School For Advanced Research

The indian arts research center (iarc):grounded in clay: the spirit of pueblo pottery ended a high-profile run at the metropolitan museum of art and at the vilcek foundation in new york city, and opened at the museum of fine arts, houston in october 2024. Meanwhile, the indian arts research center continued to engage with native communities, working artists, and others as a thought-and-practice leader in stewarding indigenous art collections.on the policy and guildelines front, the indigenous collections care (icc) guide reached a content review stage, which will eventually include the voices of 175 tribal and museum voices. Following the guidelines for collaboration (2019) and standards for museums with native american collections (2023), the icc guide will provide a framework to respect and recenter collections stewardship practices around the needs and knowledge of native american indigenous communty members.collections reviews continued with the pueblos of acoma and pojoaque. A key iarc initiative since 2008, the iarc has worked with representatives from tribal communities in an effort to review every piece in the iarc collection. These reviews recognize community knowledge as a primary source of information and ensure that collection items are represented as accurately as possible and in an appropriate manner.in the spring, iarc partnered with the new mexico pueblo fiber arts guild and the poeh cultural center to produce the 13th annual pueblo fiber arts show. In its second year of this collaboration, the fiber arts show drew in visitors from all around the country and featured over 30 artists, demonstrators, dancers, and its first fashion show. Also in its second year, the iarc worked with kha'p'o community school to produce a series of workshops for its sixth graders and a school-wide mini-comic convention, focusing on empowering youth to tell their own stories.

Public programs:sar's humanities festival was an exceedingly popular addition to the santa fe cultural scene in 2023, with a focus on american identities. The 2024 focus of what is becoming an annual sar fall event had the theme "food for thought." we are shaping our public programming into fall, spring, and summer packages that audiences can plan to attend on a regular basis, along with regular scholar colloquia and artist talks throughout the year.

J.i. Staley prize:awarded annually by sar since 1988, the j.i. Staley prize is one of the most prestigious international book awards and is given annually to a living author for a book that exemplifies outstanding scholarship and writing in anthropology. T.m. Luhrmann explores the practices that enable people experience the divine as embodied, tangible, and real. Based on decades of fieldwork with evangelical christians as well as other denominational communities, she argues that it is action, discipline, and repetition that drive faith. In vivid and concise prose accessible to a wide audience, luhrmann reveals how living in the "faith frame" demands effort for people in all religions. "this book will engage anyone interested in the questions of faith in an imperfect world and offers anthropologists a model for entering into important public conversations."sar press:sar press started an open access initiative through which advanced seminar volumes will be made available digitally to readers around the world at no cost to them. This year, sar press also brought together community members to prepare for posthumous publication of the final manuscript by emerita scholar programs director and staff scholar dr. Nancy owen lewis, the hounds of el delirio: new mexico and the dogs of world war ii. Former staff members jonathan lewis and jean schaumberg are working with senior scholar dr. Carol maclennan, emerita librarian laura holt, and sar press director dr. Miriam kolar to publish this engaging and intriguing history.