I'm glad you asked. Here's the list...

1) Working on publishing both my last summer's work on Gozitan Soundscapes and this past springs (thesis) work on the phenomenology of being a zombie.

2) Finding a nice camcorder. Something a little more high end than one of those mini flip things. I'd love a Canon GL2... but I also don't have enough money for that.

3) Moving to Oregon

4) Going to Washington DC for the Smithsonian Internship type thing (June 29-July 25) and writing a collections based research projects on Sioux flutes (see abstract in previous post).

5) Going to Morocco to learn Arabic (August 1 - Sept. 20). I'm also going to try to hang out with artists while I'm there. Maybe even try to shoot an ethnographic film on artistic representations of space/performance of Mediterranean identity. Not sure on this yet, suggestions for field projects would be happily taken and bastardized for my own purposes.

6) Starting Classes at UO (Sept. 29 I think)

Yes, it looks to be an exciting summer. I'm going to spend a lot of time reading, writing, and flying. The other projects I'm going to try to do include:

1) Learn the landscape of UO

2) Start writing paper for Pop Culture Association on Cold War Fetishism in American movies.

3) Cowrite an article with Don Holly at EIU on Johnny Cash and Noble Savage Characterizations in the Red Power Movement.

4) Read a ton of books, alternating one ethnography with one theory/philosophy book. I've gotta start reading more ethnography. 

That's about it. I'm in a planning mood. I'll post some witty critique soon. Possibly something on Andy Warhol, and the two paintings that are currently up in the Rose Art Museum. 

Essentially, I'm taking a structural approach to examine the way musical instruments aren't just transformed from raw material to ritual object, that there is some "mythological semiotic residue" that comes with the transformation- my 2nd question is "does this affect ritual efficacy?"

I am interested in using the vast collection of Native American flutes and whistles at the Smithsonian to do a comparative study of the connections between myths, ritual, musical instruments, and sound. Using a small sample of the collection, I wish to bring attention to the ways in which animals and bodies carved and inscribed in musical instruments interfaces with sound production. Musical instruments, in this regard, come to mediate a synthesis of visual image and sound image; a mediation that facilitates apotheosis, reinforces mythological motifs, and intensifies the ritual efficacy of musical performance.

Specifically, the questions that I aim to answer include: By what ways do images on instruments encourage, or are themselves, the process of apotheosis? Do the ritual images function differently based on social contexts? Are there any connections between instruments, their images, and the raw materials from which they are made beyond the ritual? In various mythological contexts, what is “in the world” first: the raw materials, the image, or the instrument? Do the gender politics that surround the raw materials transpose to the musical instruments, and in what ways do myths afford inspiration to these gender norms? What are the mythological connections between sound, instrument, and environment? Are certain instruments more pre-disposed to carry images of transcendence than others, and why? How does this vary cross culturally, and what does it tell us about the ways in which music and spirituality are regimented in various societies? And, finally, in what ways could this information be used in recreating the social existence of musical objects?

1) The Rose Art Museum Fiasco/Conspiracy/ClusterF***/Etc. I'm serving on the faculty senate committee, unfortunately, as one of the only members with knowledge of the operations of a museum; as one of the only with any educational background in museums per say; as one of the only who realizes why the administration put the committee together the way that they did. Essentially, we're building a museum from scratch, which is incredibly exciting for me as a more liberal interpreter of what a museum is, and how progressive it could be. The downside is trying to tell faculty members (especially business ones) why they can't just sell any old piece of art for any old purpose. It is a lesson in patience and the seedy underbelly of educational beauracracy. It's inspired me to want to open my own university ran by intellectuals, not CEOs.

2) My thesis. Probably the most amazing document I've written to date. Even I am shocked at how powerful it is. It consists of two parts: a) a philosophical/anthropological treatise on the imagination as a bipartite structure separated by imaginary and imagining b) an ethnography of imagining in the Toronto Zombie Walk that aims at exploring the ways in which there is one social imaginary (what a zombie is, and how it should act, etc.) and multiple social imaginations (one engaging in the world of play and the libidinous energy from manipulating death, and one creating metaphors of Death in the landscape). It is a very interesting read, and I look forward to revisiting parts of it as I progress through the next few years.

3) Too many conferences. I admit it, I stretched myself a little thin on conferences. After planning one that took place March 14, I attended 4 others presenting work. Among these were a) the Cultural Studies conference on "Beyond Television" (presenting YouTube pedagogy w/ Dr. Mark Auslander) b) A Distinguished Lecture at Eastern Illinois University on cultural heritage in tourism and the concept of Authenticity c) The Central States Anthropological Society conference where I presented my work on soundscapes and the body politic d) The popular culture association national conference on Psychoanalysis in Zombie Walks (also, I received an invitation to submit to an interdisciplinary edited volume on zombies, as well as an offer to support a book written on the event) and d) Brandeis' GSAS Poster Symposium, again on the zombie psychoanalysis, this time focusing specifically on Freud (with a little Marx and Sartre mixed in). 

Other than that, I've been 1) digging on Gadamer like a mofo, 2) thinking about the directions to take in life and 3) how much it may suck to leave the Bean. 

I've also been trying to figure out what genre of anthropology I am. Obviously social, but in a more in depth way, I'm really a concoction of marxism, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and aesthetics (for the last week, I've really been interested in the fetish as a link between Marx and Freud, and Gadamer's theory of art experience). For that reason, I guess I would go with the description of a literary-philosophical anthropologist or (the classic) symbolic-interpretive anthropologist. Either way, I see Geertz as a grandfather figure, with Crapanzano as a close uncle. The whole Chicago school is quite attractive to me to be honest. And in that, I warp museum studies, cultural geography, visual anthropology, and ethnomusicology. I'm a mess. Thanks for listening to my ramble/identity crisis.

As the semester wraps up, I'm getting ready also to do some writing. In my recent love of Gadamer, I've decided to try to think of doing field work in the role of art in space (PIGS IN SPPPAAAAACCCCCEEEEE, sorry, couldn't help it). It fits nicely with my love of music and space. It's a great chance to also work in the (excessive) amount of semiotics I've learned since getting to Brandeis- Mucharovsky, Lottman, Bryson, Tarasti, Greimas (thanks to Rick Parmentier, and his amazing brain for teaching me more about this subject than I ever thought existed). Specifically, I want to look at the impact of art on the subjective experience of art and place together. I'll need to, of course, think through this more, but it could become a nice part of my dissertation (which I'm thinking will be on investigations of identity making through the use of art and sound in space.)

I'm sick of reading myself type, so I will now leave you with this pile of information. Expect more blogs, after classes end on next Wednesday, I'll need an intellectual outlet.