I am bad at publicising myself. On 15 July 2018 I gave at talk at the East West Center Art Gallery on the history of the Jewish community of Hawai‘i. There is a recording of it here. I want to correct one error in the talk: The first rabbi born in Hawai‘i, afaik, is Natan Margalit. Eventually I’m going to turn this talk into a publication of some sort… in my Copious Free Time.
Category: Uncategorized
Some history of anthropology titles I want to read
The summer is winding up and the list of books I’d like to read during my Copious Free Time is growing. I want to highlight them here, just so I don’t forget about them, and to let people know they’ve been published (or soon will be), since they all look to be very good.
- In The Field: Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology by George and Sharon “Baseball Magic” Gmelch will probably offer insight into the habits and lifetimes of baby boomer anthropologists like the Gmlechs. Given their past work I’m sure this will be readable and richly ethnographic.
- Pioneers of the Field: South Africa’s Women Anthropologists by Andrew Bank offers us chapters on Monica Wilson, Ellen Hellmann, Audrey Richards, Hilda Kuper, Winifred Hoernlé, and Eileen Krige. I think I’ve read something of Bank’s before. His subjects are certainly worth the candle — remarkable women all, with remarkable stories to boot. I’m particularly interested in Audrey Richards, and enjoyed The Fires Beneath, the recent-ish bio of Monica Wilson
- My Butch Career: A Memoir by Esther Newton. My god is it ever not a good time to read Esther Newton? Newton’s previous autobiographical writings are fantastic, and I’m sure this will be hilarious and insightful as well.
That’s it for now… not sure I will actually get to too many of these, as I’m struggling to finish up Margaret Bruchac’s excellent Savage Kin but am already running into other obligations, and finding time to squeeze in pleasure reading is always a challenge. But a pleasure is precisely what I expect these readings to be.
(Update: I almost forgot to mention My Life As A Spy by Katherine Verdery! – AG 9 Aug 18)
Sally Falk Moore and Gilles Deleuze: Parallel Lives
I had (am having?) a discussion on Facebook about whether or not Deleuze said anything new and interesting for anthropologists trying to write ethnographies. Isn’t it the case, someone (who hasn’t asked to be Named On The Internet) claimed, that Sally Falk Moore already said all this stuff about process, change, and transformation? I was fascinated so I got together entries for Moore and Deleuze on my history of anthropology timeline.
It’s remarkable how similar their lives were. They were born within one year of each other, and both had their most productive periods (publication wise) from around 1960 to 1990. Différence et Répétition was 1968, while Moore’s collected essays Law and Social Change was 1973. Actually, Anti-Oedpius was just one year before Law and Social Change but I think D&R is more like L&SC in that they are both solo-authored statements of their author’s unique outlook. Moore outlived Deleuze — at the rate she is going, she will out-live me! — but I think 1994’s Anthropology and Africa marks the point at which she began turning to other things. Her articles of reminiscences and memoirs begin in the late 1990s (not on the timeline). All of the pieces in Comparing Impossibilities that are not autobiographical are from 1998 or earlier. I don’t mean to say she isn’t still an active researcher — apparently the Haskins Lectures are forthcoming — I just mean to point out that she and Deleuze worked at roughly the same time on topics that were similar: process, change, understanding the world as mutable and not fixed and static. It was (and is) in the air. I think this is a good example of how data visualization helps us see connections that might otherwise be obscured.
Review of of Joyce Appleby’s “Shores of Knowledge”
(Trying to keep track of my reading — so here is a quick review of my in-flight reading from #ASAO2018)
As with her previous books, Appleby’s history of European science seen from the angle of discovery and colonization is lucid and well-organized. It will be of interest to anyone who wants a broad and easy overview of the period from Columbus to Darwin, whether they are high school students or nonfiction buffs. The book works chronologically, walking through the biographies of the best-known thinkers from each period. Appleby expertly cherry-picks the literature to provide good summaries from well-respected sources. Although the focus is on European exploration, there are enough digressions into astronomy and chemistry to make this more than just an account geography and voyaging — although note that philology and religious studies are not covered. Overall, Appleby’s book went down easy and filled in several gaps in my knowledge. It made great in-flight reading. Those looking for an introduction to this topic, or something to string all the pieces together will enjoy this well-written volume, but people wanting to go deeper into the literature or already know something about it will be better served looking elsewhere.
January 2018 updates to timeline
I’ve updated the History of Anthropology timeline! Here are the changes:
– Added Nancy Munn and Terry Turner (as Terence Turner)
– Added some extra dates to Mead, Sapir, and Benedict in the mid-1920s.
– Added dates to Victor Turner from Larsen’s Slain God and other works.
– Added additional dates for Kathleen Gough and Laura Nader
– Added Talal Asad
– Added dates for Eric Wolf, Julian Steward, Michelle Rosaldo
– Added Sherry Ortner
– Added St. Clair Drake
– Added dates to Faye Harrison, George Marcus, Michael Fisher, and others
– Added dates to Rolph Trouillot
– Added dates to Gayle Rubin
– Added dates to Aihwa Ong
– Added dates to Paul Rabinow
– Added Anna Tsing
– Added Audrey Richards
As always, there are also minor corrections to dates and sourcing as well.
June 2017 updates to the history of anthropology timeline
A quick update on my history of anthropology time line: There is now an ‘official’ homepage for the timeline which explains how the tags, etc. are used in it. From now on, the ‘change log’ for new entries will just be my blog with the ‘timeline’ tag.
Changes as of today:
• For birthdays before 1911: added day of birth when missing, corrected colors for birthdate. Removed dupes.
• Changed display setting to ‘cascade unbroken groups from top’
• Random correction of people’s names (‘Malinowski’ for ‘Mal’ e.g.)
• Added date range of World Columbian Exposition
• For Ph.D.s awarded prior to 1957: corrected color, added citation
• Removed duplicate entity “Lévi-Strauss”. From now on I’ll just use Claude Lévi-Strauss
• Changed ‘Jo Comaroff’ to ‘John Comaroff’
• Other minor changes and corrections
• Removed dupes from publications
• corrected institutional event classified in publication arc
• Added dates for HRAF, CIMA, and a few more dates for George Murdock
• Added publications by Laura Nader
• Created Siegfried Nadel and added biographical dates
• Corrected color for Malinowski publications
• Corrected color for A.R. Radcliffe-Brown events and publications. Added 2 dates as well.
• Gregory Bateson added to timeline
• Added dates to Fei Xiaotong
• Added dates for W Lloyd Warner
• Added dates for Hal Conklin from Dove AA obit
• Added A.C. Haddon and Torres Straits
• Added C.G. Seligman
• Added W.H.R rivers
• Added Valerio Valeri
• Clarified dates and titles of Boas’s first positions at Columbia
• Added two earliest Ph.D.s Chamberlin and Dorsey
• Added Putnam’s chairship at Harvard (these are all from Voegelin 1950 Am Anth in Am Unis)
• Added founding date of Peabody
• Added early Uk dates and Oxford dates
• Added Michelle Rosaldo
• Added dates to Renato Rosaldo
• Added Carlos Castañeda
• Cleaned up and added dates for Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz
• Added Michael M.J. Fischer (as Michael Fischer)
• Added George Marcus and Late Editions dates
• Added LSE dates (including Westermark and Rockefeller)
• Removed duplicate person ‘Appadurai’
• Created color ‘tan’ for oceania
• Began using colors more strictly. Events nor color coded on location. In the past they were coded based on colonial posession – i.e. PNG events were yellow b/c it is/was commonwealth/British empire. Need to do more of this work.
• Added some French dates and Victor Turner publications. General cleanup.
• Added Jack Goody
• Added some ABA dates, including rought dates for Johnetta Cole, Faye Harrison, Irma McClaurin, etc.
Valerio Valeri: Tables of Contents
If you are like me, you are constantly forgetting which of the two edited volumes of Valerio Valeri’s work an essay is in. And you usually do it when you’re not in the same room as your copy of Fragments of Forests and Libraries. Basically, Fragments covers more of the Hualu end of things, while Rites has more Hawai‘i stuff in it. Here are the tables of contents for both volumes in case you forget:
Rites and Annals
Preface
by Marshall Sahlins
Editor’s introduction (with acknowledgments)
by Rupert Stasch
Chapter I: Kingship
Chapter II: The conquerer becomes king
Chapter III: The transformation of a transformation
Chapter IV: Constitutive history
Chapter V: Diarchy and history in Hawaii and Tonga
Chapter VI: Death in heaven
Chapter VII: Descendants of brother and sister in Oceania
Chapter VIII: Cosmogonic myths and order
Chapter IX: Rite
Chapter X: The power of gods, the laughter of men
Chapter XI: Ceremonial
Chapter XII: Mourning
Appendices
I. Belief and worship
II. Feasting and festivity
III. The fetish
Fragments from Forests and Libraries
1. Feasting and Festivity
2. The Fetish
3. Belief and Worship
4. The Solomon Islands Discovered by the Europeans: From the Social Contract to Utilitarianism
5. Parts and Wholes: Social and Conceptual Dualism in the Central Moluccas
6. Notes on the meaning of Marriage Prestations among the Hualu of Seram
7. Buying Women But Not Selling Them: Gift and Commodity Exchange in Hualulu Alliance
8. Both Nature and Culture: Reflections on Menstrual and Partutritional Taboos in Hualu (Seram)
9. Those Who Have Seen Blood: The Memory of Sacrifice in Hualu Initiation
10. Wild Victims: Hunting as Sacrifice and Sacrifice as Hunting in Hualu
11. Autonomy and Heternomy in the Kahua Ritual: A Short Meditation on Hualu Society
12. Temporal Forms of Society: Chronological and Subjective Time, Mythical and HIstorical Time among the Hualua (Eastern Indonesia)
13. Prometheus In The Rainforest; Does Colecting Exist in Hualu
14. ‘Our Ancestors Spoke Little’: Knowledge and Social Forms in Hualu
15. On the Train to Chicago, via Paris: Confessions of an Idiosynratic Anthropologist
16. Fieldwork Yesterday and Today: The Future of Anthropologists
A Complete Bibliography of Bernard Narokobi
Here is as complete as I can manage a bibliography of Bernard Narokobi. I am updating it regularly. This version is from 25 October 2017.
This is a dump from my research notes, so the formatting is still in rough shape and some entries may be incomplete. This will change over time as I update this. Please note that I have verified the metadata here by looking up each entry in the original paper edition. This way some of the errors of incorrect citations that exist online and are perpetuated one after the other can be avoided.
Narokobi sometimes published as Narakobi. I have not noted variations in surname spelling here but hopeful in the future I will.
Feel free to post or reuse as long as you acknowledge my authorship and let me know how Narokobi interests you!
Works by Bernard Narokobi
1973. When the Eagle Dies. Kovave 4 (2): 32-54.
1974a. The Nobility of Village Life. Catalyst: Social Pastoral Magazine for Melanesia 4 (4): 55-70.
1974b. Who Shall Take Up Peli’s Challenge? A Philosophical Contribution to the Understanding of Cargo Cults. Point,
1975a. Foundations for Nationhood. From Voyager, 34 pp According to 2010 reprint, this originally appeared under the name ‘Narakobi’. ed.
1975b. Towards a Melanesian Church. Gigibori 2 (1): 37-39.
1975c. We the People, We the Constitution. In Lo Bilong Ol Manmeri: Crime, Compensation and Village Courts. Ed. Jean Zorn and Peter Bayne. [Waigani]: University of Papua New Guinea.
1976a. Art and Nationalism. Gigibori 3 (1): 12-15.
1976b. Brideprice?. Paradise: In-Flight With Air Niugini, July.
1976c. Colonial Law: Book Review of E.P. Wolfers “Race Relations and Colonial Rule in Papua New Guinea”. Melanesian Law Journal 4 (1): 129-132.
1976d. Proposal for a Cultural Policy. From Voyager. IPNGS discussion paper #20 ed. Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.
1977a. Adoption of Western Law in Papua New Guinea. Melanesian Law Journal 5 (1): 52-69.
1977b. Western Law in the Pacific. In Customary Law in Papua New Guinea: A Case and Materials Sourcebook. Ed. David Weisbrodt. Port Moresby: [None listed]. First version of ‘adoption of Western law’ according to p. 21.
1977c. What Is Religious Experience for a Melanesian?. Point,
1978a. Brideprice? In Best of Paradise: A Selection of Stories From Air Niugini’s In-Flight Magazine. Ed. Gerald Dick. Port Moresby: Air Niugini, Advertising and Public Relations Dept. in association with R. Brown.
1978b. Law of Succession. GB OP 12 of LRCPNG ed.
1978c. Sorcery Among the East Sepiks. Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea Occasional Papers. Port Moresby: Papua New Guinea Government Printer.
1978d. The System of Selecting Judges of the National and Supreme Courts: A Proposal. Roger. Occasional paper of the LRCPNG 7 ed. Waigani: Law Reform Commission of Papua New Guinea.
1979. Tradition and Development. Point,
1980a. Art and Nationalism. In Voices of Independence: New Black Writing From Papua New Guinea. Ed. Ulli Beier. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
1980b. Divine Presence in the Pacific. Reo Pasifika: Journal of Pacific Churches Research Centre 1 (1): 68-75.
1980c. How Independent are the Courts in Papua New Guinea? The somare/rooney affair. Pacific Perspective 9 (2): 12-23.
1980d. The Kingdom and Melanesian Human Struggles. Point,
1980e. Towards a Melanesian Church. In Voices of Independence: New Black Writing From Papua New Guinea. Ed. Ulli Beier. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press.
1980f. A Truly Noble Death. Catalyst 10 (3): 149-161.
1981a. Culture, Law, and Ideology. In Land, People, and Government: Public Lands Policy in the South Pacific. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
1981b. Land in the Vanuatu Constitution. In Land, People, and Government: Public Lands Policy in the South Pacific. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
1982a. The Death of a Muruk. Bikmaus 3 (1): 72-80.
1982b. History and Movement in Law Reform in Papua New Guinea. In Law and Social Change in Papua New Guinea. Ed. David Weisbrot, Abdul Paliwala, and Akilagpa Sawyerr. Sydney: Butterworths.
1983a. Life And Leadership in Melanesia. Suva, Fiji; Port Moresby: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific ; University of Papua New Guinea.
1983b. The Melanesian Way. Ed. Henry Olela. Singapore: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.
1983C. Strangers are My People. Bikmaus 3 (3):61-77.
1985a. Law and Custom in Melanesia. Pacific Perspective 14 (1): 17-26.
1985b. A Truly Noble Death. In Living Theology in Melanesia: A Reader. Ed. John D’Arcy May. Point. Goroka: Melanesian Institute.
1985c. What is Religious Experience for a Melanesian? In Living Theology in Melanesia: A Reader. Ed. John D’Arcy May. Point. Goroka: Melanesian Institute.
1985d. Which Way Now, Melanesia? In From Rhetoric to Reality? Papua New Guinea’s Eight Point Plan and National Goals After a Decade: Papers From the Fifteenth Waigani Seminar. Ed. Peter King, Wendy Lee, and Vincent Warakai. Hong Kong: University of Papua New Guinea Press.
1986a. Legal Pluralism: Proceedings of the Canberra Law Workshop VII. Ed. Elizabeth Minchin and Peter Sack. Canberra: Law Department, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
1986b. The Old and the New. In Ethics and Development in Papua New Guinea. Ed. Gernot Fugmann. Point. Goroko: Melanesian Institute.
1987. Christianity and Melanesian Cosmos: The Broken Pearls and a Newborn Shell. In The Gospel Is Not Western: Black Theologies From the Southwest Pacific. In AAA to be sorted ed. Ed. G.W. Trompf. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.
1988a. The Concept of Ownership in Melanesia. Voyager. Melanesian Institute occasional paper #6 ed. Gorokoka: Melanesian Institute.
1988b. Family Law in Melanesia (with special reference to the arapesh). Catalyst 18 (1): 17-35.
1988c. Policy on Law and Order. WorldCat ed. Port Moresby: Ministry of Justice.
1989. Lo Bilong Yumi Yet = Law and Custom in Melanesia. Ed. Paul Roche, John May, and R G Crocombe. Incorporating Point series, no. 12. Goroka, Papua New Guinea; [Suva, Fiji]: Melanesian Institute for Pastoral and Socio-Economic Service ; University of the South Pacific.
1996. Report on the Matter of Privilege Raised by the Member for Wewak, Hon. B. Narokobi Relating to the Conduct of the Officials of the World Bank Pertaining to the Amendment to the Forestry Act. Voyager. ed. Port Moresby: National Parliament.
2000. Papua New Guinea’s Self-Image: Through a Glass Darkly. In Uncertain Paradise: Building and Promoting a Better Papua New Guinea. Ed. Nancy Sullivan. Madang: Divine Word University Press.
2001a. The Concept of Ownership in Melanesia. In Land and Churches in Melanesia: Issues and Contexts. Ed. Michael Rynkiewich. Point. Gorokoa: Melanesian Institute.
2001b. A Wind is Blowing. In Land and Churches in Melanesia: Issues and Contexts. Ed. Michael Rynkiewich. Point 25. Goroka: Melanesian Institute.
2002a. Land in Papua New Guinea . In Culture and Progress: The Melanesian Philosophy of Land and Development in Papua New Guinea. Ed. Nancy Sullivan. Madang: Divine Word University Press.
2002b. Two Seasons: A Novel. Voyager ed. Madang: Divine Word University Press.
2004. Parliamentary Reform for Good Governance. In Governance Challenges for Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. Ed. Nancy Sullivan. Madang: Divine Word University Press.
2005. Leadership in PNG. Ed. Nancy Sullivan. Madang: Divine Word University Press.
2006. Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea. In Alive in Christ: The Synod for Oceania and the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea 1998-2005. Ed. Philip Gibbs. Point. Goroka: Melanesian Institute.
2010a. The Constitutional Planning Committee, Nationalism and Vision. In Twenty Years of the Papua New Guinea Constitution. Ed. Anthony Regan, Owen Jessup, and Eric Kwa. Sydney: UPNG Press and Bookshop.
2010b. Foundations for Nationhood. Voyager “Based on scarce original published in Sydney, 1975 by the author under name Bernard Narakobi” ed. Papua New Guinea: University of Papua New Guinea Press and Bookshop.
2010c. Walking the Footpaths of the Constitutional Planning Committee’s Five National Goals and Directive Principles. In Living History and Evolving Democracy, pp.24-31. Ed. Ian Maddocks and E.P. Wolfers. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press.
2013. Death of a Muruk: A Play. Voyager. ed. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea.
Book review in Museum Anthropology Review
I have a book review up in the latest number of the great open access journal Museum Anthropology Review. It’s on Francis Densmore, a pioneering female musicologist and the people she conducted research with/on. The book was very good and a major piece of scholarship on Densmore because it is one of the few pieces of scholarship on Densmore. Feel free to check it out.
Now I am fifteen
1 January 2017 marks 15 years of blogging for me. My first personal website was started in 1994 or 1995, which means I’m already past twenty years with an online web presence. This blog has had its ups and down — most of it has been erased or moved over the years as I’ve progressed from Grey Matter to Movable Type to WordPress to this current, hosted WordPress blog. To be honest, I’m fine with twenty-something waffle recipes no longer being google able. At this point, my online presence is spread out over social media, various profiles on websites, games, collaborative work spaces, IRC chat rooms, and much more. This blog in particular has stagnated as Savage Minds and other spaces have become more important. I’ll keep this blog going, and I’ll keep the blogging going, but this space is probably not where most if it will happen. Last year I had planned to use this as an index to my activities online — to drop a quick note here when I published elsewhere, or participated in something I didn’t want to forget about. That sort of happened. As for 2017… we’ll see what it holds. Maybe more, maybe less.
