History of Archaeology Interest Group Newsletter– September 2011 issue.

The September 2011 (Vol. 1, No. 4) issue of the Society for American Archaeology’s Newsletter of the History of Archaeology Interest Grouphas just been posted on the web.  http://bit.ly/HAIGNews

It’s edited by Prof. Bernard K. Means at Virginia Commonwealth University, and is an important source for anyone working on the history of archaeology. 

For those with an interest in the photography of Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon or their personal papers please go to Page 3 of this issue of the Newsletter. On that page are annotated links to finding aides for the Le Plongeon photo collections and papers archived at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Another link on Page 3 is provided to access all my published papers on the history of archaeology, the Le Plongeons, and a text version of my out of the print book A Dream of Maya about Augustus Le Plongeon. And downloadable as a PDF is a catalog titled: The Nineteenth Century Photographs of Alice Dixon Le Plongeon and Augustus Le Plongeon. The catalog is 416 pages with data entries on each of the 1,054 Le Plongeon archaeological and ethnographic photos taken in Yucatán and Belize in 1870s and 1880s. You can find a link to the home page of ArchaeoPlanet web site on the side bar under Blog Roll. A link specifically to my papers on the history of archaeology and the Le Plongeons is: ArchaeoPlanet: Lawrence G. Desmond writings on the history of archaeology.

Editor Means, in addition to his archaeological field projects, has focused much of his research on the archaeology carried out under president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. The Newsletter keeps us up to date on developments on that area of his research.

In this issue he provides links to obituaries on the passing of the pioneer of the New Archaeology movement Louis Binford; French Egyptologist Christiane Desroches Nobelcourt who worked to save Egypt’s sites from the flooding of the Aswan Dam; and archaeologist Edmund S. Carpenter who led a crew of Seneca Indians employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal to excavate sites in Pennsylvania.

The Newsletter has the following in-depth articles and notes:

• Histories of Archaeological Illustration.
• GIS for New Deal Archaeology Update.
• Recent or Noteworthy Publications.

An exhibit on the Mexican Revolution– a must see!

Opens September 8, 2011 at the Richard J. Riordan Central Library in Los Angeles, California.

A Nation Emerges: The Mexican Revolution Revealed– Sept. 8, 2011–June 3, 2012. 

The Mexican Revolution (1910–20), which lasted a decade and transformed the nation, was extensively chronicled by Mexican, American, and European photographers and illustrators. Thousands of images captured a country at war. From postcards of the 1910 Fiesta del Centenario, to images of a war that was waged on several fronts by ever-shifting revolutionary factions, to photographs of the 1923 assassination of Pancho Villa, this exhibition chronicles this complex, multifaceted chapter in Mexico’s history.Organized by the Getty Research Institute with support from Edison International.

For directions and hours: Los Angeles Public Library, Central Library

“Yucatan through her eyes” wins book design award

The New Mexico Book Association announced that its book design award has been given to: Yucatán through eyes. Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, writer and expeditionary  photographer.

SOUTHWEST BOOK DESIGN WINNERS NAMED 

Thursday, 23 June 2011 15:01

Written by Mary E. Neighbour

The New Mexico Book Association is proud to announce the winners in this year’s Southwest Book Design & Production Awards for Excellence. These awards recognize creativity and quality in book design and distinction in production. The awards help raise the bar and set standards of book excellence throughout the Southwest.

Special recognition to: Yucatán through her eyes by Lawrence G. Desmond.

New Mexico Book Association

Don’t miss the exhibit– Mex/LA: Mexican modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985

An important new exhibit opens at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach on September 18, 2011.

Curated by Rubén Ortiz-Torres in association with Jesse Lerner, the exhibition MEX/L.A.: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985, focuses on the construction of different notions of “Mexicanidad” within modernist and contemporary art in Los Angeles. The period from 1945 to 1985 is attributed as the time when Los Angeles consolidated itself as an important cultural center. However, this time span excludes the controversial and important presence of the Mexican muralists and the production of other artists such as Philip Guston and Jackson Pollock who responded to their ideas and later influenced other artists in New York and throughout the United States.

It is often perceived that Los Angeles’ Mexican culture is alien and comes from elsewhere when in fact it originated in the city—it was in Los Angeles and Southern California where José Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Magón, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the idea of modern Mexico while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own culture. This is the place where Siqueiros and Orozco made some of their first murals and Los Angeles is the capital of Chicano art.

The purpose of this exhibition is not so much cultural affirmation and/or historical revisionism, but rather to understand how nationalism and internationalism are modernist constructions that are not necessarily exclusive but often complementary and fundamental in the formation of Mexican, American, Chicano art and the art of the City. The exhibition’s historiography and non-linear narratives will explore different media, points of view and notions of art and culture including painting, photography, film, video, animation, lowrider culture and design.

For the full exhibit description just go to the MOLAA link:

MOLAA | MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985

More Le Plongeon photo prints shown in Mexico City

Pablo León de la Barra has organized an exhibit titled: Incidentes de Viaje espejo Yucatán y otros lugares that is now featured at the Tamayo Museum in Mexico City. 

In the exhibit are four copies of  Le Plongeon prints from the Televisa Collection in Mexico City. The copies of the originals were made specifically for the exhibit by Javier Hinojosa. The original prints in the Televisa archive were made by Alice Dixon Le Plongeon from photos (negatives) she and Augustus Le Plongeon took of the Maya ruins at Uxmal and Chichen Itza in Yucatán the 1870s and 1880s.

Update: On May 28, 2011 I posted that an album of  more than 100 Le Plongeon prints was on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. That album is reported to be from the Televisa Collection, but currently archived and curated by the Casa Lamm in Mexico City.

Incidentes de viaje espejo en Yucatán y otros lugares

Inauguración: jueves 7 de julio, 7:30 pm

A las 9:00 pm se encenderá la escultura efímera de Cerith Wyn Evans que forma parte de la exposición

Alias Editorial, Lara Almarcegui, Jürgen K. Brüggemann, Stefan Brüggemann, Mariana Castillo Deball, Frederick Catherwood, Claude-Joseph Desiré Charnay, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon y Augustus Le Plongeon, Sam Durant, Cyprien Gaillard, Mario García Torres, Alex Hubbard, Leandro Katz, Pierre Leguillon, Mauricio Maillé/Gabriel Orozco/Mauricio Rocha, Jeremy Millar, Jonathan Monk, Henry Moore, Rubén Ortiz Torres, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Beatriz Santiago, Yann Sérandour, Cerith Wyn Evans y el espíritu de Robert Smithson.

Libremente inspirado por los viajes en Yucatán, Chiapas y Centroamérica de John Lloyd Stephens y Frederick Catherwood en 1839 y 1841, y el viaje realizado en 1969 por Robert Smithson por la península del sureste, la exposición presenta el trabajo de artistas modernos y contemporáneos que a través del turismo, la arqueología, o la antropología, se relacionan con el paisaje de ruinas antiguas y modernas para construir una nueva arqueología del presente.

Incidentes de viaje espejo en Yucatán y otros lugares » MTAC

A book for anyone concerned about education in Mexico then, and in the US now

Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City

Author: Patience A. Schell. Senior lecturer in Latin American Studies at Manchester University, UK.

Revolution in Mexico sought to subordinate church to state and push the church out of public life. Nevertheless, state and church shared a concern for the nation’s social problems. Until the breakdown of church-state cooperation in 1926, they ignored the political chasm separating them to address those problems through education in order to instill in citizens a new sense of patriotism, a strong work ethic, and adherence to traditional gender roles.

This book examines primary, vocational, private, and parochial education in Mexico City from 1917 to 1926, and shows how it was affected by the relations between the revolutionary state and the Roman Catholic Church. One of the first books to look at revolutionary programs in the capital immediately after the Revolution, it shows how government social reform and Catholic social action overlapped, and identifies clear points of convergence while also offering vivid descriptions of everyday life in revolutionary Mexico City. Comparing curricula and practice in Catholic and public schools, Patience Schell describes scandals and successes in classrooms throughout Mexico City. Her re-creation of day-to-day schooling shows how teachers, inspectors, volunteers, and priests, even while facing material shortages, struggled to educate Mexico City’s residents out of a conviction that they were transforming society. She also reviews broader federal and Catholic social action programs such as films, unionization projects, and libraries that sought to instill a new morality in the working class.

Finally, she situates education among larger issues that eventually divided church and state and examines the impact of the restrictions placed on Catholic education in 1926. Schell sheds new light on the common cause between revolutionary state education and Catholic tradition, and provides new insight into the wider issue of the relationship between the revolutionary state and civil society. As the presidency of Vicente Fox revives questions of church involvement in Mexican public life, her study provides a solid foundation for understanding the tenor and tenure of that age-old relationship.

Hardcover: 253 pages

University of Arizona Press

2003

ISBN-10: 0816521980

ISBN-13: 978-0816521982

Reviews

“A groundbreaking book . . . should be the standard on education and church-state relations in Mexico City for many years to come.” — William H. Beezley, co-editor, The Oxford History of Mexico.

“Particularly timely in light of the reemergence of Catholic Mexico after the stunning electoral victory of Vicente Fox.” — Adrian Bantjes, author of As If Jesus Walked on Earth: Cardenismo, Sonora, and the Mexican Revolution.

A poem to us from Merle Greene Robertson (1913-2011)

Sometime during the last year Merle wrote this poem for us. It was found by her family amongst her papers, and I thank them for letting me post it.

 

I Did Not Die

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

 

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the mountain goat on snow.

I am the sunlight of Maya grain.

I am the gentle jungle ruin.

 

When you awake in the morning hush,

I am the soft uplifting rush

of quetzal birds in a highland flight.

I am the Venus star at night.

 

I visit now Hunahpu and Xbalanque,

in the forever ever land of God K.

I am the Mother Goddess

of Palenque’s past.

 

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there.

I did not die.