Kevin Peña and Nelson Carrillo Their play is: The Blind Reflection Rape is taboo. People don’t like to talk about it. That’s part of the problem. So, in mid-March the Department of Anthropology will co-sponsor an event where students will be (at) Seeing Rape, a theater performance comprised of the work of fifteen of John Jay College’s student-playwrights. This theater project is part of John Jay College’s Sexual Justice Program, and it operates with the idea that art, as action and analysis, can change us and change our world for the better. The ten student-plays featured in this performance originated as final projects in an Interdisciplinary Studies class also called, Seeing Rape. In this innovative course, co-taught by anthropology professors, Shonna Trinch (a linguistic anthropologist) and Barbara Cassidy (a professional playwright), students consider rape and sexual violence as represented in law, media, film, theater, literature, performance art, and pop music. Western conceptualizations of knowledge and methods of knowing as manifest in the metaphors of seeing and showing in theater guide their investigations. Students are challenged to confront, question, critique, and contest how cultures define, see, and do not see rape.
By examining how rape itself and its meanings are mobilized to create nation states, to subjugate women, men and children, to uphold and tear down patriarchy and racism, the students come to see for themselves how rape gets interpreted, understood, used and manipulated in the service of those who have or want to have power. Students consider law in the U.S. and abroad as well as in various cultural (i.e., non-legal) responses to rape. At the end of the course, students employ their critical and creative skills to write and stage original plays on this theme at the end of the semester. This year ten short plays will be brought to life in the college’s Gerald Lynch Theater by professional New York City actors, and each deals with the theme in a unique way. Playwrights, for example, examine sexual violence in the contexts of therapy and mental health, families, immigration, incarceration, and the workplace. While some plays take on hard-hitting issues such as the way denial functions to allow gross injustices to flourish in plain sight, overall, the message is hopeful. Seeing rape has as, its ultimate goal and vision, a sexually just campus where all people can thrive. This year’s production will feature the work of Jasmine Garcia (Jubilee), Adrian Simon and Angelica Moreno (Colorful Markers), Marell Ellis (Unintended), Lashea Haynes (Cycles End), Carlos Rosado, Kevin Peña, and Nelson Carrillo (The Blind Reflection), Abraham Tejeda Jr., (An Ordinary Day), Irene Kontonicolas (A Modern Romance), Bianca Suazo, Vilmary Colon, Yire Suarez, and Eric Norales (La familia de papá), Ashley Lall (Untitled) and Mirnelly Fernandez Morel (The Girl). Professor Shonna Trinch works behind the scenes as the production manager and coordinator and Professor Barbara Cassidy is the play’s director. Please join us for this important John Jay College event. Free for students with college i.d. Where: Gerald Lynch Theater, John Jay College When: March 17and 18 at 7 p.m. and March 19 at 2 p.m. with discussions to follow. Best, Professor Shonna Trinch Associate Professor of Linguistic Anthropology John Jay College of Criminal Justice
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February 16th is Anthropology Day! In celebration of Anthropology Day, the articles in this month’s Issue speak to the relevance of Anthropology and to this national recognition of the discipline and the individuals who genuinely call themselves anthropologists. In today’s political uncertainty, Anthropology is a discipline we need more than ever because it requires an open-mind and contextual sensitivity to everything around us. It requires us as anthropologists to live ever present with ourselves and with others both in and outside of the field. If we cannot do this or we fail to, then we cannot call ourselves anthropologists nor can we claim to study Anthropology. I believe, as anthropologists and students of anthropology, we all listen and learn through our own histories and the experiences that have moulded us until this point in our lives. What we are interested in (and the site(s) where we choose to perform ethnographic research) is a blueprint of who we are, what we are passionate about, and the ways in which we show compassion. Margaret Mead a long time ago, said this, I remember my first exposure to Anthropology. I remember the classroom and the professor, but most of all, I remember the feeling. That feeling of finding something you love and in that transient moment when your soul rushes forth and it rises, in that twinkling of temporality, you transcend time and space. In that split second, when the world makes sense and when you are no longer frightened by things you don’t know but rather, you become curious as to why you were afraid in the first place.
Anthropology has allowed me to be myself in all its facets and it has allowed me to humanize. Without Anthropology—as a discipline and as a way of life—my days will be grey because anthropology brings colour and light to my every being, daily. With this, I bid thee Happy Anthropology Day and farewell, until next month’s letter. Sunsets & Sailboats, -A.L. Rougier Happy Anthropology Day, 2017 -- to Anthropologists and students of Anthropology, Worldwide!2/16/2017 Why do you love Anthropology? I love anthropology because it is the only social science/humanistic discipline that tries to understand human variation as normal through cross-cultural examination of how people do things. For me, cultural relativism is a method that allows (and demands that) the student of culture try to see and understand how its desirable and less desirable components function as part of a holistic system. A study of anthropology also gives the student of culture a critical lens through which s/he can critique and possibly change her/his own culture’s practices. What is it about anthropology that inspires you? Anthropology’s focus on all human behavior—from banking and global capital to birthing and ritual celebrations inspires me to see new ways of doing things and to think about new possibilities for old problems. Good ethnography is exciting, interesting and even life-changing. —Professor Shonna Trinch, Anthropology Department Why do you love Anthropology? As soon as I heard that Anthropology was going to be available for students to take, I immediately got hooked. There's something about Anthropology that is different from all other forms of study. I love it because it gives us a chance to see the world as it is. It gives us a chance to learn about different cultures and different people by completely immersing ourselves into their lifestyle. We begin to understand the world in its entirety and complexity and begin to appreciate the world for more than just its appearance. The great thing about it, is that we get to see everything with a new perspective and nothing is muted or kept silent. Everything is presented with a sense of rawness and richness that can only be experienced first-hand. — Katherine Santana, Anthropology student Why do you love Anthropology? I suppose what I love about anthropology is the fact that it's a forward moving discipline. It always leaves the door open for more exploration in any given area. And it inspires me to be curious about the world and its peoples and cultures. There's so much out there in the world that is just waiting to be discovered, and that's just what already exists. Imagine what there is yet to be discovered! To me anthropology is synonymous with experience and curiosity and accepting that in order to truly know about something one can't be shy and instead needs to immerse oneself in whatever it is that he or she wants to know about. That can apply to literally anything, but when that sentiment is applied to humans and their cultures, the world suddenly becomes a much more beautiful and interesting place. —Erick Garcia, Anthropology student Why do you love Anthropology? I love anthropology because it is the science that dares to be different! —Professor Edward Snajdr, Anthropology Department Why do you love Anthropology? I remember my first exposure to Anthropology. I remember the classroom and the professor, but most of all, I remember the feeling. That feeling of finding something you love and in that transient moment when your soul rushes forth and it rises, in that twinkling of temporarily, you transcend time and space. In that split second, when the world makes sense and when you are no longer frightened by things you don’t know but rather, you become curious as to why you were afraid in the first place. Anthropology has allowed me to be myself in all its facets and it has allowed me to humanize. Without Anthropology—as a discipline and as a way of life—my days will be grey because anthropology brings colour and light to my every being, daily. —Professor Atiba Rougier, Anthropology Department Why do you love Anthropology? My first chance at fieldwork, as a very naive undergraduate. An Indian village in highland Ecuador was overwhelming to the mind and senses (think the pervasive smell of wood smoke, bone-chilling cold, guinea-pig soup, fleas and subtle anti-white hostility.) But absolutely thrilling as a series of puzzles and human relationships to be navigated and made sense of. I survived and found myself enamored for life with a discipline that allowed me to do this. —Professor Johanna Lessinger, Anthropology Department Why do you love anthropology? I decided to study Anthropology after reading an essay by Eleanor Leacock. What I love about Anthropology is that there is a section of it that rejects the culture concept and provides the harshest and most rigorous critique of its reactionary history and use. —Professor Anthony Marcus, Chair of the Anthropology Department Why I love Anthropology? Being Vietnamese was hard growing up in the Bronx because all the other kids asked “Is Vietnamese just like Chinese?” I shied away from it and grew up with having friends in various cultures. When I reached college and took my first Anthropology class, it helped me rediscover my culture and all the beauties that come with it. It brings a different science into the world, the science in which people study other people in the contemporary. Therefore, when I am asked “Why do I love Anthropology?” I ask them “Why haven’t you yet?” —Kevin Tran, Anthropology student Why I love Anthropology? For people like me who are interested in learning about history, culture, ideas, norms, morals and the individual, Anthropology is the field that gives me the opportunity to gain this knowledge. With Anthropology, I have a safe place to learn, create personal research, and write about a certain topic that interests me. The reason I love Anthropology is because it is about observing and experiencing situations. People should learn about Anthropology because sometimes an individual’s naive realism prevents them from learning the truth about our world and its peoples. — Cindy Guiracocha, Anthropology student In the best of times and the worst of times: Anthropology Matters! For Anthropology Day 2016, I said I love anthropology for helping me understand the world as it exists (which is not necessarily the world as I want it to be) and for providing me the intellectual tools to understand the human capacity for cleverness, creativity, connection as well as delusion and other dangerous capabilities. In our surreal political times, these human attributes seem to be on bloated display. For Anthropology Day 2017, I say how glad and grateful I am to be an anthropologist—a person with perspective. The discipline taught me the value of knowing history—we can’t understand the present without understanding the past. It taught me how to appreciate the moral longings of the discipline and how to appreciate morality as an object of inquiry without prejudice—and knowing the difference between the two. In these difficult times, I am grateful to be one among our global anthropological community that shares in the basic values of love and respect for one another and for humankind. Knowing this gives me a special kind of sustenance and strength—encouraging me to look optimistically into the future. —Professor Alisse Waterston, Anthropology Department and President of the American Anthropological Association. Twitter: @anthroprez; @AlisseWaterston From all of us at the Executive Editorial Board, Happy Anthropology Day! Anthropology Department John Jay College of Criminal Justice New York, NY Greetings from room 9.63.12 my office in the New Building, where I serve as the coordinator and adviser for the Culture and Deviance Studies (CDS) Major. I trust that everyone has settled into the Spring semester, and now that we are deep into February, let me take some time to fill you in on happenings around our department and the college of interest to our Culture and Deviance Studies and Anthropology family.
Faculty Highlights You may walk through the halls of our department at some point in your day, perhaps to see a professor or two, or to attend a class in the conference room, or maybe just to get away from things and hang out on the blue couch. While it sometimes may seem as if no one is around, rest assured, our department is quite a busy place where professors do much more than just teach and attend committee meetings. To give just a couple examples: Prof. Alisse Waterston is the current President of the American Anthropological Association, the national organization for professional anthropologists. She has been very active in promoting the work of anthropology, its scholars and its students across the country and across the planet. In these politically dynamic times, her leadership of our profession has been an important touchstone for all of us on campus. Let her know your concerns about and interests in the field anthropology. While Prof. Shonna Trinch has alerted you in this month's newsletter about the upcoming program Seeing Rape, which she is co-producing with Prof. Barbara Cassidy, she is also involved in an active research project, which she is co-directing with me on redevelopment and gentrification in Brooklyn. Just last week, we visited the NYC Office of Records, gave a presentation on Brooklyn signage and discussed ways to involve our students with City Archives. Prof. Trinch is also giving the Keynote Address to the International Forensic Linguistics Association in Porto, Portugal on July 14. Her talk is titled: Eminent Domain and the Dominating Discourse of Development. Along with my research collaboration with Prof. Trinch, I also continue to write about my fieldwork in Central Asia on violence against women. In fact, I will be presenting a paper titled The Scene of the Crime: Household, Place and Domestic Violence in Kazakhstan at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, at the Association for the Study of Nationalities, May 6. Anyone is welcome to attend. CDS and Anthropology faculty are also always applying for research grant money. For instance, I just submitted a proposal to the CUNY Office of Research for a research assistant and fact-checker for a book. I hope to hear in a couple of months about this funding and will be sending out an application notice for a research assistant if I get good news. Similarly, Prof. Trinch is applying for a Department of Justice grant as part of the Seeing Rape program to fund three years for students to become Sexual Justice Ambassadors, who will help to train incoming freshmen about awareness of rape and sexual assault issues. Look for more updates on faculty projects and activities in this newsletter. And fellow colleagues, if you are applying for external money, please let us know and we can pass the word on to interested students. Remember, closed office doors do not mean we are not available to you. Email is usually the best way to contact our faculty outside of the classroom. Teaching Note Please join us in welcoming Ilyasa Shabaz, author, activist, scholar and daughter of Malcolm X to our department. She is teaching ANT 330 American Cultural Pluralism and the Law. Check out her webpage at www.ilyasahshabazz.com. Students On The Move CDS students have a wide set of interests and one of the qualities of our major is that you can find success in a diverse range of professions that demand important skills such as observation, ethnographic interviewing, qualitative cultural analysis, and cross-cultural assessment and comparison. Here is what some of our CDS and Anthropology students have been up to lately:
Major Developments We have some exciting events planned in the next two months. On February 26, Prof. Rougier's students will have the year's first Anthropology Café featuring the work of Prof. Anru Lee. On March 16, our department will host an Anthropology Student Micro-Conference which will include interesting presentations on current research from both faculty and students. The CDS program is hoping to make improvements to our core course selections and to add new courses so that we may better serve students. This spring we are hoping to replace Statistics (STA 250) and offer a module of quantitative methods as part of our ANT 325 Ethnographic Field Methods in Anthropology course. This would enable our faculty to directly help students understand the value of descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses and other quant methods in social science. Another revision we would like to add is an ethnographic writing course (Writing Culture), to offer students more experience learning about the craft of writing and to improve their own skills. Remember, Fall registration begins the first week of April and the deadline for graduation applications is March 31. Help Us Finally, March 16 is Major Declaration Day at the College and there are several events scheduled on campus between February 21 and March 15 to help students learn about the wide range of John Jay's majors and minors, including Anthropology and Culture and Deviance Studies. Help us promote Culture and Deviance Studies and Anthropology at the college! Tell your friends about us and encourage them to check us out! Best Always, Ed Snajdr Coordinator, Culture and Deviance Studies Major Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology I’m so happy to welcome you all to this wonderful endeavor. We always knew that our anthropology students were creative, enthusiastic and motivated, but we rarely had enough places for them to show their stuff. Now we do—prose, some of it so lyrical it’s poetic, lovely photographs, insights and epiphanies—to share with others.
One of my frustrations in teaching anthropology has always been the fact that I couldn’t show other people the moving first-person accounts or the thoughtful analyses in the assignments students handed in to me. I couldn’t bring their work forward however much it might have been appreciated in classroom discussion. The rules of student privacy meant the work had to stay hidden in my pile of essays or in a student notebook. With the Zine, some of this work can reach a wider audience. For some authors I’m sure that writing for publication in this Zine took courage, but they did it. What I hope will happen is that these essays and reflections will lead readers to comment, to add their own thoughts, to use the Zine to carry on the debates and discussion these pieces so clearly invite. Since its early 20th century beginnings, anthropology has always been a work in progress, growing and changing in response to debates touched off by changing historical circumstances. Many of the pieces here, deal, in some way, with the creation of a just society—what is it, how do we create it, how do we maintain it? We can only answer these questions if everyone speaks up, if all voices are heard. More than ever these days, these voices and this courage to speak are vitally important. Finally, I welcome this Zine because I think engagement with it will enhance the sense of community that already exists within the Anthropology Department. Everybody who ever took Anthro 101 learned that human beings survived and flourished through their ability to cooperate and create communities. We too will survive and flourish in difficult times because we are brave enough to talk to each other, write for each other, consider each others’ views, to be courageous and creative. Best wishes to all, Hanna Lessinger Anthropology Majors’ Coordinator |