Smart Lecture Series: “Reassembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, Indigenous Ontologies, and the Anthropology of Art."

Aaron Glass

Smart Lecture Series: “Reassembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, Indigenous Ontologies, and the Anthropology of Art."

Lecture
Cochrane Woods Art Center
Add to Calendar 2024-04-18 17:30:00 2024-04-18 17:30:00 Smart Lecture Series: “Reassembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, Indigenous Ontologies, and the Anthropology of Art." “Reassembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, Indigenous Ontologies, and the Anthropology of Art." Over the course of his long career, Franz Boas’s writings on Indigenous art comprised one of his major contributions to anthropological theory and museum practice. His 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, written with Indigenous consultant George Hunt, features his most extended treatment of Kwakwaka’wakw art, although it was framed in terms of typological classification rather than aesthetics or the Indigenous genealogical basis for heritable rights. The book, which illustrates over 200 museum objects, appeared at a crucial moment of Boas’s career as he became a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. This paper situates the 1897 book in terms of Boas's development of a mature anthropology of art. Glass will discuss the early emergence of his interest in Northwest Coast art; his extensive though inconsistent treatment of museum collections in the 1897 book; and Indigenous conceptions of the artwork. Glass will close with a discussion of how Hunt’s extensive post-publication emendations to the 1897 book provide the foundation for my collaborative Critical Edition project to reactivate its ceremonial art according to Kwakwaka’wakw cultural ontologies and genealogical connections. Aaron Glass is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Associate Chair of Research Programs at Bard Graduate Center. His research focuses on Indigenous visual art, material culture, and performance on the Northwest Coast of North America, as well as the history of anthropology, museums, and ethnographic representation. Glass’s books include The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History (2010); Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (2011); Return to the Land of the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwaka’wakw, and the Making of Modern Cinema (2014); and Writing the Hamat’sa: Ethnography, Colonialism, and the Cannibal Dance (2021). He has curated two exhibits for the Bard Graduate Center Focus Gallery: Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (2011); and The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology (2019), the latter in partnership with U’mista Cultural Centre.   The public lecture is sponsored by the Department Art History and generously supported by the Smart Family Foundation. Reception will follow. Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate in this event should contact the event sponsor for assistance. Cochrane Woods Art Center Department of Art History drupal@seastar.uchicago.edu America/Chicago public
L to R: Kwakwaka’wakw transformation mask, collected by J.A. Jacobsen in 1882 (Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, IVA1242); Watercolor of the mask by A. Grünwedel with Boas’s fieldnotes, ca. 1893 (AMNH Z/43 I); The mask in Fig. 99 of Boas’s 1897 book.

“Reassembling The Social Organization: Franz Boas, Indigenous Ontologies, and the Anthropology of Art."

Over the course of his long career, Franz Boas’s writings on Indigenous art comprised one of his major contributions to anthropological theory and museum practice. His 1897 monograph, The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, written with Indigenous consultant George Hunt, features his most extended treatment of Kwakwaka’wakw art, although it was framed in terms of typological classification rather than aesthetics or the Indigenous genealogical basis for heritable rights. The book, which illustrates over 200 museum objects, appeared at a crucial moment of Boas’s career as he became a curator at the American Museum of Natural History. This paper situates the 1897 book in terms of Boas's development of a mature anthropology of art. Glass will discuss the early emergence of his interest in Northwest Coast art; his extensive though inconsistent treatment of museum collections in the 1897 book; and Indigenous conceptions of the artwork. Glass will close with a discussion of how Hunt’s extensive post-publication emendations to the 1897 book provide the foundation for my collaborative Critical Edition project to reactivate its ceremonial art according to Kwakwaka’wakw cultural ontologies and genealogical connections.

Aaron Glass is Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Associate Chair of Research Programs at Bard Graduate Center. His research focuses on Indigenous visual art, material culture, and performance on the Northwest Coast of North America, as well as the history of anthropology, museums, and ethnographic representation. Glass’s books include The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History (2010); Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (2011); Return to the Land of the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwaka’wakw, and the Making of Modern Cinema (2014); and Writing the Hamat’sa: Ethnography, Colonialism, and the Cannibal Dance (2021). He has curated two exhibits for the Bard Graduate Center Focus Gallery: Objects of Exchange: Social and Material Transformation on the Late Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast (2011); and The Story Box: Franz Boas, George Hunt and the Making of Anthropology (2019), the latter in partnership with U’mista Cultural Centre.

 

The public lecture is sponsored by the Department Art History and generously supported by the Smart Family Foundation.

Reception will follow.

Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate in this event should contact the event sponsor for assistance.