Where the Whacky Franz Boas Pictures Come From
Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, right? Franz Boas posing for figure in USNM exhibit entitled “Hamats’a coming out of secret room” 1895 or before. Via the Smithsonian.…
Tag: History of Anthropology
Three Styles in the History of Anthropology
Anthropology has an unhealthy relationship to its past. Approaches range from highly fetishized, almost ritual reading of sacralized texts like The Gift and The Nuer to intense, context-free…
My History of Anthropology Syllabus
This semester I taught ANTH 490, the History of Anthropology. It is a required class for our majors and is sort of a ‘capstone’ for their anthropology experience,…
Robert Lowie just destroyed A.R. Radcliffe-Brown in one must-see letter
When it comes to Internet Drama, nothing beats the paper letter. Anthropology’s founders did not lead isolated lives. “American cultural anthropology” corresponded with “Britis…
Great anthropologists who fought fascism
Some of you who — unlike me — have not had family members murdered by nazis or had every synagogue in their home town firebombed in the same…
Canada, First in Anthropology
As Canada commemorated its 150th anniversary on July 1st, 2017, it seemed appropriate to present a topic in the history of anthropology, and Canadian anthropology in particular, that…
Updated History of Anthropology timeline — now with ‘homepage’!
I (actually, Kerim, who is hosting it) updated my history of anthropology timeline. I’ve also added a homepage for the timeline on my personal website. This page explains how…
Clifford Geertz: Ethnographer?
Why was Clifford Geertz such a popular anthropologist? Because he connected anthropology and the humanities? Because he was a great writer? One answer that often comes up is…
Vale Ben Finney
I was deeply saddened to hear that Ben R. Finney passed away around noon on 23 May 2017. Ben was a professor in the anthropology department at UH…
Bronislaw Malinowski: Don’t Let The Cosplay Fool You
If there’s one picture that epitomizes White Guys Doing Research, it’s this one: The canonical author of the canonical book, naked black people, white guy in white clothes being…
Anthropology is an empty pint carton, and our existential projects are the ice cream
Because I regularly teach the history of anthropology, I have thought a lot about classical texts and the shape of our discipline. I also recently had a chance…
Behold, a timeline of the history of anthropology!
I am extremely happy to announce today that I’m making open access my timeline of the history of anthropological theory. This timeline has over 1,000 entries, beginning with…
“Nor are we big enough to have a place for you as a cameo carver”: Kroeber on why Berkeley wasn’t good enough for Sapir
In my past few walks down the history of anthropology, I’ve tended to focus on white guys being cruel to each other. I thought I’d try to widen…
“I know of Malinowski’s despotism”: Mauss to Radcliffe-Brown
The people who fill our theory readers are real people who lived vibrant, quirky lives. It is easy to reduce them to a set of ideas or to…
Malinowski and Hats
The alternate title for this post was going to be “Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Boas walk into a bar…”. This is a little autobiographical passage from pages 46-48 of History,…
Anthropology and the MacArthurs
The 2016 MacArthur Fellows were announced yesterday and — unlike some years — there were no anthropologists on the list. Established back in 1981, the grant was intended…
Paul Friedrich, Dennis Tedlock, and Generational Change in Anthropology
It seems like I’ve been writing a lot of obituaries lately. Between Elizabeth Colson, Edie Turner, and Anthony Wallace and Raymond Smith, I’ve spent a lot of my time…
Vale Elizabeth Colson
When Elizabeth Colson passed last month at the age of 99, anthropology lost one of its preeminent figures. Colson was a unique figure in many ways: She straddled…
Vale Edith Turner
Edith Turner — Edie as she was universally known — passed away on 18 June 2016. Perhaps the quickest and least accurate way to describe Edie is “Victor Turner’s wife”.…
With ‘Cold War Anthropology’ David Price brings his trilogy on anthropology and American power to a powerful conclusion
Price, David H. 2016. Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology. Duke University Press. A few years ago, I had a…
“It has taken more work and time to place our students in decreasingly attractive jobs.”
File under “Graduate School Has Always Sucked“: There was a time when graduate school didn’t suck that much, financially speaking at least. And then it did start…
Grad school has always sucked: “I am sorry to be so discouraging, but the truth requires it”
This is the start of a new series in the history of anthropology where I will document the way that grad school in anthropology has always sucked, there…
Michael Kimmel, “Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era”
Michael Kimmel View on Amazon Michael Kimmel is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. He is also executive director of the Center…
NEW! — Samuel W. Rose: Marxism and mode of production in the anthropology of native North America
This contribution elaborates on the relevance of the concept of mode of production in understanding contemporary North American indigenous populations. While examination of Native American peoples pla…