Boas and Boasians, once again

Abstract

The present review discusses two recent works dealing with Franz Boas: a biography by Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt and a book on Boas and several members of his school by Charles King. The information presented in Zumwalt’s biography is compared with the one found in an earlier one by Douglas Cole as well as in various books and articles on the specific aspects of Boas’s life and career. King’s book is commended for its depiction of Zora Neil Hurston’s ethnographic work but criticized for paying too much attention to Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict at the expense of several other key Boasians, such as Alexander Goldenweiser

Keywords:

• Franz Boas
• history of anthropology
• Margaret Mead
• Ruth Benedict
• Zora Neil Hurston

Notes

1 One major exception was Leslie White who viciously attacked Boas’s brand of anthropology (White 1963).

2 Simpson essay shows her lack of familiarity with the history of American anthropology as well as a very selective and biased reading of Boas’s work The Mind of Primitive Man. For a thorough critique of her condemnation of Boas see Lewis (2018, 31–34).

3 For a thoughtful critique of Anderson’s book see Glazier (2020).

4 See also Kan (n.d.).

5 Cole was planning to prepare a sequel to this book covering the rest of Boas’s life, but his untimely death prevented him from completing that project.

6 Thus, surprisingly, Zumwalt does not include such major publications of Jacknis as his 1996 paper on “the ethnographic object and the object of ethnology in Boas’s early career” and Berman’s major publications on Boas and Hunt (1991, 1996).

7 See, for example, Freed et al. (1988), Krupnik (1998), Krupnik and Fitzhugh (2001), Kendall and Krupnik (2003), Kasten and Dürr (2016).

8 For such criticism of Zumwalt for painting too heroic a portrait of Boas, see Diana E. Marsh’s review of this book (2021).

9 See for example Lapsley (1999) and Banner (2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sergei Kan

SERGEI KAN, Professor of Anthropology, Dartmouth College. Research interests: history of anthropology, anthropology of death and dying, anthropology of religion, ethnohistory, history and culture of Alaska Natives (particularly the Tlingit).

2023 A Maverick Boasian: The Life and Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. (Forthcoming).

2021 An Unorthodox Boasian: Life and Work of Alexander Goldenweiser. In Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l’anthropologie, Paris (online). https://www.berose.fr/article2366.html?lang=en

2021 Bernhard H. Stern, an American Apologist for Stalinism. History of Anthropology Review. https://histanthro.org/notes/bernhard-j-stern-an-american-apologist-for-stalinism/

2021 Orthodox Church Brotherhoods of the Sitka Creoles, 1870s–1910s. Alaska History 36(1):54–71.

2021 Frants Boas i Sovetskaia Rossiia: 25 Let Ambivalentnosti [Franz Boas and Soviet Russia: 25 Years of Ambivalence]. Sibirskie Istoricheskie Issledovaniia 1:40–61. [Siberian Historical Studies] (In Russian).