The Arctic Studies Center

My parents have always enjoyed getting the annual newsletter from the Arctic Studies Center, the office of the Smithsonian where I used to work. My former colleague there, Igor Krupnik, used to say about the newsletter, which often got up to 36 pages, "never have so few written so much about so little." But the fact is although the staff of the ASC is only 4 permanent full time employees, the Newsletter has always included lots of other contributors, everything from interns volunteering on special projects to scholars who want to have a new project highlighted in a non-academic way.

Last year Bill wrote up a piece that included his assessment of Vikingaheimar Museum in Reykjanesbaer, after he toured it and enjoyed a reception with Jon Baldvin, Einar Benediktsson, and Gunnar Eyjolfsson.

This year, Stephen Loring, who is generally in charge of soliciting outside pieces, invited me to say something about my dissertation research. This was especially welcome, since Stephen is actually the person I plan to dedicate my dissertation to. And it isn't because I crashed his car Labor Day weekend 2001, or because he almost died of a stroke in 2000, or because he is a wacky Libra, or because he is married to one of the coolest feminist archaeologists, or because he is the only person I know whose twin brother is a race car driver, but because he gave me my first real break into academia, working on a summer project about Alaska. He handed me a book, and a map, and told me to think about a Native community on Nunavut Island, Alaska, in the 1920s. And that's what really got me going on this whole interpretive angle. So Stephen can ask me for an article anytime he wants, and I will gladly oblige.

Comments

Jono said…
While I am no academic, I do find all this stuff fascinating.
February 16, 2012 at 4:09 PM
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