Research
In his recent book, Irish America, Reginald Byron took issue with a number of conventional scholarly ideas about Irish-American "ethnicity" and "identity," demonstrating that these ideas did not hold when applied outside the urban enclaves of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco, enclaves which together have never accounted for more than a minor proportion of people of Irish ancestry. The test case was the city of Albany, N.Y. Of his 500 informants of Irish ancestry, very few displayed the characteristics commonly attributed to contemporary Irish-Americans. This led him to ask whether these characteristics have ever been obtained beyond the big city ghettos, and to advance a number of hypotheses about the assimilation and social mobility of the Famine-era Irish-born immigrants in rural and small-town America in the 19th century. No more than unsystematic, patchy, and anecdotal evidence could be advanced in support of these hypotheses, since little, if any, published evidence on these questions existed.
Hence, Byron is now setting out to test these hypotheses by gathering the necessary material in a new study. It will support a year’s field research in the United States and will permit the collection of a representative sampling of this evidence on a national scale, and will be funded by ESRC during which he will be based at Union College. His new work is likely to show most scholarly and popular ideas about "ethnicity" and "identity," and explore the politics of their use in contemporary discourses about multiculturalism in the United States.
Local History and Archaeology
Foundation
Established
Union Anthropology research professor Dennis Foley writes, "I have submitted four solicited articles to the upcoming The Encyclopedia of New York State by Syracuse University Press on Iroquois Religion." He and Andrew Wolfe, assistant professor of civil engineering, have established the Lewis Henry Morgan Research Foundation to do local history and archaeology.
Alumni News
Sarah Ahart says "I’m so glad to hear the Anthropology Department will have an alumni column!!! I graduated from Union in 1999 with honors in Anthropology, studying mostly under Steve Leavitt and Karen Brison. I, along with Deb Cederbaum and Amber Johnston, was part of the first crew to go to Fiji in 1997. I am now getting my Masters in Anthropology at the University of Albany, focusing on the American public education system. I can always be reached at this email address. Hopefully you will receive many responses from other Anthropology alumni!!" (sarahahart@yahoo.com)
Siri (Doble)
Newman writes, "I recently accepted a position with the School for International Training, SIT Study Abroad, in Brattleboro, Vermont. I am working as an admissions counselor for our programs in Latin America including programs in Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Jamaica, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile and the Southern Cone. SIT study abroad programs are curiously similar to the Union College Anthropology term abroad program in Barbados. Cultural immersion is the cornerstone of SIT programs with both home stays and independent field research built into each of our 57 programs. SIT runs programs in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. If students would like to learn more about the opportunity to study abroad through SIT or are interested in talking to me about employment opportunities in international education they should feel free to email me. Other late breaking news, I will be traveling to Chile for two weeks in June to evaluate three of our programs in the region, two that focus on social justice and one that is focusing on economic and regional development." (siri.newman@sit.edu)Hannah Gaw left Union at the end of the Fall term to pursue a degree in journalism with a history minor. She is attending the College of Communication at Boston University. In addition to taking classes, Hannah works as an editorial assistant, writing and editing the alumni news section of Bostonia Magazine, BU’s quarterly alumni publication. She writes that she enjoys living in Boston and has developed a great appreciation for "city life."
Nolan Farris writes, "On May 11th, I am leaving for Scotland with my younger brother John, and Brian Brodt ('98). I have not been out of the country since the Fall of 1996, when I returned to Barbados to visit the family with whom I stayed during my term abroad. It is my hope that I can travel to a new country every year. Hopefully, this trip to Scotland will allow me to keep my eyes open to a new culture, beautiful landscapes and friendly pubs! I will be sure to send another letter updating you all of my trip to Scotland. Perhaps next year, I will venture to Ireland, and make sure that our Anthropology department made the right move in taking our Term Abroad off the island of Barbados!" (nolan@hotjobs.com)
Emily Sparks says, "I am teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) at a small private language school in downtown Boston. I’ve found this to be a good experience, and the international students are definately the best part of the job, but teaching is not easy! I traveled to Venezuela this past summer to pick up Julie Barton ‘98 and then the two of us went back to Barbados for the summer. I’ve joined a few dance groups and have been dancing African, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-Cuban styles. If you’re in the Boston area, come see us perform every third Monday of the month at the Middle East in Central Square in Cambridge. I hope everyone else is doing well." (sparksemily@hotmail.com)
Bishop/Smith Bookshelf
Each issue, we willl be featuring books recommended as good reading for by Profs. Charles Bishop and M. Estellie Smith. They have included formal anthropological work as well as novels and mysteries and some classics.
In the Shadow of Man (1971) Jane Goodall
It puzzles some people that anthropologists who are interested in human behavior should study chimpanzees. Goodall combines the story of how she got started doing ethological work among non-human primates, what the organization and behavior of such groups can tell us about what is uniquely human (i.e. cultural) and what is social/biological and ecologically grounded.
Key Debates in Anthropology, edited by Tim Ingold
Following the traditional format of the Oxford Debating Society, Ingold has edited a collection of debates that gathers together twenty-four noted British social anthropologists in order to debate a set of propositions (e.g. the concept of society is theoretically obsolete, aesthetics is a cross-cultural category). Participants variously speak for and against the proposition and then there is an open and free-wheeling discussion in which all were free to take part. The material demands an engagement on the part of the reader; but, for those willing to put in the effort, the material will have one thinking about the issues for years to come.
Favorite mysteries:
Profs. Bishop and Smith particularly enjoy the work of Aaron Elkins. He’s a working physical anthropologist and his novels (about twenty by now) feature a professor who takes on cases both inside and outside his academic site. There is always a new Elkins at your local giant bookstore or at Amazon.com.
Fall Courses
ANT 010 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology - Prof. Leavitt MWF 1:40 - 2:45
ANT 010 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology - Prof. Cool TTH 9:15 - 11:05
ANT 011 Ethnographic Film - Prof. Leavitt MW 2:55 - 4:45
*ANT 055 Thinking About Culture - Prof. Cool TTH 1:40-3:30
*Ant 055 will satisfy our methods requirement for majors and minors. Ted Gilman's PSY 064 Qualitative Social Research, MW 2:50 -4:40, also satisfies this requirement.
Term Abroad in Ireland - Prof. George Gmelch
ANT 063 Ethnographic Field Methods
ANT 101 Irish Society & Culture
ANT 190 Independent Study
From the Chair
By Prof. Stephen Leavitt
This term we celebrate some milestones. We will soon be saying good-bye to a successful group of anthropology seniors, one of our largest classes ever. We wish you all the best and ask you to keep in tough! We also say good-bye - temporarily - to Prof. Ian Condry who will be taking up a postdoc at Harvard next year. We offer him our congratulations. Condry will be commuting to Boston while he and his family continue living in Schenectady. We also celebrate the publication of George Gmelch's new book on baseball, and I recommend it as another title to consider for your summer reading.
Prof. Stephen
Leavitt, Chair
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