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Schneider on Schneider: The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropological Stories
To listen to David M. Schneider is to hear the voice of American anthropology. To listen at length is to hear much of the discipline’s history, from the realities of postwar practice and theory to Schneider’s own influence on the development of symbolic and interpretive anthropology in the 1970s and 1980s. Schneider on Schneider offers readers this rare opportunity, and with it an engrossing introduction into a world of intellectual rigor, personal charm, and wit.
In this work, based on conversations with Richard Handler, Schneider tells the story of his days devoted to anthropology—as a student of Clyde Kluckhohn and Talcott Parsons and as a writer and teacher whose work on kinship and culture theory revolutionized the discipline. With a master’s sense of the telling anecdote, he describes his education at Cornell, Yale, and Harvard, his fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap and among the Mescalero Apache, and his years teaching at the London School of Economics, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. Musing on the current state and the future of anthropology, Schneider’s cast of characters reads like a who’s who of postwar social science. His reflections on anthropological field research and academic politics address some of the most pressing ethical and epistemological issues facing scholars today, while yielding tales of unexpected amusement.
With its humor and irony, its wealth of information and searching questions about the state of anthropology, Schneider on Schneider not only provides an important resource for the history of twentieth-century social science, but also brings to life the entertaining voice of an engaging storyteller.
In this work, based on conversations with Richard Handler, Schneider tells the story of his days devoted to anthropology—as a student of Clyde Kluckhohn and Talcott Parsons and as a writer and teacher whose work on kinship and culture theory revolutionized the discipline. With a master’s sense of the telling anecdote, he describes his education at Cornell, Yale, and Harvard, his fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap and among the Mescalero Apache, and his years teaching at the London School of Economics, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. Musing on the current state and the future of anthropology, Schneider’s cast of characters reads like a who’s who of postwar social science. His reflections on anthropological field research and academic politics address some of the most pressing ethical and epistemological issues facing scholars today, while yielding tales of unexpected amusement.
With its humor and irony, its wealth of information and searching questions about the state of anthropology, Schneider on Schneider not only provides an important resource for the history of twentieth-century social science, but also brings to life the entertaining voice of an engaging storyteller.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 1995
About the author
David Murray Schneider
20 books4 followersDavid Murray Schneider (November 11, 1918, Brooklyn, New York – October 30, 1995, Santa Cruz, California) was an American cultural anthropologist, best known for his studies of kinship and as a major proponent of the symbolic anthropology approach to cultural anthropology.
He received his B.S. in 1940 and his M.S. from Cornell University in 1941. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard in 1949, based on fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap.
After completing his graduate work, he first taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1960, he accepted a position at the University of Chicago, where he spent most of his career, teaching in Anthropology and the Committee on Human Development. He was Chairman of Anthropology from 1963 to 1966.
While at Chicago, Schneider was director of the Kinship Project, a study supported by the National Science Foundation that looked at how middle-class families in the United States and Great Britain respond to their kinship relations. His findings challenged the common-sense assumption that kinship in Anglo-American cultures is primarily about recognizing biological relatedness. While a rhetoric of "blood" ties is an important conceptual structuring device in US and British kinship systems, cultural and social considerations are more important. The discoveries he demonstrated through a series of books, most famously American Kinship: a cultural account, revolutionized and revitalized the study of kinship within anthropology, on the one hand, and contributed to the theoretical basis of feminist anthropology, gender studies, and lesbian and gay studies, on the other.
Schneider critiqued the so-called Western theories of kinship by accusing its supporters of being ethnocentric.
As a teacher, Schneider was also known for taking on and encouraging students studying nontraditional topics, and as a mentor to women and lesbian or gay graduate students, who often otherwise had difficulty finding mentors.
After retiring from Chicago in 1986, he joined the anthropology department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he remained until his death in 1995.
He received his B.S. in 1940 and his M.S. from Cornell University in 1941. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard in 1949, based on fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap.
After completing his graduate work, he first taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1960, he accepted a position at the University of Chicago, where he spent most of his career, teaching in Anthropology and the Committee on Human Development. He was Chairman of Anthropology from 1963 to 1966.
While at Chicago, Schneider was director of the Kinship Project, a study supported by the National Science Foundation that looked at how middle-class families in the United States and Great Britain respond to their kinship relations. His findings challenged the common-sense assumption that kinship in Anglo-American cultures is primarily about recognizing biological relatedness. While a rhetoric of "blood" ties is an important conceptual structuring device in US and British kinship systems, cultural and social considerations are more important. The discoveries he demonstrated through a series of books, most famously American Kinship: a cultural account, revolutionized and revitalized the study of kinship within anthropology, on the one hand, and contributed to the theoretical basis of feminist anthropology, gender studies, and lesbian and gay studies, on the other.
Schneider critiqued the so-called Western theories of kinship by accusing its supporters of being ethnocentric.
As a teacher, Schneider was also known for taking on and encouraging students studying nontraditional topics, and as a mentor to women and lesbian or gay graduate students, who often otherwise had difficulty finding mentors.
After retiring from Chicago in 1986, he joined the anthropology department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he remained until his death in 1995.
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December 30, 2024
Writing as an Anthropology PhD student - this book is highly enjoyable and also useful for understanding Americanist anthropology post World War II better. Check it out if you are planning to major in anthropology or attend graduate school!
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