SHA 2001 Annual Report

SOCIETY FOR HUMANISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
SECTION REPORT TO
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

TO: Lorie Van Olst
DATE: January 8, 2002

This report seeks to describe Society for Humanistic Anthropology activities from January 1, 2001 to January 2, 2002.

The current officers:
                President: Daniel W. Ingersoll, Jr. (2001-2002)
                Vice-President: Alma Gottlieb, (2001-2002)
                Immediate Past President: Regna Darnell
                Treasurer designated by the Editor: Frederic W. Gleach
                Secretary: Vilma Santiago-Irizarry
                Editor of Anthropology and Humanism: Edith Turner

Executive Board members:
Catherine Lutz, Gregory Reck

Board members:
Ivan Brady, JoAnn D’Alisera, Bruce Grindal, Michelle Johnson, Barry P. Michrina, Kirin Narayan, Miles Richardson, Jeanne Simonelli, Margaret J. Wiener

Special Committees and Functions in 2001:
Poetry Competition: Dell Hymes
Fiction Competition: Gregory Reck
Turner Prize Committee: Barry Michrina (chair); Cheryl Mattingly; and Unni Wikan
Program Chair: Jeanne Simonelli
Web master: Daniel W. Ingersoll, Jr.

Publications:
The column “Society for Humanistic Anthropology” in Anthropology Newsletter is edited by Frederic W. Gleach and Vilma Santiago-Irizarry. The editors have contributed interesting pieces to the column while publishing timely information for our membership and readership.

The society’s journal is edited by Edith Turner. She has done a fine job assembling special topical issues of the journal and keeping the journal on track. Post-editorial problems beyond the editor’s control held up distribution of the journal in 2000 and 2001. Other editors include: Fiction Editor, Gregory Reck; Poetry Editor, Dell Hymes; Book Review Editor, Paul Benson; Assistant Editors Susan Gartzke, Jeanne Haffner, Christopher Haley, Nona Moskowitz, and Michael Wesch; and Production Editors Elisabeth A. Graves and Julie Peluso.

Awards at the 2001 AAA Annual Meeting:
Each year three categories of awards are made. The Victor Turner Prize winner ($500) and one or two honorable mentions, are for innovative books which best embody humanistic anthropology. The winner and honorable mentions are invited to read selections from their work at a special session at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Readings in Humanistic Anthropology: From Ethnography to Poetics to Fiction). The winner in 2001 was Tanya M. Luhrmann for her Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry. The authors receiving honorable mention were Setha Low for On the Plaza, and Roy Richard Grinker for In the Arms of Africa. This year’s committee members were Barry Michrina (chair), Cheryl Mattingly, and Unni Wikan. Winners of the annual Poetry and Fiction Competitions also read selections from their works at the special session, along with the Victor Turner awardees; the winning selections are published in Anthropology and Humanism. This year, no Fiction Winner was announced. First prize in the Poetry competition went to Adrie Kusserow for “Twenty-first Century Religiotropic” and five other poems. Honorable mentions went to Tope Omoniyi for “Gbomo Gbomo” and to Kent Maynard for “Rain, Again.”

Meeting Program, at the AAA Annual Meeting 2001:
The SHA held a Board Meeting and a Business Meeting. The approved minutes of the 2000 SHA Meeting and the Treasurer’s reports will be posted on the SHA web site. The draft minutes of the 2001 minutes and the Treasurer’s reports will be posted as well. The web site address is www.smcm.edu/sha .

At this year’s meeting the following invited sessions were sponsored by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology: Mesoamerican Transformation: The Myths of Anthropology About Mesoamerica (with the Society for Latin American Anthropology); Anthropology, Undisciplined: Essays in Honor of Edie Turner (with the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness). These sessions were supported by the SHA: Readings in Humanistic Anthropology: From Ethnography to Poetics to Fiction; Rites of Passage: Undergraduates and the Fieldwork Experience.

Workshops, at the AAA Annual Meeting 2001:
A series of workshops sponsored by the SHA have been quite popular and have served as major fund raisers. The workshops this year: Ethnographic Writing; How to Publish Your First Article; How to Turn Your Dissertation into a Book (2); Narrative Practice in Ethnography and Fiction; Creative Writing for Anthropologists; and Writing for the General Public.

Treasurer’s Report for 2001:
The SHA budget this year is in better shape than last year. Workshop registration was good, and Turner Prize submissions and donations increased. The journal's publication was delayed in the summer due to AAA's administrative problems. Membership has fluctuated.

At the Board Meeting, it was proposed that membership fees be raised $5.00 per category except that student fees be excepted from the raise.

Officer and Board Goals for 2002

                1. Membership drive: increase membership
                2. Establish student paper competition
                3. Review, update, and revise bylaws

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