Frederic Wills '19Gina Athena Ulysse, professor of anthropology, recently contributed to the #BlackLivesMatterSyllabus, a new project by The Anthropoliteia, an online anthropology journal. Ulysse also is professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies. One of the main goals of the project is to “mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical exercise addressing the confluence of race, policing, and justice." In this vein, Ulysse uses her entries to analyze the film series “Race: The Power of Illusion.” As part of the Race: Are We So Different? Project created by the American Anthropological Association, the film serves as a teaching tool for Ulysse in her own…
Olivia DrakeOn Oct. 1, Wesleyan students will publicly present their research from the American studies course, Anarchy in America: From Haymarket Riot to Occupy Wall Street, taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, chair and professor of American studies, professor of anthropology. The course focused on anarchism as a political philosophy and practice — a little known, aspect of American culture and society. Students examined select aspects of anarchist political thought and praxis in the United States and the ways that anarchism has been represented positively, vilified or dismissed. The course explored a range of diverse political traditions including: individualist anarchism, socialist anarchism,…
Lauren RubensteinIn a July 11 Roth on Wesleyan blog, President Michael Roth responds to two recent killings of black men by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota, and the murders of five police officers in Texas. In the blog, titled, "On What Matters" Roth shares his own thoughts and the reflections of others that he found meaningful. He writes: Too often I have written blog posts about tragedies, violence, injustice. From attacks in other parts of the world to devastation right here in the USA, I have expressed sorrow, anger—and often a feeling of solidarity with those who have suffered, are suffering. Readers have pointed out that…
In its recent meeting, the Board of Trustees conferred tenure on four faculty members. They are Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, Professor of African American Studies Kali Gross, Associate Professor of English and American Studies Amy Tang, and Associate Professor of Chemistry Erika Taylor. They join eight other faculty members who were awarded tenure earlier this spring. One faculty member, Louise Neary, was promoted to adjunct associate professor of Spanish. In addition, six faculty members are being promoted to full professor: J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American Studies and anthropology Matthew Kurtz, professor of psychology Cecilia Miller, professor of…
The Hartford Courant reported on a study of the Wangunks, the indigenous people of Middletown and Portland, Conn., by members of a Wesleyan course taught by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of environmental studies. Eleven students spent a semester in the archives of the Middlesex County Historical Society studying the Wangunks as part of a course on local Native Americans: "Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People." Four of those students presented their research at a March seminar at Russell Library. According to the story: The Wesleyan students made use of a number of sources to piece together a…
In her latest essay on The Huffington Post, Professor of Anthropology Gina Athena Ulysse takes on the matter of U.S. foreign food aid policy vis-a-vis Haiti, which she writes is undermining farmers in the Caribbean nation. She focuses on mamba, the Kreyòl word for peanut butter, which she fondly recalls being made by locals when she was growing up in Haiti. "To me, mamba is as quintessentially Haitian as basketball is (North) American. Now, it faces risks as another charitable gift of food aid undermines Haitian autonomy by threatening to bench local farmers’ peanuts production, our cultural practices, and even our tastes," she writes. "This is not…
Gina Athena Ulysse, professor of anthropology, professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, writes an "Ode to Haiti's Neo-Comedians" in The Huffington Post about Haiti's recently cancelled election runoff. The title of her essay refers to Graham Greene's The Comedians, a book whose description read: "Set in Haiti, amid an atmosphere of brutal force and terror-ridden love, three desperate people work out their strange destinies." Ulysse writes: Relevance of The Comedians is apparent in Haiti's recently cancelled election runoff that was set for this past Sunday. Indeed, until then, the outgoing president Michel Martelly, a chap with dictatorial tendencies who leads the "Bald Headed Haitian Party"—insisted on…
On Dec. 5, Wesleyan students, faculty and the local community gathered for a two-hour discussion on "Indigenous Middletown: Settler Colonial and Wangunk Tribal History." The event was sponsored by the American Studies Department, the Center for the Americas, and the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. J. Kehaulani Kauanui, associate professor of anthropology, associate professor of American studies, coordinated the event, which stemmed from her Service Learning course, Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Native Histories of the Wangunk Indian People. The class is in partnership with the Middlesex County Historical Society. (more…)
In the 1920s, a team of scientists working in the Zhoukoudian cave system in Beijing, China unearthed Peking Man, a roughly 700,000 year-old sample of Homo erectus. After the communist revolution of 1949, Peking Man became a prominent figure in bringing science and the story of human evolution to the masses. As part of the required reading for the HIST 368 class, History of Science and Technology in Modern China, Ying Jia Tan, assistant professor of history, is having his students read The People's Peking Man, written by Wesleyan alumna Sigrid Schmalzer '94. The People’s Peking Man offers a skilled…
Professor of Anthropology Gina Athena Ulysse received the Haitian Studies Association's Excellence in Scholarship award during the organizations' 27th annual conference Oct. 24. The conference centered around the theme "Haiti in the Global Environment: Presence, Representations, Performances" and took place at the Université de Montréal in Québec, Canada. Previous anthropologists awarded this honor include Paul Farmer (2001) and Michel-Rolph Trouillot (2003). While in Québec, Ulysse presented a talk on "Successfully Individuating Within Academia: Thoughts on Rebel Mentoring and Your Voice” at the Emerging Scholars pre-conference. Ulysse also will be recognized by her peers at the American Anthropological Association meeting next month for…
Gina Athena Ulysse, professor of anthropology, is the author of Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2015. In this book, Ulysse, a Haitian-American anthropologist and performance artist, makes sense of her homeland in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. Mainstream news coverage of the catastrophic earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010, reproduced longstanding narratives of Haiti and stereotypes of Haitians. Cognizant that this Haiti, as it exists in the public sphere, is a rhetorically and graphically incarcerated one, Ulysse embarked on a writing spree that lasted more than two years. As an ethnographer and a…
Writing for Africa is a Country, Professor of Anthropology Gina Athena Ulysse reflects on the story of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman who was arrested by a state trooper during a traffic stop in Waller County, Texas and was later found dead in her jail cell. Video footage from a dashboard camera found the trooper had threatened Bland with a Taser after she refused to put out her cigarette and the encounter escalated. Her death was found to be a suicide, though her family has doubts. Ulysse writes that she identified with Bland, and responded strongly to images and videos of the…