Picturing Change, Seeing Continuity: Hmong Story Cloths
It is a new year and a new semester at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures and that means new exhibitions! There are new exhibitions still to open…
Tag: material culture
Material Culture Journalism, 6
The new year has promoted a lot of material culture journalism related to lifestyle changes and consumption habits. Some of the items here fit into this frame, including…
Shreds and Patches in 2018
Which Shreds and Patches posts were most popular in 2018? These were: What is the current status of confidentiality and non-disclosure policies at HAU? Coconut Rattles in Florida…
Material Culture Journalism, 5
Material culture journalism, continued. Thanks to those who share stories… “Gritty’s Evolution from Googly-eyed Hockey Mascot to Meme to Leftist Avatar, Explained | On our burning hunger f…
Material Culture Journalism, 4
“Five Siblings Run the U.S.’s Only Baijiu Distillery in Their Mom’s Backyard” by Anne Ewbank in Atlas Obscura. (HT/TL) #foodways “Chanel Shoes, but no Salary: How One Woman…
Reviews for Material Vernaculars Titles
The Material Vernaculars book series, published by the Indiana University Press in partnership with the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, is maturing. Four titles have now appeared and…
Material Culture Journalism, 3
Thanks to all the friends sharing the material culture journalism. Here is a new batch. The passing of Shan Goshorn is particularly sad to note. “The making of…
Material Culture Journalism, 2
Continuing with the Material Culture Journalism series…. “We Broke Into A Bunch Of Android Phones With A 3D-Printed Head“ by Thomas Brewster at Forbes. (H/T JB) #techology “An…
Material Culture Journalism, 1
Happily, next month I will again teach a graduate course in material culture studies at Indiana University. In that context I will be even more interested than usual…
T̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶H̶A̶U̶. Good News! The Free-to-Readers Version of The Expressive Lives of Elders
Good news everyone. The free-to-download-and-read version of the latest title in the Material Vernaculars series–The Expressive Lives of Elders: Folklore, Art, and Aging edited by Jon Kay is…
Google Celebrates Native Artist in November 9th Doodle
A guest post by Emily Buhrow Rogers. A carved bear by Amanda Crowe (Eastern Band Cherokee) from the collections of the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Indiana University.…
The 2019 Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA)
It is time to think about SIMA again! As in the past, I share here on an announcement from the SIMA organizers at the National Museum of Natural…
Two Short Courses in Tartu
#fulbrightspecialist #fulbright #exchangeourworld In an earlier post, I expressed my appreciation for the opportunity to visit the University of Tartu as a Fulbright Specialist. Among my tasks w…
The University of Tartu, Appreciated
I recently spent an extended time in Tartu, Estonia. I had the wonderful opportunity to be a Fulbright Specialist visiting the Departments of: (1) Estonian and Comparative Folklore,…
The Un(der)revealed Relations of Things in Museums: an introduction #livesofobjects
I was at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam one fall afternoon when I decided to take a shortcut through the exhibition from the library to my office. To take…
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “I would like the Museu Nacional to remain as a ruin, a memory of the dead things.”
This week, a translation of an interview between anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro of the Museu Nacional in Brazil, and journalist Alexandra Prado Coelho. “My wish, with the…
A Gallery Talk at Sam Noble Museum in Conjunction with the Putting Baskets to Work in Southwest China Exhibition
I will be doing a gallery talk at the Sam Noble Museum on Sunday, June 24 at 2:00 pm in the Higginbotham Gallery, which is where the exhibition…
The Mallet: Making a Maul in a Baiku Yao Community
This guest post by Jon Kay, Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures provides Jon with the opportunity to share the first…
Fieldwork: Highlights from the Textile Group
This post in the recent series on December 2017 research and travel in Guangxi, China was written by Carrie Hertz, who also provided the photographs. In this post,…
The Ethnic Costume Museum at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (12/9)
In the previous post in this series, I described how my traveling companions and I visited Beijing’s 798 Art Zone. (For the series in order, see 1, 2,…
The IU Gateway Office and Tsinghua University Art Museum (12/8)
This post is about a portion of my recent trip to China. The main focus of this trip was collaborative ethnographic research in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, but…
Framing Sukkot: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish Vernacular Architecture
Just in time for the holiday that is at its center, I am happy to trumpet the publication of Framing Sukkot: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish Vernacular Architecture…
Anthropologists everywhere! Filming heavy metal with Sam Dunn
The first time I met Sam Dunn was in the smoking room (when those still existed) of a dive-y bar that my cohort of Dalhousie MA students used…