Franz Boas' Rede an der Universität Kiel zum 50jährigen Doktorjubiläum

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Friedrich Pöhl
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Han F. Vermeulen

Die Geschichte der Ethnologie beginnt für viele erst ab 1860 mit Adolf Bastian in Deutschland und E.B. Tylor in England oder ab 1887 mit Franz Boas in den USA. So kann man es in den Lehrbüchern lesen: Die Wurzeln der Ethnologie liegen im 19. Jahrhundert; in Deutschland fängt die Ethnologie mit Bastian an. Ähnlich wird die Genese der Anthropologie oft mit dem Wirken von Rudolf Virchow in Berlin verbunden. Meine Recherchen haben jedoch ergeben, dass beide Disziplinen bereits im 18. Jahrhundert entstanden sind, und zwar als parallele Entwicklungen in unterschiedlichen Wissensbereichen. Im Vortrag werde ich hierauf Bezug nehmen und zeigen, dass die Ethnographie 1732-1747 im Rahmen der Erforschung Sibiriens von dem Historiker G.F. Müller als eine beschreibende und vergleichende Studie aller Völker hervortrat; dass die Ethnologie 1771-1775 von A.L. Schlözer in Göttingen als eine allgemeine Völkerkunde eingeführt und 1781-1783 von A.F. Kollár in Wien als ethnologia definiert wurde; und dass die Anthropologie als eine "Naturgeschichte des Menschen" durch Linné in den Jahren 1735-1758, durch Buffon von 1749 bis 1777 und durch Blumenbach in den Jahren 1775-1795 herausgebildet wurde. Diese Entwicklungen kann man bis zur Gründung der BGAEU im Jahr 1869 gut nachvollziehen


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (5) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Breno Rodrigo Alencar
Keyword(s):  

O presente texto, uma tradução do livro Anthropology and Modern Life, de Franz Boas, chama a atenção para as discussões suscitadas pelo cenário científico pós II Guerra Mundial, onde biológico e social se confundem na compreensão da realidade cultural européia e norte-americana. O autor, maior expoente da escola histórico-comparativa, mostra que a dedução antropológica surge com a análise da distribuição das características anatômicas, das funções fisiológicas e das reações mentais, que nestes termos são o objeto desta ciência em transformação.


2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 833-864
Author(s):  
JOHN DAVID SMITH

This essay examines the broad and understudied contributions of pioneer American anthropologist Alexander Francis Chamberlain (1865–1914), who earned America's first PhD in anthropology at Clark University under the legendary anthropologist Franz Boas. Before his untimely death on the eve of World War I, and Boas's rise as a leading scientific spokesman of antiracism at Columbia University, Chamberlain contributed as significantly as Boas to the fields of linguistic and cultural anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, child development, comparative folklore, and Native American and African American culture, and to the cause of equality and justice for all humans. Chamberlain subscribed to an antiracist cultural evolutionism, frequently and passionately condemning ethnocentrism and insisting on the “generic humanity” of all persons, of all races. Close reading of Chamberlain's work suggests not that Boas's work mattered less, but rather that both men participated in an emerging debate on the nature and meaning of race that informed social policy and shaped academic interests during the Progressive Era.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Antonio Esteves da Rocha ◽  
João Paulo Zarelli Rocha
Keyword(s):  

Este trabalho pretende, através de uma análise da controvérsia a respeito da quantidade de palavras existentes em esquimó para referir-se a neve, fazer uma reflexão sobre as noções de palavra, significado e relatividade linguística, conforme definidas na hipótese Sapir-Whorf, e em relação com a lexicografia. Após explorar os primórdios da controvérsia com base nas formulações de Franz Boas no final do séc. XIX, o exemplo é utilizado para investigar o possível efeito que a estrutura gramatical e o léxico de uma língua podem ter sobre a maneira como os falantes desta língua percebem o mundo, já que estes aspectos do conhecimento linguístico seriam condicionados pelo meio ambiente no qual os falantes desta língua vivem. As contestações frequentemente sarcásticas sobre a associação entre estes aspectos da hipótese Sapir-Whorf e a quantidade de palavras para referir-se a neve em esquimó são discutidas, com uso intensivo de material relacionado a parâmetros bem estabelecidos da tipologia linguística. Elementos novos revelados por pesquisas recentes são incorporados à análise do condicionamento cultural e ambiental da semântica lexical das línguas. Estas investigações atuais parecem na verdade corroborar as conclusões iniciais de Boas quanto à grande variedade de palavras para referir-se a neve em esquimó, em termos de distinções significativas, tanto morfológicas quanto semânticas. A discussão conclui com uma ênfase na importância do conhecimento humano expresso por estas distinções, a despeito dos usos de tais informações em contextos não especializados, como palestras “inspiradoras” para profissionais de vendas, as quais seriam potencialmente equivocadas em termos de padrões científicos de estudo das línguas.


1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 111-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. F. Konrad Koerner

Summary Noam Chomsky’s frequent references to the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt during the 1960s produced a considerable revival of interest in this 19th-century scholar in North America. This paper demonstrates that there has been a long-standing influence of Humboldt’s ideas on American linguistics and that no ‘rediscovery’ was required. Although Humboldt’s first contacts with North-American scholars goes back to 1803, the present paper is confined to the posthumous phase of his influence which begins with the work of Heymann Steinthal (1823–1899) from about 1850 onwards. This was also a time when many young Americans went to Germany to complete their education; for instance William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894) spent several years at the universities of Tübingen and Berlin (1850–1854), and in his writings on general linguistics one can trace Humboldtian ideas. In 1885 Daniel G. Brinton (1837–1899) published an English translation of a manuscript by Humboldt on the structure of the verb in Amerindian languages. A year later Franz Boas (1858–1942) arrived from Berlin soon to establish himself as the foremost anthropologist with a strong interest in native language and culture. From then on we encounter Humboldtian ideas in the work of a number of North American anthropological linguists, most notably in the work of Edward Sapir (1884–1939). This is not only true with regard to matters of language classification and typology but also with regard to the philosophy of language, specifically, the relationship between a particular language structure and the kind of thinking it reflects or determines on the part of its speakers. Humboldtian ideas of ‘linguistic relativity’, enunciated in the writings of Whitney, Brinton, Boas, and others, were subsequently developed further by Sapir’s student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941). The transmission of the so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis – which still today is attracting interest among cultural anthropologists and social psychologists, not only in North America – is the focus of the remainder of the paper. A general Humboldtian approach to language and culture, it is argued, is still present in the work of Dell Hymes and several of his students.


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