One year ago on Round and Square (23 June 2012)—Fieldnotes From History: Provincial Elections (e)
Two years ago on Round and Square (23 June 2011)—Displays of Authenticity: Passwords
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| [a] Totemic RF |
If this does not make sense, or if you somehow think that I am making a "top-five list," you would be badly mistaken. These aren't the "top-five" early ethnographers. They are the five early ethnographers.
What's an ethnographer? Click the link!
If you think that I am making a "best" list, you've completely missed the point (although they're awful good). Go back and look at the introduction to this series to get a feel for yin-yang, five-phase cosmology.
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| [b] Conference! RF |
Nope, these are the Five Early Ethnographers. As a totality, they are "early ethnographers." That is what the cosmologist Robert André LaFleur maintains, at least (he told me). I welcome your comments and additions, below (but this is...basically...not negotiable).
Together, they form the category "early anthropologists."
If this doesn't make sense...go back and read the introduction and the links!
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| [c] East-West RF |
The Five (Early) Ethnographers
Herodotus
司馬遷 Sima Qian
Ibn Khaldun
Jane Austen
Bronislaw Malinowski
Discuss.
Nope—don't even think that this is your "traditional" history of anthropology—it's not your mother's brother's cross-cousin's daughter's history. Not at all.
We're way beyond that.
I will admit that this has an agenda: my agenda when I teach the history of anthropology. These are fightin' words (but still, they constitute—at least this is my shtick here—more than mere opinion).
These are the five early anthropologists.
Just like Dong Zhongshu and Lü Buwei, I don't give my reasons (I don't need no stinkin' reasons).* I am well, a...sort of...cosmologist. My choices should be "self-evident," but the whole point of this Round and Square series is to get a little opinion moving.
*But even I sense the omission of Giambattista Vico, Immaneul Kant, and Honoré de Balzac (not to mention Emile Zola).
Feel free to comment and disagree (politely, gracefully...as though you were raised in North Dakota, on the lapping banks of the Red River).
Tomorrow—Super Bowl Losers.
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| [d] Tepantitla RF |
When you say early, you mean early.
ReplyDeleteNo quibbles. I love the fact that your list is not simply European male intellectuals. (That probably doesn't come as a surprise.)
I'd like to hear how you explain the lack of women (one specific woman in particular...). The list is the totality, right? This is not an easy question, sorry...
ReplyDeleteYes, this is problematic, Jack, and I have struggled with it. The "early" part is the problem. You will see that later lists (for people born in, say, 1901 and who lived until 1978) will be a part of it all. Having said that, I think I have a solution that is much better. By the way, for all of the cosmological bloviating about about "it's etched in stone," there is a long tradition in such matters of finding the "moving" elements and replacing them (this is a long story, but my justification for agreeing to your remonstrance). I actually like the list better now.
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