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Re: A spirit of bitterness is abroad on ANTHRO-L...Tom Riley (triley@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU)Fri, 7 Oct 1994 14:20:58 +0000
my problems with the editorial vision of AA. The text follows: "I am writing to urge you and the AD Executive Committee to strongly object to the directions that are being taken in the American Anthropologist under its new editors. Fromk the very beginning of their editorship, when the Tedlcoks slurred Mayan archaeologists, I feared that their idea of archaeology was flawed, simplistic and naive. The first issue of the journal has shown that this is true, but it has also demonstrated a lack of use of their editorial board and an inability to recognize what archaeology is.I do not want to comment on particular articles, since I felt that there was some fine work in the first issue, but I do want to state categorically that there was no archaeology in the issue. It was this which disturbed me immensely. I realise that the editors would most likely disagree with me, but that is where the problem lies. If we can judge from the issue, they have no idea what archaeology is and they are unwilling to learn from their editorial board or their reviewers. It is even more disturbing to hear several reports from colleagues that the editors have returned a number of articles without review, saying that they do not fit the vision that the editors have for the journal. If there was a vision that reflected World archaeology, that might be acceptable. It is obvious from the first issue, however, that archaeology is not within their vision. The American Anthropologist is supposed to be a unifying force within a discipline which distinguishes itself from the other social, behavioral and historical sciences by its holism. It appears to have been captured by an extremely provincial and narrow segment of the discipline intent on imposing its narrowness on the rest of us. This has happened before in the field, but it is much more destructive now. I hope that the AD leadership can act for us in this crisis, for it is a crisis that is not only ours but one that affects the discipline as a whole."
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