The next meeting of the 2021 History of Anthropology Working Group hosted by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine will be held on Wednesday, December 1st at 12:00pm ET via Zoom. There are no advance readings: instead, we will be hearing and discussing the work of some of the editors of the History of Anthropology Review who presented papers at the 2021 American Anthropological Association (AAA) and History of Science Society (HSS) conferences this November.

They’ll summarize their work, discuss the conference reactions, and reflect on the state of History of Anthropology as shown in these two conferences:

PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE
Patricia Martins Marcos: Racialized Knowledges: Manipulating Nature, Blackness, and Epistemic Disciplining in the Portuguese Inquisition.
Tracie Canada: Vindication, Imagination, and Decolonization: African Americans and the Experience of Anthropology (George W. Stocking, Jr. Symposium).
Nick Barron: Cultural Islands: The Pluralistic Politics of Anthropology.
Cameron Brinitzer : Social Learning Mechanisms: The Evolution of Culture and Its Sciences.
Matthew Hoffarth: Interactions with the Rorschach: Anthony F.C. Wallace and Mel Spiro’s Criticisms of the Culture Concept.

Additional details about the group and information on how to attend may be found on the Consortium website. Questions may be directed to John Tresch at john.tresch@sas.ac.uk.

After a two-year pandemic delay, this two-day conference of the Society for the History of Recent Social Science (HISRESS) will bring together researchers working on the history of post-World War II social science. It will provide a forum for the latest research on the cross-disciplinary history of the post-war social sciences, including but not limited to anthropology, economics, psychology, political science, and sociology as well as related fields like area studies, communication studies, history, international relations, law, and linguistics. The conference aims to build upon the recent emergence of work and conversation on cross-disciplinary themes in the postwar history of the social sciences.

Submissions are welcome in such areas including, but not restricted to:

• The interchange of social science concepts and figures among the academy and wider intellectual and popular spheres
• Comparative institutional histories of departments and programs
• Border disputes and boundary work between disciplines as well as academic cultures
• Themes and concepts developed in the history and sociology of natural and physical science, reconceptualized for the social science context
• Professional and applied training programs and schools, and the quasi-disciplinary fields (like business administration) that typically housed them
• The role of social science in post-colonial state-building governance
• Social science adaptations to the changing media landscape
• The role and prominence of disciplinary memory in a comparative context
• Engagements with matters of gender, sexuality, race, religion, nationality, disability and other markers of identity and difference

The two-day conference will be organized as a series of one-hour, single-paper sessions attended by all participants. Ample time will be set aside for intellectual exchange between presenters and attendees, as all participants are expected to read pre-circulated papers in advance.

Proposals should contain no more than 1000 words, indicating the originality of the paper. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is February 4, 2022. Final notification will be given in early March 2022 after proposals have been reviewed. Completed papers will be expected by May 13, 2022.

The organizing committee consists of Jamie Cohen-Cole (George Washington University), Philippe Fontaine (École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay), Jeff Pooley (Muhlenberg College), Mark Solovey (University of Toronto), and Marga Vicedo (University of Toronto).

All proposals and requests for information should be sent to submissions@hisress.org.

The Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History invites applications for an anthropologist to serve as Supervisory Research Anthropologist/Manager of the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), which includes the Human Studies Film Archives.

The NAA holds the largest known collection of historical and contemporary materials documenting the world’s cultures and the history of anthropology via a wide array of media types. Indigenous communities, anthropologists, folklorists, historians, film scholars and national and international researchers and filmmakers are the primary users of the collections. 

The Manager manages the NAA, and develops collections goals and plans, including preparation of annual budget in alignment with the Department and NMNH’s goals and plans. The position also oversees the processing of archival collections and preparation for digitization, including organization, arrangement, description (finding aids and inventories) and preservation, and the tracking of these activities. The Manager will also oversee the collections information systems used by the NAA, as well as the preservation, security and safekeeping of the archival and film collections.  The Manager will supervise staff and contract archivists as well as interns and volunteers. Additional duties include representing the NAA within NMNH and the Smithsonian, as well as being an active part of the collections management team at NMNH.

This position will be offered as a permanent Federal position and the position will be filled at the GS-13 level, which starts at $103,690 per year. U.S. citizenship is required.  College transcripts and proof of U.S. accreditation for foreign study must be submitted online by the closing date of announcement or your application will be disqualified.  For complete requirements and application procedures go to www.sihr.si.edu  or www.usajobs.gov and refer to Announcement #: 22A-JW-306791-DEU-NMNH (open to public candidates); or 22A-JW-306791A-MPA-NMNH (open to current/former federal candidates). 

All supporting documentation must be received online by 11/30/2021. Applicants will be notified by email when their applications are received.

To learn more about the Department of Anthropology, please view our website.

The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum and research complex with over 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research facilities. The Department of Anthropology is one of seven research departments at the National Museum of Natural History. The NAA Manager will join a large and diverse department with 52 full-time staff, including 12 curators in three research divisions: archaeology, ethnology and biological anthropology, along with the Collections Program  and the Repatriation Office.  The Anthropology collections hold over 3.6 million archaeological objects, over 200,000 ethnology objects, over 9,000 linear feet of archival documents, and 8 million running feet of ethnographic film and video. 

The annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association will be held online and in-person in Baltimore, MD, on November 17-21, 2021. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Truth and Responsibility”; a full schedule and additional details may be found on the Association’s website.

The News Editors at HAR are pleased to highlight several panels of interest to our readers. Event times are listed in Eastern Time (U.S.) and registration is required to attend in-person and online. Our thanks to Grant Arndt, co-director of the History of Anthropology Interest Group, for sharing news of these and other events related to the history of anthropology.

Thursday, November 18 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

Session (2-1620) Anthropology at St. Louis and
Before

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 341

Sean O’Neill, “An Unfair Hearing for Global Cultural
Diversity: The Saint Louis World’s Fair as a Sounding Board for Primitivism, Racism, and Colonialism”

Christopher Lowman, “Imagining Asia Beyond the Exhibition”

Richard Warms, “Picture this: Boas, Photography and the Popular Presentation of Science”

Robert Launay, “Genealogies of the Secular and Sovereign State”

Discussant: Jon McGee

Thursday, November 18 2:00 – 3:45 PM ET

(2-1460) Entangled Histories and Bundles of Relations: Contemporary Ethnographic Work In and Around Collections

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 330

Panelists:

Catherine Nichols, Diana Marsh, Kristin Otto, Christopher Berk, Howard Morphy

Thursday, November 18 6:30 – 8:15 PM ET

Session (2-1621) Anthropology and Activism

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Martin Schoenhals, Carol Mukhopadhyay, Yolanda Moses, Kathleen Fine-Dare, Linda Seligmann, Raymond Schwartz, Jeanne Simonelli

Session (2-0740) The World-Builders

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Andrew Foster, Mariel Gruszko, Llerena Searle, Keith Murphy, Lee Cabatingan, Britt Van Paepeghem, Matthew C. Watson

Session (2-1190) Making Historical Truth: Material Engagements with the Past and the Politics of Responsibility after Mass Violence

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Hilary Leathem, Chris Green, Dominic Bryan, Damani Partridge, Jonathan Evershed, Sultan Doughan, Michal Ran-Rubin, Jonah Rubin

Friday, November 19 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

Session (3-2520) Alfred L. Kroeber: The Man, His Work and His Legacy

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 331

Herbert S. Lewis, “Alfred L. Kroeber: The Man, His Times, and His Work”

Stanley Brandes, “Alfred Kroeber and the Forging of a Discipline”

Paul Shankman, “Kroeber, Mead, and the Perils of Public Anthropology”

James Stanlaw, “Alfred Kroeber and the Development of Linguistic Anthropology”

Jack Glazier, “The Kroeber-Ishi Story: Cinematic Versions”

Nicholas Barron, “Anthros, Agents, and Federal (Un)Acknowledgment in Native California”

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Goodbye Kroeber, Kroeber Hall, and the Man Called Ishi”

Session (3-2330) Enduring Legacies of Ethnographic Field Schools, Part 1

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Natalie Bourdon, Linda Easley, A Katherine Lambert-Pennington, Suzanne Kent, Keri Brondo, Tim Wallace, Quetzil Castaneda, Douglas Hume

(3-2122) Native Americans and Museums: International Perspectives and Collaborative Prospects.

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Robert Collins, Justin Richland, Alaka Wali, Markus Lindner

Friday, November 19 2:00 PM – 3:45 PM ET

Session (3-2320) Enduring Legacies of Ethnographic Field Schools, Part 2

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Tim Wallace, Keri Brondo, Bill Roberts, Walter Adams, James McDonald, Sharon Gmelch

Friday, November 19 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Session (3-1750) Vindication, Imagination, and Decolonization: African Americans and the Experience of Anthropology (The George W. Stocking, Jr. Symposium)

Location: Livestreamed and In-Person, Baltimore, Holiday Ballroom

Abstract: As we commemorate 50 years of the Association of Black Anthropologists, it is incumbent to recognize that African Americans have been bearing witness, taking action, and holding scholars accountable to the truth since the very beginning of anthropology in North America. Frederick Douglass, for example, wrote a critical response to Josiah Nott’s Types of Mankind in 1854. During every twist and turn in the history of anthropology, African American scholars have taken on the responsibility to insist that anthropology be a holistic social science that combats racism and oppression and leads to a more responsive and inclusive understanding of what it means to be human. At the same time, anthropologists throughout the African Diaspora have described and analyzed how violence, power, and oppression lead to atrocities and the worst forms of inhumanity. In this panel, we take a look at a sample of African American intellectuals who were leaders in the vindication struggle, were creative and imaginative describing culture, and worked hard towards achieving a decolonized anthropology.

Panelists:

Deborah Johnson-Simon, Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Lee D. Baker, Riché Barnes, Irma McClaurin, Rachel Watkins, Tracie Canada, Michael Blakey

Saturday, November 20 4:15 PM – 6:00PM ET

(4-3290) Clinical Encounters Across Difference: (Ac)countability and the Politics of Representation

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:
Molly Fitzpatrick, Allison Odger, Adrienne Strong, Margaret MacDonald, Hatice Nilay Erten, Thandeka Cochrane, Cal Biruk

Sunday, November 21 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

(5-0010) Historical Consciousness and Historicist Reckonings with the Anthropological Present

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:
David Dinwoodie, Jim Weil, Kathryn Kozaitis, Nicholas Barron, Grant Arndt, Olga Glinskii, Paul Mitchell

The Library & Museum of the American Philosophical Society seeks to hire an Engagement Coordinator for The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI) and Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR). This position will assist in implementing the Native American Scholars Initiative by developing and executing innovative programs at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research as well as providing mentorship for fellows and interns; work with Native American communities and community-based scholars to provide access to the Library & Museum’s Indigenous-related collections from reference request onward; as well as cultivate new and steward existing partnerships.

The next meeting of the History of Anthropology Working Group, hosted by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, will be held on Wednesday, June 2, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET. The topic for the discussion will be “Visualization.” This meeting was rescheduled from April 7, 2021.

The discussion will be led by Abigail Nieves Delgado and Iris Clever, and will take a broad view of visualization from the 18th to 20th centuries across a range of traditions. It will focus on the following readings:

• Keevak, Michael. 2011. “Taxonomies of Yellow: Linnaeus, Blumenbach, and the Making of a ‘Mongolian’ Race in the Eighteenth Century.” In Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking. Princeton University Press.
• Qureshi, Sadiah. 2012. “Peopling the landscape: Showmen, displayed peoples and travel illustration in nineteenth-century Britain.” Early Popular Visual Culture 10(1): 23-36.
• Evans, Andrew. 2020. “‘Most Unusual’ Beauty Contests: Nordic Photographic Competitions and the Construction of a Public for German Race Science, 1926–1935,” Isis 111(2): 289-309.
• Stinson, Catherine. 2020. “Algorithms Associating Appearance and Criminality Have a Dark Past.” Aeon, May 15, 2020. https://aeon.co/ideas/algorithms-associating-appearance-and-criminality-….

The readings are available for download via the Working Group home page. Additional details about the group and information on how to attend may also be found on the site.

This is a reminder and invitation for an organizational meeting for the American Anthropological Association’s History of Anthropology Interest Group co-convened by Grant Arndt and Mindy Morgan. The meeting is open to all those interested in discussing preparations for this year’s meeting as well as future HOAIG activities.

The meeting will be held virtually on Friday, May 14 from 1-2 PM Eastern Time.

Please contact Grant Arndt (gparndt@iastate.edu) know if you are interested in attending.

The next meeting of the History of Anthropology Working Group, hosted by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, will be held on Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET. The topic for the discussion will be “Visualization.”

The discussion will be led by Abigail Nieves Delgado and Iris Clever, and will take a broad view of visualization from the 18th to 20th centuries across a range of traditions. It will focus on the following readings:

• Keevak, Michael. 2011. “Taxonomies of Yellow: Linnaeus, Blumenbach, and the Making of a ‘Mongolian’ Race in the Eighteenth Century.” In Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking. Princeton University Press.
• Qureshi, Sadiah. 2012. “Peopling the landscape: Showmen, displayed peoples and travel illustration in nineteenth-century Britain.” Early Popular Visual Culture 10(1): 23-36.
• Evans, Andrew. 2020. “‘Most Unusual’ Beauty Contests: Nordic Photographic Competitions and the Construction of a Public for German Race Science, 1926–1935,” Isis 111(2): 289-309.
• Stinson, Catherine. 2020. “Algorithms Associating Appearance and Criminality Have a Dark Past.” Aeon, May 15, 2020. https://aeon.co/ideas/algorithms-associating-appearance-and-criminality-….

The readings are available for download via the Working Group home page. Additional details about the group and information on how to attend may also be found on the site.

On Wednesday, February 17 at 1:00 pm ET Dr. Rafael Ocasio will be presenting on his new book Race and Nation in Puerto Rican Folklore: Franz Boas and John Alden Mason in Porto Rico (Rutgers University Press, 2020).

The event will be hosted by the American Philosophical Society and held via Zoom. The event is free of charge but registration is required. Additional details and registration may be found on the event website.

The next meeting of the History of Anthropology Working Group, hosted by the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, will be held on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET. The topic for the discussion will be “Antiblackness and Indigeneity.”

The editorial collective at the History of Anthropology Review (HAR) is pleased to announce the launch of a new reading group, hosted in collaboration with the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM). The “History of Anthropology Working Group” will allow anyone interested in the history of anthropology to take part in monthly discussions about topics of vital interest to the field. We warmly invite all HAR readers to join us for these online conversations. This year, spurred by Black Lives Matter protests, the reading group’s focus will be anthropology’s relationships to (and studies of) racism, racial science, white supremacy, anti-racism, and policing.

“The Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future” conference is jointly organized by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, the British Academy, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, and the BM’s Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas. The conference was originally planned as a face to face conference to be held in June 2020, but it will now be an online conference to be held 14-18 September 2020.

Every once in a while, an important figure makes an appearance, makes a difference, and then disappears from the public record. James Teit (1864-1922) was such a figure. 

Join Dr. Wendy Wickwire in conversation with Brian Carpenter, Curator of Native American Materials at the American Philosophical Society, as they discuss Teit’s life and work and the continued impact of the records he left behind.

Building on the collaborative, community-engaged work of the American Philosophical Society’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), the APS Library & Museum launched The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI) in 2016 to foster the development of the next generation of Indigenous and allied students and scholars. 

Grant Arndt, Iowa State, is seeking a few more participants for a panel on the relationship between research into the history of anthropology and the modes of historical self-consciousness evident in contemporary anthropological work.  

The History of Anthropology Interest Group at the American Anthropological Association encourages the organization of panels and events related to history of anthropology for this year’s annual meeting in St. Louis, MO (November 18-22). Submissions must be started by April 3rd and are due by April 8th. Visit the AAA’s website for information on how to submit proposals.

The HOA Interest Group would also appreciate information on HOA related panels and events being planned for the meeting. Messages may be sent directly to the listserv address: history-of-anthropology@virginia.edu.

Heading to the AAAs? Here are some curated sessions and events of interest related to the history of anthropology!

Want us to include your session? Send us an email–We’d love to hear from you: news@histanthro.org.

The History of Anthropology Review (HAR) seeks applications for Associate Editors to join its editorial team. Formerly the History of Anthropology Newsletter, HAR has been a venue for publication and conversation on the many histories of the discipline of anthropology since 1973. We became an open access web publication in 2016, and regularly publish essays, reviews, bibliographies, news, and other content related to the histories of the field. 

The submission deadline is November 1, 2018. Read on for application instructions and additional details.

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The American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia, PA invites applications for predoctoral, postdoctoral, and short-term research fellowships from scholars at all stages of their careers, especially Native American scholars in training, tribal college and university faculty members, and other scholars working closely with Native communities on projects in Native American and Indigenous Studies and related fields and disciplines. These funding opportunities are supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI). Fellows will be associated with the APS’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), which promotes greater collaboration among scholars, archives, and indigenous communities.

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In celebration of the second anniversary of the online relaunch of the Newsletter, HAN will be hosting a public lecture by Professor Alice Conklin (Ohio State University). Her lecture, “‘Nothing is Less Universal than the Idea of Race’: Anti-Racism and Social Science at UNESCO, 1950-1962,” will be held on Monday, October 30 from 3:30-5:00pm as part of the Department of History and Sociology of Science workshop series and will take place in Room 337, Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania. See poster for abstract and additional details.