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Installation
Reviewed by: AAA Executive Program Committee
Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities
Primary Theme: Borders
Secondary Theme: Truth and reconciliation
Anthropology and Humanism from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology [SHA] has long featured poetry as a form of ethnographic representation, joined by other organizations, publications, and conferences that have increased their substantial support for this genre in recent years. What was once a small, specialized group of "Anthro-poets" on the margins of either the literary or social science fields has become an increasingly unified and committed group whose practices are neither just poetry nor social science scholarship, but both. With this much growth, we invite current SHA poetry judges and editors (Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, Nomi Stone, & Ather Zia), active poet scholars and previous SHA poetry winner (e.g. Leah Zani), as well as all interested anthro-poets in our organization to join us for a brown bag lunch session that listens, shares, and learns from verse. Featured panelists will share favorite anthro-poems, discuss what makes good ethnographic poetry, and what place poetry has and might have in the field of anthropology. We invite other anthropologists to join us in an open mic sharing a poem, flash fiction, or an excerpt of memoir or music that is under three minutes in length so we can hear from a diversity of voices in the creative terrain between the arts and social sciences. Participants may also bring questions about how and where to publish creative ethnographic work in general, poetry in particular, and how to cultivate ethno-poetic voices and craft even when writing conventional ethnographic prose.
Ather Zia
University of Northern Colorado Greeley
Melisa (Misha) Cahnmann-Taylor
Professor
University of Georgia
Leah Zani
Junior Fellow
Social Science Research Network, UC Irvine
Naomi Stone
Princeton University