Article
ID: CBB000933298

“If there is nothing beyond the organic...” Heredity and Culture at the Boundaries of Anthropology in the Work of Alfred L. Kroeber (2009)

unapi
Cultural anthropology Ethnology Heredity Culture concept (anthropology) 20th century, early Kroeber, Alfred Louis

The material I use is not new, but the interpretation and the conclusions I draw from it are novel. Historians and anthropologists have addressed Kroeber's writings on the Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. Yet they did not see the full significance of Kroeber's work in understanding the development and role of the concept of culture in our explanations of human existence. In addition, when anthropologists provide an account of Kroeber's cultural determinism, they still ignore the importance of Kroeber's use of Weismannian ideas. Furthermore, while the contemporary anthropologist Ingold (2001) criticizes Kroeber for relying on a physical-cultural divide within anthropology and thus for splitting human beings into different compartments, this paper takes a step back. It seeks to explain what Kroeber did, why he did it, and what we can learn from his case when writing the history of the concept of culture. This is the first goal of the paper. The second is, as mentioned, to illustrate what we can learn from Kroeber's case when writing accounts of the historical impact of the concept of hard inheritance. So far, Kroeber has not featured prominently in such accounts (see e.g. Paul 1995: 40--49) or in historical accounts of the history of hereditarian ideas in general.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000933298/

Similar Citations

Thesis Miller, Ethan Zane; (2010)
The Cultural Logics of the Liberal Self in Early 20th Century U.S. Anthropology (/isis/citation/CBB001567200/)

Article Martínez-Hernáez, Angel; (2011)
El dibujante de límites: Franz Boas y la (im)posibilidad del concepto de cultura en antropología (/isis/citation/CBB001420541/)

Chapter Nock, David A.; (2007)
Stephen Leacock: The Not-So-Funny Story of His Evolutionary Ethnology and Canada's First Peoples (/isis/citation/CBB000760280/)

Chapter Bruckner, Sierra A.; (2003)
Spectacles of (Human) Nature: Commercial Ethnography between Leisure, Learning, and Schaulust (/isis/citation/CBB000501090/)

Book O'Hanlon, Michael; Welsch, Robert Louis; (2000)
Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors and Agency in Melanesia, 1870s-1930s (/isis/citation/CBB000101821/)

Article Zimmerman, Andrew; (2006)
“What Do You Really Want in German East Africa, Herr Professor?” Counterinsurgency and the Science Effect in Colonial Tanzania (/isis/citation/CBB000660425/)

Thesis Applegarth, Risa; (2009)
Other Grounds: Popular Genres and the Rhetoric of Anthropology, 1900--1940 (/isis/citation/CBB001561059/)

Article Kuklick, Henrika; (2006)
“Humanity in the Chrysalis Stage”: Indigenous Australians in the Anthropological Imagination, 1899--1926 (/isis/citation/CBB000771296/)

Article Johnston, Ewan; (2005)
Reinventing Fiji at 19th-Century and Early 20th-Century Exhibitions (/isis/citation/CBB000660212/)

Book Jeater, Diana; (2007)
Law, Language, and Science: The Invention of the “Native Mind” in Southern Rhodesia, 1890--1930 (/isis/citation/CBB000850490/)

Article Biehn, Kersten Jacobson; (2009)
“Monkeys, Babies, Idiots” and “Primitives”: Nature-Nurture Debates and Philanthropic Foundation Support for American Anthropology in the 1920s and 1930s (/isis/citation/CBB000932851/)

Article Kröner, Hans-Peter; (1999)
Von der Vaterschaftsbestimmung zum Rassegutachten: Der erbbiologische Ahnlichkeitsvergleich als “österreichisch-deutsches Projekt” 1926-1945 (/isis/citation/CBB000111948/)

Article Bruce Kapferer; (2014)
A Note on Gluckman’s 1930s Fieldwork in Natal (/isis/citation/CBB094071066/)

Thesis Hoffman, Joann L.; (2008)
A. C. Haddon's Original Vision: An Ethnography of Resistance in a Colonial Archive (/isis/citation/CBB001561180/)

Article Segalla, Spencer D.; (2003)
Georges Hardy and Educational Ethnology in French Morocco, 1920--26 (/isis/citation/CBB000660570/)

Book Buschmann, Rainer F.; (2009)
Anthropology's Global Histories: The Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea, 1870--1935 (/isis/citation/CBB000952073/)

Book Parezo, Nancy J.; Fowler, Don D.; (2007)
Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (/isis/citation/CBB000953377/)

Article Lafferton, Emese; (2007)
The Magyar Moustache: The Faces of Hungarian State Formation, 1867--1918 (/isis/citation/CBB000831415/)

Article Jackson, John P.; (2010)
Definitional Argument in Evolutionary Psychology and Cultural Anthropology (/isis/citation/CBB000932776/)

Book Starn, Orin; (2004)
Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last “Wild” Indian (/isis/citation/CBB000750301/)

Authors & Contributors
Kapferer, Bruce
Miller, Ethan Zane
Zimmerman, Andrew D.
Welsch, Robert Louis
Starn, Orin
Segalla, Spencer D.
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Science in Context
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
Journal of Pacific History
History in Africa
História, Ciências, Saúde---Manguinhos
Publishers
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Fielding Graduate University
University of Nebraska Press
University of Hawai'i Press
Norton
Johns Hopkins University
Concepts
Cultural anthropology
Ethnology
Anthropology
Exhibitions and fairs
Science and race
Culture concept (anthropology)
People
Kroeber, Alfred Louis
Boas, Franz
Gillen, Francis James
Virchow, Rudolf Carl
Haddon, Alfred Cort
Weule, Karl
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
Places
New Guinea
Islands of the Pacific
United States
Africa
Rhodesia
Tanzania (Tanganyika, Zanzibar)
Institutions
Rockefeller Foundation
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment

Creative Commons License REST API