Bard Graduate Center is proud to announce that it has received National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funding totaling $291,000 to support the
digitization of primary source materials relating to the Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw
(Kwakiutl), a Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous people, compiled by
anthropologist Franz Boas and ethnologist George Hunt during the years
1886-1939.
The funding advances a 2014 NEH
Scholarly Editions and Translations grant supporting the preparation of an
annotated print edition of The Social
Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897).
Produced by Boas collaboratively with his Indigenous collector and translator,
Hunt, this monograph is considered the first systematic attempt to document all
sociocultural, spiritual, and aesthetic aspects of an Indigenous North American
ceremonial system. The current project has compiled unprecedented documentation
of the total Boas-Hunt corpus, especially of the cultural relationships among
ethnographic materials in different media (texts, photos, material culture, and
sound recordings) now held by diverse institutions. Guided by the print
version, to be published by the University of British Columbia Press, the
larger project will ultimately culminate in a digital version of the annotated
1897 work—an interactive, open-access website synthesizing and providing
structured access to the various media
(bgc.bard.edu/research/projects-and-collaborations/projects/the-distributed.html).
Initiated in 2012
with an NEH Digital Humanities startup grant, the project is directed by
Professor Aaron Glass of Bard Graduate Center, New York City, and Judith Berman
of the University of Victoria, Canada.
“NEH funding,” said
Glass, “has enabled the restoration and critical re-evaluation of a vital piece
of work by two key figures of anthropological and Indigenous history. This new
grant will support the production of a digital repository that can serve as a
model for other dispersed collections and be of invaluable use to scholars,
students, and others interested in the cultural history of Native North
America.
Bard Graduate Center Dean Peter N. Miller said, “Franz
Boas’s seminal project stands at a crossroads of art history and anthropology. Understanding it as deeply as
possible, which is what Aaron’s project is about, will help us understand
better what opportunities still remain unexplored in the study of material
culture—which is where Aaron’s work contributes to the furtherance of our
larger institutional project.”
About the NEH
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for
the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature,
philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected,
peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about
the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available
at: www.neh.gov.
About the BGC
Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design
history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions,
publications, and public programs. Our community encourages creative
investigation of objects, from the everyday to the esoteric. For more
information about the Gallery, MA, and PhD degree programs, public programs,
publications, and more, visit bgc.bard.edu.
