Anthropology News Column
SLA Business Meeting
Saturday, November 19th, 2016
President’s Report
- Report on SLA Interdisciplinary Public Engagement Award:
- Supported invited colloquium at AAAL by Jonathan Rosa, Netta Avineri, Susan Blum, Eric Johnson, Bernard Perley, Kathleen Riley, and Ana Celia Zentella: “Applied Linguistics, Linguistic Anthropology, and Social Justice: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Social and Linguistic Change”
- Will support “Language and Educational Justice: Critiqueing deficit approaches to the education of linguistically and racially marginalized students,” to be presented at the LSA by Mary Bucholtz, Anne Charity Hudley, Anna Bax, Emiliana Cruz, Michael DeGraff, Kris Gutiérrez, Joseph Hill, Katie Lateef-Jan, Wesley Leonard, Jessica Love-Nichols, Christine Mallinson, Jonathan Rosa, and Ana Celia Zentella.
- Will support “Raciolinguistic Approaches to the Analysis of Language and Social Life,” to be presented at the International Association of Applied Linguistics World Congress by Jonathan Rosa, H. Samy Alim, Mary Bucholtz, Angela Reyes, Nelson Flores, Adrienne Lo, and Ramón Martinez.
- Keep an eye out for a Call for Proposals in early 2017 for conferences in 2018
- Section Assembly Report
- Restructuring AAA Executive Board/Section Assembly Executive Committee with new role of immediate past convener to make EB/SAEC more proactive
- Discussion of Section and Interest Group futures
- New format for Anthropology News
- Community Engagement Grants and Mentoring Grants available to sections
- Presidential Conversations for 2016
- Mentoring III: Entering the Market
- L&SJ: Multilingual Education and Social Justice
- Gumperz Award
- 2018 Spring Meetings
- Amend bylaws to specify 3-year terms for members-at-large; will also facilitate meeting planning.
- Recently filled appointed positions
- SLA Media: JLA Editor, Paul Kockelman; SLA Digital Content Editor, Mariam Durrani; SLA Web Assistant, Diego Arispe-Bazán; SLA-AN incoming co-editor, Ilana Gershon
- Nominations Committee: Brigittine French (Chair), Jillian Cavanaugh, Anthony Webster
- Program Chair: Jennifer Roth-Gordon
Treasurer’s Report
- Net assets have been increasing, from $175,485.09 in 2014 to a projected $215,000 in early 2017
- Revenue generated includes around $20K in membership dues, and $15K generated by the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
- Main expenditures include awards, website, conference travel, SLA cash bar, meeting equipment rental, and course release support for JLA Editor
- Wiley-Blackwell publishing agreement continues through 2017
- Membership report: There are 562 active members of the SLA (405 professional, 151 student, 6 life). This reflects a small decline of 5% from last year.
- Welcome to Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway as the incoming SLA treasurer!
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
- Three issues published in Vol 26 (2016) with a total of 355 pp. This includes 16 research articles, 1 methods forum, and 11 book reviews.
- Open Anthropology – 2 articles published in themes issue “Anthropology in an Election Year” (October 2016) by Michael Silverstein and Diane Riskedahl, and one in “Food Anthropology” (June 2016) by J. Cavanaugh, K. Riley, A. Jaffe, C. Jourdan, M. Karrebaek, & A. Paugh
- Déjà Lu – 1 article published, “Negotiating Age” by Elise Berman.
- Impact factor has increased from 0.640 in 2015 to 0.912. The journal is currently ranked #39 of 84 journals in Anthropology and #59 of 181 journals in Linguistics by the ISI Journal Citation Reports rankings.
Program Committee
- Thanks to Netta Avineri, Joyce Bennett, Laura Brown, Colleen Cotter, Christina Davis, Jennifer Dickinson, Sherina Feliciano-Santos, Jennifer Guzman, Sarah Hillewaert, Harriet Klein, Barbara LeMaster, and Jennifer Schlegel for serving on the program committee
- Four invited sessions, with two co-sponsored
- Two Presidential Conversations
- 29 panels submitted, 45 individually submitted papers
- 33 panels accepted by AAA
- Welcome to Jennifer Roth-Gordon, incoming Program Committee chair
- The next meeting will take place Nov. 29-Dec 3rd at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel & Omni Shore Hotel in Washington, DC
Committee on Language and Social Justice (Netta Avineri)
- Initiatives include: Changing mascot names, eliminate the I-word, US Census questions, dialogue on “language gap,” California Senate Bill 1174, language and refugees, university building names, language and health care, engaging students, interpreters/translators, gender and women, know-your-rights and police training
- Multiple presentations and conference presentations in 2016 (see slideshow for details)
- Netta Avineri & Robin Conley Riner will finish their tenure in December; nominations for two new core members are needed.
- For ideas for new initiatives or to connect with ongoing initiatives, email Susan Blum (sblum@nd.edu) or Hilary Parsons Dick (dickh@arcadia.edu)
Anthropology News
- Themes: Social Justice, Interdisciplinary Work
- 11 content columns published this year, including top-ranked column “The Gap That Won’t Be Filled”
- Thanks to outgoing co-editor Aaron Ansell and welcome to incoming co-editor Ilana Gershon
- In 2017, the print version of AN will move to magazine-style format, with only one annual “sections” issue
SLA Election Results and Open Seats
Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway was named SLA Secretary-Treasurer (2016-2018)
Jennifer Reynolds was named SLA Member-at-Large (2016-2018)
Open seats for 2017: President-Elect (replacing Asif Agha)
Awards
Undergraduate Essay Contest Co-Winners: Jack LaViolette (UPenn); Alessandra Rosen (Hunter College)
Undergraduate Essay Contest Co-Winners: Emily Corvi (Hunter College); Alice Frederick (Princeton U); Carla Nieves (University of Puerto Rico)
Graduate Student Essay Co-Winners: Molly Bloom, UCLA; Janet E. Connor, University of Chicago.
Graduate Student Essay Honorable Mentions: Crystal Sheedy (SUNY-Albany); Nora Tyeklar (University of Texas, Austin)
The Edward Sapir Book Prize was awarded to Stanton Wortham and Angela Reyes for their co-authored book, Discourse Analysis Beyond the Speech Event (Routledge).
The SLA Award for Public Outreach and Community Service was awarded to Ana Celia Zentella, in recognition for work that effectively impacts public awareness of social issues involving language and communication and represents a significant service to a particular community outside the academy.
In Memoriam
John Bernard (Barney) Bate, 1960-2016
Dennis Tedlock, 1939-2016
Paul Friedrich, 1927-2016
Please send your comments, contributions, news and announcements to SLA Contributing Editors Ilana Gerson (igershon@indiana.edu) or Anna Babel (babel.6@osu.edu).