Timothy Asch was an anthropologist and ethnographic film maker who devoted his professional life to using film as a recording and teaching medium. His papers cover the period from 1966 until his premature death in 1994 and reflect his active career in the field. A large portion of the files relates to his work among the Yanomami people of Venezuela and to his concern with bias in film making.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Timothy Asch document his career as an anthropologist, educator,
photographer and filmmaker through correspondence, photographs, research files
(articles and notes), and teaching materials (course information and lecture notes). The
files relating to Asch's film projects include articles, field notes, and reviews. The major
correspondents in this collection are Patsy Asch, Tom Beidelman, Napoleon Chagnon,
James Fox, Robert Gardner, Douglas Lewis, Peter Loizos, David & Olga Sapir, and
Minor White.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into the following 13 series:
Series 1) Correspondence (1953-1994)
Series 2) College and graduate School (1955-1965)
Series 3) Teaching materials (1964-1993)
Series 4) Film projects (1964-1991)
Series 5) Articles and reviews (1972-1994)
Series 6) Alpha-Subject (1955-1989)
Series 7) Conferences, film festivals, and film organizations (1963-1993)
Series 8) Grants (1962-1993)
Series 9) Other people's work (1952-1995)
Series 10) Personal and family (1951-1994)
Series 11) Photographs (1947-1991)
Series 12) Sound recordings (bulk 1960s-1970s)
Series 13) Note slips, rolodexes, and business cards (1987, undated)
Biographical note:
Asch studied photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. While serving in the United States Army in Japan from 1951-55 he spent his off-duty hours photographing rice production and household activities in remote Japanese villages. After his military service, he enrolled in Columbia University graduating in 1959 with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology. After graduation, he went to work at the Peabody Museum at Harvard as an assistant editor to John Marshall on the Kung Bushmen film project. In 1964, he received a Masters Degree in Anthropology from Boston University where he studied in the African Studies Progam and read Anthropology with T.O. Beidelman at Harvard. In 1968, Asch and Marshall founded Documentary Educational Resources, a film distribution company. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon approached Asch in 1968 to film among the Yanomammmi people of Venezuela. This collaboration led to a major project resulting in over thirty films.
Chronology
1950-1951 -- California School of Fine Arts and Apprenticeships with photographers Minor White, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams
1953-1954 -- Military Service in Korea
1959 -- B.S. in Anthropology Columbia University
1959-1962 -- Ethnographic film consultant, Harvard University's Peabody Museum
1964 -- M.A. in Anthropology Harvard University
1965-1966 -- Curriculum Consultant, Ethnographic studies and the Bushmen Social Studies Curriculum Project (initially Educational Services, Inc., later called Educational Development Center)
1966-1968 -- Lecturer in Anthropology and Theater Arts, Brandeis University
1966-1968 -- Anthropology Curriculum and Media Consultant to the Newton Public Schools
1967-1994 -- Co-Founder and Director of Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown, Massachusetts, a non-profit curriculum development corporation distributing educational media
1968-1970 -- Visiting Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department, New York University
1969-1973 -- Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University
1973-1979 -- Research Fellow in Ethnographic film, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
1974-1976 -- Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
1975 -- Research Cinematographer, National Anthropological Film Center, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1976-1981 -- Senior Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Institute of Advanced Studies, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
1982 -- Visiting Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
1983-1994 -- Director, Center for Visual Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Southern California
Related Materials:
The Human Studies Film Archives holds 93,000 feet (43 hours) of original film footage and the accompanying sound as well as the edited films from the 1968 and 1971 film projects by Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon documenting the Yanomamo Indians of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil (between the Negro and Upper Orinoco rivers).
Provenance:
Donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Patsy Asch in 1996.
Materials for the study of social symbolism in ancient & tribal art a record of tradition & continuity : based on the researches & writings of Carl Schuster edited and written by Edmund Carpenter, assisted by Lorraine Spiess
Full film record shot in 1969-70 in Papua New Guinea Highlands and Sepik area for a project on the impact of media on traditional cultures. Footage includes a male initiation rite including incising the skin and rubbing dirt for scarification.
Supplementary materials include audio tapes of wild sound shot at the time of filming.
The collection also includes film and associated sound recordings for a film by Edmund Carpenter on Eskimo art, received in accessions 2018.07 and 2018.08.
Legacy Keywords: Initiation rituals ; Body decoration, adornment and mutilations ; Scarification (Body marking)
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Local Numbers:
HSFA 2004.4.1
Related Materials:
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are held by the National Anthropological Archives.
Provenance:
Received in multiple accessions from Adelaide De Menil and Edmund Carpenter in 2004 and 2018.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Padlei diary, 1950 : an account of the Padleimiut Eskimo in the Keewatin District west of Hudson Bay during the early months of 1950 / as witnessed, written & photographed by Richard Harrington ; edited by Edmund Carpenter
Upside down : les Arctiques / [responsables des éditions, Clair Morizet, Catherine Marquet ; coordination editoriale, Christine Maine, Marie Lionnard, Maxence Julien ; lecture et correction des textes, Marie-Pierre Mongard ; commissaire de l'exposition, Edmund Carpenter]
Comock : the true story of an Eskimo hunter who survived with his family for ten years on an otherwise deserted island, returning to the mainland only by great ingenuity & daring / as told to & by Robert Flaherty with photographs Flaherty took of Comock's friends & neighbors, and drawings made by them ; edited by Edmund Carpenter
Eskimo / [Text by Edmund Carpenter, sketches and paintings by Frederick Varley, and sketches and photos. of Robert Flaherty's collection of Eskimo carvings.]
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
This sub-series documents aspects of Carpenter's long professional collaboration and relationship with media theorist Marshall McLuhan. It includes Carpenter's reflections and memories of McLuhan's life, written after the latter's death (some of which is also detailed in sub-series 2.3 Memoir); various drafts and notes on the topics of media theory and mass communications; and press clippings and articles related to McLuhan's life and work, as well select articles and reviews written by McLuhan and a sound recording of a 1973 lecture by McLuhan entitled "Ideas."
Of special mention in this sub-series is an annotated copy of Understanding Media: A Report to the United States Office of Education from the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (1960) – otherwise titled Report on Project in Understanding New Media. This report is a curriculum created for the NAEB on media literacy, a precursor to McLuhan's seminal work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). Also included in the sub-series are annotated copies of draft chapters from 1964's Understanding Media, sent to Carpenter for review.
Correspondence between Carpenter and McLuhan can be found in Series 3: Correspondence.
Arrangement:
The material in this sub-series is arranged alphabetically.
Restrictions:
Use of archival sound recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Edmund Snow Carpenter papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Rock Foundation.
