SAR News 
Resident Scholar Profile: 2021–2022 Weatherhead Fellow Benjamin Junge
“Brazil has been a part of my life for about twenty years at this point,” says Professor Benjamin Junge, one of two 2021–2022 Weatherhead fellows now in residence at SAR. “It’s a huge country,” he adds, “incredibly diverse. There’s just so much to learn and to understand, and I’ll be doing that forever, for the rest of my life.”
IARC Collections Highlight: Diné History and Adaptation
The Diné are resilient people and know how to adapt to hardship. Before Euro-American contact, the Diné wore deerskin clothing. As Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers came to Navajo land and introduced new materials, Diné art and culture evolved.
2021 Resident Scholars Colloquium Series
SAR Announces the 2021 resident scholar colloquium series. From a presentation on race-making in Albania to an exploration of Indigenous perspectives on the WWII Manhattan Project, scholar colloquia are a unique opportunity to hear about each of the 2021 resident scholar projects from the researchers themselves.
SAR Scholar Alumni in the National Press
Our scholars use their fellowship year to hone writing skills while finishing their diverse research projects. It is no surprise, then, that after leaving SAR many of our alumni manage to publish books and articles that move past the boundaries of academic writing to catch the attention of a national readership.
“A new phase in the old struggle”: Trumpism and the Fight for Latinx Citizenship
Mexican American people have long been made to question their belonging to the American social fabric and polity, argue Phillip Gonzales, Renato Rosaldo, and Mary Louise Pratt. Citizenship, both political and cultural, provides one lens on this question of belonging, and our latest Advanced Seminar volume discusses the relationship between Latinx experience and citizenship in the United States from a variety of specific perspectives.
Bolo Tie Highlights: An IARC Collection Reflection
Over the course of her Anne Ray internship, Emily Santhanam dove deep into the collections, approaching the objects through registration, collections management, education, and curation work. Each project taught her to navigate Native American arts stewardship in a new way. Yet what she most enjoyed was creating an online exhibition about the bolo ties cared for by the IARC.
SAR Welcomes New Board Members
The School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is pleased to welcome six new board members: John Arroyo, Brenda J. Child, Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Steve Robinson, Don Siegel, and David A. Young.
Kapa-Making as a Way of Being: A Conversation with Lehuauakea
SAR’s 2021 Ronald and Susan Dubin Native artist fellow, Lehuauakea is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) interdisciplinary artist. Originally from Pāpa’ikou on Moku O Keawe, Hawai’i, Lehuauakea creates traditional kapa (wauke bark cloth), which is painted or hand-stamped with patterns made from natural earth pigments and plant dyes.
Locating Our Hope: Resilience and Compassion in the Indigenous Southwest
It’s easy to identify heartbreak in the past year and a half. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our world, upending the lives of individuals, families, and entire nations. Locating hope amid loss—creativity in chaos—takes a special form of attention.
How to Publish Your First Book: SAR Press Talks to Robert Caldwell
SAR Press has started a new blog series comprised of interviews with diverse scholars who have recently published or are in the midst of publishing their first book and who can offer guidance and encouragement to colleagues who are just starting to think about publishing. We hope that these interviews make a small contribution to supporting junior scholars as they begin the publishing process.
Archaeology and Place at Chaco Canyon
Archaeologists have been paying attention to place for many years. As they have studied vernacular architecture, among other important markers of the past, they have recognized the importance and meaning given to specific places by peoples around the world. Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico has been one such place for hundreds of years.
The Long, Dark Journey of a Historic Textile Treasure
This winter, IARC collections staff and interns, journeyed to Oklahoma to share with community members one of the most storied textiles in the IARC collection – the Chief White Antelope Blanket (CWAB). The Annual Gathering of the Sand Creek Descendants, held in Apache, Oklahoma, brought out between 200 and 300 people for dancing, food, and to pay tribute to the blanket. For some attendees, it was their first time to see this historic blanket. Learn more about this important piece and the continued collaborative collections-care approach taken by the IARC staff for this textile.
“We were honored to bring the blanket back to be a part of this important gathering,” says IARC collections manager, Lisa Barerra. “Since the mid-1990s,” she adds, “the IARC at SAR has worked closely with the Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Trust (SCMDT) regarding care and access to the blanket, including an agreement to bring the blanket for the gathering every two years. However, the last time the CWAB went back was actually in December 2014. While the CWAB is currently not on display (at the request of the SCMDT), an approved photograph of the blanket is available for viewing at IARC.” The photograph can be viewed during an IARC collections tour and requests to view the actual blanket require written permission from the SCMDT to do so. Reflecting on the trip and the collaborative efforts happening at the IARC, Harerra notes, “We look forward to continuing to work together with the SCMDT in the future!”
Showing Our Strength: Resilience and Compassion in the Indigenous Southwest
Free virtual event explores resilience and perseverance across pueblo communities over the last year.
The School for Advanced Research (SAR), in partnership with Thornburg, presents Showing Our Strength: Resilience and Compassion in the Indigenous Southwest (hosted online, July 8, 2021, 2:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time).
SAR Press Top Reads: Place, Environment, and Change
As we think about our relationships with environment, landscape, and place in the context of drought and urbanization, we must also think about change. The books in this list describe how environmental change affects people with deep roots in New Mexico, Guatemala, Mongolia, and elsewhere around the world.
El Delirio Virtual Campus Tour
We invite you to take a virtual tour of El Delirio. Learn about the origins of the buildings and the historical significance of the sprawling estate that is now SAR’s campus. Join your guide, SAR scholar-in-residence Nancy Owen Lewis, for a delightful online tour complete with archival and contemporary visuals from SAR’s collections.
Rethinking National Parks
Anthropologist, novelist, and SAR’s Katrin H. Lamon resident scholar of 2015–16, David Treuer (Ojibwe), is garnering national attention for his cover story in the May 2021 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, “Return the National Park to the Tribes.” SAR president, Michael F. Brown, reflects on the article and more.
Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Senses of Place
To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Senses of Place, SAR Press will host Steven Feld, Amahl Bishara, and Kristina Lyons for a virtual conversation about the book’s impact, as well as more recent developments in the field. This event launches a series of discussions focused on place this summer at SAR. Panelists will discuss earthen architecture at several New World archaeological sites in the US Midwest and coastal Peru, Pueblo architecture at sites across the US Southwest, and more.
Members Matter: Russ and Diane Kyncl
SAR members Russ and Diane Kyncl share the fifty-year story of how they became friends with the Edaakie family of Zuni Pueblo, how the late potter Timothy Edaakie helped them to connect with SAR, and why they decided to include SAR in their legacy plan.
Spider Woman’s Knowledge and the Survival of Diné Textile Arts
In each session of his course on Navajo weaving, artist Venancio Aragon takes his students on a journey that exposes the impact of non-Indigenous institutions on Diné peoples and their making, as well as the sovereignty that Indigenous peoples, including artists, have continued to exercise through each moment.
How to Publish Your First Book: SAR Press Talks to Alina Méndez
SAR Press is starting a new blog series comprised of interviews with diverse scholars who have recently published or are in the midst of publishing their first book and who can offer guidance and encouragement to colleagues who are just starting to think about publishing. We hope that these interviews make a small contribution to supporting junior scholars as they begin the publishing process.
Members Matter. Meet Maria.
One of our newest members, Maria, found SAR serendipitously this last year. Stuck at home in Missouri, Maria had been searching for online opportunities to fill the social and intellectual void created by the pandemic-related restrictions. As she told SAR recently, she has always had an interest in the history and culture of New Mexico, specifically Puebloan history and pottery. After discovering one of SAR’s online artist talks, she started exploring our recorded programs on YouTube and signing up for upcoming virtual events to feed her hungry mind.
2021 J. I. Staley Prize Awarded to Laurence Ralph for Renegade Dreams, Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago
The School for Advanced Research is pleased to announce that the 2021 J. I. Staley Prize will go to Laurence Ralph, professor of anthropology at Princeton University and director of the Center on Transnational Policing, for his 2014 book, Renegade Dreams: Living through Injury in Gangland Chicago (University of Chicago Press).
SAR Learns! $50,000 Awarded to Support Indigenous Artists
The School for Advanced Research (SAR) is pleased to announce our new initiative, SAR Learns! Out of a desire to support intergenerational learning and creativity during the pandemic, SAR Learns! will assist with knowledge transmission specifically within the context of the ongoing pandemic. The program will distribute $50,000, utilizing re-directed grant funds, that will enable sixteen artists to launch or complete a variety of proposed projects.
SAR Remembers Marshall David Sahlins
The School for Advanced Research(SAR) mourns the passing of Marshall David Sahlins: a preeminent anthropologist and SAR supporter whose academic work repeatedly transformed anthropology, and whose activism informed the public. Read two personal reflections by Michael F. Brown (SAR President) and Paul Ryer (Director, SAR Scholar Programs) who like so many leading anthropologists today studied at some point with professor Sahlins.
How to Publish Your First Book: SAR Press Talks to John Arroyo
SAR Press is starting a new blog series comprised of interviews with diverse scholars who have recently published or are in the midst of publishing their first book and who can offer guidance and encouragement to colleagues who are just starting to think about publishing. We hope that these interviews make a small contribution to supporting junior scholars as they begin the publishing process.
SAR Announces 2021-2022 Native Artist Fellows
SAR Announces 2021-2022 Native American Artist Fellows: Lehuauakea, Brandon Adriano Ortiz, and Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty.
The Pandemic Shift: The School for Advanced Research Annual Report
Every year SAR publishes its Annual Report, which describes accomplishments and acknowledges supporters over the previous fiscal year. Our 2019–2020 report is no different, and yet so much has changed, as President Michael F. Brown explains.
Living Nations, Living Words, SAR Welcomes Joy Harjo
The School for Advanced Research (SAR) is pleased to present a virtual program welcoming U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Reflecting on the upcoming program with SAR, Harjo shares, “The StoryMap project was a way to widen the doorway that my poet laureateship created when I became the first Native U.S. Poet Laureate. It was important to show that there are many Native poets writing poetry alongside each other, and that we speak from a sense of place in which there are no political boundaries imposed by non-Native cultures and political entities.”
SAR Press Top Reads: Indigenous Identity
The books in this list address Indigenous identity from different perspectives and in different ways: Native artists discuss the tensions between art and life; Native anthropologists and historians describe changing forms of identity via stereotyping, genetic science, ecology, and decolonization; and Native writers in various genres tell the stories of their people surviving and thriving, past and present.
The Arroyo Hondo Pueblo Collection Finds a New Home
In 1970 former SAR president Douglas Schwartz began test excavations at the fourteenth-century Pueblo site of Arroyo Hondo, located approximately five miles south of Santa Fe. Earlier this year, SAR made the decision to transfer its only archaeological collection to the Center for New Mexico Archaeology, the state repository for such collections, where it will be able to receive more specialized care.