Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of Museum Pieces: Toward The Indigenization Of Canadian Museums By Ruth B. Phillips, Lee-Ann Martin

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

The recent history of museums and Indigenous peoples has developed along diverging lines in Canada and the United States. In Canada, the controversy around The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada's First Peoples, an exhibition organized for the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, provided the impetus for the Task Force on Museums and First Peoples which, in turn, sparked subsequent debates surrounding museological policies and practices over the past twenty years. Ruth Phillips locates this exhibition as the point of departure for the "postcolonial project" that has informed subsequent museum reform in Canada.

Thoroughly articulated with characteristic rigor, Phillips's …

Review Of White Man's Water: The Politics Of Sobriety In A Native American Community. By Erica Prussing, Paul Spicer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Epidemiological evidence consistently emphasizes the challenges American Indian tribes of the Great Plains confront through excess alcohol consumption. Until Erica Prussing's recent book, however, we have lacked a detailed analysis of the social and cultural context in which these challenges unfold. With a focus on women's experiences across two generations, White Man s Water provides us with a careful description of the social and cultural world of contemporary Northern Cheyennes, coupled with an understanding of how individual experiences within the milieu vary, especially as a function of history.

White Man's Water is a truly significant book: the first book-length ethnographic …

Review Of Plains Indian Art: The Pioneering Work Of John C. Ewers Edited By Jane Ewers Robinson, Bill Anthes

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

John Canfield Ewers (1909-1997) authored two important books on Plains Indian art: Plains Indian Painting: A Description of an Aboriginal American Art (1939) and Plains Indian Sculpture: A Traditional Art from America's Heartland (1986). The present collection is the second of two volumes of short essays first published in journals and specialized catalogs. The first, Plains Indian History and Culture: Essays on Continuity and Change (1997), included a number of essays that looked to works of art as sources of primary historical information. This volume collects fifteen essays foregrounding works of art and matters of style, iconography, the historiography of …

Great Plains Quarterly Volume 32 / Number 4 / Fall 2012

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

Contents

Book Reviews

Book Notes

Notes and News

Review Of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter And The Politics Of Sight. By Timothy Pachirat., Donald D. Stull

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In June 2004, political scientist Timothy Pachirat went to work on the killfloor of an unnamed beef slaughterhouse in Omaha, Nebraska. He started out as a "liver hanger" in the cooler. There carcasses hang before being sent to the fabrication floor where "hundreds of handheld knives and saws reinvent chilled half-carcasses as steaks, rounds, and roasts that are then boxed and shipped to distributors and retailers around the world." For four days he worked in the chutes, driving cattle to the knocking box to be stunned, as required by the Humane Slaughter Act, before being turned into meat. Then for …

Review Of On The Edge Of Purgatory: An Archaeology Of Place In Hispanic Colorado. By Bonnie J. Clark, Jason M. Labelle

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Bonnie Clark's book is a welcome addition to the small body of published literature regarding Great Plains historical archaeology. It concerns two habitation sites located on the Pinon Canyon Maneuver site, a modern military base in the canyon lands of the Purgatory River (which the Spanish named EI Rio de Las Animas Pedidas en Purgatorio) in southeastern Colorado. The river is the lifeblood of this region, with a deep record of occupation by both prehistoric and historic populations. Clark searches for Hispanic Colorado, which she identifies as both a people and a place. But unlike other historical archaeology studies, this …

Ngo Attitudes Toward Community-Based Care Models For Survivors Of Human Trafficking In Cambodia!, Tania Docarmo

Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking: 4th (2012)

Since 2003 there has been a notable influx of ‘anti-trafficking programming’ in Cambodia particularly focused on ‘rescue’ ‘aftercare’ and (re-)integration of victims and survivors of trafficking and sexual exploitation. While the majority of national programs focused on this population have historically developed ‘residential’ models of care; shifts in policy, practice and gradual shifts in the paradigm of what ‘works’ and doesn't ‘work’ have raised questions about the sustainability of solely residential models, and what sustainable or ‘successful’ reintegration into the community actually looks like. Based on a recent study among carers and antitrafficking stakeholders in Cambodia designed to understand attitudes …

Pod Network News Fall 2012

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: POD Network News

Notes from the POD Office

Newsletter Feedback

37th Annual POD Conference Reconnecting with Our Past

Call for Core Self-Nominations

Call for Manuscripts & Reviewers: To Improve the Academy

Guest Column

POD Leadership Development Institute

Journal on Excellence in College Teaching

The National Teaching and Learning FORUM

IDEA Center Updates

Grants and Awards

Member News

Reminders and Save-the-Dates

POD Essays on Teaching Excellence

Contact the Editor

Neocolonialism And The Global Prison In National Geographic’S Locked Up Abroad, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay examines the reformulation of colonial ideologies in National Geographic Channel’s Locked Up Abroad, a documentary program that chronicles the narratives of Westerner travelers incarcerated in foreign nations. An analysis of Locked Up Abroad evinces neocolonialism in contemporary media culture, including the historic association between dark-skin and savagery, the backwardness of the non-Western world, and the Western imperative to civilize it. The program’s documentary techniques and framing devices sustain an Otherizing gaze toward non-Western societies, and its portrayals elide a critical analysis of colonialism in its present forms. I advocate for neocolonial criticism to trace how NatGeo remains …

Knitting A New World, Carrie Brezine

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Although pre-historic Andean textile artists explored almost every textile structure ever invented, knitting was unknown in the Pre-Columbian Andes. Recent excavations at the colonial town of Magdalena de Cao Viejo on the north coast of Peru have uncovered what may be the earliest surviving examples of knitting in the Americas (see image). Along with disease, bureaucracy, Catholicism, violence, and other effects of colonization, the technique of knitting was imported to South America after the Spanish Conquest in 1532 and was adopted and adapted by indigenous Andeans. The discovery of early New World knitting, exciting enough in itself, inspires further questions …

Textiles Of War: Women’S Commentaries On Conflict In Iraq And Afghanistan, Deborah A. Deacon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textiles of War: Women's Commentaries on Conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan Shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, patriotic imagery in the form of American flags began appearing in traditionally patterned rugs woven by Navajo women and beadwork sold on the reservation. This was not the first time women's textiles provided a political commentary on the destruction resulting from warfare. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, rugs featuring Soviet weaponry and vehicles appeared in the markets of Peshawar. Created by nomadic Beluch women who experienced the impact of war first-hand, the war rugs helped the …

Ancient Designs For The Modern Era: Artists Interpret Andean Textiles, Blenda Femenías

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Artistic re-interpretation of the works of earlier centuries has become a mainstay of modern design. Textiles bearing Andean designs that appeared on pre-Columbian objects and the products of contemporary weavers using motifs from their own cultural traditions are well represented among cloth items used and marketed in Peru today. Only 150 years ago, however, pre-Columbian Andean textiles were little known. In the early twentieth century, knowledge of indigenous American cultures increased rapidly as archaeologists excavated previously unimagined cultural riches. Simultaneously, the international modernist movement toward streamlined design pushed artists and designers to seek inspirations for their bold new efforts. Especially …

Clothing Or Decoration: Exploring The Penis Sheath Of Papua New Guinea, Catherine Murphy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In 2009, the University of Rhode Island obtained a koteka, or penis sheath, from Papua New Guinea that was donated by a resident of Rhode Island. The koteka was mounted and accompanied by an image of three men, presumably from Papua New Guinea, wearing penis sheaths. Kotekas are an adornment worn by native men of Papua New Guinea to cover their genitalia. This research delves into the political and social meanings of what this adornment is, who wears it, and why it is considered clothing. Besides clothing, the koteka is also a way to show ones affiliation with a certain …

Identity, Innovation And Textile Exchange Practices At The Paracas Necropolis, 2000 Bp, Ann H. Peters

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Elayne Zorn's detailed ethnographic research demonstrated interrelationships between the organization of textile production, exchange relationships within and beyond Andean communities, persistence and innovation in style, and the meanings ascribed to textile-based iconography. We seek to demonstrate that all these issues can - and should - be addressed in the analysis of textile assemblages from documented archaeological contexts in the southern Central Andes, revealing evidence for complex and historically dynamic socio-political relationships. The Paracas Necropolis cemetery, approximately 150BC-AD200, is the largest set of relatively well-preserved and well-recorded burials documenting early complex society on the desert coast of the Central Andes, one …

Anticipating The Silk Road; Some Thoughts On The Wool-Murex Connection In Tyre, Jane Schneider

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Taking a lead from John Murra's well-known 1950s argument for the importance of textiles to Inka rulers' power, wealth, and capacity for expansion, this essay considers the possible role of "textile rivalries" among the urban centers of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean as they maneuvered for position in a "world system" of communication and exchange. A brief comparative overview suggests several variables that elevate a cloth tradition to exceptional reputation and prestige -- the kind and quality of fiber, labor-intensive refinements in spinning and weaving, the range and saturation of colors, the iconography and aesthetics of pre- and postloom decoration. …

The Parenthetical Notation Method For Recording Yarn Structure, Jeffrey C. Splitstoser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Until now, describing yarn structure has been more art than science, especially for complex yarns and cordage like those encountered at Cerrillos, a Paracas (ca. 900-100 B.C.E.) site in the Ica Valley of Peru, where yarns and cordage frequently involve multiple colors, sub-structures, and materials (e.g., Image 1). My early attempts at describing yarn structures using notation were essentially undecipherable to others. Likewise, narrative methods proved too wordy and no less confusing. (For instance, a narrative description of the structure of specimen 2001-L185-B1654- S001, a rope-like yarn pictured in Images 2 and 3, would be: Twelve Z-spun-singly-ply yarns Ztwisted with …

Thangchhuah Puan: The Highest Status Mantle Among The Mizo People Of Northeastern India, Barbara G. Fraser, David W. Fraser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Mizo are a large sub-group of the Chin (also known as the Zo, Lai or Kuki), a loosely related group of two million people living in the hills of western Myanmar (Burma), northeastern India, and southeastern Bangladesh. The Mizo strive to attain merit through success in hunting, war, accumulation of wealth, and communal feast giving involving a series of five separate feasts. A Mizo man who has either hosted two complete series of five communal feasts or killed an entire series of wild animals attains the greatest merit and is known as Thangchhuahpa. Such men were held in high …

Embroidered Relations In Kutch: Women, Stitching And The Third Space, Michele A. Hardy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The embroidery of Gujarat State in India is relatively well known to Western textile enthusiasts. Often referred to as shisha or abla embroidery in reference to the tiny mirrors it includes, it is the subject of numerous books and exhibitions some of which were organized to help preserve traditions from the 1960's. Jain's seminal work, Folk art and culture of Gujarat (1980), for example, catalogues the Shreyas Collection, developed in the late 1970's in anticipation of the demise of many folk crafts in Gujarat. This paper examines the fraught context of embroidery in Kutch, the largest district in Gujarat, since …

A Wari Tapestry Textile In A Tiwanaku Tomb From The Osmore Valley, Moquegua, Peru, Amy Oakland

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the Andes, ancient textiles have been discovered in abundance in the elite tombs of royal personages. The arid climate particular to the coast of Peru and northern Chile has preserved outstanding collections of these textiles. Exquisite textiles at the site of Chimu Capac in the Supe Valley on Peru's central coast were discovered in the beginning of the twentieth century by German archaeologist Max Uhle sponsored by Californian Phoebe Hearst. Many of the artifacts from Chimu Capac attest to elite status and the site may have been a burial ground for Wari administrators or even perhaps Wari royals in …

Challenging The Politics Of Creating Art In The 21st Century: An Artist/Educator's Perspective, Claire Campbell Park

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The politics of creating art pertains to assumptions relating to a given cultural sphere or theory that are concerned with power and status in society. From the perspective of an artist and educator, I will question prevalent assumptions in the contemporary culture of making and teaching art, and present alternative approaches inspired by textile artists from diverse cultures. What makes art "strong" - must we assume attitudes and mediums traditionally in the male domain? Are art students encouraged to "fit in" to the current scene, as opposed to developing their own creative integrity? Does "pushing the envelope" necessarily mean "beyond …

Textiles' Treasure From Jericho Cave 38 In The Qarantal Cliff Compared To Other Early Medieval Sites In Israel, Orit Shamir, Alisa Baginski

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

768 textile fragments were discovered at a cave near Jericho, Israel. They display a remarkable variety of materials (silk, cotton, linen, wool and goat-hair) and techniques suggesting their diverse geographical origins. Most significant are the silk fragments made in various techniques, some of them requiring sophisticated looms, and a large group of textiles with S-spun linen warps and Z-spun cotton wefts which is unique to the site. Most of these fragments were parts of clothing (e.g. trousers, tunics, coifs). Others could be recognized as bags, wrappers and strips for tying. Why was such a large quantity of used textiles stored …

Making (In) Brooklyn: The Production Of Textiles, Meaning, And Social Change, Tali Weinberg

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Brooklyn, NY has become one hotbed of activity for alternative economies defined as small, intimate, and artisanal. This includes emergent practices in "local" and "handmade" textiles?particularly by young women?that have recently caught the attention of scholars. Based on ethnographic fieldwork centered at the new Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, this paper explores how and why producers of such textiles are inscribing their practices of making and the materiality of textiles with new meanings and intentions as they navigate the systems they seek to change. It further explores how their practices, and their understandings of these practices, are linked to globalized …

Knitting The News And Other Stories, Adrienne Sloane

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Knitting shapes have long been defined by the human form. By moving the context of knitting from clothing geometry to sculpture, knitting becomes a medium with a link to a rich and complex fiber tradition that has the power of history behind it. Aspiring to dissolve the boundaries between craft, art and politics, I knit to rejoin the frayed and unraveled places I see around me. As I work, I am responding viscerally to the constant assault of the unsettling news that pours out of the radio in my studio. To protest recent wars, I have often worked with body …

Textile Society Of America- Abstracts And Biographies

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

TSA Abstracts and Biographies, September 2012.

Sisters And Others: The Power And Politics Of Weaving Supplementary Weft Textiles In A Sa'dan Toraja Village, Maria Christou

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The weaving of textiles in Sa'dan Toraja, a district on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, is layered with many social and cultural influences. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in three Sa'dan Toraja villages, I suggest the matriarchial social organization of the village life is the most significant factor influencing the production and sales of textiles. The status and hiearchy of the matriarchies is controlled by the local belief system adhered to by the Sa'dan Toraja known as adat. Several government proposals for weaving cooperatives have been assigned and distributed throughout the Sa'dan Toraja area, however only two have been …

Neeg Tawg Rog (War-Torn People): Linguistic Consciousness In The Hmong Diaspora, Geraldine Craig

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines how new Hmong textile forms that started in Ban Vinai refugee camp have served as dialogical performance, spiritual and political agency, and transnational commodity in the diasporas. These textiles create a hybrid social language that draws from a diversity of linguistic consciousnesses in a culture where there was not a universally understood writing system until the mid-20th century. Traditional paj ntaub (flower cloth) garments in Laos were a primary indicator of Hmong identity and can be seen as an alternate text. The complex, layered geometric patterns in paj ntaub established ethnic group identification and offered passive resistance …

Elayne Zorn Bibliography: As Part Of Weaving A Future: A Panel In Honor Of Elayne Zorn, Andrea Heckman, Blenda Femenias

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In honor of our dear friend and colleague, the respected textile researcher Elayne Zorn, we have shaped six presentations around several interrelated political themes: heritage, identity, status, cultural continuity and economic sustainability, especially for the indigenous women and men who make the cloth. The titles and the themes draw inspirations from Elayne’s book Weaving a Future, published in 2004. The first three papers address these issues in relationship to Andean societies of the past, using artifacts and archaeological and historical perspectives. The final three papers, while concerned with broadly similar issues, focus on prospects for the future and explore how …

The Social Bioarchaeology Of Childhood As Applied To The Analysis Of An Excavated Mid- To Late-Nineteenth-Century Mennonite Cemetery, Berne, Indiana, Jennifer L. Hildebrand

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This thesis provides a social-bioarchaeological analysis of the Old Mennonite Cemetery (1852-1896) in Berne, Indiana, with emphasis on treatment of child burials as a reflection of Mennonite identity and beliefs. Social bioarchaeology combines the methods of both social archaeology and bioarchaeology. When applied to the study of children in a mortuary context, social bioarchaeology allows determination of cultural age categories and a fuller understanding of childhood. In this study, various forms of historical documentation were utilized to provide a social context for analysis of the cemetery. These materials revealed a collective religious identity based on practices pertaining to children, most …

Status And Prosociality In Egalitarian Societies, Zachary Garfield

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Egalitarian societies have been the subject of significant academic attention for their unique cultural qualities, both as a representation of a distinct political category, and as a base line in the context of biological and cultural evolution. Although the domains and degrees of egalitarianism vary cross-culturally, certain characteristics seem universal. Egalitarian societies are nonstratified social systems that lack hereditary statuses with ascribed coercive power. In egalitarian societies leadership is achieved and dependent upon personal qualities and individual behavior. Leaders are granted authority but lack coercive power and rely on techniques such as persuasion to exert influence over others. Multiple theories …

Graduate Connections- August 2012

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Navigating Graduate

School ............................................. 1

Time Management: How to Plan for a

Successful Semester

Treating Graduate School Like a Career

Creating a Professional Online Presence

Good Practices in Graduate

Education ........................................ 4

Fine Lines in Academic Integrity

Five Reasons to Attend Academic Integrity

Week Events

Professional Development .............. 5

Preparing to Interview at a Conference or

Convention

Teaching Blogs You Should be Reading

Teaching Tip ................................... 6

Forget the Syllabus and Let Learning

Begin

The Graduate Student Writer .......... 7

Twitter Citations in Academic Writing

Funding Opportunities ..................... 8

Events ........................................... 10

Campuswide Workshop for Graduate

Teaching …