Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I hope you leave this seminar knowing that Chicago is a place for anthropology.
of us who are interested in culture, history, diversity, and change through time, Chicago
should be considered a human epicenter. Personally, for my own academic development, it has been
For example, there are more than 40 museums in Chicago. From the Field Museum which I
will detail today, to the famous Art Institute, to impressive gallery museums like the National
Museum of Mexican Art, all of the city's institutions, in some way, house, curate and interpret the
diversity of humanity found within Chicago, as well as throughout the world. Also, like
other cities in the U.S., especially on the east coast, anthropology as a discipline was
born with museums, their collections, and collectors.
Chicago, and Illinois in general, have many influential universities and colleges. For
example: University of Chicago, Northwestern, University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul,
College of DuPage, Wheaton and North Central Colleges. Miles west of the Windy City, there
is Northern Illinois University (NIU) and down south you will find the University of
Illinois (UofI). While the University of Chicago has been granting Ph.D.s in anthropology since
1897, all of these institutions have undergraduate programs in anthropology, with many offering
graduate and research programs in an American, "four-fielded" approach.
There is a long list of outstanding academics to come out of Chicago. Kathy Reichs or better
known as the inspiration for Dr. Temperance Brenan on the TV show "Bones", graduated from
Northwestern in 1975. Her dedicated and prolific work has made forensic anthropology more accessible
to the public, while providing conclusive evidence for multiple legal institutions.
Still teaching out of the University of Chicago, Marshall Sahlins' work has been very influential
for those interested in social economics and "general" and "specific" forms of cultural
evolution. Tim Earle, who I understand just visited UQ from Northwestern, has been a major
proponent of using a political economy approach in archaeological contexts; a similar approach
that I am employing for my doctoral research about pre-contact Easter Island.
One prominent link from Chicago directly to UQ's School of Social Science is through Professor
Jay Hall. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1979 and later founded UQ's
archaeology department. Hall's anthropological approaches were certainly influenced by Chicagoan
theoretical and methodological constructs of anthropology, archaeology, and material
culture studies.
Besides having many "Chicago schools" such as in architecture, sociology and economics,
a main "school" of anthropological theory that developed at the University of Chicago
was a Symbolic and Interpretive approach. Centered upon Clifford Geertz, and influenced
by fellow UC scholars such as Victor Turner, David Schneider, and Northwestern's Mary Douglas,
this school focused on the ideological and symbolic nature of culture and human behavior.Sometime
earlier, while at the University of Illinois, Julian Steward stressed a more nuanced appreciation
for "cultural ecology", while professing the importance of multi-linear human evolution.
Steward's neoevolutionary contemporary Leslie White, graduated from the University of Chicago
in 1927.
Notable applications pioneered in Chicago include Willard Libby's atomic work at the
University of Chicago. His research, acknowledged with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960, laid
the ground work for radiometric dating that is now so fundamental to archaeological interpretation.
The origin of business or industrial anthropology was rooted in Chicago, with notable research
amongst the city's multicultural corporate sectors. The field began when Lloyd Warner,
who had studied with the Aboriginal Murngin, participated as one of the scientists conducting
research at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works manufacturing plant. Warner used anthropological
theory and qualitative research techniques to study employee interactions at work. He
found that understanding human relations was crucial to understanding performance in corporate
organizations.
Academic research and publication have been a priority in Chicago, with both the University
of Chicago Press and the Field Museum's Fieldiana Journal printing multiple key manuscripts
With regard to the formulation of anthropology as a professional discipline, the very first
attempt to organize a national anthropology society proceeded in 1901 in Chicago with
famous anthropologists such as Franz Boas, Roland Dixon, Fredrick Starr, and even George
Dorsey in attendance. This first committee meeting would eventually turn into the American
Anthropological Association in 1902. Until today, it still remains the largest organization
of individuals interested in our discipline.
Last, but arguably most important, is the level of human diversity found throughout
Chicagoan time in space. From the first people that arrived in the area around the terminal
Palaeolithic, to the influence of the important Missisippian chiefdom centered at Cahokia,
to later First Nation groups such as the Kickapoo, Fox, Saux, Illinois, and ¬¬-Potawatomi who
had and have inhabited and the Chicagoland area for centuries.
Chicago's contemporary urban culture is also a very diverse cosmopolitan, ripe for social
inquiry. In fact, UC sociology department claimed Chicago as "one of the most complete
social laboratories in the world." Currently, there are 26 ethnic groups in the city, with
at least 25,000 members in each group. There are 132 languages spoken, and 130 foreign
--language media outlets. This makes Chicago one of the most linguistically diverse cities
in the world. As such, I believe that when taken together,
these elements place Chicago as an important center for anthropology. And, I hope by the
end of this presentation, I have furthered this point.