The Library Unbound: Milne Library News

Spring 2025 Alden Scholar Series Lecture by Dr. Brian Haley

Milne Library will be hosting the latest Alden Scholar Series lecture in Spring 2025. Attendance is open to all.

The Spring 2025 Alden Scholar Series Lecture will be given on Wednesday February 19 at 6 pm by Dr. Brian Haley (Anthropology) who will discuss his recently published book Hopis and the Counterculture: Traditionalism, Appropriation, and the Birth of a Social Field (University of Arizona Press, 2024). According to Dr. Haley, “This book addresses how the Hopi became icons of the followers of alternative spiritualities and reveals one of the major pathways for the explosive appropriation of Indigenous identities in the 1960s.”  The lecture is a hybrid event. It will take place in-person in the Alden Room (Milne 300), SUNY Oneonta’s University Archives and Special Collections. It will also be available for remote attendance via Teams, link included in the Campus Connection post.

Hopis and Counterculture: Traditionalism, Appropriation, and the Birth of a Social Field is available for purchase from the University of Arizona Press as well as at the lecture.

The Alden Scholar Series began as a collaborative effort between SUNY Oneonta’s History Department and Milne Library in 2012. Held in the Alden Room, the Alden Scholar Series celebrates SUNY Oneonta faculty members who have published scholarly books or produced book-length projects within the last five years.  Each lecture will focus on the featured publication of the faculty member and will be followed by a Question and Answer from the audience. There will be refreshments after the talk available in Milne 318.

We have had a successful track record with past talks and look forward to the future. Faculty interested in applying to give a future Alden Scholar Series talk are invited to apply at Proposals - Alden Scholar Series - Research and Course Guides at State University of New York at Oneonta.

Dr. Matthew Hendley 

Professor of History and Chair of the Alden Scholar Series Organizing Committee

Hopis and the Counterculture by Brian Haley

Call Number: E99.H7 H27 2024

ISBN: 9780816553662

Publication Date: 2024-10-29

This book addresses how the Hopi became icons of the followers of alternative spiritualities and reveals one of the major pathways for the explosive appropriation of Indigenous identities in the 1960s. It reveals a largely unknown network of Native, non-Indian, and neo-Indian actors who spread misrepresentations of the Hopi that they created through interactions with the Hopi Traditionalist faction of the 1940s through 1980s. Significantly, many non-Hopis involved adopted Indian identities during this time, becoming "neo-Indians." Exploring the new social field that developed to spread these ideas, Hopis and the Counterculture meticulously traces the trajectories of figures such as Ammon Hennacy, Craig Carpenter, Frank Waters, and the Firesign Theatre, among others. Drawing on insights into the interplay between primitivism, radicalism, stereotyping, and identity, Haley expands on concepts from scholars such as Roy Harvey Pearce's notion of "isolated radicals" and Jonathan Friedman's observations regarding the ascendancy of primitivism amid global crises. Haley scrutinizes the roles played by non-Hopi actors and the timing behind the widespread popularization of Hopi religious practices.