11 Reasons Why Edmund Leach Was the Ultimate Anthropology Badass
1. Lost his fieldnotes, yet wrote a monograph that anthropologist love to read even after more than sixty years since its publication.
2. Became known even outside anthropology. Political Systems of Highland Burma appeared in Autumn Ball, a famous 1979 novel by Estonian writer Mati Unt.
3. Expressed an opinion that Frazer’s Golden Bough was actually a gilded twig.
4. Called Clifford Geertz a theologian disguised as a professor of anthropology (and seems to have suggested that Geertz was a major novelist also).
5. Took the label “positivist” as a compliment.
6. Spoke of his fellow colleagues as of mere butterfly collectors.
7. Revolutionized British anthropology by dragging Lévi-Strauss across the Channel.
8. Was surprised to find that so many people attended Lévi-Strauss’s 1965 Huxley Memorial Lecture, because only Leach himself (and maybe a few others in UK) understood Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism.
9. Wrote that Melford Spiro’s anthropological approach was naïve
10. Implied that I. C. Jarvie should not write about the history of British social anthropology because Jarvie was too young to know.
11. Took mirror selfies before it was cool.
I know, I should work on my PhD...
2. Became known even outside anthropology. Political Systems of Highland Burma appeared in Autumn Ball, a famous 1979 novel by Estonian writer Mati Unt.
3. Expressed an opinion that Frazer’s Golden Bough was actually a gilded twig.
4. Called Clifford Geertz a theologian disguised as a professor of anthropology (and seems to have suggested that Geertz was a major novelist also).
5. Took the label “positivist” as a compliment.
6. Spoke of his fellow colleagues as of mere butterfly collectors.
7. Revolutionized British anthropology by dragging Lévi-Strauss across the Channel.
8. Was surprised to find that so many people attended Lévi-Strauss’s 1965 Huxley Memorial Lecture, because only Leach himself (and maybe a few others in UK) understood Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism.
9. Wrote that Melford Spiro’s anthropological approach was naïve
10. Implied that I. C. Jarvie should not write about the history of British social anthropology because Jarvie was too young to know.
11. Took mirror selfies before it was cool.
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| Source: King’s College, Cambridge http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/archive-centre/archive-month/february-2013.html |
I know, I should work on my PhD...
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