Fall 2008, Annual Meeting and Newsletter

The Friends of the Evergreen Library will hold its annual meeting this Saturday, October 18, from 2-4pm, in the 3rd floor Northwest Lounge in the library.

After a short business meeting, Evergreen professor Nalini Nadkarni will present the keynote address based on her new book, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections To Tress (2008).

Check out the Friends Fall 2008 Newsletter
for to learn more about Professor Nadkarni's book, as well as other Friends news.

Evergreen Gallery Acquires Warhol Prints - Aug 29, 2008

A set of original photographic prints from the Andy Warhol Foundation have been received in a joint project with the Friends and Evergreen's Sound and Image Library, Photo Center, and Art Gallery. The collection is comprised of 153 original prints, 50 silver gelatin prints accompanied by 103 polaroid drafts.

The Warhol Foundation donated the prints to the college's Art Gallery and Special Collections. The Friends are contributing funds to support the archival digitization, web publication, and climate controlled preservation of the originals. The funding request to the Friends was for $3060.

Ann Friedman, the college’s Gallery Curator, spoke on behalf of the Warhol funding proposal. She pointed out that the bulk of the Gallery’s collection is in photographs, and that the college is one of three institutions in the state to have received Warhol Foundation offers.

The originals will be available for student archival research and for occasional, temporary displays under proper conditions. The Friends are considering an opening reception and display of the gelatin prints for our Annual Meeting this fall.

Leaning into the Solar Wind, by John Crosby & Mark Clemens

John and Mark are longtime poets in the Olympia community. In this reading they confront, "poems about life, memory, smoking, the nuances of being a poet. Oh, listening to the silences, our racial memories (lizard brain), seeing those things that the cat sees when it stares off into the distance. The whirling gust of wind that suddenly turns into the Green Man. Trekking the ecliptic in this century. being born in the depression and a baby boomer."

On the Uses and Abuses of Anthropology and History in Wartime, by Steve Niva & David Price

On the Uses and Abuses of Anthropology and History in Wartime: From the Second World War to Contemporary Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

David Price, Evergreen Alumnus (’83), and Professor of Anthropology at St. Martin's University, will discuss the findings of his new book, Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War (Duke University Press, May 2008), and draws on historical comparisons of the WWII use of anthropology with current attempts to use anthropology for counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anthropological Intelligence critically examines the contributions of anthropologists assigned to such agencies as the Office of Strategic Services, Office of Naval Intelligence, the Ethnogeographic Board, Office of War Information, The M Project, and the internment of Japanese Americans under the War Relocation Authority. Once America entered the Second World War, half of America’s anthropologists joined the war effort without really considering the ethical problems created by such work, which resulted in serious questions from a vocal minority about the propriety of such actions, chief among these were concerns that—as anthropologist Laura Thompson put it in 1944—anthropologists were simply becoming "technicians for hire to the highest bidder." While the political nature of the Second World War and today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are significantly different, the ethical issues raised by using anthropology remain similar and unresolved. See links to some of his work at: http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/dprice/page1.html

Steve Niva, Member of Faculty at Evergreen in International and Middle East studies, will discuss the results of his new research project and writings on the ways in which the "lessons of history" of 20th century insurgent warfare are being deployed by military scholar-practioners in devising new counterinsurgency strategies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader "War on Terror." He will discuss the new generation of scholarly trained PhD military strategists such as General David Petraeus, Col. John Nagl and counter-terrorism advisor David Kilcullen and how they utilize particular "lessons" at the expense of other "lessons" that raise serious questions about the politics of counterinsurgency practice in the contemporary wars.

See his recent article, "The New Walls of Baghdad," http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5162

The Secular Conscience, by Austin Dacey

Evergreen alumnus Austin Dacey read from and discussed his recent book, The Secular Conscience.

Dacey graduated with the Class of 1995. His book explores the foundations of morality outside of religious traditions.

Issei, Nisei, Sansei by Llyn De Danaan

Llyn De Danaan gave this lecture and slide show based on her documentary photography and ethnographic exploration of the lives of Japanese immigrant workers in the Puget Sound area.

De Danaan, an anthropoligist, retired from full time status on the Evergreen faculty. She continues to teach periodically at the college.

Women Together As One, by Gilda Sheppard

Gilda Sheppard is a film maker and sociology on the faculty at Evergreen. Her faculty bio says, "Sheppard's inter disciplinary teaching philosophy reflects her activist approach to media literacy. She uses media as a tool for literacy, social action, inter disciplinary scholarship, intervention, creative and critical thinking."