Sapir Prize

Museum Anthropology, like all scholarly journals, relies on a great deal of support from many quarters. When I was in discussions to possibly bring the journal editorship to the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, my department chair, Richard Bauman was enthusiastic and offered to help in any ways that he could. Dick is an experienced former journal editor and a knowledgeable administrator. He worked to negotiate support from our College of Arts and Sciences and he offered departmental resources to help as well. This assistance has made our success so far possible and I am very thankful.

It does not bear directly on the field of museum anthropology (although Edward Sapir began his career as a museum anthropologist), but Dick and his longterm collaborator Charles Briggs (known among material culture scholars for his work on New Mexico woodcarvers) have recently won the Edward Sapir Book Prize, awarded by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology. Indiana University has recently issued a press release celebrating this significant achievement (available here). The award recognizes the importance of their recent book Voices of Modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Congratulations to Dick and Charles on the bestowal of this important award.