|
Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead
Third-party funded project |
Project title |
Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead |
Principal Investigator(s) |
Schweighauser, Philipp
|
Co-Investigator(s) |
Leimgruber, Walter Rippl, Gabriele
|
Project Members |
Chakkalakal, Silvy Reichel, Elisabeth A.
|
Organisation / Research unit |
Departement Gesellschaftswissenschaften / Kulturanthropologie (Leimgruber), Departement Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften / Amerikanistik (Schweighauser) |
Project Website |
https://sbm.unibas.ch/ |
Project start |
01.08.2014 |
Probable end |
30.11.2017 |
Status |
Completed |
Abstract |
"Of Cultural, Poetic, and Medial Alterity: The Scholarship, Poetry, Photographs, and Films of Edward Sapir, Ruth Fulton Benedict, and Margaret Mead" is a 3-year research project that brings together literary scholars and cultural anthropologists to explore convergences between three types of alterity: cultural alterity (the otherness of the cultures anthropologists study), poetic alterity (the use of poetry in anthropological investigation), and medial alterity (the use of then non-conventional media such as photographs and films in anthropological investigation) in the work of three preeminent cultural anthropologists: Sapir, Benedict, and Mead, who conceptualized 'culture' and 'cultural relativism,' two of the most influential concepts in the 20th c. social sciences.
Out of the three, it is Mead who has become famous for experimenting with media other than the standard ethnographic text already in the 1930s, particularly photography and film. What is less known is that, together, our three anthropologists wrote over 500 poems, dedicated poems to one another, and published a good number of them in renowned literary magazines such as The Dial and Poetry. This prolific, collaborative poetic output, much of which engages with the objects of the writers' anthropological investigations, makes them a unique group in the history of 20th-century Cultural Anthropology: they were the only anthropologists of the era that left a sizeable (yet sorely understudied) body of poetry. Along with their ethnographic writings and relevant selections from Mead's ethnographic films and photographs, these texts and (audio)visual media form the corpus of our research project.
To date, neither our anthropologists' poems nor Mead's photographs and films have been the subjects of a sustained study: previous literary scholarship has analyzed but a fraction of the poems, largely from biographical perspectives that are in danger of reducing the poems to their authors' personal lives, and most of Mead's photographs and films still linger unexamined in the Library of Congress (LoC). The current project proposes to close this gap by asking what difference it makes whether one evokes the cultural Other in standard expository ethnographic prose, in poetic language, or in (what used to be) non-conventional media of ethnographic representation such as celluloid and photographic prints. In tackling this question, we present the first sustained study of Sapir's, Benedict's, and Mead's poetic oeuvres; make an important, canon-revising intervention in the history of US modernism as well as the 20th -century history of anthropology; and propose a reassessment of Mead's role in the development of visual anthropology that takes into account the aesthetic/aisthetic nature of her work. |
Keywords |
literary anthropology, anthropology of the senses, Mead, Margaret, medial alterity, visuality, aisthesis, visual anthropology, primitivism, cultural relativism, aesthetics, 20th c. literary history, Benedict, Ruth Fulton, sound, literariness |
Financed by |
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
|
Published results () |
|
ID |
Autor(en) |
Titel |
ISSN / ISBN |
Erschienen in |
Art der Publikation |
|
80007 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
An Anthropologist at Work: Ruth Benedict's Poetry |
978-3-8233-6271-5 ; 3-8233-6271-2 |
American poetry : Whitman to the present |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
2321199 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Margaret Meads Anthropologie der Sinne : Ethnographie als ästhetische und aisthetische Praxis |
1434-0542 |
Berliner Blätter |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
2855343 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Sensible Ethnographien – Modernistische Empfindsamkeit als Modus einer ethnographischen Ästhetik |
978-3-8376-2556-1 ; 978-3-8394-2556-5 |
Die Sinnlichkeit des Sozialen. Wahrnehmung und materielle Kultur |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
2839103 |
Eckholt, Matthias; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Der Todestag der amerikanischen Ethnologin Margaret Mead |
|
|
Publication: NewsItemEmission (Radio - Fernsehbeiträge) |
|
3292949 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Grenzgänger_innen. Von der kulturellen Maskerade bis zum „Going native“ |
978-3-938714-38-6 |
Grenzen aus kulturwissenschaftlichen Perspektiven |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
3288708 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
Sonophilia / Sonophobia: Sonic Others in the Poetry of Edward Sapir |
0940-0478 ; 978-3-8233-6967-7 |
Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
3828981 |
Rippl, Gabriele |
Introduction |
978-3-11-031108-2 ; 978-3-11-031107-5 |
Handbook of intermediality. literature - image - sound - music |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
3828992 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
Text als Paradigma der Kulturwissenschaft |
978-3-11-041064-8 |
Grundthemen der Literaturwissenschaft: Poetik und Poetizität |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
3829840 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
Playing Seriously with Genres: Sapir's 'Nootka' Texts and Mead's Balinese Anthropology |
0557-6989 |
RANAM: Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
3829841 |
Reichel, Elisabeth A.; Schweighauser, Philipp |
Folk Communities in Translation: Salvage Primitivism and Edward Sapir’s French-Canadian Folk Songs |
978-3-8233-8151-8 |
American Communities: Between the Popular and the Political |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4184162 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
The Concept of (Post)Identity in Queer and Migration Studies. Learning from Kira Kosnick |
0425-4597 |
Ethnologia Europaea |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4184207 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Vom Schmuggeln |
978-3-412-50755-8 |
Lebenskunst. Erkundungen zu Biographie, Lebenswelt und Erinnerung. Festschrift für Jacques Picard |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4184223 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
'Sensitive Patterning' – Gesellschaft gestalten. Die frühe US-amerikanische Cultural Anthropology und ihre Kunst des Einfühlens |
978-3-8260-6339-8 |
Kulturen der Sinne. Zugänge zur Sensualität der sozialen Welt |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4184241 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy; von Bose, Friedrich; Amelang, Katrin |
Aisthetik - Ästhetik - Medialität: Ethnographische Zugänge zu Ordnungen der Sinnlichkeit |
978-3-8260-6339-8 |
|
Publication: ConferencePaper (Artikel, die in Tagungsbänden erschienen sind) |
|
4501013 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
"The World That Could Be": Gender, Bildung, Zukunft und das Projekt einer Anticipatory Anthropology |
0044-3700 |
Zeitschrift für Volkskunde |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501037 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
Of Syncretisms, Foils, and Cautionary Examples: Ruth Fulton Benedict's Poetic and Ethnographic Styles |
978-3-631-80702-6 |
Revisiting Style in Literary and Cultural Studies |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4484924 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
Faire du neuf, autrement: la poésie de Margaret Mead |
2100-0689 |
Fabula LHT |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501241 |
Schweighauser, Philipp; Rippl, Gabriele; Chakkalakal, Silvy; Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
Boasian Aesthetics: American Poetry, Visual Culture, and Cultural Anthropology |
0340-2827 ; 2625-2155 |
|
Publication: Edited Book (Herausgeber eines eigenständigen Buches) |
|
4501242 |
Schweighauser, Philipp; Rippl, Gabriele; Reichel, A. Elisabeth; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Boasian Aesthetics: American Poetry, Visual Culture, and Cultural Anthropology |
0340-2827 |
Amerikastudien |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501243 |
Schweighauser, Philipp |
Ways of Knowing: The Aesthetics of Boasian Poetry |
0340-2827 |
Amerikastudien |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501244 |
Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Ethnographic Art Worlds: The Creative Figuration of Art and Anthropology |
0340-2827 |
Amerikastudien |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501248 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
On the Poetry of a Boasian Cultural Anthropologist: Ruth Benedict’s Palimpsestuous Writings |
|
Cultural Palimpsests: Ethnic Watermarks, Surfacing Histories |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4501249 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
‘For you have given me speech!’—Gifted Speakers, Inarticulate Others, and Media Epistemologies in the Writing of Margaret Mead |
|
Postcolonial Knowledges |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
4501250 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
Sonic Others in Early Sound Studies and the Poetry of Edward Sapir: A Salvage Operation |
|
The Journal of the Austrian Association of American Studies |
Publication: JournalArticle (Originalarbeit in einer wissenschaftlichen Zeitschrift) |
|
4501251 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives: The Poetry and Scholarship of Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict |
|
|
Publication: Thesis (Dissertationen, Habilitationen) |
|
4610126 |
Reichel, A. Elisabeth |
American Anthropology and Poetry in the Early Twentieth Century: Ruth Benedict and Edward Sapir |
|
Handbook of American Poetry |
Publication: Book Item (Buchkap., Lexikonartikel, jur. Kommentierung, Beiträge in Sammelbänden etc.) |
|
Documents () |
|
Cooperations () |
|
ID |
Kreditinhaber |
Kooperationspartner |
Institution |
Laufzeit - von |
Laufzeit - bis |
|
3391985 |
Leimgruber, Walter; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Howes, Dawid, Prof. Dr. |
Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal and the Director of the Concordia Sensoria Research Team (CONSERT) Department of Sociology and Anthropology Concordia University Montréal, Québec Canada |
01.08.2014 |
31.07.2017 |
|
3391986 |
Leimgruber, Walter; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Buergel, Roger M., Direktor |
Johann Jacobs Museum |
01.08.2014 |
31.07.2017 |
|
3391987 |
Leimgruber, Walter; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Wolf, Nicole, Dr. |
Goldsmiths College, University of London |
01.08.2014 |
31.07.2017 |
|
3391988 |
Leimgruber, Walter; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Bendix, Regina, Prof. Dr. |
Institut für Kulturanthropologie/Europäische Ethnologie, Universität Göttingen |
01.01.2015 |
31.07.2017 |
|
3391989 |
Leimgruber, Walter; Chakkalakal, Silvy |
Soh Bejeng, Bonaventure, Dr., Artistic Director |
Savvy Contemporary Berlin-Wedding |
01.08.2014 |
31.07.2017 |
|
|
|
|