Books

Book Announcement: "Musuem Law" by Marilyn E. Phelan

Museum Anthropology is happy to announce that we are now taking book feature submissions. Editors and authors, please send information about a forthcoming text to Lillia McEnaney, blog intern, for review for publication to the Musuem Anthropology blog. 

We are happy to announce that Marilyn E. Phelan's "Museum Law" will be the first book published here. 



From one of America’s foremost experts in museum and cultural heritage law, here is a comprehensive guide to both U.S. and international laws and conventions affecting museums, art galleries, natural and historic heritage, and other cultural organizations.

This authoritative guide:
-begins naturally with laws protecting art and artists (include artists’ freedom of expression, invasion of privacy, right of publicity, and trade laws), 
-moves on to protection of artists’ property rights through copyright laws, and then 
-goes into international laws and conventions (with full coverage of the Hugue Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import and Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, and the UNIDROIT Convention on the International Return of Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects),
-features full coverage of U.S. laws protecting cultural heritage such as the Antiquities Act, the Historic Sites Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Film Preservation, State Preservation Acts, and the National Stolen Properties Act
-includes detailed coverage of U.S. laws protecting our natural heritage such as the Lacey Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act
-features much needed current coverage of laws affecting the operation of museums, ranging from organizational structure and accounting to governance and use of guards and volunteers
-includes invaluable details of laws related to museum collections, including: purchases, loans, gifts, and deaccessioning
-detailed coverage of laws and regulations governing the tax-exempt status for museums, including how to fill out required forms
-unprecedented attention to museums’ unrelated business taxable income from such increasingly common activities as gifts shops, snack bars, travel tours, and sponsorships.

Marilyn E. Phelan, JD, (with honors), University of Texas School of Law, PhD, Texas Tech University, was the recipient of the Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Law at Texas Tech University, which is one of the highest honors Texas Tech University can bestow on its professors. Phelan also has served as a professor of museum science at Texas Tech University. Phelan is a certified public accountant and is certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization as a specialist in tax law. She was given a YWCA Woman of Excellence award and was named a Super Lawyer by Texas Monthly. In 2011, the American Bar Association Section of Business Law, Nonprofit Committee, awarded her the ABA Outstanding Nonprofit Academic Award for contributions and achievements in the field of nonprofit law. 

Native American Heritage Month: Recommended Reading

How to celebrate Native American Heritage Month? One of the best ways is simply by reading. There are so many books out there about American Indians, but figuring out which ones can best inform us about Native American history and heritage is no small task.

 The books listed here serve as a broad overview for Natives and non-Natives alike, giving a bit of ancient history, post-colonial history and a snapshot of modern-day life.

Read more HERE from Indian Country Today Media Network.

NAGPRA and the Future of Racial Sovereignties

A new online book here, about NAGPRA and the concept of race, by Roger Echo-Hawk.

Synoposis: Is it possible to live without race? In this meditation on the meaning of "non-racial" identity, the author claims that it is not only possible to give up race, but that millions of Americans have already done so. The world stands on the verge of awakening to this unplanned reality. What does it mean? For racial Indianhood, the prospect of this postracial world is both alarming and hopeful. To survive the future, racial Indians and their racially classified sovereign governments must launch an impossible political quest. They must consider their current status within the American political system in light of contemporary challenges to the racial status quo. They must question their loyalty to race and its system of laws and traditions, as embodied in the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. If the restoration of their lost status as independent nations proves too great a quest for them, they risk losing all in the dawning of a postracial America. What will they do?

To download free kindle software to your computer, click here.

New Book: Anthropology Unmasked

New Book Release

Anthropology Unmasked: Museums, Science, and Politics in New York City

Stanley Freed, author and curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City has just released his newest book, Anthropology Unmasked, Museums, Science, and Politics in New York City (Orange Frazer Press, $80).

Anthropology Unmasked is the 100-year history of one of America’s leading Departments of Anthropology and of the growth of the American Museum of Natural History itself from its uncertain beginnings in the 19th century to rank today in the first tier of such museums worldwide. The book features the groundbreaking research by a cast of extraordinary characters who made a success of difficult and dangerous projects in remote places – from Siberia to Greenland to the Straits of Magellan – where danger was routine and where heroics were necessary and expected.

Dr. Stanley Freed introduces the vivid personalities who developed anthropology and the major early museums. With over 50 years experience that included personal relationships with some of these men and women, Freed offers fresh insights, an “inside-the-museum” point of view, and heretofore unpublished material.

The book is currently available for purchase on www.amazon.com and www.orangefrazer.com. Call Sarah Hawley at Orange Frazer Press for more information. 937.382.3196.

Rethinking Hopi Katsina Tithu and Museum Language Systems

A new publication, offering free online access. More on the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Annals Series here.

Lost in Translation: Rethinking Hopi Katsina Tithu and Museum Language Systems

By Rachel E. Maxson, Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, and Lee Wayne Lomayestewa

This report presents the ways in which Hopi katsina tithu—popularly known as kachina dolls—are outstanding examples of objects that museums can recontextualize with Native terminology. The etymology, or a word or phrase’s use history, of each katsina tihu’s name documents the deep connection of these objects with Hopi belief, ritual, and history. Without including the complex practices of Hopi naming, documentation of these objects in museum catalogues is often incomplete and inaccurate. Using contemporary Hopi perspectives, historic ethnographies, and the Hopi Dictionary to create a database of Hopi katsina tithu names, this project demonstrates how museums might incorporate intangible heritage into their collections through language and etymological context.

Free online access here, or get a print copy here.

UO Anthropological Papers

A great series that can be ordered online:

The UO Anthropological Papers series is published jointly by the Museum of Natural and Cultural History and Department of Anthropology. Individual volumes, published periodically, are available for sale to booksellers and the general public as long as they are in stock. For libraries, the series is available for exchange; inquiries should be addressed to the head Serials Librarian, Knight Library, University of Oregon. Please provide the publication number, title, and the amount needed for all orders.

Books Received

More books received for the journal. If you're interested in writing a review, please contact us! muaeditor@gmail.com

Clark, Carol
2009 Charles Deas and 1840s America. University of Oklahoma Press.

Gannon, Thomas
2009 Skylark Meets Meadowlark: Reimagining the Bird in British Romantic and Contemporary Native American Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Kagan, Jerome
2009 The Three Cultures: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and the Humanities in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leidy, Denise Patry
2008 The Art of Buddhism: An Introduction to Its History and Meaning. Boston: Shambhala Publications.

MacKenzie, John M.
2009 Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Savage, Kirk
2009 Monument Wars: Washington D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Starna, William A., and Jack Campisi, eds.
2009 William Fenton: Selected Writings. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Troccoli, Joan Carpenter, ed.
2009 The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Wallace, William
2009 Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and His Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Giinaquq--Like A Face

An article yesterday on a presentation about the new book Giinaquq--Like A Face, University of Alaska Press's best-selling book of 2009; it details the fascinating story of 70 Alutiiq ceremonial masks that were housed in a museum in France, and later reuinited with the descendants of the Alutiiq artists who made them, in Kodiak, Alaska. The book is a must-have for every museum anthropologist's book shelf!

New Museum Book Series

A news release announces:

UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) has partnered with one of Canada’s largest independent publishers, Douglas & McIntyre (D&M) in the creation of a book series focusing on Northwest Coast art and culture. This project is part of the MOA’s larger expansion and renewal plan. According to D&M publisher Scott McIntyre, partnering with the MOA made sense, given the mutual interest in BC culture and native communities.

Two books will start off the series, Solitary Raven: The Essential Writings of Bill Reid with introduction by Robert Bringhurst, and Challenging Traditions: Contemporary First Nations Art of the Northwest Coast by Ian M Thom. These debut titles will be available in the MOA bookstore and traditional book retailers.

The partnership will also sponsor an annual lecture series with the same focus on Northwest Coast art and culture, and will produce additional books tied to that theme. A full-colour volume entitled The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, edited by Carol E Mayer and Anthony Shelton, kicks-off this additional series and will be published in January 2010. Future titles are still being planned.