Daniel C. Swan Joins Editorial Advisory Board

Yesterday I noted the good news that Kimberly Christen had just joined the Museum Anthropology editorial board. Another new member of the board is Daniel C. Swan. Dan is an ethnographer and ethnohistorian of Native North American who has held curatorial posts at the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Gilcrease Museum. He is presently completing work as the Director of the Chucalissa Museum at the University of Memphis, where he was also an Associate Professor of Anthropology. In January 2007 he will become an Associate Curator of Ethnology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (SNOMNH) and an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, which is the SNOMNH's campus home.

Dan is a leading student of the Native American Church, having collaborated in ethnographic research and advocacy with church members throughout North America. He is best known for his work with the Osage, including his contributions to the St. Louis Art Museum exhibition and catalog Art of the Osage (University of Washington Press, 2004). While Senior Curator at the Gilcrease Museum, he organized the traveling exhibition Symbols of Faith and Belief: The Art of the Native American Church and published a companion book, Peyote Religious Art: Symbols of Faith and Belief (University Press of Mississippi, 1999).

My collaborations with Dan go back to 1995 when I worked for him in the Department of Anthropology at Gilcrease Museum. It will be great to draw upon his experience as a curator and researcher in the work of publishing Museum Anthropology.