Background
Fienup-Riordan, Ann was born on October 13, 1948. Daughter of Kenneth L. and Beth (Fiske) Fienup.
(Freeze Frame takes a penetrating, often humorous, look at...)
Freeze Frame takes a penetrating, often humorous, look at how Eskimos have been portrayed in nearly a century of film, from the pioneering documentaries of missionaries and Arctic explorers to Eskimo Pie commercials of the 1990s. Some of these works are serious attempts to depict a culture; others are unabashed entertainment, featuring papier-maché igloos and zebra-skin parkas. Even filmmakers who sought authenticity were likely to build igloos in villages that had never seen one and to hire non-Native actors to portray the Eskimo principals. The groundbreaking film Nanook of the North, released in 1922, solidified the popular impression of Eskimos and set the precedent for dozens of movies to follow. Freeze Frame documents the ideas that motivate and lie behind this abundant generation of images. The first study to look at the popular image of Alaska Eskimos, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of Native American stereotyping. Anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan is the author of numerous books on the peoples of Alaska, including The Living Tradition of Yupik Masks: Agayuliyararput, Our Way of Making Prayer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0295973978/?tag=2022091-20
( Eskimo Essays introduces the reader to important aspect...)
Eskimo Essays introduces the reader to important aspects of the ideology and practice of the Yup’ik Eskimos of western Alaska, past and present. The essays point the way toward a fuller recognition of how Yup’ik Eskimos differ from the popular Western image of the Eskimo that was born largely without reference to Yup’ik reality. By describing the reality of Yup’ik life, Eskimo Essays extends our understanding of Esimos in general and Yup’ik Eskimos in particular. Ann Fienup-Riordan argues that Western observers have simultaneously naturalized Eskimos as paragons of simplicity and virtue and Western imperialism. This process has often ignored Eskimo concepts of society, history, and personhood. An original assumption of similarity to Western society has profoundly affected the current Euro-American view of Eskimo history and action. Non-natives have taken an idealized Western individual, dressed that person up in polar garb, and then assumed they understood the garment’s maker. The result is a presentation of Eskimo society that often tells us more about the meaning we seek in our own. Moreover, modern Eskimos have risen to the challenge and to some extent become what we have made them. Bridging the gap between informed scholarships and popular concepts, Fienup-Riordan provides a compelling and fresh presentation of Yup’ik life—cosmology, the missionary experience, attitudes toward conservation, Eskimo art, the legal system, warfare, and ceremonies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813515890/?tag=2022091-20
Fienup-Riordan, Ann was born on October 13, 1948. Daughter of Kenneth L. and Beth (Fiske) Fienup.
She received her Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology in 1980 from the University of Chicago, where she was influenced by David M. Schneider.
She lives in Anchorage, Alaska. Her dissertation was based on 1976-1977 fieldwork on Nelson Island, Alaska. Agayuliyararput (Our Way of Making Prayer): The Living Tradition of Yup"ik Masks.
The exhibit opened in 1996 in Toksook Bay and at the Yupiit Piciryarait Museum in Bethel, and then moved to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage.
lieutenant also traveled to the University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, and Alaska State Museum, Juneau, the National Museum of the American Indian, New York, Smithsonian"s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, District of Columbia, and ending at the Seattle (Wash) Art Museum in 1998. Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way We Genuinely Live): Masterworks of Yupik Science and Survival.
The exhibition opened in 2007 at the Yupiit Piciryarait Museum, Bethel, and then at the Anchorage Museum. From 2008-2010 the exhibition traveled to museums in Fairbanks and Juneau, Alaska, and Washington, District of Columbia.
(Freeze Frame takes a penetrating, often humorous, look at...)
( Eskimo Essays introduces the reader to important aspect...)
Member American Ethnological Society, American Anthropol. Association, Alaska Anthropol. Association, Alaska History Society (Alaska History award 1988).
Married Dick Riordan, 1972. Children: Frances, Jimmy, Nick.