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Dr. Susan Hirsch was one of eight inducted into the Ringgold Rams Football Community Club Hall of Fame. The Ringgold Rams Booster Club raises money to benefit the advancement of the arts, academic and athletic programs, as well as the improvement of facilities throughout the Ringgold school system. Previous inductees include quarterback Joe Montana, baseball star Ken Griffey, Sr., and the Hon. Judge Reggie Walton.
Susan F. Hirsch Talk for Ringgold Rams Hall of Fame Induction Banquet
I’m very honored to be here tonight and so touched and pleased to have my career recognized. The top two reactions I get when I tell people I am a cultural anthropologist are – one -- “What is that?” and – two -- “I took an anthropology class in college, and I loved it.”
Invariably, the second person has gone on to major in something much more practical than anthropology.
To answer the first person’s question: Anthropology is the study of humans and the very different ways we live across the world and through time. Anthropologists try to understand different ways of living from the perspective of people themselves. And it is fascinating because people’s lives differ a lot on the surface but bottom line we want many of the same things: a healthy life, good relationships with friends and relatives, stimulating work and fun activities, and peace. Above all, peace.
Those of you who remember my home town Donora in the 1960s and 70s will understand how I became interested in cultural differences. We grew up around so many strong ethnic and religious communities—Polish, Italian, Jewish, African American, Irish, Slavic, Catholic, A.M.E. I could go on. I am grate
ful that I attended a school where not everyone looked like me, or thought like me, and I was, in fact, a religious minority. I learned how to get along with people. We all did. But I also learned that discrimination—especially around race and class--can be painful. My sense of social justice and of the value of diversity comes from those times.
I had a lot of encouragement in my studies. My brothers—Kevan and Rubin-- were very good in school, so I had to keep up with them. And my parents always encouraged me. My mother’s example of working hard and successfully at whatever she was doing set the bar high. And my father’s love of learning propelled me into a career as an academic.
In high school I had around me classmates who made learning fun, Betsy Spragg Geherin, thank you for being here tonight.
It was the thrill of my life to go, as a 25-year-old graduate student, to Kenya to live for a year with families who welcomed me in and spoke to me only in Swahili. That accounts for my fluency! For years after I returned again and again to Kenya and then Tanzania and wrote books and articles about my experiences. At base I write to challenge stereotypes: about life in African countries, about gender, about religions, especially Islam, a religion that has been terribly distorted.
I have been so lucky to travel widely, to meet, and live with people whose lives differ from my own—Niger in West Africa, the coalfields of West Virginia, Tajikistan, and Turkey, among other places. Not all the experiences have been happy ones. I survived a terrorist bombing that killed my first husband and spent years recovering and then writing a book about what it means to seek justice after violence.
I’ve been grateful for family and friends who have helped me through difficult times and also shared the fun of traveling with me. My sister in law Leslie Bulion has been along for the ride at times and I am grateful for her beautiful photos and presence here tonight.
For over a decade my husband Michael Sullivan has shared my adventures, and it has been wonderful. I am so lucky to have his love, support, and incredibly positive outlook. For most of last year we had the great fortune of living on the island of Malta, in the Mediterranean, which has become something of a second home for us. Thank you Mike, for everything.
Since 1990, I have taught at the university level. I’ve taught incredible students over the years The best among them are always the smartest or the most hard working but the best students are the most curious—the ones who have unanswered questions. It’s gratifying to me that many use anthorpology or conflict analysis, which I teach now, to make the world a better, less violent place. I love lecturing—to students or in public settings where I try to encourage people to think outside the box and beyond their own interests.
My favorite part of my job is research “in the field.” That can be chatting with activists in the West Virginia coalfields, observing a terrorism trial, or listening to the harrowing stories of migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean to escape conflict and seek a better life. I’ve been privileged to learn directly from the lives of others and I try to translate those experiences into something that readers, students, and any audience can also learn from. That’s anthropology.
Ruth Benedict, an early anthropologist and friend of Margaret Mead said: “The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”
I won’t get too political here, especially on the eve of the election. But respecting one other in our fast changing country, and gaining strength from our differences, is crucial to our democracy.
I learned that first as a student at the Donora campus of Ringgold High School. Go Rams!