My name is Hannah Smith. I graduated from Reed College in 2008 with my BA in Anthropology; after I graduated, I taught English in Japan for a year, and then moved to Orange County, California, where I’m currently idly passing time (re:unemployed) until I start graduate school in the fall. Since I could only spend so much time job-hunting and fretting over upcoming admissions decisions, I decided it’d be worthwhile to put some of my energy towards getting ready to go back to school. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t always been the most efficient student, and there are huge gaps in my notes and memory when it comes to things I read just a few years ago; now that I have the time to read whatever I want, it seems like a good opportunity to reread some of those things well. Dave was absolutely right in his opening post, that anxiety is the driving force behind this project; I want to be as prepared as I can be for my upcoming academic adventure.

As Dave mentioned, we’re working through a reading list I put together loosely based on two anthropology courses I took at Reed: Introduction to Anthropology and After Structuralism. I also googled around for the syllabuses of classes on the history of anthropology and anthropological theory to see what other things are widely taught; an imprecise method, but I put together a loose short list of the big names and books in the discipline. There are gaps, and it does kind of trail off after 1980 or so, but it’s as good a place to start as any; I’ll post it soon, and hopefully we’ll continue expanding on it. Ideally, it will be a list of works it’s good to be familiar with, as an apprentice anthropologist, and I want to use this blog to get as much out of my readings of those as I can. I’m writing this in the hopes that I will be challenged, so please feel free to comment on anything and everything.

I suggested my reading list plan to Dave so I would have to hold myself accountable to another person, both to make sure I kept up with my reading and to keep my understanding of that material sharp; blogging is taking this idea a step further. I’m an avid internet user; I’m so impressed with the rich conversations the internet makes possible, but at the same time completely intimidated by the sheer volume of information that’s out there. But I figure it’s time I suck up my natural shyness and try contributing to the online conversation, for the very first time.

With all of that out of the way, I want to give my early thoughts on Franz Boas. My introduction to anthropology literally started with the 211 course at Reed; I had no idea what anthropology was. I like to joke now about the frustrating responses (“Oh, like dinosaurs!” is the one that really stands out) I get when I tell people what my degree’s in, but really, six or seven years ago I probably couldn’t have done much better. I more or less picked that anthropology class because it was the only one of the possible options (economics, political science, sociology) that I had no idea about. I’d just never come across anything that openly called itself anthropology.

I think I’ll always have a soft spot for Boas because his essays lay out such a clear purpose for anthropology. The language is strong and morally righteous in that way only old science writing can be. Boas knows his evidence supports the idea that understanding culture (and, by extension, the individual’s relationship to that culture) is necessary to understanding man, that it’s how we’ll have to see everything if we want to “recognize the conditions that lead to the fundamental antagonisms that trouble us” (17). Sure, he has that overwhelming early 20th century drive to know as much as he can, but it’s coupled with the equally powerful idea that all information needs to be known before something can really be understood – and that missing information shouldn’t just be best-guessed in. It’s a pretty effective critique of a lot of things, colonial-era anthropology especially, but most importantly he has a clear alternative to those misguided approaches.  We all just need to learn to differentiate between descriptions and explanations, and realize that asking a man question yields more interesting information than measuring his skull. The whole idea just feels so clear, you know? So driven and with the best intentions, like a superhero for ethnological education; if only we all understood each other a little better, then we just might get along.

Reading it now, I get just as caught up as I did the first time, I suppose, and it’s hard to tell if I just love it because it was so formative for me. So I’m going to hold off on writing more until I hear what Dave thinks, since I might be a touch less self-indulgent if I’m actually responding to something.