Anthropological Conversations

Caroline B. Brettell is University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Ruth Collins Altshuler Director of the Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute at Southern Methodist University. Her numerous publications include Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective 6E (co-edited with Carolyn Sargent); Crossing Borders/Constructing Boundaries; and Anthropology and Migration. She has served as president of the Social Science History Association as well as the Society for the Anthropology of Europe and on various review panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Institutes of Health, among others.

Brettell has made an extremely valuable contribution to the literatures on thinking anthropologically and across disciplines. Six chapters devoted to 'conversations' between anthropology and history, geography, literature, biology, psychology, and demographics give readers a survey of the various topics and approaches that have crossed those lines and key scholars involved in such projects. The writing is clear and accessible, suitable for all audiences, and the content includes both historical and contemporary examples. . . .The book will be useful for anthropological readers in a variety of contexts (e.g., methods, disciplinary history, general philosophy of the field) and also very useful for non-anthropologists to get a sense of and appreciation for ways that anthropological approaches and works might be relevant to their own fields and for encouraging further conversations across disciplinary lines. Summing Up: Highly recommended. For all general and academic audiences.

• Introduction: Anthropological Conversations across Disciplines1—The Presence of the Past in Culture: Anthropology and HistoryFieldwork in the Archives: Tackling the Methodology of HistoryThe Presence of the Past: Anthropological HistoryThe Presence of the Past: The Anthropology of HistoryConclusion: The Presence of the Past: An Engaged Historical Anthropology2—Space, Place, and Culture: Anthropology and GeographyAnthropology and Geography: Early ConversationsThe Anthropology of Space and PlaceGendered Space and Feminist GeographyThe New Anthropology of Landscape and the EnvironmentConclusion: From the Etics of Region to the Emics of Space and Place3—Writing Culture: Anthropology and LiteratureEthnography as Genre: Experimenting with Forms of WritingThe Literary Observer: Novelists with an Anthropological EyeConclusion: The Craft of Writing Anthropology4—The Science in Culture: Anthropology and BiologyBiology and Culture in the Twentieth Century: From Boas to Sociobiology to BioculturalismNew Directions in the Integration of Biology and CultureConclusion5—The Individual and Culture: Anthropology and PsychologyAnthropology, Psychoanalysis, and Neo-Freudianism: Seeds of Interaction, Seeds of Cross-DisciplinarityStress, Trauma, and Meaning-Centered Psychology AnthropologyConclusion: A Cross-Cultural Psychology6—Culture and Population: Anthropology and DemographyBridging the Divide: Methods, Concepts, and EpistemologyThe Problems Explored by Anthropological DemographersConclusion: Toward Convergence and Cross-Disciplinarity?NotesReferencesIndexAbout the Author