The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology
The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology

Author: George W. Stocking

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 9780299134143

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George Stocking has been widely recognized as the premier historian of anthropology ever since the publication of his first volume of essays, Race, Culture, and Evolution, in 1968. As editor of several publications, including the highly acclaimed History of Anthropology series, he has led the movement to establish the history of anthropology as a recognized research specialization. In addition to the study Victorian Anthropology, his work includes numerous essays covering a wide range of anthropological topics. The eight essays collected in The Ethnographer's Magic consider the emergence of anthropology since the late nineteenth century as an academic discipline grounded in systematic fieldwork. Drawing extensively on unpublished manuscript materials, the essays focus primarily on Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, the leading figures in the American and the British academic fieldwork traditions. According to George Marcus of Rice University, the essays "represent the most informative and insightful writings on Malinowski and Boas and their legacies that are yet available." Beyond their biographical material, the essays here touch upon major themes in the history of anthropology: its powerfully mythic aspect and persistent strain of romantic primitivism; the contradictions of its relationship to the larger sociopolitical sphere; its problematic integration of a variety of natural scientific and humanistic inquiries; and the tension between its scientific aspirations and its subjectively acquired data. To provide an overview against which to read the other essays, Stocking has also included a sketch of the history of anthropology from the ancient Greeks to the present. For this collection, Stocking has written prefatory commentaries for each of the essays, as well as two more extended contextualizing pieces. An introductory essay ("Retrospective Prescriptive Reflections") places the volume in autobiographical and historiographical context; the Afterword ("Postscriptive Prospective Reflections") reconsiders major themes of the essays in relation to the recent past and present situation of academic anthropology.

Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict

Author: Margaret Mead

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780231134910

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By weaving discussions of the personal and professional writings of Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead presents the anthropologist's work in the context of her life and times. Mead also defends Benedict's humanistic approach to anthropology as she considers considers her most important works. In addition to a selection of Benedict's anthropological writings, this edition includes new forewords by two leading Benedict scholars.

Franz Boas
Franz Boas

Author: Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2022-12

Total Pages: 517

ISBN-13: 149623331X

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Franz Boas defined the concept of cultural relativism and reoriented the humanities and social sciences away from race science toward an antiracist and anticolonialist understanding of human biology and culture. Franz Boas: Shaping Anthropology and Fostering Social Justice is the second volume in Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt's two-part biography of the renowned anthropologist and public intellectual. Zumwalt takes the reader through the most vital period in the development of Americanist anthropology and Boas's rise to dominance in the subfields of cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Boas's emergence as a prominent public intellectual, particularly his opposition to U.S. entry into World War I, reveals his struggle against the forces of nativism, racial hatred, ethnic chauvinism, scientific racism, and uncritical nationalism. Boas was instrumental in the American cultural renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, training students and influencing colleagues such as Melville Herskovits, Zora Neale Hurston, Benjamin Botkin, Alan Lomax, Langston Hughes, and others involved in combating racism and the flourishing Harlem Renaissance. He assisted German and European émigré intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany to relocate in the United States and was instrumental in organizing the denunciation of Nazi racial science and American eugenics. At the end of his career Boas guided a network of former student anthropologists, who spread across the country to university departments, museums, and government agencies, imprinting his social science more broadly in the world of learned knowledge. Franz Boas is a magisterial biography of Franz Boas and his influence in shaping not only anthropology but also the sciences, humanities, social science, visual and performing arts, and America's public sphere during a period of great global upheaval and democratic and social struggle.

Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead

Author: Joan Gordan

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2015-06-03

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 311081904X

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Essays in Polynesian Ethnology
Essays in Polynesian Ethnology

Author: Robert W. Williamson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-06-16

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1107600731

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This 1939 text examines whether the formation of a cohesive ethnology of Polynesia could be possible.

A Day in a Working Life [3 volumes]
A Day in a Working Life [3 volumes]

Author: Gary Westfahl

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-04-21

Total Pages: 1424

ISBN-13: 1610694031

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Ideal for high school and college students studying history through the everyday lives of men and women, this book offers intriguing information about the jobs that people have held, from ancient times to the 21st century. This unique book provides detailed studies of more than 300 occupations as they were practiced in 21 historical time periods, ranging from prehistory to the present day. Each profession is examined in a compelling essay that is specifically written to inform readers about career choices in different times and cultures, and is accompanied by a bibliography of additional sources of information, sidebars that relate historical issues to present-day concerns, as well as related historical documents. Readers of this work will learn what each profession entailed or entails on a daily basis, how one gained entry to the vocation, training methods, and typical compensation levels for the job. The book provides sufficient specific detail to convey a comprehensive understanding of the experiences, benefits, and downsides of a given profession. Selected accompanying documents further bring history to life by offering honest testimonies from people who actually worked in these occupations or interacted with those in that field.