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Patty Bass standing in front of a panel of San rock
art at Giant's Castle in the Drakensberg Mountains of South
Africa.
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Patricia Bass, the assistant dean of judicial programs at Rice
University, is conducting research this year at one of the foremost
rock art research centers in the world. The Rock Art Research
Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, founded by professor
David Lewis-Williams, is hosting the scholar during her year-long
Fulbright lecturing and research grant in South Africa.
Bass is conducting a comparative analysis of the cave paintings
of West Texas, known as Pecos rock art, and that of the southwestern
United States, South Africa and Australia. She is interested in
interpreting how the rock art of these regions reflects responses
to initial contact with colonialists. For the scholar, the paintings
are not only an artifact of ancient culture but "the archaeology
of ancient thought."
Bass received her doctorate degree with a dissertation on the
rock art of Texas and then embarked on what became a decade of
higher education administration. While those years were rewarding,
she looks upon her Fulbright as an excellent way to transition
into continued research in her area of expertise.
Thus far, Bass has taught cognitive archaeology, archaeological
theory and a course on U.S. rock art to her students in South
Africa. She cocurated an exhibition on the 21 years of rock art
research conducted at her host institution entitled "Seeing
and Knowing" and is consulting on planning for a Malilangwe
Heritage Center. In April, Bass participated in a symposium honoring
the retirement of professor David Lewis-Williams that resulted
in a paper to be published as "Seeing 'Whitefellas': contact-era
images in rock art." In addition, she has been part of numerous
field trips around South Africa with Dr. Benjamin Smith, Director
of the Institute, and her other colleagues at RARI. She has also
found time to prepare for presentations on comparative rock art
at the University of Potchefstroom and the University of Cape
Town scheduled for this fall. Her grant activity, while it includes
lecturing, comprises 80-percent research--something she refers
to with passion as an "intellectual luxury."
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