04 May 2011

Whither anthropology...?

It's feeling a lot like something other than humanism.  Unless it/we/they renew the challenge to unite the "sides" that should not have been separated in the first place under the original liberal arts.   I spent an hour talking with a biological anthropologist this morning, realizing that our world views are extremely different.  Is she less an "anthropologist" because of it, or is she the historically "truer" anthropologist while I'm a Boasian latter-day critical postcolonialist?  And what does it matter?  What do students learn from me?  What do I learn from them?  I feel the need growing to write a new book.  It's hard to focus, however.  My brain is cluttered like Dr. Sologueren's collection, jumping today from Manthropology to space renovation to safe space training to Native elders' assessment of Alray to presidential hubris to Native American sociology majors to sexual assault in the dorms to applied environmental health methods to taste testing Alaskan wild vs. Scottish farmed washed down with a mellow Valpolicello.  

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