Intellectual Genealogy

Cora DuBois (1903-1991)

History of Anthropology

Dr. Castaneda (Fall 2002)

Introduction: In this class, you have been introduced to a number of important anthropologists whose lives and careers you have learned about largely through readings that weave together personal and professional life histories. For your term paper (25% of your course grade), you will be following a similar historiographical format in order to create an intellectual portrait of an anthropologist of your own choosing.* This means that you must explore and describe this individual’s anthropological career within the context of the wider academic and socio-historical milieu in which it took shape. In addition, your papers must also include a discussion of two related individuals: a significant intellectual ancestor and an important (or, at least, well-published) scholarly descendant. In effect, you will be tracing an intellectual genealogy through three generations.

Instructions: Choose an anthropologist, living or deceased, who made an important theoretical, analytical, or methodological contribution to the discipline. This person will constitute the middle generation and textual core of your intellectual genealogy. Identify this anthropologist’s most influential teacher (or institutional mentor, in the case of a pioneer and/or early museum anthropologist) to represent the ancestral generation. A former student and/or intellectual descendant (these statuses are not always one and the same) will represent the 3^rd generation of your genealogy. You need not stay within a single sub discipline; I will be far more impressed if you can demonstrate generational linkages across these sub disciplinary lines, for instance: Boas → Kroeber → Heizer (each of whom ranged across two or more of the classic “4 fields”). Provide a personal and academic portrait of your middle generation anthropologist (similar to those you have read for Malinowski, Kroeber, and Benedict), which also incorporates significant discussion of how this individual’s work articulates with that of the 1^st and 3^rd generation scholars. I expect you to cover such topics as life history (2^nd generation only), education, theoretical orientations, methodologies, fieldwork venues, and institutional moorings. It is very important that you not only explain, but also provide empirical evidence (through quotation and citation) for the intellectual (not to be conflated with institutional) basis of this genealogy.

* You must clear your selection with me so as to avoid duplicating the work of another classmate.

Citations and Bibliography: Although you will need to utilize direct quotations, keep these to a minimum. Be sure that they are 1) relevant and 2) comprise no more than 1/5^th of your total composition. Always use single-spaced block quotes for passages more than 4 lines in length. The bibliography must follow anthropological conventions (style sheet provided under separate cover) and include annotations (sample attached), with the following exception. Secondary sources, such as obituaries and biographies, should be included in the bibliography, but not be annotated. (TIP: Extensive obituaries can be found in American Antiquity, American Anthropologist, and Anthropology News.) In order to be considered adequate (and here I am referring to both the text of your paper and the bibliography), I will expect you to annotate references for at least 3 scholarly works of the 2^nd generation anthropologist, 2 works for the ancestral generation, and 1 work for the descendant generation. An appendix that includes a photocopy of the title page and first textual page of each annotated work must also be included. (For journal articles, the title and first page of text are usually one and the same). Do not cite sources from the Internet, as these are rarely peer-reviewed and are often incorrect. Feel free to use the Internet to guide you to bibliographic sources, but ALWAYS go to the library and read the books and articles for yourself. (Check with me and other professors if you cannot locate an important work.) While you may find that Forewords and Prefaces written on behalf of an intellectual descendant’s book might help you to construct the scaffolding of your genealogical portrait (and should, therefore, be cited in your bibliography), do not plan to count them as scholarly sources for annotation. NOTE: A large part of this project has already been done for you; by this I mean that the works appropriate for annotation are self-evident in the writings of the scholars you have chosen for your genealogy. For instance, Kroeber often cited Boas in his own articles and books, and Heizer cited Kroeber in his. The organic connections have already been made—this is the very essence of scholarship—you must simply locate, study, and explain them.

Format:

§ 12 point font, New Times Roman (or similar typeface), left-aligned

§ Double-spaced and paginated

§ Cover page must include paper title, course name, and date

§ No more than 8-10 pp. in length (inclusive of annotated bibliography)

§ Appendix: staple together the title page and 1^st page of text for each annotated source. Mark 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd generation in upper right hand corner.

§ Submit in 2 pocket folder: stapled paper in right pocket, appendix materials in left

§ Due 6 pm on December 12

You will be scored on both form and content. Edit, proof read, and then edit again. Have a friend go over your paper before you hand it in. Please email me if you have any questions: tac@csus.edu. Faculty web page: www.csus.edu/indiv/c/castanedat, where this handout is also posted for your convenience.