ANTHROPOLOGY AT WAR: ROBERT H. LOWIE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CULTURE CONCEPT, 1904 to 1954

The concept of culture used in American anthropology has fundamentally transformed throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The changing resonance of the work of Robert H. Lowie offers revealing insights into this development. Lowie was part of the first generation of students of Franz Boas that highlighted the importance of individual variation for the study of both primitive and civilized societies. Yet, its initial resonance notwithstanding, the culture concept that prevailed in the discipline went into a different direction as the result of anthropologists’ involvement in the war effort. It was advanced by the second generation of Boas’ students such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, who stressed the homogeneity of cultures. The contrast highlights the diversity of approaches available within anthropology in the first half of the century and the crucial impact of World War II in determining which of these possibilities became institutionalized in the decades after the war.     

Franz Boas and his plans for an International School of American Archaeology and Ethnology in Mexico.

The expansionist policy of the United States at the turn of the century widened the horizons of American anthropology. The International School of American Archaeology and Ethnology was one of the first attempts by American anthropologists to carry out systematic research in foreign lands. Motivated partly by a wish to strengthen the quality of American anthropology, Franz Boas succeeded in gaining the cooperation of several European and American institutions. The purpose of the school was to conduct rigorous anthropological investigations in Mexico. Obsessed with professionalizing the discipline, Boas failed to take into account the turbulent political climate of Mexico when planning the school. Although it did good work for a number of years (1910-1914), the school was broken up forever in 1914 because of the Mexican revolution. Attempts at resurrection failed for numerous reasons.     

Shame,Belonging, and Biopolitics: Agamben Among the Phenomenologists

How are we to understand Agamben’s philosophical anthropology and his frequent invocations of the relation between bios and zoe? In Remnants of Auschwitz Agamben evokes a quasi-phenomenological account of shame in order to elucidate this question thus implying that the phenomenon of shame carries an ontological significance. That shame has an ontological significance is also a belief held in current debates on moral emotions and the phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but despite this common philosophical intuition phenomenologists have criticized Agamben’s account of shame. In this paper, I will try to show how these criticisms often rely on misreadings of Agamben’s (at times rather confusing) terminology. Once Agamben’s analysis of shame have been properly placed in the broader context if his work, I will outline how Agamben’s analysis of shame and his ontology of life feeds into a rethinking of community and belonging.     

Homo Orans: Von Balthasar's Christocentric Philosophical Anthropology

Hans Urs von Balthasar's philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet – a work which emphasizes the "necessity of prayer". According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that one can attain authentic personal identity and genuine fulfilment. In short, what this early work indicates is a conception of humanity as homo orans .     

The Greatest Christian Hero, Philosopher, and Poet: Christopher Dawson's Italian Trinity

Christopher Dawson (born 1889), a Catholic scholar and renowned philosophical historian, spent his academic life exploring the relationship of religion, sociology and culture. He believed that without an understanding of religion it is impossible to comprehend the culture of humanity or peoples. His magisterial work, Religion and Culture, established him as an historian's historian. He ended his days as Professor of Roman Catholic Studies at Harvard Divinity School, the first Catholic to occupy a chair there.     

Did Franz Boas witness an act of cannibalism?

Franz Boas has been used as an authority for the existence of cannibalism among the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, as cited in Patterns of Culture. There is reason to think, however, that all his evidence is hearsay, and that he himself never witnessed an act of cannibalism. One indication is that he eliminated all references to such acts in his final overview, published posthumously as Kwakiutl Ethnology.     

ADEQUACY OR ORTHODOXY? CHOOSING SIDES AT THE FRONTIER

Abstract. Arthur Peacocke's seminal contribution to the dialogue between science and theology is considered along three dimensions: epistemology, anthropology, and the concept of God. It is suggested that his view of a "hierarchy of disciplines" (1) may not completely characterize the way theology interacts with science, and (2) could limit the creative friction between them. His emphasis on humans as "more than" DNA could result in an anthropology that fails to exploit insights that biology could shed on theological puzzles as the impact of genetics is more widely appreciated. His concept of God may also need to be modified more radically to express our understanding of nature in an age of genetics.     

Dire straits: the divisive legacy of the 1898 Cambridge anthropological expedition.

Bartlett's claim that the Cambridge anthropological expedition of 1898 to the Torres Strait "put a social and ethnological stamp upon Cambridge psychology" does not bear close examination. Rivers pursued his interests in both anthropology and psychology but came to regard them as largely independent pursuits. Myers, through the influence of Rivers, came to identify himself primarily as a psychologist. McDougall was very quickly marginalized. There were two occasions when the promise of the Torres Strait began to be fulfilled: first, the reunion of Rivers, Myers, McDougall, and Seligman, all medically trained, at Maghull Hospital to help in the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers; second, Bartlett's attempt, early in his career, to establish a sociocultural psychology. However, the remarkable "academy" at Maghull was disbanded at the end of the war, and Bartlett, in his attempt to promote the "upstart subject" of psychology at Cambridge, increasingly came to distance his department from social and ethnological concerns. There is a neglected legacy of the Torres Strait expedition, the curious belief that the methods of experimental psychology, and indeed psychophysics, could (somehow) be foundational to the human sciences. This legacy has served both to suggest that psychology must have something to do with anthropology, while perpetually deferring any actual integration between the two disciplines.     

Art, evolution, and history: a case study of paradigm change in anthropology.

An ethnological controversy over the origin and evolution of decorative art is documented for the period 1896-1904 and is used to test the relevance in anthropology of Thomas Kuhn's outline of the structure of scientific revolutions. Using a combination of archival materials and content analysis of professional periodicals, both the appropriateness and the limitations of Kuhn's scheme are explored. The conclusion is that paradigms and scientific revolutions are valid and useful concepts for use in the history of anthropology, but that for the particular period under study they are insufficient. Nonparadigmatic aspects of anthropology's supporting communities must also be considered, especially anthropology's "permeable boundaries".     

"A coherent datum of perception": Gordon Allport, Floyd Allport, and the politics of "personality"

This paper examines Floyd and Gordon Allport's early work on "personality" psychology. In the early 1920s, personality was an unorthodox topic, and for the Allports it initially served as an intellectual and personal bond. Floyd proposed the subject to his brother as a dissertation topic, and the two worked closely on developing personality tests. By 1924, however, "personality" had become the site of a dispute between the two brothers over the intellectual and methodological character of American psychology. The present study examines the origins of this dispute, while gauging the personal and professional ramifications of the dispute. On a larger level, this essay explores the role and meaning of "personality" in the academic culture of 1920s America.     

The Fate of the Forgotten: Chamberlain''s Work Reconsidered

This article discusses the early psychological traditions developed at Clark University under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall. Anthropology and cultural psychology are both rooted in the notion that humans are social beings. That idea constituted a brief moment of theoretical unity between psychology and anthropology in the study of human language in its psychological functions. In that context, the work of Alexander Chamberlain is explored as a major contribution. Chamberlain--if viewed in the jargon of our contemporary social scientists--was deeply "interdisciplinary" in his work. Despite the positive meaning of the term "interdisciplinary" in contemporary discourse about the social sciences, the realities of social organization of any science entail separation rather than integration. Chamberlain's work took place in parallel in anthropology and in developmental psychology under the interdisciplinary emphasis of "child study" as set up by G. Stanley Hall. Hall made child study the distinctive feature of the "Clark tradition" of psychology. Chamberlain's work constituted both the beginning and the end of the (miniscule) "Clark tradition" in anthropology.     

W. H. R. Rivers and the war neuroses.

W. H. R. Rivers was the most famous member of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Strait. At the time, he was a physician and had an international reputation as a researcher in physiological psychology. The expedition signaled the beginning of his career in social anthropology, but also a long hiatus in his activities in medicine. His clinical interests revived during World War I. As an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Rivers became a leading proponent of "psychological medicine." Today, his war-time psychiatry is remembered mainly in association with his patient, Siegfried Sassoon. This article focuses on his wartime activities, his clinical practices, and his theories concerning the war neuroses and the unconscious. The currently popular view of Rivers as a quasi-Freudian humanist is challenged.     

Guardianship determinations by judges, attorneys, and guardians

Guardianship is intended to protect incapacitated individuals through the appointment of a surrogate decision maker. Little is known about how judges, attorneys, and professional guardians assess the need for guardianship, to what extent they apply statutory guidelines when making these determinations, and how their decisions compare. Three groups of participants (probate judges, elder law attorneys, and professional guardians) read vignettes portraying older adults that varied in the extent to which the evidence supported the appointment of a guardian. They were asked about the appropriateness of various resolutions. Participants were reluctant to endorse full guardianship even when warranted by the evidence and preferred informal, family-based interventions that do not involve legal action. Professional groups did not always agree on the appropriate resolutions, suggesting that one's professional orientation may play a role in perceptions of older adults.     

Reckoning With Kant on Race*

This essay develops Kant’s theory of reform to theorize racial justice reform. I assess the function of Kant’s philosophy of race as part of his nonideal theory of justice, which offers a racist pragmatic anthropology that uses the concept of race to determine the practical effectiveness of legislative reason. His philosophy of race defends a teleological account of the natural history of the human species to fulfill the requirements of justice and assumes that certain racial groups have failed to develop their innate capacity for legislative reason. I show that we need an alternative Kantian nonideal theory of justice that demonstrates how legislative reason actualizes practical freedom. Rather than appeal to anthropology, I expand Kant’s model of public reason to advance racial justice reform under the conditions of partial compliance to the requirements of justice in a profoundly nonideal republic such as the U.S. I then showcase the promise—and limits—of the a priori ideals of citizenship and publicity for racial justice reform and introduce the new ideal of interracial civic fellowship to guide the public use of reason in nonideal circumstances.     

Implementing the Boulder Model of Training in a Psychology Training Clinic

The scientist–practitioner (S–P) model of training has guided professional psychology in the United States for nearly six decades. However, since its inception, the model has been hotly debated and implementation of the model has been chronically problematic. One counseling psychologist who is working as both a faculty member and psychology training clinic director describes how scientific principles can be retained in a practice setting. He overviews the Boulder model of training, provides a brief review of the psychology training clinic (PTC), describes his current work setting and unique faculty appointment, and outlines five strategies for integrating science and practice in applied clinical settings. He also highlights how embracing the Boulder model has promoted a strong professional identity and presents the PTC as a model professional home for S–Ps.     

Anthropology as a weapon of social combat in late-nineteenth-century France

The evolutionary anthropology and radical political commitment of Gabriel de Mortillet and his colleagues at the École d'Anthropologie in Paris played a major role in the growth of anthropology in late-nineteenth-century France. They combined leftwing politics and philosophical materialism with their studies in the physical and cultural evolution of mankind to create a combat anthropology. Their battles to establish a new science of man were constantly interwoven with their struggles against an anti-evolutionary scientific establishment, the Second Empire, the Catholic clergy, and the conservative forces of the Third Republic. As a result, their evolutionary theories were inseparable from their vision of anthropology as a weapon to promote social change.     

W H R Rivers (1864-1922): the founder of research in cross-cultural perception.

This paper presents a brief review of Rivers's contribution to psychology, especially to his cross-cultural studies of the basic perceptual processes of vision, and examines the lasting influence of his findings. It reports briefly on the scientific milieu in which Rivers carried out his work and traces the growth of his interest in the psychology of perception from the early days of his medical work to his appointment as a foundation lecturer of two English universities, London and Cambridge. It is argued that Rivers's contribution has been undervalued by psychologists.     

论拉纳“匿名基督徒”观念在“梵二会议”语境中的意义

本文基于拉纳的文本证据和思想脉络,论证拉纳争议性的"匿名基督徒"观念其实是他的先验人学思想的必然延伸,是他有关"超自然的实存"以及相关的上帝普救恩典观的一种继续,是对利玛窦当年立场的一种再肯定,更是他为当代天主教跟上时代和向世界开放所搭建的一种对话平台。其立意不在于贬低其他宗教,而是力图端正天主教的这样一种态度,就是立足潜在的"天生基督徒"和已经认信的"显明的基督徒",认可和宽容现实中的"匿名的基督徒",从而在理论上和实践上破除固步自封的传统天主教有关"教会之外无救恩"的论调。拉纳在教会和神学方面的开放主张和观点正是其"匿名基督徒"之说为代表的宽容精神的一种贯彻,他对社会的人性基础的重视,以及对于和平、对话等价值的强调,则是这种精神的进一步体现。拉纳之所以被尊为二十世纪最伟大的天主教思想家,在很大程度上正是归因于他的"匿名基督徒"思想在实质上奠定了"梵二会议"改革精神的主调,实践上影响到"梵二会议"前后天主教的走向。     

Soul murders,wolf mother: Re-reading the Mowgli stories of The Jungle Book in a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective

Kipling’s (1894) ‘Mowgli stories’ a trio of tales set in India and written by an Englishman during the colonial period, are a natural bedfellow with cultural psychoanalysis; an approach to the unconscious that takes into account regional geography. While psychoanalysis’ interest in The Jungle Book began early and affectionately with Freud, both he and his successors read Kipling from the viewpoint of a certain geography and history associated with early European psychoanalysis. As such, psychoanalytic and post-colonial literary ways of reading Kipling, have, like the East and West of the writer’s ballad, generally resisted meeting. In this paper, I re-read the Mowgli Stories of Kipling’s Jungle Book with an awareness of how geography might have affected the subjectivity of prior analytic readers, offering the Mowgli stories anew to modern – by which I mean post-colonial – readers.