Anth history
Order Description
Choose one, two, or all three selections below (from Montaigne, Vico, and Herder) and comment on their present-day relevance as the foundational ideas for the
anthropological understanding of human species and its modes of existence. The quote from Herodotus is included as the historical precedent for the subsequent
elaborations (it is also condensed in Montaigne’s essay). It is presumed that you will have read the three papers in their entirety.
From Herodotus The Histories, Book 3.38 (5th century BC)
” If one were to order all mankind to choose the best set of rules in the world, each group would, after due consideration, choose its own customs; each group regards
its own as being by far the best. So it is unlikely that anyone except a madman would laugh at such things.
There is plenty of other evidence to support the idea that this opinion of one’s own custom is universal, but here is one instance. During Darius’ reign, he invited
some Greeks who were present to a conference, and asked them how much money it would take for them to be prepared to eat the corpses of their fathers; they replied
they would not do that for any amount of money. Next, Darius summoned some members of the Indian tribe known as Callariae, who eat their parents, and asked them in the
presence of the Greeks, with an interpreter present so that they could understand what was being said, how much money it would take for them to be willing to cremate
their fathers’ corpses; they cried out in horror and told him not to say such appalling things. So these practices have become enshrined as customs just as they are,
and I think Pindar was right to have said in his poem that custom is king of all”( (1998. pp185-6; R. Waterfield transl)
(1) From Montaigne: Of Custom, and not easily changing an accepted law (1572-74 AD)
“I think that there falls into man’s imagination no fantasy so wild that it does not match the example of some public practice, and which, consequently, our reason
does not find a stay and a foundation” (1948 p. 79, D. Frame transl).
(2) From G-B. Vico: The New Science: Book I, Section III, Principles I. 1-3. (1725/1730)
“But in the night of thick darkness enveloping the earliest antiquity, so remote from ourselves, there shines the eternal and never failing light of truth beyond all
question: that the world of civil society has certainly been made by men, and that its principles are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own human
mind” (1948. p. 96, Bergin and Fisch transl)
(3) From J. G. Herder: Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind Books III-V, VII-IX (1784-91)
“[Man’s] human essence – Humanitat – is not ready made, yet it is potentially realizable. (266)
Man considered as an animal is a child of the earth and is attached to it as his habitation; but considered as a human being, as a creature of Humanitat, he has the
seeds of immortality within him, and these require planting in another soil. (280)
He is the representative of two worlds at once, and from this derives the apparent bipolarity of his nature” …. Human life, then, is a conflict and the realization
of pure immortal humanity the hard-won crown of man’s ceaseless struggle (p. 281).
A man’s life is one continuous series of change and its phases read like sagas of transformation. The species as a whole goes through a ceaseless metamorphosis. …
Thus the history of man is ultimately a theatre of transformations which only He, who animates these events and lives and feels Himself in all of them, can review
(283)”. (in F. M. Barnard, translator and editor. J. G. Herder on Social and Political Culture. 1969)
Dear writer choose 3 readings from the reference list bellow, with an addition of 2 other academic source of your choice that you belive would best aid you in writing
a fantastic eassy. Make sure the essay is clear and concise. In the essay demonstrate that you have read and clearly understood all the readings and that you have read
and understood the question clearly.
WK 1: 31 JULY
Introduction: From Classical Antiquity to Enlightenment
Introduction into the course; outline of the roots of Western anthropological thought in Classical Antiquity and the historical transformation of Judeo-Christian
Civilisation into the early modern period (“Age of Discoveries”).
WK 2: 7 AUGUST
Continuation of the above with the focus on the impact of the “New Science”, Enlightenment and colonial expansion on the 19th century as the crucible of modern
anthropology.
WK 3: 14 AUGUST
The Mid-19th Century Scene: From Savagery to Civilization
The formation of the evolutionary perspective on human cultural development with the focus on Bachofen, Morgan, McLennan, and Bastian in relation to the global context
of anthropological interests and ideologies in this period. The relation to Marxist thought is highlighted.
WK 4: 21 AUGUST
Evolution, Magic, Religion, and the Origins of Human Society
Further problematisation of the topics introduced in the previous lecture but the focus shifts to English anthropology, especially Tylor and Frazer.
WK 5: 28 AUGUST
Bridge Across the Two Centuries: Historical Individuality of Cultural Life-Worlds and the rise of Ethnographic Fieldwork
The focus is on (a) the original developments in American ethnographic research due to the founding of the Bureau of American Ethnology; (b) the role of Franz Boas and
his disciples (male and female) in the transformation and diversification of American anthropological thought and its interactions with the developments in Europe.
WK 6: 4 SEPTEMBER
Language, Personality and the Patterning of Cultures
Although the focus here is on Sapir, Benedict and Mead, I will also outline the developments of especially the evolutionary and ecological thinking in American
cultural anthropology, especially in reference to Leslie White and Julian Steward.
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