Potential Collections

I have two possible collections in mind for presenting my text. Since it’s in the unique position of being both an anthropological study and a piece of satire, I can imagine it being in both camps. For the first one, I would like to submit it as part of Harvard’s already existing Multiculturalism and Ethnic Studies Collections. These collections are already fairly well established–I would like to contribute my text not as a primary source, but as a sort of prologue and reminder. Since this text parodies traditional ethnographies, I think it would be important for ethnographers and anthropology students to keep its message in mind while viewing the rest of the collections’ materials. Behind every raw data point is a living, breathing person, and we must remember not to over-exoticize what we read.

The other potential collection would try to accomplish the same goal, but with a bit more of a stronger, satirical approach. It could perhaps still be a subcategory of the Ethnic Studies collection, but instead of being presented as a stand-alone preamble, it would be presented as a “joke” collection. In other words, it would have its own “cultural artifacts”: a mysterious array of “holy mouth-men” tools, a picture of one of the religious Elibomotuas, an Enohp or Potpal. These cultural artifacts would be labelled appropriately (as if they were important artifacts), and hopefully enhance the underlying joke further than the original text. To fund either of these two options, I’d like to use the Elisabeth J. Tooker Endowment for Tozzer Library and Jane S. Britton Memorial Book Fund, both funds dedicated towards the field of Anthropology.