Assistant Research Scientist
Email:
selster@san.rr.comResearch Interests
In 2010, Dr. Elster received his Ph.D. in Music, from UCSD. Over the
last two hundred years and as they were displaced from their lands, the
California tribes lost much of their cultural knowledge and practices.
Despite this trauma, tribal members continue to celebrate some of their
ceremonies. Through their ways of perceiving each other and the world,
through their approaches to storytelling, and via the ceremonies that
they continue to celebrate, tribal members continue to carry forward
their cultures. In his dissertation,"They'd sing and they'd tell:
Native American song cycles and creation stories in Southern
California." Dr. Elster considered a number of questions that can help
to establish a conversation between the past and the present, with
respect to music. To begin to establish a dialogue between past and
present cultural practices, Dr. Elster asks questions such as How were
creation stories told in the past? It appears that there is a definite
relationship between the way creation stories were told in the past and
the way that music is performed today.
Project Summary
Steeped in and informed by centuries of embodied knowledge, tribes and
their members offer a kind of acumen that only they can bring to the
table. Dr. Elster was exploring ways of drawing upon this knowledge and
the desire of tribal members to bring their own ways of thinking and
being to approaches for addressing present-day issues when he began to
write grants for Southern California tribes in 1999. His first grants
-- focused on the development of youth leadership and drug prevention --
were for Campo (2000), Jamul (2001), and San Pasqual (2005). Under the
auspices of CIHED, Dr. Elster continues to work with San Diego tribes
in the areas of education, drug prevention, and energy efficiency and
renewable energy.