Blog: Voices from SAR
Remembering Art Wolf and Christine McHorse
Last week, we lost two members of our SAR family. On Sunday, February 14, Art Wolf, the first curator of collections for the Indian Arts Research Center passed away. Just a few days later, 2006 Eric and Barbara Dobkin Native artist fellow Christine McHorse also began her journey into the next world. Read more about their work and legacies.
“It all starts with landscape”: SAR Scholars’ Recent and Upcoming Reflections on Chaco Canyon
In a conversation with SAR’s director of communications and public programs, Ruth Van Dyke describes how the Ancestral Puebloan builders in Chaco Canyon tried to create a “sense of place that emphasized Chaco as the center. Chaco was the fulcrum, and you can see this on the landscape.”
The Equitable Transformation of Communities: A Conversation with John Arroyo
John Arroyo, SAR’s 2018–2019 Mellon fellow, grew up in a largely Mexican and Mexican American community in East LA. Even as a kid, he was thinking about urban issues and the diversity and future of communities like his. He is now a planner who incorporates a humanistic perspective into his work, which allows him to make connections between urban issues, art, and the social sciences.
A Healed Greenwood: Lessons in Restorative Justice Archaeology from Tulsa, Oklahoma
“We began the class with an exercise in humility: writing down our thoughts and beliefs about Greenwood, and comparing that with broad assumptions, rumors, and questions.” Hear from SAR Anne Ray intern, Emily Santhanam, about her experience in the fall 2020 virtual in-depth course Unearthing Violence: Archaeology in the Aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre and learn how you can download the recorded course sessions.
Summer Scholar Colloquium: Nicholas Barron Brings the History of Anthropology into the Present
In November 1981, anthropologists and tribal representatives gathered on the Pascua Pueblo Yaqui Reservation in southern Arizona for the 89th International Symposium, hosted by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Although this obscure conference may have been relegated to a footnote in the history of anthropology and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Nicholas Barron, SAR’s 2020 William Y. and Nettie K. Adams summer scholar, argues that its story helps us to better understand consequential, ongoing political processes and Indigenous histories.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
With the nation’s social and political turmoil as well as an ongoing pandemic, 2020 revealed how now more than ever the perspectives of social science scholars and Native American artists matter. In today’s post, we reflect on the last year and invite you to join us for online programs in the new year.
Guidelines in Action: The University of Colorado Museum Studies Program
Learn more about how the SAR Guidelines for Collaboration are transforming the teaching practices at one university in this guest post by Jen Shannon, curator and associate professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
Venancio Aragon: Weaving the Colors of the World
Venancio Aragon is the SAR 2020 Rollin and Mary Ella King Native artist fellow. If you ever meet Venancio, you will notice his friendly demeanor and willingness to chat. He is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and what I would consider an award-winning master weaver, although he describes himself as “a humble practitioner of an ancient art.” Along with being an artist, he is also an intellectual, knowledge holder, and student.
A Story Still Being Written: SAR Campus Recognized by Historic Santa Fe Foundation
Community lives not only in people, but in places. Places like El Delirio, originally home to Amelia Elizabeth and Martha Root White and now the home of the School for Advanced Research. Thanks to the vision of so many people—beginning with the White sisters and...
SAR Press Conversations: What Do Ancient Empires Teach Us about the Modern World?
To celebrate the publication of SAR Press’s most recent Advanced Seminar volume, Archaeologies of Empire (2020), we have brought together editors of this book and our previously published Imperial Formations (2007) to discuss new insights and intersections in their work.