Alan Moore, the author of V for Vendetta on how his creation has become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous.

And check out Gabriella Coleman's latest piece about Anonymous, Our Weirdness is Free.

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to From the news | Good Links

The funding system for Pasold Research Fund, has been revised in January 2012.

The small, medium and large grants, formerly known as 'Research Grants' are now 'Research Activity Grants' (up to £750) or 'Research Project Grants' (from £750 to £2,500). The 'Themed Workshop Grant' no longer exists. Those who wish to apply for conference attendance and/or for funding to organise a conference/workshop should consider either the Research Activity or the Research Project grants. All other grants remain unaltered. See the Pasold Home Page website for further details.

Also, two notable conferences supported by the Pasold on clothing and textiles are taking place in 2012. The first at the University of Wolverhampton, 13 June 2012.

The University of Wolverhampton invites proposals for papers that explore the collection, display, conservation and all other uses of dress and textiles in heritage settings, including museums and historic houses, in Britain and beyond. Both theoretical and practice-based papers are welcome. Proposals for Dress, Textiles and Heritage by museum professionals, conservators, historians and all other interested scholars are equally welcome. Deadline for abstracts, 15 February 2012.

The second is on the theme 'Innovation before the Modern: Cloth and Clothing in the Early Modern World' will be held at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden on the 27-29 September, 2012. The deadline for paper proposals is equally Feb. 15.

Sincerely,

Professor Giorgio Riello
Director of the Pasold Research Fund
Department of History
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL

Posted by Patrick Laviolette at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Conferences and other events | Good Links

We are pleased to announce that the call for papers is open for the one day interdisciplinary conference "Rags and Riches: dress and dress accessories in social context", to be held at the University of Reading on the 21st April 2012. This conference aims to bring together archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and others from related disciplines to discuss current issues of methodology, theory and interpretation of dress and dress accessories, from prehistory to the present day.

Details about the call for papers can be found at http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/Events/arch-rags-and-riches-conference.aspx.

We are requesting 300 word abstracts for 20 minute papers on themes relating to the social context of dress from all periods and regions, which should be sent to ragsandrichesconference@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is the 17th February 2012.

Announcements will be posted at the web address above, but we can also found on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/212400145506326/) and twitter (@riches_and_rags).

Posted by Aaron J Glass at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Conference and Event Reports

The Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis invites applications from all disciplines for post-doctoral resident fellowships to be held during the academic year of 2012-2013 from individuals working on topics related to "Networks of Exchange: Mobilities of Knowledge in a Globalized World."

How have science, technology and medicine been shaped by global movement, and how has global movement been shaped by science, technology and medicine? This two-year seminar program explores the relationship between varieties of knowledge and practice centering on the natural world and the formation of networks that transcend single cultures, nations or regions. If we include Western Europe and North America but deny them the status of “centers,” and suspend judgment about what forms of knowledge should count as modern, western or scientific, what other stories emerge from world histories in which the production of knowledge points us to its multiple consequences? The concept of the network helps ground global histories as a series of connected, local interactions across distance, while exchange helps us understand such interactions through attention to differential power relations, unpredictable reciprocities, and multi-directional outcomes that are also political, economic and cultural in character. Specific attention will be paid to cross-cultural intermediaries; non-human environmental actors (plants, animals, objects, substances, technologies); long-distance and short-range relationships between political, commercial and other institutional entities; and the production and projection of images of global order. Applications are warmly invited from scholars across all disciplines, whose research actively engages with these questions.

Rutgers is an AA/EOE institution. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Not limited to recent Ph.D.s. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2012.

Applicants and those interested in presenting a paper related to this project during 2012/2013 should contact the project directors:
Profs. James Delbourgo and Toby Jones
Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis
88 College Ave.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8542 USA.
Email rcha@rci.rutgers.edu, or visit http://rcha.rutgers.edu

Posted by Aaron J Glass at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings

The Department of Anthropology at University College London has created two new positions within its new Digital Anthropology Program:

Lecturer in Digital Anthropology and Material Culture

And

Lecturer in Digital Anthropology

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 7:54 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings

Whilst a resident scholar at the YCBA in New Haven, I've had the privilege over the past few weeks of working in the reading room of Louis Kahn's brilliantly designed space which houses Yale University’s British Art Center. On the same floor, not 10 yards away from the library entrance is the exhibition space for what will soon be the Making History: Antiquaries in Britain exhibition. Pretty much every day on the way to the staff kitchen, I've managed to sneak a peek at the curatorial progress of this forthcoming exhibition which shall be inaugurated at the YCBA by an opening lecture from the current President of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Wednesday February 1, 5:30 - 6:30pm

Opening Lecture, "Antiquaries and the British Past:
Locating and Recording Buildings"
Professor Maurice Howard (University of Sussex)
YCBA Lecture Hall, 1080 Chapel St. New Haven, CT

Making History from February 2 to May 27, 2012 at the YCBA has been put together to celebrate the achievement of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Britain’s oldest independent learned society concerned with the study of the past. It was established in 1707 with the aim of encouraging the pursuit of “the ingenious and curious” in the field of British antiquities.

Roll Chronicle, showing descent of Henry VI (1422–71) from Adam and Eve, later carried forward to reign of Charles II (detail), mid-fifteenth century with additions of ca. 1665, illumination with colored inks and tints on vellum rolls.
© the Society of Antiquaries of London

Continue reading "Making History: Antiquaries in Britain" »

Posted by Patrick Laviolette at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings | Notes from the Field

Jennifer Deeger, Visiting Research Fellow at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, Univ. of New South Wales

As the holidays recede and we brace for the months ahead, might we take a moment for a backwards glance, so that I can share the highlight of my 2011?

On 7 December, Miyarrka Media, the group I co-founded with Yolngu co-directors, Paul Gurrumuruwuy and Fiona Wanambi, and established video artist, David Mackenzie, launched our first exhibition, Christmas Birrimbirr (Christmas Spirit) as an experiment across the spaces of visual art, ethnographic film, and Yolngu ritual performance.

Opened with energetic ceremony at Darwin's Chan Contemporary Art Space (see video below), the exhibition features a 40 minute three-channel video, a number of other shorter videos and projections, a ‘forest’ of logs painted with clan motifs surrounding a Christmas Tree sculpture, and a series of photographs generated by the project (such as the example above).

This complex and beautiful work is about many things. Drawing on the performative power of Yolngu aesthetics, it explores the Yolngu genius for cultural incorporation and ritual elaboration as an extended family decorate graves and homes in preparation for Christmas. As the sounds and images unfold, viewers encounter Christmas as a season in which the work of ritual is to make the dead—and palpable—to the living. In the process, the work reveals something of the new roles of photography in Yolngu ritual, the social force of shared grief in contemporary Yolngu lives, and the luminous power of tinsel, lights and video itself.

As Gurrumuruwuy puts it, this is a project concerned with “sharing feelings”. To this end, the three screens format allow for a sensuous compression of time and an intensification of affect inspired by the structure of Yolngu ritual. There are no narration or subtitles (although supplementary footage screened in other parts of the gallery does include both these elements). At the centre of the space, the Christmas tree sculpture works to transform the gallery into a site of invisible as well as visible potency (as the text by Gurrumuruwuy placed under the tree explains).

“The lights of the Christmas tree will draw you close. It’s like in a ceremony ground. It’s signalling to all to come, sparking memories and stirring emotions, connecting us to those who’ve passed away. The gamununggu (paintings) I’ve done here connect straight to those three men and their families. There’s so much meaning here. It’s a forest of connection. A forest of feeling”.

We formed Miyarrka Media in 2009 inspired to create a new kind of shared art practice. From the outset our aim was to use media in ways that resonated with Yolngu aesthetics and cultural values while providing new avenues for creativity and social engagement. From the first meeting, through the filming, editing and installation we have worked together to create something new, yet always true to its roots in the remote community of Gapuwiyak in Australia’s tropical north.

After years of talking about it, followed finally by several more years of production and post-production, it was totally exhilarating to see gallery visitors (strangers!) become engaged and moved by this intimate family production, staying to watch the full 40 minute loop and then spending time with the other elements of the exhibition. Perhaps even more satisfying (if extremely hard on the pocket) was the experience of installing and launching the work with the Yolngu families involved, experiencing it all coming together—the images activated and authorized through the ceremony—in ways that none of us were in a position to imagine at when we began.

Have a look at an edit that combines elements of the project here:

There’s also media coverage here:

Ed note: and some further coverage here and here

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Exhibition reviews | Objects and visual analyses

The New York Times recently ran a story about legislative efforts to protect objects left on the moon by NAASA, especially during the Apollo 11 and 17 missions, including landing modules, flags, boots (and their footprints), and bags of urine. Anthropologist Beth O'Leary (New Mexico State University), prompted by a student's question about the celestial jurisdiction of US federal preservation law, spearheaded efforts to gain protection for the artifacts of the American space program. The United States owns the abandoned objects, but under the international Outer Space Treaty, no country can claim sovereignty over parts of the moon itself. Turns out, protections (at this point, at least) are based at the state level, secured by states such as California and New Mexico that allow for legislation pertaining to objects "associated with," even if not physically present within, the state. Now that India and Russia plan to send robotic probes to the moon, and that Google is sponsoring a prize for private lunar exploration plans, the stakes have been raised. Aside from state and federal claims, there are global implications. Will Tranquility Base be added to the United Nations' list of world heritage sites? Will Earthly, much less the proverbial Martian, archaeologists of the future thank us for protecting the moon's cultural sites from ourselves? Stay tuned...

Posted by Aaron J Glass at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to From the news

The Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association is rekindling the exchange of course syllabi (outline of topics, readings, and schedule). The earlier initiative led 10 years ago to a collection representing courses in US universities and published by the Winterthur Museum.

It’s time for a new version, with an international outlook and a wider breadth. We encourage submissions of syllabi from any course a faculty member considers as falling within the field of material culture studies, broadly conceived, at whatever level, graduate or undergraduate. We're aiming for inclusiveness. The syllabi will be posted on the Web and thus publicly available. For that purpose, submissions should include a headnote with information that identifies the course for an outside audience, that is, the name of the department and institution in which the course is taught, the course’s full title, the date, and perhaps some background information about the students it serves.

Send your file(s) in either a .doc or .pdf format, to Debby Andrews, convener of the Caucus, at

Debby Andrews
Center for Material Culture Studies
Professor of English
University of Delaware

Posted by Haidy L Geismar at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings | From the editors

http://glsconference.org
June 13-15, 2012 Madison, WI*

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is excited to announce the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference 8.0 to be held June 13-15, 2012, with preconference activities on June 12 including the GLS Educators Symposium and the inaugural year of the GLS Doctoral Consortium at the Memorial Union on campus. The GLS Conference is the premier event in the field of videogames and learning. Now in its eighth year, this grassroots “indie” event is evolving to include more innovative content formats and new programming. The GLS Conference is one of the few destinations where the people who create high-quality digital learning media can gather for serious discussion about what is happening in the field and how the field can serve the public interest. Our event is well known for its exceptionally high quality of content yet “community event” feel. Each year, we foster in-depth conversation and social networking across diverse disciplines including game studies, education research, learning sciences, industry, government, educational practice, media design, and business. Our continued commitment is to reinvent learning both in and out of formal school environments through the promise of games and simulations.

Continue reading "CFP: Games+Learning+Society Conference 8.0" »

Posted by Heather Ayn Horst at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Read and Post Comments (0) | Posted to Announcements and Listings