Joanna Cohan Scherer

Anthropologist/Illustrations Researcher, Handbook of North American Indians Project

National Museum of Natural History
Department of Anthropology

Smithsonian Institution

NHB 85 MRC 100

PO Box 37012

Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

schererj@si.edu

Research Interests

Visual Anthropology; Historical photography; Women and photography; North American Indian photography, and cultural anthropology.

Current Research Projects

Publication on Benedicte Wrensted: an Idaho photographer of Northern Shoshone and Bannock Indians. See web page: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro/wrensted

Publication on Alice C. Fletcher and her early field work among the Omaha and Sioux Indians.

Current or Projected Exhibits

Red Cloud's Manikin and His Uncle's Shirt, Exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, December 2002-May 2003

Cartoons about anthropologists and anthropological subjects for the Centennial of the American Anthropological Association, 2002

Significant Publications

1999 "W.H. Boorne's Photos of the Medicine Lodge Ceremony: The Construction of an Icon," European Review of Native American Studies 13(2):37-46.

1998 "A Preponderance of Evidence: The 1852 Omaha Indian Delegation Daguerreotypes Recovered," The Daguerreian Annual for 1997.

1993 Special double issue of Rendezvous: Idaho State University Journal of Arts and Letters 28(1-2): Benedicte Wrensted: An Idaho Photographer in Focus (Joanna C. Scherer, ed.). Also published as separate book by the Idaho State University Press.

1990 Special double issue of Visual Anthropology 3(2-3): Picturing Cultures: Historical Photographs in Anthropological Inquiry. (Joanna C. Scherer, ed.)

1988 "The Public Faces of Sarah Winnemucca," Cultural Anthropology Journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, vol. 3(2): 178-204.

1975 "Pictures as Documents: Resources for the Study of North American Ethnohistory," Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, vol. 2(2): 65-66.

1975 "You Can't Believe Your Eyes: Inaccuracies in Photographs of North American Indians," Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication, vol. 2(2): 67-79. Reprinted in Exposure : The Journal of the Society for Photographic Education, Chicago, vol. 16(4), 1979. Reprinted in Working Papers on Photography, Science Museum of Victoria, Australia, 1980.