Former CSWR Fellow Sven Haakanson
Named MacArthur Fellow

The MacArthur Foundation announced at the end of September that Sven Haakanson, CSWR fellow 2002-03, had been named as one of 24 MacArthur Fellows for 2007. The MacArthur Fellowship is a "no strings attached" grant in which the recipient receives $500,000 in equal payments over five years. Also known informally as a "genius grant," this award recognizes and nurtures creative potential in its recipients. 

Sven Haakanson is the executive director of the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository in Kodiak, Alaska. He received his PhD in anthropology from Harvard. Before, during, and after his time as a CSWR fellow, Dr. Haakanson participated in the Museum Partners Project of the Religion and Arts Initiative (RAI) at the CSWR. For the Museum Partners Project, the CSWR joined with the Alutiiq Museum, Harvard's Peabody Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the Woodland Cultural Center to explore new models for museum/community partnerships in the care and interpretation of religious and culturally sensitive materials. Much of the work of the project is recorded in the book Stewards of the Sacred, edited by Lawrence E. Sullivan and Alison Edwards, published jointly by the CSWR and the American Association of Museums. To that book, Dr. Haakanson contributed an essay, "Understanding Sacredness: Facing the Challenges of Cultural Change," and, with Amy F. Steffian, "The Alutiiq Museum's Guidelines for the Spiritual Care of Objects" as an example of new policy guidelines. 

Dr. Haakanson also carves masks in the Alutiiq tradition. In 2004, the RAI commissioned a mask from him for the departing director of the CSWR, Professor Lawrence Sullivan. The mask is shown here still in its box, with blue packaging behind it.

 

Mask carved by Sven Haakanson, Alutiiq carver, museum director, anthropologist, CSWR fellow 2002-03, and MacArthur Fellow for 2007. HDS photo/Rebecca Esterson