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Gary Urton (born July 7,1946) [1] is an American anthropologist. He was the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies at Harvard University and the chair of its anthropology department between 2012 and 2019. Urton retired from Harvard in 2020,after multiple former students accused him of sexual harassment. [2] Despite much controversy and opposition,he was given an emeritus title after retirement. Following internal investigation,Urton was stripped of his emeritus status by Harvard in June 2021.
Urton received his B.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1969,and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [3] in 1971 and 1979,respectively. He was a professor at Colgate University from 1978 to 2002. [4] He is married to artist and anthropologist Julia Meyerson.[ citation needed ]
Urton is a specialist in Andean archaeology,particularly the quipu (khipu) rope-based recording system used in the Inca empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. He is one of the most prominent advocates of the theory that the quipus encode linguistic as well as numerical information. [5] He is a class of 2000 MacArthur Fellow. [6]
According to an investigation by The Harvard Crimson ,Urton was the subject of a sexual harassment complaint from a former student in 2016. The student alleged that Urton "pressured her into 'unwelcome sex'" in exchange for a recommendation letter. Urton responded that the allegations were "either untrue,inaccurate,or misleading". [7] More allegations emerged following the publication of the investigation. UC-San Diego professor Jade d'Alpoim Guedes alleged that Urton had inappropriately propositioned her for sex while she was a graduate student at Harvard. [8] [9] It was also alleged that Urton harassed students at his field school in San Jose de Moro, [8] and the anthropology department received further complaints that were not made public. [10] After 25 faculty members and nearly 400 students signed letters calling for his resignation, [11] Urton retired from Harvard in July 2020. In June 2021,the Harvard Office for Dispute Resolution concluded that Urton had engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct and abused power with individuals over whom he had professional responsibility. In response to these findings Urton was stripped of his emeritus status,and was banned from engaging with the Harvard community. [2]
The allegations against Urton surfaced amidst reports of a general culture of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Harvard's anthropology department. [7] [12] In June 2020,over fifty former students and faculty signed a letter complaining that under Urton's leadership,the department was an "old boys’club" that fostered "an environment that tolerated gender-based harassment,[...] sexual misconduct,sexism,and misogyny." [2] In 2015,while Urton was the chair of the department,a Title IX gender discrimination lawsuit was brought against it by former professor Kimberly Theidon. The lawsuit primarily concerned multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Urton's colleague Theodore C. Bestor,but also included the accusation that Urton had protected Bestor and "intentionally sabotaged" Theidon's application for tenure because of her advocacy for students who experienced sexual harassment. In 2021,the University’s Office for Dispute Resolution arrived at the conclusion that Urton “engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct and abused power with individuals over whom he had professional responsibility.”The University's leadership revocated Urton of his emeritus status,he is now barred from teaching and advising undergraduate or Graduate School of Arts and Sciences students;availing himself of Faculty of Arts and Sciences amenities or resources;and accessing the FAS campus or FAS-sponsored events. FAS dean Claudine Gay noted that President Lawrence S. Bacow agreed to extend the last sanction,barring Urton from the entirety of the University’s campus and all Harvard-sponsored events. [13]
Quechua,also called Runasimi in Southern Quechua,is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral "Proto-Quechua" language,it is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas,with the number of speakers estimated at 8–10 million speakers in 2004,and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011. Approximately 13.9% of Peruvians speak a Quechua language.
Bartoloméde las Casas,OP was a Spanish clergyman,writer,and activist best known for his work as an historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman,then became a Dominican friar. He was appointed as the first resident Bishop of Chiapas,and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings,the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias,chronicle the first decades of colonization of the Caribbean islands. He described the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.
Quipu are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the central Andes Mountains of South America.
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In recent years,Peru has revised the official spelling for place-names originating from Aymara and the Quechuan languages. A standardized alphabet for done Quechua was adopted by the Peruvian government in 1975;a revision in 1985 moved to a three-vowel orthography.
Roland Gerhard Fryer Jr. is an American economist and professor at Harvard University.
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Chin, together with Cu,Cavil,and Maran,is mentioned as the name of the male deity said to have demonstrated sexual intercourse with other male deities and humans.
The Inti Raymi is a traditional religious ceremony of the Inca Empire in honor of the god Inti,the most venerated deity in Inca religion. It was the celebration of the winter solstice^ –the shortest day of the year in terms of the time between sunrise and sunset –and the Inca New Year,when the hours of light would begin to lengthen again. Celebrated on June 24,the Inti Raymi was the most important festival of the Inca Empire,as described by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega,and took place in the Haukaypata,the main square of Cusco.
Peruvian art has its origin in the Andean civilizations. These civilizations rose in the territory of modern Peru before the arrival of the Spanish.
The High Academy of the Quechua Language,or AMLQ,is a Peruvian organization whose purpose is stated as the teaching,promotion,and dissemination of the Quechua language.
Jorge I. Domínguez,a scholar of Latin American studies in the United States,taught at Harvard University from 1972 to 2018,when he retired as the Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico.
In the Inca Empire the ushnu was an altar for cults to the deities,a throne for the Sapa Inca (emperor),an elevated place for judgment and a reviewing stand of military command. In several cases the ushnu may have been used as a solar observatory. Ushnus mark the center of plazas of the Inca administrative centers all along the highland path of the Inca road system.
Willem F. H. Adelaar is a Dutch linguist specializing in Native American languages,specially those of the Andes. He is a Professor of Indigenous American Linguistics and Cultures at Leiden University.
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Reiner Tom Zuidema was professor of Anthropology and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is well known for his seminal contributions on Inca social and political organization. His early work consisted of a structural analysis of the ceque system. He later extended this approach,based on French and Dutch structuralism,to other aspects of Andean civilization,notably kinship,the Inca calendar and Incaic understanding of astronomy.
Claudine Gay is an American political scientist and academic administrator who is the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University. Gay's research addresses American political behavior,including voter turnout and politics of race and identity.
The Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU),officially known as Harvard Graduate Students Union United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW),is a labor union representing graduate students,teaching assistants,and other student employees at Harvard University. The bargaining unit comprises about 5,000 student employees,including graduate students working as research assistants and teaching fellows as well as several hundred undergraduate students holding teaching positions. Contract negotiations with the university are scheduled to begin in Fall 2018. HGSU is affiliated with the United Auto Workers labor union,whose 400,000 members include 45,000 graduate students and 30,000 academic workers.
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Polo Ondegardo was a Spanish colonial jurist,civil servant,businessman and thinker who proposed an intellectual and political vision of profound influence in the earliest troubled stage of the contact between the Hispanic and the American Indigenous world. He was born in Valladolid,when the city was the capital of the kingdom of Castile,to a prominent noble family that had strong ties to the royal family. He spent his entire adult life in South America in what is now Peru and Bolivia. He was involved in the political and economic management of the Spanish colony and based on his good knowledge of the laws as licenciado (licentiate) acquired a deep knowledge and practical experience of the Native Americans in the southern Andes,being an encomendero,visitador and corregidor in the provinces of Charcas and Cusco. His administrative reports,well known and appreciated by his peers and contemporaries,have had wide repercussions in the field of Andean studies up to the present time.