Table of Contents

Contents: List of Illustrations Series Editors' Introduction Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Invisibility of Americanist Genealogies1 Resuscitating the Habits of Historicism1 Recovering the Complexity of Our History Distinctive Features of the Americanist Tradition Why These Genealogies Are Invisible Why the Americanist Tradition Persists The Plan of the Work 1. History and Psychology as Anthropological Problems Boas and the Boasians in the History of Anthropology History and Psychology as the Poles of Boasian Theory The Boasian Model of Culture Change: Diffusion The Sapir Model of Culture Change: Genetic Relationship Boas's Reaction to the Sapir Classification Disciplinary Consequences 2. Culture as Superorganic Culture as Anthropology's Autonomous Level of Explanation The Dream of Synthesis and the Failure of Nerve Complexity and the Reformulation of the Culture Concept Style, Women's Fashion, and Cultural Wholes Setting the Stage for a New Concept of Culture 3. Culture Internalized Anthropology without the Superorganic "Standpoint" and the Individual in Culture The Anthropologist's Quest for "Genuine" Culture The Need for Interdisciplinary Triangulation 4. Philosophizing with the "Other" Primitive Man as Philosopher The Individual in History The Counterargument for Systematic Philosophy The Closing of the Philosophical Mind Are the Alternatives Philosophies? In Search of Contemporary "Primitive" Philosophers 5. Linguistic Relativity and Cultural Relativism Benjamin Lee Whorf as Core Sapirian Linguist The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis Linguistic Relativity and Analytic Philosophy Ruth Benedict and the Arc of Cultural Selection Cognitive Science vs. Grammatical Categories 6. The Challenge of Life Histories Variable Uses of the Life History The Baseline: American Indian Life Boasian Explorations of the Arts Transmitting Disciplinary Wisdom: In the Company of Man American Indian Intellectuals Relegated to Ethnohistory 7. Blurred Genres of Ethnography and Fiction Psychology and Culture in the New Ethnography: A. Irving Hallowell among the Ojibwes What Is That Coyote Up to Now? Native Writers and Anthropological Stereoscopy Anthropologically Sophisticated Literature: The Science Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin On the Anthropological Applications of an English Degree What if the Ethnographer Writes Well? Reading the New Ethnographies 8. Will the Real Americanists Please Stand? Rhetorics of Continuity and Discontinuity Claude Levi-Strauss as Self-Incorporated Americanist Clifford Geertz as Nuanced Americanist The Illusory "Experimental Moment" of Writing Culture The Rhetoric of Normal Science Interdisciplinary Misreadings of Anthropology 9. Reconstructing the Metanarrative of Anthropology Deconstructing "Us" and "Them" Race and Racism: From Biology to Culture Identity Politics and Standpoint Epistemology The Anthropologist as Public Intellectual: Educating a Public Audience for Contemporary Anthropology Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

Reinterpretation of the history of anthropology in North America from Franz Boas to Claude Levi-Strauss and Clifford Geertz

About the Author

Regna Darnell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. Her many works include And Along Came Boas: Continuity and Revolution in Americanist Anthropology and Edward Sapir: Linguist, Anthropologist, Humanist.

Reviews

"Darnell . . . argues that postmodernist fashion hides the strong continuity in American anthropology. . . . Chapters discuss tension between focusing on individuals in societies versus generalizing their 'cultures' and difficulties of translating or conveying worldviews. . . . Darnell's erudite history of Americanist (Boasian) linguistic anthropology deflates the self-serving professors of the new, returning anthropological theory to its persistent burden of representing both variation and common cores."--Choice

"Written on a high theoretical level, this outstanding book is the product of the author's lifelong engagement with her disciplinary ancestors. Her familiarity with the Boasian corpus enables her to breathe life into the often-dry primary works under scrutiny and provide a convincing genealogy of anthropological theories of and approaches to culture, language, history, psychology, and biography. . . . This book is chockfull of insight. Highly recommended for academic libraries."--Library Journal

"Invisible Genealogies provides insights into how issues generated within anthropological discourse have coloured the ways in which First Nations in British Columbia and elsewhere in North America are represented. As such, it provides a glimpse into the intimate connection between a chosen intellectual orientation and what gets emphasized in anthropological discussion."--Michael Asch, BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly

"Invisible Genealogies provides insights into how issues generated within anthropological discourse have coloured the ways in which First Nations in British Columbia and elsewhere in North America are represented. As such, it provides a glimpse into the intimate connection between a chosen intellectual orientation and what gets emphasized in anthropological discussion."--Michael Asch, BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly
Darnell . . . argues that postmodernist fashion hides the strong continuity in American anthropology. . . . Chapters discuss tension between focusing on individuals in societies versus generalizing their 'cultures' and difficulties of translating or conveying worldviews. . . . Darnell's erudite history of Americanist (Boasian) linguistic anthropology deflates the self-serving professors of the new, returning anthropological theory to its persistent burden of representing both variation and common cores.--Choice
Written on a high theoretical level, this outstanding book is the product of the author's lifelong engagement with her disciplinary ancestors. Her familiarity with the Boasian corpus enables her to breathe life into the often-dry primary works under scrutiny and provide a convincing genealogy of anthropological theories of and approaches to culture, language, history, psychology, and biography. . . . This book is chockfull of insight. Highly recommended for academic libraries.--Library Journal