Edmund Snow Carpenter
Edmund Snow Carpenter | |
---|---|
Born | visual media | September 2, 1922
Spouse(s) | Florence Ofelia Camara (1946-mid-1950s) Virginia York Wilson (1960s) Adelaide de Menil (late 1960s to his death in 2011) |
Children | 3 |
Parent(s) | Fletcher Hawthorne Carpenter Agnes Barbara Wight |
Relatives | John C. Carpenter (brother) Barbara Carpenter (sister) Collins W. Carpenter (brother) |
Part of a series on |
Anthropology |
---|
Edmund "Ted" Snow Carpenter (September 2, 1922 – July 1, 2011
Early life
Born in Rochester, New York to the artist and educator Fletcher Hawthorne Carpenter (1879–1954) and Agnes "Barbara" Wight (1883–1981), he was one of four children.[3]
He was a fraternal twin with Collins W. "Connie" Carpenter, later of
He was a descendant of William Carpenter (1605 England - 1658/1659 Rehoboth, Massachusetts) the founder of the Rehoboth Carpenter family who came to America in the mid-1630s.[7]
Edmund Carpenter began his anthropology studies under Frank G. Speck at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. After completing his semester in early 1942, he volunteered to serve his country during World War II.
World War II
He joined the
Post war
Discharged as a captain in 1946, he returned to the University of Pennsylvania using his G.I. Bill, was awarded a bachelor's degree, and earned his doctorate four years later in 1950. His doctoral dissertation was on the pre-history of the Northeast, entitled Intermediate Period Influences in the Northeast.[1]
Carpenter began teaching anthropology at the University of Toronto in 1948, taking side jobs such as radio programming for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 1950, he started fieldwork among the Aivilingmiut, returning to these Inuit in Nunavut in the famine winter of 1951–52, and again in 1955.
When public television took off in Canada with the launching of CBC-TV in 1952, Carpenter began producing and hosting a series of shows.
Moving back and forth between Toronto's broadcasting studios and Arctic hunting camps, Carpenter collaborated on the theoretical ideas in development by Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. He and McLuhan co-taught a course, and together hatched core ideas about the agency of modern media in the process of culture change.
In 1953, after a well-received proposal written by Carpenter, he and McLuhan received a Ford Foundation grant for an interdisciplinary media research project, which funded both the Seminar on Culture and Communication (1953–1959) and their co-edited periodical Explorations throughout the 1950s.[4] Meanwhile, Carpenter continued his programs on CBC-TV, including a weekly show also titled "Explorations" (which started as a radio program).
Together with
Visual media
In 1959, Carpenter joined anthropologist
With award-winning filmmaker Robert Cannon, he made an innovative documentary about "
During this period, Carpenter worked with McLuhan on the latter's book Understanding Media (1964).[1] In 1967 McLuhan was awarded the Schweitzer Chair at Fordham University, and he brought Carpenter (on a sabbatical from Northridge), Harley Parker, and Eric McLuhan to be on his research team.[13]
On leave from his faculty position at Northridge, Carpenter subsequently held the Carnegie Chair in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1968–69), and then took a research professorship at the University of Papua New Guinea, officially having resigned his position at Northridge. Joined by photographer Adelaide de Menil (who later became his wife), he journeyed to remote mountain areas where indigenous Papua had "no acquaintance" yet with writing, radios, or cameras. They took numerous Polaroid and 35mm photographs, made sound recordings, and shot some 400,000 feet of 16mm film in black and white, as well as color and infrared film.
During the next dozen years, Carpenter taught at various universities, including
In 2008, Carpenter guest-curated an important Eskimo traditional and prehistoric art exhibit Upside Down: Les Arctiques at the
Personal life
On June 14, 1946, Edmund Carpenter married a fellow student at the University of Pennsylvania, Florence Ofelia Camara, and had two children with her, sons Stephen and Rhys.
On September 6, 1961, in
In the late 1960s, Carpenter met Adelaide de Menil, the daughter of Dominique de Menil and John de Menil of Houston, Texas. Adelaide was a professional photographer who had worked for the American Museum of Natural History, and who joined Carpenter in New Guinea when he took a professorship there in 1969. Their collaborations and subsequent marriage lasted until his death in 2011.[15]
Memorial service
A memorial service for Edmund Carpenter, attended by 400 people, was held on October 29, 2011, at the LeFrak Theater of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was followed by a celebration of his life at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street.[16]
Selected publications
- "An Unusual Pottery Jar from East Milton" (1943) Bulletin Of The Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol.4, No.3, April, 1943. (submitted December, 1942)
- Intermediate Period Influences in the Northeast. (PhD Thesis, U Penn, 1950)
- Eskimo. (with Robert Flaherty, 1959)
- Explorations in Communication, An Anthology. (co-edited with Marshall McLuhan, 1960)
- They Became What They Beheld. (1970)
- Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me! (1972)
- Eskimo Realities (1973)
- "The Tribal Terror of Self-Awareness." Pp. 451–461. In: Paul Hockings, ed., Principles of Visual Anthropology. (1975a)
- "Collecting Northwest Coast Art." pp. 8–27. In: Bill Holm & William Reid. Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art. (1975b)
- In the Middle, Qitinganituk: The Eskimo Today. (with Stephen G. Williams, 1983)
- Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art. (with Carl Schuster; 3 Parts, 12 vols., 1986–1988)
- Patterns That Connect:Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art. (1996)
- "19th Century Aivilik/Iglulik Drawings." pp. 71–92. In Fifty Years of Arctic Research: Anthropological Studies. Eds. R. Gillberg and H.C. Gullov. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. (1997)
- "Arctic Witnesses." pp. 303–310. In Fifty Years of Arctic Research: Anthropological Studies. Eds. R. Gillberg and H.C. Gullov. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. (1997)
- "That Not-So-Silent Sea." pp. 236–261. In: Donald Theall. The Virtual Marshall McLuhan. (2001)
- "European Motifs in Protohistoric Iroquois Art." pp. 255–262. In: W.H. Merrill and I. Goddard, eds., Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant. (2002)
- Norse Penny. (2003a)
- Comock: The True Story of an Eskimo Hunter. (with Robert Flaherty, 2003b)
- Two Essays: Chief & Greed. (2005)
- "Marshall." pp. 179–184. Explorations in Media Ecology, Vol.5, No.3 (2006)
- Upside Down: Arctic Realities. Ed. Edmund Carpenter. Houston: Menil Foundation/Yale U Press. (2011)
Documentary film
- Oh, What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me! (2003; Video/DVD, 55 minutes). Filmmakers Harald E.L. Prins,[17]
References
- Prins, Harald E.L. and John Bishop. Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in Media & Anthropology. Visual Anthropology Review. Volume 17, Number 2, Fall-Winter 2001–2002:110-140.
- Prins, Harald E.L., Book Review of "Patterns that Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art." American Anthropologist 100 (3): 841.
- Prins, Harald E.L. and John Bishop. "Edmund Carpenter: A Trickster's Explorations of Culture & Media." pp. 206–245. B. Engelbrecht, Ed. Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film. (2007)
- Prins, Harald E.L. and Bunny McBride."Upside Down: Arctic Realities & Indigenous Art." Review Essay & Obituary. American Anthropologist 114 (2):359-64.(2012)
- ^ a b c d e William Grimes (July 7, 2011). "Edmund Carpenter, Archaelogist [sic] and Anthropologist, Dies at 88". The New York Times.
- ^ Pugh, Clifford "PHILANTHROPIST & SCHOLAR : Anthropologist Edmund Carpenter, curator of Menil Arctic Realities exhibit, is dead at 89", July 1, 2011
- ^ "Fletcher H. Carpenter (1879–1954)", AskART.com
- ^ a b Prins and Bishop 2002
- ^ "Dr. Collins W. (Connie) Carpenter - Obituary", Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, August 25, 2008
- ^ Sherwood, Julie, "In Memory of Craftsman, doctor, civic leader: Dr. Connie Carpenter will be remembered for his many talents and his caring nature" Archived 2014-07-27 at the Wayback Machine, Daily Messenger, Canandaigua, New York, August 31, 2008
- ^ a b Carpenters' Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2009 (DVD format), Subject is RIN 128585; this work contains updates to the 1898 Carpenter Memorial by Amos B. Carpenter
- ^ Cf. "Skeletons, Pottery, Tools Found on Sites of Ancient Villages" in THE NAVY NEWS, (United States Navy), February 10, 1946, page 5.
- ^ Naroll, Raoul (ed.) “News of Institutions.”[permanent dead link], Northridge, CA: Southwestern Anthropological Association Newsletter, v. 2, n.1, Spring 1959. P. 2–3.
- ^ a b Valley State Sentinel, San Fernando Valley State College newspaper, March 17, 1960
- ^ Profile of Edmund Carpenter, Association for Cultural Equity
- ^ Cal State Northridge faculty affairs records for Edmund S. Carpenter, per Naomi Bishop
- ^ Kostelanetz, Richard (29 January 1967). "Understanding McLuhan (In Part)". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 July 2011.
- ^ The Hispanic American Historical Review, Volume 1, James Alexander Robertson, Board of Editors of the Hispanic American Review, 1918. Cf.pp.57-58
- ^ Cf. Prins & Bishop (2001), p.124-125
- ^ "For Ted Carpenter", The East Hampton Star newspaper, October 20, 2011
- ^ Cf. Media-Generation.com "Profile: John Bishop"
Further reading
- Powers, Zak; Goldberger, Paul (FRW); Stern, Robert A. M. (AFT), Further Lane, Quantuck Lane Press & The Mill Road Collaborative, The, 2011
External links
- Edmund Carpenter's Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!—text of Carpenter's book as well as film clips and photographs from fieldwork
- An annotated and illustrated transcript of the film on Carpenter
- About the controversial Norse penny found at a prehistoric Indian site on the Maine coast
- Book reviews and information for TWO ESSAYS: CHIEF & GREED by Edmund Carpenter, PhD and PATTERNS THAT CONNECT by Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter Archived 2007-02-12 at the Wayback Machine
- Richard Pyle, "Benevolent Bidder returns mask to Alaskan tribe", The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 1998.