Anthropology News November 2001 S E C T I O N N E W S

with readmg, she likes to rollerblade and scuba dive (but not at the Same time).

Andrea Shearer (andreashearex@hotmail.com), a senior cultural anthropology major at UT- Austin, is finis- a year of “crisis” study in Argentina. She hopes to establish relations with undergraduate anthropology students and their clubs in order to promote their partiapation in NASA and the AAA. Her interests are photogra- phy, music and cyclmg.

Tara Linn Hefferan (heffera2@msu.edu) is a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at Michigan State U. Her research interests include the anthropology of development; Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora; gendered violence and human rights; and systems of inequality. She currently is conducting research on the impacts of globaliza- tion on development practices in Haiti. Her dis- sertation research will focus specilically on faith- based development initiatives linking Catholic churches in Michigan and Haiti.

If you would like to become part of the NASA print dialogue, contact mne W Sirm (nasaeditotCZWai1. corn). K q checking out our Web page at www. aaanet.otg/nasa/index.htm.

~nthropOiogy in Community Colleges LLOYD MILLER, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

SACC Conference 2002 The SACC will meet in Ft Guderdale, FL, from Feb 20-25, 2002. The conference theme will be “Teaching Anthropology in a T i e of Crisis.” The Executive Board will meet Wednesday afternoon, Feb 20, with a reception for all conferees that evening. Papers and presentations will be deliv- ered all day Thursday and Friday morning. Friday afternoon and Saturday, we will enjoy several field trips to area museums and nearby facilities of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. There also will be time to warm our winter-weary bones on the area‘s lovely beaches. The conference will end officially Saturday evening so that conferees may depart comfortably on Sunday.

Award for Tri-C Mark Lewine reports that the Center for Commu- nity Research (CCR) at Cuyahoga Community C, Cleveland, OH, has received an Innovation of the Year Award from the League for Innovation in Community Colleges. As a result of this award, Tri-C anthropologists will be invited to make a presentation of the CCR’s work at the annual meeting of the League for Innovation in Com- munity Colleges. The CCR also was selected by the AAA Commission on Education as one of the first programs to be included on the new website highlishting educational programs in anthropol- ogy that reach out to all levels of students and the public.

Anthropology’s New challenge It is the weekend after the suidde attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and perhaps it is prema- ture to write this. I watched the incredible videos, listened to extended commentaries and experi- enced an ever-widening range of emotions and reactions. I was stunned into numbness from dis- belief, I wept from sadness, € shouted in anger. I cheered with onlookers when a NYC firefighter emerged alive from the rubble. I nodded assent as the president vowed to hunt down the perpetra- tors and bring them to justice. I agreed with those who said the horrendous acts by a few Muslims should not bring suspicion of all Muslims.

We teachers of anthropology have been thrust into a new era. The concept of culture, fashion- able of late in the global economy, has now become necessary to US foreign and domestic policy. I wish that this event had never h a p pened, but we have before us the “teachable moment.” Concepts such as cultural relativism, ethnwntrism, lingustic relativity and critical self-examination should now underlie many of the important political decisions, as well as the thoughts and discussions of American citizens. As many Americans and many of our students ex- press a desire to seek revenge for thew “senseless” acts of terrorism, we must help them understand the nuances of meaning that ideas about identity and action have for different people. For example (as CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield reminded anchorman Wolf Blitzer), the suiade attacks were anything but senseless. They were carefully planned, well thought-out and perfectly sensible to their perpetrators, given the premises on which they were operating. They committed these acts that we deem evil, but they believe that the US is evil. How can they believe such a thing?

In recent years we have seen TV news reports of Palestinians and Israelis killing each other, but how involved did we feel? We provided arms to the Israelis but not to the Palestinians. Did we imagine that the Palestinians might have thought us a co-participant in Israel’s “evil acts?” As we speak of Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, do we understand that these countries consist of various cultural groups whose political loyalties differ? Do we know which ones support terrorist acts?

As anthropologists, we have our work cut out for us. In the classroom, in print and in other public forums, we must redouble our efforts to educate people about the complicated nature of culture and how cultural forces affect our daily lives. The US no longer can choose to ignore the many other cultures of the world. We must un- derstand them because some have computers, high-level technology, weapons and sophisticat- ed human networks, and are willing to kill us.

Fortunately, we now will have our students’ attention. Hopefully, the decisions of our leaders will involve grappling with cultural knowledge, with the culture concept itself. However, now our students will know that these decisions will influ- ence their lives every day avil rights, air travel convenience, costs of living, military draft, jobs and education itself. The concept of culture has

Omana Ben Abe and Linda Light at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

never been more relevant because it will have a direct and often immediate effect on these and other facets of our lives. Though it will not be easy, we must meet t h i s most important educa- tional challenge of the 21st century.

Giiiityp~r the Anthropology of Consciousness CONSTANTINE HRISKOS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR I had planned to continue t h i s month with part two of Amy Smith’s review of our spring meet- ings. But as t h i s issue of AN will be in readers’ hands just before the 2001 M A Annual Meeting, I have decided to postpone that review until next month in order to address SAC sessions at the Washington conference. SAC sessions will in- clude one volunteered session and two invited sessions, one of which will be cosponsored by the society for Humanistic Anthropology.

SAC a t the Annual Meeting

By Stephen D Glazier

(SAC 2001 Program Editor-esident-Elect) The SAC volunteered session “Challenging Habitual Notions of the Sacred,” organized by Mira Zussman (San Jose State U) and Galina Lindquist (v of Stockholm), will be held Dec 1. The SAC invited session “Anthropology Un- disciplined: Essays in Honor of Edie Turner,” cosponsored with the society for Humanistic Anthropology and organized by Matthew E Engelke (Kenyon C), will be held Dec 1. The sec- ond SAC invited session, “100 Years of Con- sciousness Studies in Anthropology,” organized and chaired by Michael J Winkelman (Arizona State LJ), will be held Dec 2.

”100 Years of Consciousness Studies in An- thropology” will feature papers on “The Study of Consciousness from the Perspectives of the An- thropology of Religion”; “Dimensions of Altered States of Consciousness”; “The Development of