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Anthropology 101 with Matt
Phil provides commentary on a bird fight he witnessed between crows, blue jays and little sparrows. Matt admits that he is a sinker who is afraid of zombies. Who knew?
Matt’s Anthropology 101 (14:27)
This episode is a succinct overview of anthropology, the study of human culture. Every anthropologist has their own definition of culture but these definitions change like culture itself. Matt reads the Clifford Geertz ‘Webs of Signification’ definition and then offers his own. The traditional division is between American and Continental (European) Anthropology; AA’s traditionally follow linguist C.S. Peirce (Pragmatic Semiotics) whereas CA’s follow Ferdinand de Saussure (relational binary model: signified-signifier). Phil and Matt have their first little debate.
The early history of anthropology (1860-1920’s) is mired in racism and eugenics. Arm-chair ‘scholars’ would collect cultural artifacts sent to them by ‘field-agents’ and compose racial classification schemes that ranked groups of people around presumed moral-potential based on superficial physical differences. Notable early exceptions were Paul Radin and Edward Sapir. Phil and Matt close out the early history with a brief conversation about the Bureau of American Ethnology and how it both systematized the discipline while also being responsible for rampant cultural appropriation.
Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski are identified as the first modern anthropologists. Both engaged in fieldwork collecting data through participant observation, interviews and other methods like kinship charts, collecting mythologies and material culture. Boas and Malinowski revolutionized the discipline by taking account of cultural ‘difference’ in a non-judgmental ‘scientifically rigorous’ manner, which is called cultural relativism. Boas founded the Four-Field model of American Anthropology and Malinowski codified the ethnographic method of participant observation, cultural dislocation and semi-structured interviews along with the theoretical tradition of structural functionalism and british social anthropology.
Malinowski, like many others, was influenced by Freudian thinking which can be seen in his use of comparative categories in Structural Functionalism. Ruth Benedict and
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By Diskurs Productions
5
2020 ratings
Phil provides commentary on a bird fight he witnessed between crows, blue jays and little sparrows. Matt admits that he is a sinker who is afraid of zombies. Who knew?
Matt’s Anthropology 101 (14:27)
This episode is a succinct overview of anthropology, the study of human culture. Every anthropologist has their own definition of culture but these definitions change like culture itself. Matt reads the Clifford Geertz ‘Webs of Signification’ definition and then offers his own. The traditional division is between American and Continental (European) Anthropology; AA’s traditionally follow linguist C.S. Peirce (Pragmatic Semiotics) whereas CA’s follow Ferdinand de Saussure (relational binary model: signified-signifier). Phil and Matt have their first little debate.
The early history of anthropology (1860-1920’s) is mired in racism and eugenics. Arm-chair ‘scholars’ would collect cultural artifacts sent to them by ‘field-agents’ and compose racial classification schemes that ranked groups of people around presumed moral-potential based on superficial physical differences. Notable early exceptions were Paul Radin and Edward Sapir. Phil and Matt close out the early history with a brief conversation about the Bureau of American Ethnology and how it both systematized the discipline while also being responsible for rampant cultural appropriation.
Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski are identified as the first modern anthropologists. Both engaged in fieldwork collecting data through participant observation, interviews and other methods like kinship charts, collecting mythologies and material culture. Boas and Malinowski revolutionized the discipline by taking account of cultural ‘difference’ in a non-judgmental ‘scientifically rigorous’ manner, which is called cultural relativism. Boas founded the Four-Field model of American Anthropology and Malinowski codified the ethnographic method of participant observation, cultural dislocation and semi-structured interviews along with the theoretical tradition of structural functionalism and british social anthropology.
Malinowski, like many others, was influenced by Freudian thinking which can be seen in his use of comparative categories in Structural Functionalism. Ruth Benedict and