Recently in Info - Useful information Category

"The Psychiatric Service Dog Society (PSDS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to responsible Psychiatric Service Dog (PSD) education, advocacy, research and training facilitation. We provide essential information for persons disabled by severe mental illness, who wish to train a service dog to assist with the management of symptoms. We consult regularly with mental healthcare providers in their efforts to learn more about PSD. We also host an online community of service dog handlers veteran and new..."

http://www.psychdog.org/

WebMD cites a study from the recent issue of Molecular Psychiatry on the incidence of mental illness in American adults:

• 1.7% developed alcohol dependency
• 1.51% developed major depression
• 1.12% developed generalized anxiety disorder
• 1.02% developed alcohol abuse
• 0.62% developed any panic disorder
• 0.53% developed bipolar I disorder
• 0.44% developed a phobia
• 0.32% developed drug dependency
• 0.32% developed social phobia
• 0.28% developed drug abuse
• 0.21% developed bipolar II disorder

Although the rates seem low, the author points out that the risks are greater than those for lung cancer, stroke, or cardiovascular disease.

Read the article on WebMD.

AA sent me this tidbit:

ISEFF INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM FESTIVAL 2008
TWO DAYS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM
HOSTED BY GOLDSMITHS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Constructing Bonds
The politics of relation in ethnographic representation

The festival focuses particularly upon the difficulties entailed by anthropological film production and dissemination â?? what is the â??useâ?? of ethnographic film? How and for whom is it being produced? We consider notions of the afterlife of the anthropological product â?? is it wrong for ethnographic data to be used as market research? Can other disciplines and areas of society benefit from this material? We encourage a diverse audience of anthropologists and non-anthropologists from academia and public realms, offering a community of discussion framed around a media source. Film screenings shall be accompanied by a panel discussion.

I recently bought MacSpeech Dictate in order to help with the writing of my next book, Crazy in Japan (working title). Unfortunately, the program crashed everytime I tried to setup a new profile.

A couple of hours of googling seemed to suggest that the problem was with the English Data Disk, but various attempts to get a clean data disk revealed that that was likely not the problem.

A post on MacFixitForums by yfried helped me narrow it down:

There are several possible causes for this error:
1) having FileVault turned on
2) punctuation marks, symbols, foreign language characters, or high ASCII characters in the name of the hard drive
3) punctuation marks, symbols, foreign language characters, or high ASCII characters in the userid used to login to the Macintosh
4) punctuation marks, symbols, foreign language characters, or high ASCII characters in the name of the voice profile (depending on when this error appears)
5) a network set up where the user's home folder is located on a server
6) having more than one hard drive installed in the Macintosh which has the same name (Apple ships multiple drive systems with all drives being the same name figuring that users will change the appropriate drive names)
from: http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum36&Number=853106&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

In my case, I used Japanese characters in my full username in my login which screwed things up. Changing it from 中村かれん to Karen Nakamura fixed it and allowed me to set up my user profile.

This is very poor programming on MacSpeech's part, in my opinion. Mac OS X programs should be character set independent. It's 2008 for heaven's sake!

More on how MacSpeech Dictate actually is after I've used it for a while.

Last weekend, my dog and I helped with our neighborhood cleanup. We made the April 17th, 2008 issue of the New Haven Independent newspaper:

From the mailbag:

Hello! My name is Elle Langevin, and I run a summer camp program for Deaf and HoH children in NH, at Windsor Mountain International Summer Camp. This year marks the 10th year that we will be offering this program, and we have made some significant changes, the most exciting being that we are now offering a 5 week intensive immersion program for beginning ASL interpreters. I am hoping that through your organization we can get the word out about this opportunity, possibly through your newsletter, and reach the students that would really benefit from this experience.

On March 1, I gave a talk on deaf identity and language ideologies at Swarthmore college. During the talk, I discussed the language politics behind the pronunciation of the word "ask" in spoken American English.

The contemporary African American Vernacular English pronunciation of "ask" as "aks" or "ax" is often used as an example of bad pronunciation by prescriptive language critics. However, the "aks/ax" form of "ask" is just as old -- if not older, than the "ask" form -- and dates back to Old English.

People have e-mailed me asking for a citation. The best source is the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition 1989) which gives these usages:

I. 1. trans. To call for, call upon (a person or thing personified) to come. Obs.

a1000 Cædmon's Gen. (Gr.) 2453 [Hi] comon cor{th}rum miclum cuman acsian. 1205 LAY. 19967 He lette axien anan Men {th}at cu{edh}en hæuwen stan.

2. without mention of the person asked: a. with the thing asked as an object sentence or clause (in indirect, or, less commonly, direct oration).

c1000 Ags. Ps. xiv. [2] Ic ahsi{asg}e, Hwa {th}ær earda{edh}? a1038 Charter of Eanwene in Cod. Dipl. IV. 54 {Edh}á ácsode {edh}e bis~ceop hwá sceólde andswerian for his módor. c1200 ORMIN Te{ygh}{ygh} sholldenn..asskenn what he wære. a1300 Cursor M. 7887 He askes, quat was {th}at leuedi? c1305 St. Crist. 149 in E.E.P. (1862) 63 {Th}is gode man..eschte what hi wolde. c1386 CHAUCER Wife's Prol. 21, I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housbond to the Samaritan? c1420 Avow. Arth. xxiv, Gauan asshes, ‘Is hit soe?’ 1455 E. CLERE in Four C. Eng. Lett. 5 He askid what the Princes name was. 1549 COVERDALE Erasm. Par. Rom. Prol., He axeth not whether good workes are to be done or not. 1597 SHAKES. 2 Hen. IV, III. ii. 71 May I aske, how my Lady his Wife doth? 1711 STEELE Spect. No. 454 {page}6 To ask what I wanted. Mod. Ask who it is. He asks if you are ready. I merely ask, ‘Is it true?’

b. with the question expressed by a n. or pronoun: To ask a question, this, something. to ask (a horse) the question: to call upon him for a special effort.

c1320 R. BRUNNE Medit. 430 Some axen questyons to do hym wrong. 1387 TREVISA Higden (1865) I. 67 {Th}re questiouns bee{th} i-axed. 1803 PEGGE Anecd. Eng. Lang. 114 A true born Londoner, Sir, of either sex, always axes question, axes pardon, and at quadrille axes leave. 1850 TENNYSON In Mem. xiv, And ask a thousand things of home. 1894 H. CUSTANCE Riding Recoll. vi. 88 Until the last ten strides, when I really asked ‘King Lud’ the question.

We can see that 'aks/ax' was a valid pronunciation from 1000 CE ("acsian") through at least 1549 CE ("He axeth"). If anyone axe, just say that no one lesser than Chaucer spelt it that way.

I recently wrote a short article for the Anthropology News titled: A Case against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later (. Vol. 49, No. 2: 20). Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:

A Case Against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later
By Karen Nakamura (Yale U)

Giving informants cameras and asking them to take photographs of their environment is a growing trend in anthropology. The resulting photos are later displayed, analyzed or exhibited as examples of a particularly internal, private or emic view of the world. Students love this technique, which is inexpensive and initially appears to be risk-free, with all of the hallmarks of reflexive anthropology. If not done carefully, however, it can be problematic both ethically and methodologically.

.....

For those who choose to do photoethnographic work that involves providing informants with cameras or video equipment, it is essential to first critically examine the ethical and methodological implications of a project. The anthropologist must consider both the potential harms and benefits that a project might pose for an informant. Possible ways to address these concerns include giving informants high quality photographic equipment (to keep) as well as technical training, so that in the future they can use their new tools and skills for their own purposes, to address their own needs. Informants working for an anthropologists (i.e. completing assigned tasks) should be paid as field assistants. Prior to using an image an anthropologist should receive permission to do so from both the photographer and any people that appear in the photograph. Finally, photography should supplement, not replace, long-term fieldwork–it is time and labor intensive, but ultimately necessary for interpreting and contextualizing visual images from the field.

You can read the rest at the full text PDF.

Comments, criticism, and feedback on this article are more than welcome -- either here or by e-mail.

Wow, I wish I had more spare time....

The Siena School for Liberal Arts, located in Tuscany Italy, offers a unique 3 week study abroad experience in Summer 2008 for American Sign Language users, Deaf and hearing. These two distinct programs give ASL users an opportunity to learn Italian Sign Language in a formal setting.

The Language and Culture Program for Deaf Adults brings Deaf Italians and Deaf Americans together for a fantastic opportunity for cultural and
linguistic exchange. Americans learn Lingua Italiana dei Signi (Italian
Sign Language or LIS) and written Italian, while the Italians learn American Sign Language and written English. Students are housed in apartments in the city center for a full opportunity to practice their newly acquired skills.

Swarthmore College is hosting a conference called "Around the Deaf World in Two Days (It's a Small World): Sign Languages, Social Issues/Civil Rights, Creativity."

It is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

ASL and BSL interpreters are provided. CART is provided.

Teachers can earn CEUs and ASL teachers can earn Clock Hours for ASLTA.

Friday evening, Feb 29, 2008, and all day plus evening Saturday, March 1, 2008.

Presentations will include sign languages and Deaf communities in Australia, Brazil, China, England, Germany, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Nicaragua, Thailand.
And there will even be some brief mentions of America :)

You can read about it at this website:

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/dnapoli1/Aroundtheworld.html

It's official, hell has frozen over and I've bought a Windows XP legtop. I've been wanting an ultra-mobile PC for a while, Apple was dragging its feet on the rumored iTablet (I don't like tablet computing anyway), and it didn't look like the iPhone or other smartphone was going to cut it for Real Work™. Meanwhile there's been a lot of activity on the Windows/Linux side with the OLPC initative, the Intel Classmate, and now the Asus Eee PC.

Back in the US this week for the AAAs, I decided to pick up an Eee PC 701 for $399 and loaded it up with 1 gigabyte of DDR2 ram and a 16 gigabyte SDHC card for storage. Yale has a site-license for XP so I installed that instead of the default Xandros Linux. Why? Because there is some Japanese software/hardware (namely the new portable ScanSnap 300 that I want to run that only works with Windows (not Wine, I tried).

The Eee is quite a marvel, tiny compared to my PowerBook G4 15" above (click on the photo to enlarge it) -- but still usable. I bought a Zaurus two years ago as my UMPC and its keyboard killed me. I'm hoping that the Eee PC will be the ideal field machine. You can touch type on it, it is extremely lightweight and small, it has no moving parts (solid state memory disks only), is totally silent, and reasonably fast.

Skype works great, especially video skype with the built-in webcam. Thunderbird and Firefox are snappy. I installed StarOffice which seems to work fine -- I'll try Office 2007 next week and let you know how it goes.

Anthrogeek Jason Romero let me know of the publication of the new edition of a classic -- Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader.

This first edition of this book is one of my favorites to use in deaf studies and lgbt studies classes, so I'm glad there's an updated version. The new table of contents looks very interesting: “Black Deaf Lesbian Pagan Tomfemme,” “Why I Wear Leather,” “Evergreen in Ethiopia,” “A Minority of One,” “Hauntings,” “Growing Up Deaf and Gay in 1960s Britain,” “If I Met a Deaf Asexual,” “A Leather Rose,” “Couple #189,” “My First Deaf Guy,” “Darkness: Coming of Age in India,” “You Sign Like a Girl,” “I am a Deaf Hindu Lesbian,” and “A Journey in Iran.”

Definitely a must-buy. Amazon doesn't have it so you need to order it through the publisher: http://www.handtype.com/books/eod2/eod2.html ($20 + $3 shipping).

I'm really not sure how I missed this:

Japanese Visual Anthropology is a six-week program that focuses on the central theme of human visuality and, specifically, visual culture in modern Japan. Based at Temple University, Japan Campus, the program is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students interested in Japan, Asian studies, visual anthropology, visual sociology, media studies, or inter-cultural communication. Students enroll in two courses carrying three credits each for a total of six credits.

Through the program, students examine the breadth of public and vernacular visual culture as seen and practiced within the Japanese context. While such questions used to be relegated to the world of art history, now all visual forms — professional and non-professional, mass media and home media, public and private — are amenable to visual analysis. The topic is addressed through a framework of culture and visual communication, with primary attention given to sociological and anthropological perspectives. All lectures and production laboratories are offered in English, and there are no prerequisites, although some background in social science would be beneficial.

Tokyo, one of the world’s most vibrant cities, provides students with an extraordinarily rich environment for the discovery and examination of visual culture in contexts of business enterprises, popular culture, architecture and art, as well as the presentation of everyday life. Field trips include several art museums in Tokyo (calligraphy, screens, prints, paintings, photography) and locations dedicated to popular culture—television and/or film production sites, mural art settings, Print Club Galleries, and graffiti sites, among others. In short, participants are exposed to “high, middle and low” visual culture.

Student participants will be encouraged to understand, participate in, and produce an ethnographic visual record in the form of either still photography or videography. Students are required to either bring with them one or more cameras, still and video, or to explore soon after arrival the vibrant world of inexpensive consumer imaging shops in Tokyo. More information about equipment requirements will be provided in one of the pre-departure mailings sent to all accepted students.

Sounds like a great curriculum. The cost ranges from approx US$4000 - $6200, depending on your undergrad/grad status and residency, plus about $2400 in living expenses in Japan. So it isn't exactly cheap.

More info here: http://www.temple.edu/studyabroad/programs/summer/japan/visual-anthro.html

I recently received an e-mail from Professor Torneby of the University of Oslo asking me to advertise one of their summer courses in visual anthropology:

Dear Karen Nakamura,

I would be very thankful if you provided information about this PhD courses to take place in Norway this coming summer, on your blog:

Course title: Contemporary Art and Anthropology:
Challenges of Theory and Practice
Lecturer: Associate Professor Arnd Schneider,
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo
Main disciplines: Anthropology, Fine Arts, Media Studies
Secondary disciplines: Art History/Criticism, Cultural Studies
Dates: 30. July - 3. August 2007
Location, University of Oslo, Norway
Course Credits: 10 pts (ECTS)
Limitation: 30 participants
Detailed information and online application:
http://www.sv.uio.no/oss/index.html

Course objectives:
This course will look at recent border crossings between art and anthropology, and explore the epistemological challenges arising from it. Following the so-called ‘ethnographic turn’, contemporary artists have adopted an ‘anthropological’ gaze, including methodologies, such as fieldwork, in their appropriation of other cultures. Anthropologists, on the other hand, in the wake of the ‘writing culture’ critique of the 1980s, are starting to explore new forms of visual research and representation beyond written texts.

This course will explore the potential for future collaborations between art and anthropology. The curriculum will be based on an examination of key texts, and review of a number of paradigmatic artists and issues (such as, fieldwork/ site-specific ethnography, appropriation, research in and representation of different sensual domains/’synaesthesia’).

In its workshops and assessment options the course encourages presentation and submission of practice-based visual work.

The course format is lectures and workshops, in which students are encouraged to present their work in progress.

The course is interdisciplinary and directed at doctoral students and researchers in the social sciences, humanities, and in the visual arts (including anthropology/visual anthropology, sociology, art criticism, art history, fine arts, film practice and studies, design, media practice and cultural studies).
Best regards,

Tron Harald Torneby
The Faculty of Social Sciences
The University of Oslo
P.O.Box 1084 Blindern
NO-0317 Oslo
Norway
************************************
Oslo Summer School in Comparative
Social Sciences Studies 2007
http://www.sv.uio.no/oss/index.html
************************************

Following on the heels of the Zoom H4 (which apart from not having a time/date stamp would be perfect for me), Samson has announced the Zoom H2 at NAMM 2007. Now this looks perfect except for the lack of XLR inputs! But it does have a time/date stamp. The specs are from the Zoom website:

• One point stereo microphone design
• Realize Mid/Side (MS) Stereo technique by using 3 mic capsules configuration and digital signal processing
• Switchable pickup angle between left and right channel, choose 90° for single voice or instrument, or 120° for many voices and instruments, arranged across the stage
• Also Switchable cardioid pattern as front, rear and omni direction
• Finally record 360° sound as 2ch data or 4ch data simultaneously
• Built-in USB interface with audio interface function, usable as a USB mic
• WAV 96kHz/48kHz/44.1kHz and MP3 up to 320kbps VBR data format
• EXT MIC IN can connect general plug-in-power stereo mic (new to the H4)
• Time stamp function (new to the H4)

You can faintly see the SD logo on the prototype photo listed, so I'm assuming it's a SD-based device.

The best thing was the price: $199!!!!!!! It should come out in several months, not a moment too soon in my opinion.