Sellers Bloomsburg University The use and disuse of anthropological theory Deconstruct canons and note diachronic trends and changes within and between them Note trends of Anthropological ID: 475110
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Tamara SellersBloomsburg University
The “use and disuse” of anthropological theorySlide2
Deconstruct canons and
note diachronic trends and
changes within and between them.Note trends of Anthropological thinkers
and their overall relevancy to the discipline over time
.Understand the “use and disuse” of thinkers and their ideas. Compare our theory textbook canon of anthropological thinkers to their presence in AnthroSource.
Research goalsSlide3
Access
AnthroSourceUse theorists from theory
textbook as search terms.Keyword Search: Theorists’ last names.
Collect data on how often:
Theorists are citedTheir works are publishedArticles are relevant to the thinker or use their ideas.Create Excel tables and graphs to illustrate findings.Create word clouds to show diachronic changes.Research does not include ALL theorists, only those referenced in the textbook Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History
. Data includes the first 25 of 41 thinkers within the textbook.
MethodologySlide4
Digging through databasesSlide5
Digging deeperSlide6
Keyword search: raw dataSlide7Slide8Slide9
Keywords from Anthrosource journals 1880-2013
*Word Cloud made with www.wordle.netSlide10
Keyword frequency (1880-2013)Slide11Slide12
Keyword frequency (2000-2013)
*Word Cloud made with www.wordle.netSlide13
Top Referenced Theorists (1880-2013)
A. L. Kroeber: 211 ArticlesMargaret Mead: 160
Franz Boas: 121 Eric Wolf: 72Leslie White: 71Top Referenced Theorists (2000-2013)
Franz Boas: 22 Articles
Margaret Mead: 15 Eric Wolf: 10Sherry B. Ortner: 10Karl Marx: 7Marcel Mauss: 7Research results
*Images used with permission by F. WarnerSlide14
Above: Keyword Frequency (1880-2013)
Right: Keyword Frequency (2000-2013)
*Word Clouds made with www.wordle.netSlide15
Discussion
Only Margaret Mead & Franz Boas continue to be as cited today as often as in the past.
Father and Mother of the discipline—popular figures
Levi-Strauss has a weak place in the
AnthroSource
canon.
Eric Wolf, Sherry
Ortner
, Marcel
Mauss
, Marx, Malinowski
, and Weber
occur most often after Mead and Boas 2000-2013.
Does our canon text book correspond to the canon
AnthroSource
?Slide16
Kroeber occurs often earlier in the canon (mid-century), but then nearly disappears from the canon by 1970.
“Dean of American Anthropology”