Sixty at 60

Six Decades at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology

Tag: Undergraduate degree (Page 1 of 3)

The author pursued or completed their undergraduate degree during their time at the Haffenreffer Museum.

Dr. Barry R. Bainton, ‘63/64 – Applied Anthropologist (retired)

August 17, 2017 / / 5 Comments

Barry Bainton, 2017

“6 days ago, December 12th, Dr. Giddings died – as the result of an automobile accident. I have lost a great teacher and even greater friend. I only hope that I can be half as good an anthropologist as he. God – how I wish IT hadn’t happened,”  (p.32, of My Peace Corps Journal, Friday December 18th 1964).

Dr. Giddings (the only Brown Professor I had who was always “Doctor” to me) was a teacher, mentor, and friend during my undergraduate career at Brown. After I graduated, a year after my entering class, I joined the newly created Peace Corps and was sent to Peru. Dr. Giddings encouraged me to make a collection of ethnographic artifacts for the Museum while I was there. I left for Peru a month after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 7th, 1964). This marked the formal start of the United States’ involvement in the Viet Nam War. Three months later, I received a letter along with a newspaper clipping from Judy Huntsman, Dr. Giddings’ graduate student and fellow worker at the Museum, announcing his death. Two years later, I returned to Rhode Island with the collection.   Continue reading

Theo Koda – Anthropology concentrator and Museum Intern, Brown University ‘17.5

August 11, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever found yourself wondering what goes on behind the display case? Curious about what museum employees actually do beyond dusting off old artifacts, and putting up “no touching” signs? I certainly have.

My name is Theo Koda, and I am a student of Anthropology at Brown University. This summer I am  a registration intern at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. My time here is  devoted to the documentation of a collection of African objects — as well as the execution of any other tasks that need my attention. This collection was acquired by the donor in 1964-65 while he was working in Gabon with the Peace Corps. It is filled with fascinating objects, but it also contains extensive records of his training, trip, and collection efforts. These enrich the collection — adding much needed context to already intriguing materials. Continue reading

Hannah Sisk, AB‘13 Archaeology

August 2, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Hannah Sisk, Freshman year at Brown  (2009)

It was early in the fall of my first year at Brown – muggy and overcast (nothing like the crisp New England autumns I had eagerly anticipated!). A few weeks into the semester, I had some time between classes on the Main Green and found myself outside Manning Hall. I had peeked into the Haffenreffer gallery before, after a campus tour as a prospective student, but hadn’t gone through the space on my own. In that precious hour between seminars, the gallery presented itself as a cool refuge from the humidity outside, but, more importantly, as a welcoming and intellectual space that ultimately shaped my time at Brown and my career pursuits since. Continue reading

Professor William Simmons (Part II) – Professor of Anthropology, Brown University

July 20, 2017 / / 1 Comment

PART II: REFLECTIONS ON RESEARCH WITH J. LOUIS GIDDINGS 

Professor Giddings was a very gentle person who loved his work—and was very good at it. In my case, having worked weekends at the Bristol museum site regularly during the academic year and having participated in three summers of field research in Alaska as his student assistant, I had the opportunity to learn from him about the discipline of anthropology and especially archaeology through conversations beyond the classroom setting. This was invaluable. If I had a question or wished to discuss some topic, even personal, that was on my mind he was always there. If he had opinions about particular scholars or lines of thought he would express them. This helped me at an early age to understand that it was OK to respect my own thoughts, not to seek trends however elite they may seem to be, and decide for myself how to approach the discipline. This served me as a graduate student during the years when ethno-science and French structuralism dominated the field and grad students were eager to sign on to one or the other of these. I felt inclined to be a listener, to learn what was to be learned, even to be moved and smitten by it, but to not personally identify with intellectual cliques. At graduate school I saw that happening among my peers and regarded it as a kind of disassociation from reality. Continue reading

Stephen L. Dyson—SUNY Distinguished Professor, Classics Department, University at Buffalo

May 10, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Memories of J. Louis Giddings

My first contact with Louis Giddings and the Haffenreffer Museum came in the late summer of 1956. I had worked the previous year as a volunteer docent at the old Providence Museum, doing guided tours of the Pacific Ethnographic Collections. It was a bit of a stretch for a budding student of classical archaeology, but most people visiting the gallery knew less than I did. It also expanded my interest in museums and in material culture beyond Greek sculpture and Roman portraits.

During that time Brown announced the gift to the university of Rudolf Haffenreffer’s King Philip Museum, in Bristol, by the Haffenreffer family. The acquisition was a rather bold step for a university that had no Anthropology Department, no museum, and no real tradition of field archaeology. Brown was at that time a rather sleepy place with none of the trendy glamour of today. However, it displayed a strong interest in undergraduate education. Brown was an ideal place for a public school graduate like myself, who wanted to pursue a career in Classics and Archaeology.

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