March 19, 2024

Gable’s Piece About Teaching Slavery Runs in ‘Akron Legal News’

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable’s commentary, “Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery,” was published in The Akron Legal News. Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Read more.

Gable Pens Article on Teaching U.S. Slavery in ‘Times Union’

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable

Professor of Anthropology Eric Gable contributed to an article titled “Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching U.S. slavery,” which ran in the Times Union. The article starts: “Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: ‘Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.’” Read more.

The article also appeared in other publications:

https://www.omahadailyrecord.com/content/why-separating-fact-fiction-critical-teaching-us-slavery 

https://observer-reporter.com/opinion/op-eds/op-ed-why-separating-fact-from-fiction-is-critical-in-teaching-u-s-slavery/article_adb1dee4-5d62-11ee-922c-83649f8aab3e.html

https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/why-separating-fact-from-fiction-is-critical-in-18388993.php

https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/why-separating-fact-from-fiction-is-critical-in-18388993.php

https://news.yahoo.com/why-separating-fact-fiction-critical-122605682.html

https://www.theskanner.com/news/usa/35154-why-separating-fact-from-fiction-is-critical-in-teaching-us-slavery

Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery (Times Union; San Antonio Express; News Times)

Mary Talks: Eric Gable on ‘An Anthropology of Art’

Join us ONLINE for the next Mary Talk of the 2019-20 academic year.

Next in this year’s series is Eric Gable, professor of anthropology and recipient of the 2018 Waple Faculty Professional Achievement Award at UMW, presenting “An Anthropology of Art: Images and Objects from a Cross-Cultural Perspective.”

Professor Gable’s lecture distills his current book project, which delves into anthropology’s long-standing fascination with art and what it reveals about human equality and difference. The lecture is based on an ongoing study of Western art museums and how primitive art–particularly African–has been interpreted therein, and will include material on artistic practices among the people of West Africa and Indonesia, where Gable conducted field research.

Wednesday, April 22
7:30-8:30 p.m.
Online

To watch the Talk online, register here. You then will receive a link to the streaming video, which can be watched live or at a later time. You also will have the opportunity to submit questions to be asked of the speaker at the end of the Talk.

Note: Online viewing is the only option for this Mary Talk, as we are not conducting any in-person events at this time.

We look forward to seeing you online!

Anthropology Professor Wins Faculty Achievement Award (Fredericksburg Today)

Eric Gable to Lecture on Jefferson at Sweet Briar

Eric Gable, professor of anthropology, will present the lecture “Jefferson’s Ardor: Sex, Race, and the Invention of Cultural Relativism” at Sweet Briar College on Thursday, March 1. While at Sweet Briar, Gable will attend classes and meet with anthropology and archaeology students.

According to an article in the New Era Progress (Amherst, Va.), “the lecture will explore Jefferson’s ideas about race and culture, and how these relate to American ideals of egalitarianism and present forms of inequality.”

Eric Gable to Present a Lecture at Bucknell University

Eric Gable, professor of anthropology, will present a lecture at Bucknell University on Wednesday, March 21 as part of the university’s spring lecture series, “Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: An American Origin Story, Interdisciplinarily Considered.”

Gable’s lecture, “What Heritage Does and Does Not Do to Identity: The Case of Hemings and Jefferson,” will use material from his fieldwork in Indonesia, West Africa and Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson.

Eric Gable

Anthropology professor Eric Gable’s book Anthropology and Egalitarianism was published recently by Indiana University Press (IUP). Below is a description that appears on the IUP website:
Anthropology and Egalitarianism is an artful and accessible introduction to key themes in cultural anthropology. Writing in a deeply personal style and using material from his fieldwork in three dramatically different locales—Indonesia, West Africa, and Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson—Eric Gable shows why the ethnographic encounter is the core of the discipline’s method and the basis of its unique contribution to understanding the human condition. Gable weaves together vignettes from the field and discussion of major works as he explores the development of the idea of culture through the experience of cultural contrast, anthropology’s fraught relationship to racism and colonialism, and other enduring themes.
“A major work of scholarship, with the potential to become a classic work of anthropology that will be read and debated for years to come.” —Paul Stoller, author of The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey
“Among the most eloquent and deeply reflexive works I have read in some time. . . . Accessible, conversational, and at times disarmingly colloquial, it is precisely the kind of work that should be taught at the undergraduate level.” —Liam D. Murphy, co-author of A History of Anthropological Theory