Schneider on Schneider: The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropological Stories

263 Pages·1995·14.34 MB·English

by  David M. Schneider

Schneider
on
Schneider

Schneider
on
Schneider
The Conversion of the Jews and
Other Anthropological 5 tories
David M. Schneider as told to Richard Handler
Edited, Transcribed, and with an Introduction
by Richard Handler
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS Durham and London 1995
© 1995 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper oc
Typeset in Berkeley Medium by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
The field work tradition seems to have
created a disciplinary bias toward oral
history-as a group, anthropologists have
a large stock of anecdotes about the
elders of the tribe.-George W. Stocking,
'The History of Anthropology: Where,
Whence, Whither?"

Contents
Editor's Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Origin of the Dog
Richard Handler 1
One: The Work of the Gods in Tikopia, or,
A Career in Anthropology 17
Two: Youth 39
Three: Addy 55
Four: Surveying the Army 61
Five: An Education in Anthropology 69
Six: Fieldwork on Yap 85
Seven: From Harvard to England 121
Eight: Mescalero Apache: The Romance
and Politics of Fieldwork 135
Nine: From Berkeley to Chicago 171
Ten: Studying Kinship 193
Afterword David M. Schneider 219
Notes 225
Writings of David M. Schneider 231
Index 237

Editor's Acknowledgments
Many people have taken an interest in the interviews with David
Schneider that led to this book. James Boon, Claire Farrer, Lynne Gold
stein, Mary Handler, Charles Kaut, Adria LaViolette, Susan McKinnon,
David Sapir,lonathan Schneider, Michael Schneider, Daniel Segal, Eliza
beth Stassinos, George Stocking, Pauline Turner Strong, Bonnie Ur
ciuoli, Roy Wagner, and Marlie Wasserman have provided encourage
ment and advice. At Duke University Press, Ken Wissoker guided the
book through the review process and was always available to me as a
sympathetic critic. Thanks are also due to the three reviewers, anony
mous to me, whose advice I have followed in preparing the final version
of the manuscript. George Stocking and Bonnie Urciuoli went out of
their way to help with photographs, as did David Schneider. Finally,
as David has assigned responsibility to the interviewer for any short
comings this work may contain, so I must gratefully thank the inter
viewee for its many virtues.
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