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Re: Four fields and teaching intro courses
Matthew S. Tomaso (Tomaso@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU)
Sat, 1 Apr 1995 12:53:37 -0600
As an archaeologist and a graduate student who has almost always considered
myself a social anthropologist first and foremost, I would like to
contribute what I think about the four field schism under discussion.
Firstly, I constantly indulge in and profit from interdisciplinary research,
the deconstruction of disciplinary boundaries (thanks to Dan Mouer for the
phrasing), and what I call 'interparadigmatic research'. I believe that
complex integration and holism are useful goals, even if they are somewhat
unwieldy and impracticable. I also disbelieve in a lot of the
propagandistic nonsense by which humanists and scientists differentiate
themselves (that statement ought to get me torched, I suppose) in the
academe. I'm not interested in reifying useless and self-aggrandising
oppositional distinctions. I NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT IS JUST ARCHAEOLOGY,
JUST SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, or JUST ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR. So, being forced
to contemplate the idea of the dissolution of the modern multifaceted
department of anthropology, I am at first angered and upset that so many of
us imagine the goals and aspirations of our discipline to be so
differentiated... But upon reflexion, I don't really care all that much...
Sure, I would hope that my generation of scholars will have enough
perspective in all of the 'subfields' to respect an integrated approach, but
I don't really think its necessary for everybody to think as I do. Perhaps
it is better to hope to lead by example, not just discourse. If others
want to do stuff that is only social anthro-lit. crit. - historiography -
history - ethnography-discourse analysis, or just
archaeology-typology-chronology-hypothesis testing-systematics, that's fine.
Folks like me will continue to rudely crash through any boundary erected if
what I see on the other side is something I can use. So, if I become an
anachronism, a fully postmodern walking example of the modernist
organization of anthropology departments, .... well.... I can only hope to
achieve that status.
best,
Matt
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Matt Tomaso, Human.
Anthropology.
University of Texas at Austin.
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