Deborah Elliston gave a summary of the Section Assembly meeting. She discussed AnthroSource, which will be coming online in a few months. The AAA is pitching it as necessary, unstoppable, and also as bringing many new and exciting opportunities for anthropology. They want section leaders to talk to their memberships and report back to the AAA leadership (the committee overseeing implementation of AnthroSource) on what kinds of creative uses we might want to make of AnthroSource.
The downside of AnthroSource, however, is that sections with publications will have to pay some of the costs of the initiative (in the form of paying increased publication production costs that include webposting of section publications). A Mellon grant to the AAA which is about to be approved is slated to cover the costs of digitally archiving previously published materials (like old SOLGANs).
We need to provide the old SOLGANS to the AAA soon so they're available for that retroposting. This raised the issue of the need to do something about our archives, which are currently with the ONE Institute in Los Angeles.
It was proposed that the SOLGAN be retired, in part because we can make good use of the AN newsletter instead for communicating with our members, We also discussed the possibility of creating a peer-reviewed journal in the future. (Note: the proposal to retire the SOLGAN was voted down at the AAA business meeting.)
We also discussed the possibility of using AnthroSource to post book reviews, Payne prize winners, etc. Again, the AAA has requested section input on what creative uses we might want to make of AnthroSource: we need to think about this and get back to them.
Frank Proschan noted that there will be costs for this kind of thing and that the capabilities for doing it don't really exist yet. Also that one possibility is that parts of our portion of AnthroSource could be for SOLGA members only, but there is not yet a lot of planning for how section web pages will relate to AnthroSource.
Tom Boellstorff noted that while it's not a decision to make this week, a peer-reviewed journal would be a great service to SOLGA's constituency and AnthroSource is actually set up in a way that would make it easier.
Todd White noted that it's been a problem getting people to contribute to the SOLGAN and it's been a lot of work for him. David Valentine noted that in the AN news section, we should mention the listserv as a way to get more folks on it and using it as a vehicle for communication.
Todd White wanted to note for the record that he is paid $150 an issue as the SOLGAN editor.
Frank Proschan noted that the SOLGAN isn't scheduled to go fully online with AnthroSource until 2006; the AAA is putting publications on line in phases over several years, and the SOLGAN is not on the list of the first ten such publications to go online next year.
David Valentine proposed that we recommend to the membership that we retire the SOLGAN and look into the possibility of a future peer-reviewed journal. Tom Boellstorff agreed and suggested retooling the AN column a bit to reach out to people. Christine Pettett said she also agreed.
Deborah Elliston raised Mindy Michael's E-mail of several months ago in which Mindy indicated she wanted to step down as manager of the SOLGA listserv which has been housed at the American University server. We discussed not wanting to move the SOLGA listserv away from American University at this point since the listserv will likely move to the AAA web server or AnthroSource in another year or so. Deborah said she would ask Bill Leap if he has another graduate student who might be willing to step in and replace Mindy, thus allowing SOLGA to keep the listserv at AU for the immediate future.
We also discussed the need to talk with the AAA about using the AAA web server or AnthroSource to host (and archive) the SOLGA listserv.
Christa Craven asked about the possibility of whether, with regard to the listserv, there could be two options, receiving a digest or receiving each post.
Karen Nakamura described this as being like an "announce" function.
We agreed it would be really nice to find a web wizard ('web manager') to take over from C. Todd White who is overburdened. Todd likes the idea of finding a replacement as well. Also discussed putting together a committee of 2–3 people to act as 'web visionaries': envisioning what use SOLGA might make of AnthroSource.
There was a discussion of position vacancies.
Payne Prize: Evie Blackwood is stepping down after three years as chair.
Benedict Prize: Rudi Gaudio will probably agree to chair it for a second year.
Program Editors: David Valentine stepping down after 3 years, being replaced by Jeff Maskovsky. Christa Craven will continue for a second year.
Christa Craven asked to address the problem of having the two program coeditors be junior scholars, particularly when neither of them has a tenure-track position. She said she and David Valentine had discussed the at-times delicate politics of having coeditors who are junior scholars or even graduate students evaluating the paper and session proposals of very senior scholars. She said, "I don't want to see a position where it's two graduate students."
Jeff Maskovsky proposed that junior coeditors could take problematic cases to the board. Karen Nakamura added that in cases of conflicts of interest (say, a graduate student program coeditor receiving a session proposal from a senior scholar who also chairs the coeditor/ student's Ph.D. committee), the program coeditor could recuse themself.
A strategy discussed was that in cases where there's a potential conflict of interest around the program editors, the program editors could recuse themselves and/or the case could be taken to the cochairs or the whole board. Board members were reminded that it is the SOLGA cochairs who formally have to sign off on the coeditors programming 'recommendations.' Thus, any politically delicate decisions about proposed papers or sessions could always be placed neatly in their laps.
Led to a related discussion of the desirability of having one of the two SOLGA cochairs be in a tenured position. For the same politically delicate reasons. For chairing the Payne Prize committee, Evie Blackwood mentioned as possibilities Ralph Bolton and Karen Nakamura, both of whom served on the committee this past year. Amy Donovan also served this past year. In terms of committee members, it was noted that there is an informal tradition of recruiting former winners to serve on the Payne prize committee (though not as chairs). Alyssa Howe's name was mentioned as someone who could be recruited to serve.
Evie Blackwood also raised the need to have SOLGA people with responsibilities (most Board members, for example, and especially the Payne and Benedict prize committee chairs) file annual reports for the sake of conserving institutional and historical memory. Other sections have officers write annual reports like that. She pointed to the very orange folder she had brought with her to the Board meeting, a material repository in which was collated all of her knowledge gained from chairing the Payne Prize committee. Others should do likewise…
Karen Nakamura noted that with regard to the Committee on Ethics, the co-chairs will need to write a letter to Liz Brumfiel about her and Evie Blackwood remaining as liaisons to the Committee on Ethics. Evie Blackwood is not interested in continuing on the Committee as a liaison. Frank Proschan added that the AAA's association operations committee has recommended to the president that these liaison positions should be continued, but they will only go for two more years for the Committee on Ethics (a two-year appointment or reappointment). That gives us time to find candidates for an actual seat on the ethics committee and we could find candidates by next March or April. We discussed the desirability to find and recruit SOLGA member candidates to run for positions on many different AAA committees.
David Valentine noted that he's cycling off the SOLGA Board but is still technically the owner of the SOLGABoard listserv and will manage it if we don't mind him eavesdropping. Unanimous non-minding of his eavesdropping was indicated.
Tom Boellstorff noted that people with ex officio positions could stay on the solgaboard listserv.
Tom Boellstorff also said that Deborah Elliston and he (now Christine Pettett and he) will come up with a list of who has voting rights for the
SOLGA board. Frank Proschan updated us on AAA Executive Board discussion of the sodomy resolution in the wake of Lawrence vs. Texas. He stated that, for now, the Executive Board is keeping the AAA policy in effect (due in part to some symbolic gestures/attempts to reinstate anti-sodomy laws in certain state legislatures).
Frank Proschan also updated us on the upcoming AAA departmental survey in regard to "chilly climate' issues. As discussed at last year's business meeting, SOLGA needs to come up with about three clear-cut questions to include in the survey. Frank had some in draft form:
1) Have you ever searched for a tenure-track hire in LGBTQ anthropology specifically?
2) Has any graduate student in your department ever written a dissertation focused on a LGBTQ subject? ALT: Have you ever awarded a Ph.D. degree for a dissertation on an LGBTQ subject?
3) In the past three years, have you had any regular course offerings in which 50% or more of the course content has been in LGBTQ anthropology? Frank also discussed issues around archives and mentioned that the Smithsonian's national anthropological archives is the AAA's official repository for archives and should be considered as a possible repository of SOLGA'S archives.
We voted to be a cosponsor of the SANA conference.
Meeting adjourned.
