Sergei Kan | Dartmouth College (original) (raw)
Books by Sergei Kan
А н т р о п о л о г и ч е с к и й ф о р у м , 2 0 2 4 , № 6 1 Рец. на кн.: СЕРГЕЙ КАН.
Alaska History, 2021
The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sit... more The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sitka, Alaska and explores their role in the social life and culture of that community. It also seeks to establish whether the Creole brotherhoods' members fully agreed with the goals set for them by the Russian Orthodox clergy.
Journal of Frontier Studies, 2020
The paper examines the criticism levelled against the Creoles of Sitka (persons of Rus-sian and A... more The paper examines the criticism levelled against the Creoles of Sitka (persons of Rus-sian and Alaska Native descent) by the Russian Orthodox priests who came to minister among them in the late 19th-early 20th century. These clergymen accused their parishioners not only of immorality but also of not being truly Russian, as far as their language and culture were concerned. By focusing on this criticism, the paper explores the symbolic significance of Alaska's Russian colonial and missionary history and its legacy in the conservative nationalist ideology of the Russian Orthodox clergy. Particular attention is paid to the causes to which this clergy attributed the decline of the Russian culture and devotion to Orthodoxy among the Creole population of this frontier Ameri-can/Alaskan town.
Jochelson, Bogoras and Shternberg: A Scientific Exploration of Northeastern Siberia and the Shaping of Soviet Ethnography. Ed. by Erich Kasten, 2018
The paper discusses several aspects of Lev Shternberg's (1861-1927) anthropological worldview, wh... more The paper discusses several aspects of Lev Shternberg's (1861-1927) anthropological worldview, which contradicted and enriched his late 19th century evolutionism
Berose - International Encyclopedia of Histories of Anthropology, 2019
Why did Robert Lowie (1883-1957), considered a “mainstream Boasian” by both his colleagues and mo... more Why did Robert Lowie (1883-1957), considered a “mainstream Boasian” by both his colleagues and most historians of anthropology, felt somewhat underappreciated by Franz Boas himself and especially by Lowie’s peers: Alexander Goldenweiser (1880-1940), Edward Sapir (1884-1939), and Paul Radin (1883-1959), key members
of the first generation of Boas’ students?
Ethnohistory, vol. 66(1), 2019
Используя переписку Ф. Боаса и его советской аспирантки Ю.П. Аверкиевой, автор обсуждает как их т... more Используя переписку Ф. Боаса и его советской аспирантки Ю.П. Аверкиевой, автор обсуждает как их теплые личные отношения, так и серьезные разногласия по вопросу о политической ситуации в СССР и ее влиянии на науку. Привлекая такие дополнительные источники, как переписка Боаса с российскими и западными коллегами, интервью и выступления в печати, автор показывает, что, хотя Боас и симпатизировал социализму в целом и идеалам советского строя в частности даже в 1930-е годы, ему было хорошо известно и о показательных процессах, и об отсутствии политической свободы в СССР, и о возраставшем идеологическом давлении на ученых, работавших в области общественных наук, в т.ч. этнографии. Будучи лояльной комсомолкой, Аверкиева решительно отвергала взгляды отца американской антропологии, оставаясь при этом глубоко благодарной ему и за то, что он помогал ей в Нью-Йорке, и за то, что взял с собой в поле в 1930 г. Эти чувства Юлия Павловна сохранила на всю жизнь, при этом не раз критикуя теоретические взгляды Боаса с позиции ортодоксального марксизма в своих печатных работах 1950–1970-х годов.
Death in the Early 21st Century [edited volume], 2017
Focusing on tradition, technology, and authority, this volume challenges classical understandings... more Focusing on tradition, technology, and authority, this volume challenges classical understandings that mortuary rites are inherently conservative. The contributors examine innovative and enduring ideas and practices of death, which reflect and constitute changing patterns of social relationships, memorialisation, and the afterlife. This cross-cultural study examines the lived experiences of men and women from societies across the globe with diverse religious heritages and secular value systems. The book demonstrates that mortuary practices are not fixed forms, but rather dynamic processes negotiated by the dying, the bereaved, funeral experts, and public institutions. In addition to offering a new theoretical perspective on the anthropology of death, this work provides a rich resource for readers interested in human responses to mortality: the one certainty of human existence.
"This book magnificently enlightens the global era of choosing one's death ways. It sheds light not only on the significance of agency, authority, and technological applications to changing mortuary rites, but also on the (re)invention, and negotiation of cultural rituals based on rich ethnographies." Hikaru Suzuki, author of "The Price of Death" the Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan."
The conceptualization of the "field" in early Soviet ethnography had its own dynamics and elabora... more The conceptualization of the "field" in early Soviet ethnography had its own dynamics and elaborations within the discursive arenas of the Leningrad ethnographic school. Beginning with the prehistory of the idea of the field among the Enlightenment naturalists and travelers, we turn toward a description of long-term expeditions of the first generation of Soviet ethnographers of the North. Comparing field diaries, photographs, questionnaires, lectures, and textbooks, we consider the patterns and flexibility in the concept of the field in the first half of the twentieth century. We conclude with a discussion of how post-World War II Soviet anthropologists departed from the ideas of participant observation and long-term fieldworking prominent in earlier conceptualizations of fieldwork in Soviet ethnography.
Sharing Our Knowledge brings together Native elders, tradition bearers, educators, cultural act... more Sharing Our Knowledge brings together Native elders, tradition bearers, educators, cultural activists, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and museum professionals to explore the culture, history, and language of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska and their coastal neighbors. These interdisciplinary, collaborative essays present Tlingit culture, as well as the culture of their coastal neighbors, not as an object of study but rather as a living heritage that continues to inspire and guide the lives of communities and individuals throughout southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia.
This volume focuses on the preservation and dissemination of Tlingit language, traditional cultural knowledge, and history from an activist Tlingit perspective. Sharing Our Knowledge also highlights a variety of collaborations between Native groups and individuals and non-Native researchers, emphasizing a long history of respectful, cooperative, and productive working relations aimed at recording and transmitting cultural knowledge for tribal use and promoting Native agency in preserving heritage. By focusing on these collaborations, the contributors demonstrate how such alliances have benefited the Tlingits and neighboring groups in preserving and protecting their heritage while advancing scholarship at the same time.
Illustrations: 137 B&W Illus., 2 Maps Published: 2013 Hardcover ISBN: 9780806142906 272 ... more Illustrations: 137 B&W Illus., 2 Maps
Published: 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806142906
272 pages, 10" x 10"
Volume 10 in Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West
Subject: American Indian , Art/Photography
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Lanterns on the Prairie
Lanterns on the Prairie
Edited by: Steven Grafe
A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians
A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians
By: Joanna Scherer
Arapaho Journeys
By: Sara Wiles
* DESCRIPTION
* AUTHOR BIO
* PREVIEW
Photographs of a multiethnic community at work and play at the turn of the past century
This book is a rich record of life in small-town southeastern Alaska in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is the first book to showcase the photographs of Vincent Soboleff, an amateur Russian American photographer whose community included Tlingit Indians from a nearby village as well as Russian Americans, so-called Creoles, who worked in a local fertilizer factory. Using a Kodak camera, Soboleff, the son of a Russian Orthodox priest, documented the life of this multiethnic parish at work and at play until 1920. Despite their significance, few of Soboleff’s photographs have been published since their discovery in 1950. Anthropologist Sergei Kan rectifies that oversight in A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country, which brings together more than 100 of Soboleff’s striking black-and-white images.
Combining Soboleff’s photographs with ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, Kan brings to life the communities of Killisnoo, where Soboleff grew up, and Angoon, the Tlingit village. The photographs gathered here depict Russian Creoles, Euro-Americans, the operation of the Killisnoo factory, and the daily life of its workers. But Soboleff’s work is especially valuable as a record of Tlingit life. As a member of this multiethnic community, he was able to take unusually personal photographs of people and daily life. Soboleff’s photographs offer candid and intimate glimpses into Tlingit people’s then-new economic pursuits such as commercial fishing, selling berries, and making “Indian curios” to sell to tourists. Other images show white, Creole, and Native factory workers rubbing shoulders while keeping a certain distance during leisure time.
Kan offers readers, historians, and photography lovers a beautiful visual resource on Tlingit and Russian American life that shows how the two cultures intertwined in southeastern Alaska at the turn of the past century.
" What's in a Name? Becoming a Real Person in a Yup'ik Community" by Ann Fien... more " What's in a Name? Becoming a Real Person in a Yup'ik Community" by Ann Fienup-Riordan was previously published in Hunting Tradition in a Changing World: Yup'ik Lives in Alaska Today, ed. Ann Fienup-Riordan (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000) © 2001 ...
This is a second updated, revised and expanded edition of my 1989 book. I have corrected a few mi... more This is a second updated, revised and expanded edition of my 1989 book.
I have corrected a few minor errors and added data from my own field research (1990-2010s) as well as works by Tlingit scholars and cultural activists.
I have also written a 30 pp. Epilogue, which examines the Tlingit memorial potlatch in the 20th century.
Originally published in Russia in 1906. Translated from Russian with Introduction and annotation ... more Originally published in Russia in 1906.
Translated from Russian with Introduction and annotation by Sergei Kan.
Rasmussen Series in Historical Translation
I just found a copy of a review of this annotated trasnlation, which was one of my very first publications by none other than Claude Lévi-Strauss. Little did I know at that time (1985) that in 2000 I will be co-organizing with my friends and colleagues, Marie Mauzé and Michael Harkin, a conference in Paris on Northwest Coast ethnology in his honor (which became the basis of our co-edited volume "Coming to Shore: Northwest Ethnology, Traditions and Visions"; 2004; University of Nebraska Press). I am attaching this review here.
The Northwest Coast of North America was home to dozens of Native peoples at the time of its firs... more The Northwest Coast of North America was home to dozens of Native peoples at the time of its first contact with Europeans. The rich artistic, ceremonial, and oral traditions of these peoples and their preservation of cultural practices have made this region especially attractive for anthropological study. Coming to Shore provides a historical overview of the ethnology and ethnohistory of this region, with special attention given to contemporary, theoretically informed studies of communities and issues.
The first book to explore the role of the Northwest Coast in three distinct national traditions of anthropology— American, Canadian, and French—Coming to Shore gives particular consideration to the importance of Claude Lévi-Strauss and structuralism, as well as more recent social theory in the context of Northwest Coast anthropology. In addition contributors explore the blurring boundaries between theoretical and applied anthropology as well as contemporary issues such as land claims, criminal justice, environmentalism, economic development, and museum display. The contribution of Frederica de Laguna provides a historical background to the enterprise of Northwest Coast anthropology, as do the contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marie Mauzé.
Papers by Sergei Kan
Ab Imperio, 2024
This article examines Franz Boas’s connections with the Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union... more This article examines Franz Boas’s connections with the Russian Empire
and the early Soviet Union through his collaborations with Russian and
Soviet anthropologists, especially the ethnotroika – Vladimir Jochelson,
Vladimir Bogoras, and Lev Shternberg. Boas mentored these anthropologists during the Jesup North Pacific Expedition at the turn of the twentieth century but remained largely indifferent to the political landscape of the Russian Empire. However, Boas’s stance changed with the advent of the Soviet Union. He saw the Soviet project as a scientific experiment and positively assessed Soviet policies, especially indigenization. This led him to initiate institutional collaborations, including advocating for student exchange programs and proposing joint expeditions involving Soviet scholars. Despite
growing evidence of political repression and ideological control within
Soviet anthropology, Boas maintained a selectively positive outlook toward
the USSR. He downplayed negative reports, rationalized the suppression
of dissenting views, and refrained from public criticism, even as his Soviet
colleagues faced persecution. Boas’s unwavering support for the Soviet
experiment was rooted in his evolving political beliefs, which shifted from
liberalism to a more socialist orientation. He contrasted the perceived social progress and anti-racism of the USSR with the shortcomings of Western democracies, particularly the United States. By the late 1930s, Boas’s ideological convictions ultimately compromised his anthropological objectivity.
He prioritized the abstract ideal of Soviet socialism over the lived realities
of his Soviet colleagues and the principles of intellectual freedom. Only in
the final year of his life, influenced by the changing geopolitical landscape
of World War II, did Boas begin to adopt a more nuanced and critical perspective on the USSR and its place in the global order.
А н т р о п о л о г и ч е с к и й ф о р у м , 2 0 2 4 , № 6 1 Рец. на кн.: СЕРГЕЙ КАН.
Alaska History, 2021
The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sit... more The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sitka, Alaska and explores their role in the social life and culture of that community. It also seeks to establish whether the Creole brotherhoods' members fully agreed with the goals set for them by the Russian Orthodox clergy.
Journal of Frontier Studies, 2020
The paper examines the criticism levelled against the Creoles of Sitka (persons of Rus-sian and A... more The paper examines the criticism levelled against the Creoles of Sitka (persons of Rus-sian and Alaska Native descent) by the Russian Orthodox priests who came to minister among them in the late 19th-early 20th century. These clergymen accused their parishioners not only of immorality but also of not being truly Russian, as far as their language and culture were concerned. By focusing on this criticism, the paper explores the symbolic significance of Alaska's Russian colonial and missionary history and its legacy in the conservative nationalist ideology of the Russian Orthodox clergy. Particular attention is paid to the causes to which this clergy attributed the decline of the Russian culture and devotion to Orthodoxy among the Creole population of this frontier Ameri-can/Alaskan town.
Jochelson, Bogoras and Shternberg: A Scientific Exploration of Northeastern Siberia and the Shaping of Soviet Ethnography. Ed. by Erich Kasten, 2018
The paper discusses several aspects of Lev Shternberg's (1861-1927) anthropological worldview, wh... more The paper discusses several aspects of Lev Shternberg's (1861-1927) anthropological worldview, which contradicted and enriched his late 19th century evolutionism
Berose - International Encyclopedia of Histories of Anthropology, 2019
Why did Robert Lowie (1883-1957), considered a “mainstream Boasian” by both his colleagues and mo... more Why did Robert Lowie (1883-1957), considered a “mainstream Boasian” by both his colleagues and most historians of anthropology, felt somewhat underappreciated by Franz Boas himself and especially by Lowie’s peers: Alexander Goldenweiser (1880-1940), Edward Sapir (1884-1939), and Paul Radin (1883-1959), key members
of the first generation of Boas’ students?
Ethnohistory, vol. 66(1), 2019
Используя переписку Ф. Боаса и его советской аспирантки Ю.П. Аверкиевой, автор обсуждает как их т... more Используя переписку Ф. Боаса и его советской аспирантки Ю.П. Аверкиевой, автор обсуждает как их теплые личные отношения, так и серьезные разногласия по вопросу о политической ситуации в СССР и ее влиянии на науку. Привлекая такие дополнительные источники, как переписка Боаса с российскими и западными коллегами, интервью и выступления в печати, автор показывает, что, хотя Боас и симпатизировал социализму в целом и идеалам советского строя в частности даже в 1930-е годы, ему было хорошо известно и о показательных процессах, и об отсутствии политической свободы в СССР, и о возраставшем идеологическом давлении на ученых, работавших в области общественных наук, в т.ч. этнографии. Будучи лояльной комсомолкой, Аверкиева решительно отвергала взгляды отца американской антропологии, оставаясь при этом глубоко благодарной ему и за то, что он помогал ей в Нью-Йорке, и за то, что взял с собой в поле в 1930 г. Эти чувства Юлия Павловна сохранила на всю жизнь, при этом не раз критикуя теоретические взгляды Боаса с позиции ортодоксального марксизма в своих печатных работах 1950–1970-х годов.
Death in the Early 21st Century [edited volume], 2017
Focusing on tradition, technology, and authority, this volume challenges classical understandings... more Focusing on tradition, technology, and authority, this volume challenges classical understandings that mortuary rites are inherently conservative. The contributors examine innovative and enduring ideas and practices of death, which reflect and constitute changing patterns of social relationships, memorialisation, and the afterlife. This cross-cultural study examines the lived experiences of men and women from societies across the globe with diverse religious heritages and secular value systems. The book demonstrates that mortuary practices are not fixed forms, but rather dynamic processes negotiated by the dying, the bereaved, funeral experts, and public institutions. In addition to offering a new theoretical perspective on the anthropology of death, this work provides a rich resource for readers interested in human responses to mortality: the one certainty of human existence.
"This book magnificently enlightens the global era of choosing one's death ways. It sheds light not only on the significance of agency, authority, and technological applications to changing mortuary rites, but also on the (re)invention, and negotiation of cultural rituals based on rich ethnographies." Hikaru Suzuki, author of "The Price of Death" the Funeral Industry in Contemporary Japan."
The conceptualization of the "field" in early Soviet ethnography had its own dynamics and elabora... more The conceptualization of the "field" in early Soviet ethnography had its own dynamics and elaborations within the discursive arenas of the Leningrad ethnographic school. Beginning with the prehistory of the idea of the field among the Enlightenment naturalists and travelers, we turn toward a description of long-term expeditions of the first generation of Soviet ethnographers of the North. Comparing field diaries, photographs, questionnaires, lectures, and textbooks, we consider the patterns and flexibility in the concept of the field in the first half of the twentieth century. We conclude with a discussion of how post-World War II Soviet anthropologists departed from the ideas of participant observation and long-term fieldworking prominent in earlier conceptualizations of fieldwork in Soviet ethnography.
Sharing Our Knowledge brings together Native elders, tradition bearers, educators, cultural act... more Sharing Our Knowledge brings together Native elders, tradition bearers, educators, cultural activists, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and museum professionals to explore the culture, history, and language of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska and their coastal neighbors. These interdisciplinary, collaborative essays present Tlingit culture, as well as the culture of their coastal neighbors, not as an object of study but rather as a living heritage that continues to inspire and guide the lives of communities and individuals throughout southeast Alaska and northwest British Columbia.
This volume focuses on the preservation and dissemination of Tlingit language, traditional cultural knowledge, and history from an activist Tlingit perspective. Sharing Our Knowledge also highlights a variety of collaborations between Native groups and individuals and non-Native researchers, emphasizing a long history of respectful, cooperative, and productive working relations aimed at recording and transmitting cultural knowledge for tribal use and promoting Native agency in preserving heritage. By focusing on these collaborations, the contributors demonstrate how such alliances have benefited the Tlingits and neighboring groups in preserving and protecting their heritage while advancing scholarship at the same time.
Illustrations: 137 B&W Illus., 2 Maps Published: 2013 Hardcover ISBN: 9780806142906 272 ... more Illustrations: 137 B&W Illus., 2 Maps
Published: 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 9780806142906
272 pages, 10" x 10"
Volume 10 in Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West
Subject: American Indian , Art/Photography
OUPress.Data.Entities.Image
Recent and Forthcoming Books
Award-winning Books
View Our Catalogs
Visit Our Blog
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Visit the OU Press Youtube Channel
Join Our E-mail List
Send info about this book to friends, family and associates.
CONTINUE
Related INTEREST
Lanterns on the Prairie
Lanterns on the Prairie
Edited by: Steven Grafe
A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians
A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians
By: Joanna Scherer
Arapaho Journeys
By: Sara Wiles
* DESCRIPTION
* AUTHOR BIO
* PREVIEW
Photographs of a multiethnic community at work and play at the turn of the past century
This book is a rich record of life in small-town southeastern Alaska in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is the first book to showcase the photographs of Vincent Soboleff, an amateur Russian American photographer whose community included Tlingit Indians from a nearby village as well as Russian Americans, so-called Creoles, who worked in a local fertilizer factory. Using a Kodak camera, Soboleff, the son of a Russian Orthodox priest, documented the life of this multiethnic parish at work and at play until 1920. Despite their significance, few of Soboleff’s photographs have been published since their discovery in 1950. Anthropologist Sergei Kan rectifies that oversight in A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country, which brings together more than 100 of Soboleff’s striking black-and-white images.
Combining Soboleff’s photographs with ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, Kan brings to life the communities of Killisnoo, where Soboleff grew up, and Angoon, the Tlingit village. The photographs gathered here depict Russian Creoles, Euro-Americans, the operation of the Killisnoo factory, and the daily life of its workers. But Soboleff’s work is especially valuable as a record of Tlingit life. As a member of this multiethnic community, he was able to take unusually personal photographs of people and daily life. Soboleff’s photographs offer candid and intimate glimpses into Tlingit people’s then-new economic pursuits such as commercial fishing, selling berries, and making “Indian curios” to sell to tourists. Other images show white, Creole, and Native factory workers rubbing shoulders while keeping a certain distance during leisure time.
Kan offers readers, historians, and photography lovers a beautiful visual resource on Tlingit and Russian American life that shows how the two cultures intertwined in southeastern Alaska at the turn of the past century.
" What's in a Name? Becoming a Real Person in a Yup'ik Community" by Ann Fien... more " What's in a Name? Becoming a Real Person in a Yup'ik Community" by Ann Fienup-Riordan was previously published in Hunting Tradition in a Changing World: Yup'ik Lives in Alaska Today, ed. Ann Fienup-Riordan (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000) © 2001 ...
This is a second updated, revised and expanded edition of my 1989 book. I have corrected a few mi... more This is a second updated, revised and expanded edition of my 1989 book.
I have corrected a few minor errors and added data from my own field research (1990-2010s) as well as works by Tlingit scholars and cultural activists.
I have also written a 30 pp. Epilogue, which examines the Tlingit memorial potlatch in the 20th century.
Originally published in Russia in 1906. Translated from Russian with Introduction and annotation ... more Originally published in Russia in 1906.
Translated from Russian with Introduction and annotation by Sergei Kan.
Rasmussen Series in Historical Translation
I just found a copy of a review of this annotated trasnlation, which was one of my very first publications by none other than Claude Lévi-Strauss. Little did I know at that time (1985) that in 2000 I will be co-organizing with my friends and colleagues, Marie Mauzé and Michael Harkin, a conference in Paris on Northwest Coast ethnology in his honor (which became the basis of our co-edited volume "Coming to Shore: Northwest Ethnology, Traditions and Visions"; 2004; University of Nebraska Press). I am attaching this review here.
The Northwest Coast of North America was home to dozens of Native peoples at the time of its firs... more The Northwest Coast of North America was home to dozens of Native peoples at the time of its first contact with Europeans. The rich artistic, ceremonial, and oral traditions of these peoples and their preservation of cultural practices have made this region especially attractive for anthropological study. Coming to Shore provides a historical overview of the ethnology and ethnohistory of this region, with special attention given to contemporary, theoretically informed studies of communities and issues.
The first book to explore the role of the Northwest Coast in three distinct national traditions of anthropology— American, Canadian, and French—Coming to Shore gives particular consideration to the importance of Claude Lévi-Strauss and structuralism, as well as more recent social theory in the context of Northwest Coast anthropology. In addition contributors explore the blurring boundaries between theoretical and applied anthropology as well as contemporary issues such as land claims, criminal justice, environmentalism, economic development, and museum display. The contribution of Frederica de Laguna provides a historical background to the enterprise of Northwest Coast anthropology, as do the contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marie Mauzé.
Ab Imperio, 2024
This article examines Franz Boas’s connections with the Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union... more This article examines Franz Boas’s connections with the Russian Empire
and the early Soviet Union through his collaborations with Russian and
Soviet anthropologists, especially the ethnotroika – Vladimir Jochelson,
Vladimir Bogoras, and Lev Shternberg. Boas mentored these anthropologists during the Jesup North Pacific Expedition at the turn of the twentieth century but remained largely indifferent to the political landscape of the Russian Empire. However, Boas’s stance changed with the advent of the Soviet Union. He saw the Soviet project as a scientific experiment and positively assessed Soviet policies, especially indigenization. This led him to initiate institutional collaborations, including advocating for student exchange programs and proposing joint expeditions involving Soviet scholars. Despite
growing evidence of political repression and ideological control within
Soviet anthropology, Boas maintained a selectively positive outlook toward
the USSR. He downplayed negative reports, rationalized the suppression
of dissenting views, and refrained from public criticism, even as his Soviet
colleagues faced persecution. Boas’s unwavering support for the Soviet
experiment was rooted in his evolving political beliefs, which shifted from
liberalism to a more socialist orientation. He contrasted the perceived social progress and anti-racism of the USSR with the shortcomings of Western democracies, particularly the United States. By the late 1930s, Boas’s ideological convictions ultimately compromised his anthropological objectivity.
He prioritized the abstract ideal of Soviet socialism over the lived realities
of his Soviet colleagues and the principles of intellectual freedom. Only in
the final year of his life, influenced by the changing geopolitical landscape
of World War II, did Boas begin to adopt a more nuanced and critical perspective on the USSR and its place in the global order.
Ab imperio, Dec 31, 2022
On December 18, 2022, my mother, Elena Sergeevna Semeka (ES), left this world. Hers was a long li... more On December 18, 2022, my mother, Elena Sergeevna Semeka (ES), left this world. Hers was a long life marked by many turbulent times and dramatic events. There were many difficult and sad moments in it, but also many happy days, successes, and encounters with very interesting people. This was a life of a serious scholar and teacher, a brave citizen, an erudite, intelligent, and beautiful woman who loved passionately and was fiercely loyal to her friends and family members. My mother often said that one of the most important events in her entire life happened in 1958, when as a recently hired "technical/scientific" worker at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS) she became the secretary of Yuri Nikolaevich Roerich (1902-1960), the oldest son of a prominent Russian artist Nikolai (Nicholas) K. Roerich (1874-1948) and a distinguished Orientalist, who had just returned to Russia, the country he and his family had left over fifty years earlier. She firmly believed that it was Yuri Nikolaevich who changed her professional life by encouraging her to obtain a PhD in oriental studies and become a scholar, while also strongly affecting her as a human being because he was a person so radically different from anyone she had ever met before. Similarly, Roerich had a major influence on a small but important group of young Soviet Orientalists who
Arctic Anthropology, 1997
Abstract. Using archival materials, previous ethnographic works, and data collected by the author... more Abstract. Using archival materials, previous ethnographic works, and data collected by the author during ethnographic fieldwork between 1977 and 1994 among the Nenets, the Sel'kup, the Khanty, and the Mansi, this paper outlines the main characteristics of traditional (pre-and ...
History of Anthropology Newsletter, 1982
Museum Anthropology, May 1, 2008
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018
Alaska History, 2021
The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sit... more The paper focuses on the history of Russian orthodox church brotherhoods among the Creoles of Sitka, Alaska and explores their role in the social life and culture of that community. It also seeks to establish whether the Creole brotherhoods' members fully agreed with the goals set for them by the Russian Orthodox clergy.
Ethnohistory, 2019
"Raymond D. Fogelson's 'The Ethnohistory of and Nonevents'&q... more "Raymond D. Fogelson's 'The Ethnohistory of and Nonevents'" was originally delivered as a presidential address by Ray Fogelson at the 1988 American Society for Ethnohistory meeting. In it he aligned himself with the French Annales school as far as its critique of a positivist, event-centered view of history is concerned, and he encouraged ethnohistorians to attend to various kinds of "nonevents" (see Kan and Turner Strong 2006: xviii). Later published in Ethnohistory (Fogelson 1989), this very important and frequently cited article offered a typology of nonevents, including nonrecognition (or nonvalorization) of what others consider eventful occurrences (as in political events), imagined events (as in prophecies or rumors), latent (unrecognized) events, erasures (as in a society's conscious adoption of a low profile, or the repression of a traumatic event), 1 and mythic or "epitomizing" events (as in the Cherokee narrative of the demise of the Aníkutáni priesthood that Ray analyzed in another article [Fogelson1984]). I would also add highly exaggerated events to this list and will illustrate this particular category in this brief essay. Fogelson also urged us to "take seriously native theories of history as embedded in cosmology, in narratives, in rituals and ceremonies, and more generally in native philosophies and worldviews." In his words, "Implicit here is the assumption that events may be recognized, defined, evaluated, and endowed with meaning differentially in different cultural traditions" (Fogelson 1989: 134-35). He also reminded ethnohistorians, that "an understanding of non-Western histories requires not only the generation of documents and an expanded conception of what constitutes documentation
Histories of Anthropology Annual, 2009
When one hears the name Alexander Goldenweiser, the first thing that comes to mind is his pioneer... more When one hears the name Alexander Goldenweiser, the first thing that comes to mind is his pioneering work on totemism. In addition one might recall such seminal papers of his as "The Principle of Limited Possibilities in the Development of Culture" (1913) or "Loose Ends of Theory on ...
Histories of Anthropology Annual, 2006
In fact, in his comments, Bogoras tried very hard to find ideas that bore at least some resemblan... more In fact, in his comments, Bogoras tried very hard to find ideas that bore at least some resemblance to the ones that came to dominate Soviet anthropology. Moreover, the introductory editorial statement, most likely written by Nikolai Matorin, a relatively young head of a recently ...
Museum Anthropology, 2008
Ethnohistory, 2013
Sergei Kostromitinov was born in 1854 to a Russian employee of the Russian-American Company and a... more Sergei Kostromitinov was born in 1854 to a Russian employee of the Russian-American Company and a Creole woman. Fluent in Russian and English and conversant in several native languages, he became an interpreter for Alaska's American authorities and an indispensable cultural broker among the region's Euro-American, Russian-Creole, and native communities. Thanks to that role as well as his political skills and successful commercial activities, Kostrometinov became the leading Russian-American citizen of Sitka—Alaska's first capital—serving as the warden of its Orthodox cathedral as well as the president of the chamber of commerce, a lieutenant colonel in the territorial militia, the secretary of the local historical society, and so forth. This essay explores the strategies he used to maintain his privileged position within the local Euro-American elite without abandoning his Russian patriotism and commitment to Russian Orthodox Christianity. It also shows that the price of...
Ethnohistory, 2012
... emerged out of a largely Cana-dian tradition of fur trade history, which long ago attended to... more ... emerged out of a largely Cana-dian tradition of fur trade history, which long ago attended to gender and intimacy in cross-cultural relations, well ... He wrote that "in the trading business this difference is irrelevant and a general name has been adopted."7 Eventually, the people of ...
Cancer Gene Therapy, 2001
The Canadian Historical Review, 2008
ABSTRACT
Anthropology and Humanism, 2024
The work under review is part of a large multi-volume project spearheaded by Regna Darnell, which... more The work under review is part of a large multi-volume project spearheaded by Regna Darnell, which involves publishing all of Franz Boas's professional correspondence. The first volume in this series appeared in 2015 and represented a collection of essays addressing various aspects of Boas's scholarly legacy (Darnell et al., 2015). The present volume is the first one that features the entire set of letters exchanged between Boas and James A. Teit (1864-1922), Boas's guide and research assistant in his work on the languages and cultures of the Interior Salish peoples of British Columbia and adjacent regions of Washington State and a talented lay ethnographer in his own right. James Teit was born into a merchant family in the Shetland Islands. In 1884 he traveled to Canada to join his uncle, who owned a trading outlet in the village of Spences Bridge on the Thompson River in south central British Columbia. As his uncle's employee, Teit came into regular contact with the local Nlaka'pamux people (previously known as Thompson Indians) living in the area and established excellent rapport with them. Three years later he married Susannah Lucy Antko, a member of the Spences Bridge band. Besides working at the store, Teit did various odd jobs when they were available such as ranching, hunting, fruit farming, and ferry work. Gradually, he became fluent in Nlaka'pamux language and well versed in the local Indigenous culture. After Lucy died of pneumonia in 1899, Teit married Josephine Morens with whom he had six children. In 1894, Teit encountered Franz Boas who happened to be in the region completing his work for the sixth field season of his study of the northwestern First Nations of British Columbia for the Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). Impressed with Teit's knowledge of the Nlaka'pamux people and his close relationship with them, Boas hired him and with his help "gained access to a cultural region that hitherto was not well represented on his ethnographic map" (Wickwire, 2003, 124). Prior to meeting Teit, Boas experienced difficulties establishing rapport with the local Indigenous people, which impeded his ethnographic research. However, with Teit's help Boas was able to collect a significant amount of ethnographic and linguistic data as well as take (the now questionable) anthropometric measures. He also instructed Teit in ethnographic research. During that first year of their collaboration, Teit turned out to be an excellent ethnographic assistant to Boas. He also enjoyed recording the information he was collecting among the local Indigenous people. By early spring 1895, he had already completed a 200-page report on the Nlaka'pamux and made the first of several important ethnographic collections.
Антропологический Форум, 2024
Рецензия на русский перевод книги Сергея Кана «Лев Штернберг: этнолог, народник, борец за права е... more Рецензия на русский перевод книги Сергея Кана «Лев Штернберг: этнолог, народник, борец за права
евреев» написана в форме письма ее герою и приглашает читателя к размышлению над некоторыми радикальными
изменениями, произошедшими с советской и российской этнографией в течение двадцатого и первых двух десятиле-
тий двадцать первого столетия. Автор обращает особое внимание на социальный и политический контекст этих из-
менений, которые значительно повлияли на интерпретацию самой фигуры Штернберга и его идей в советское время
и сегодня. Этот литературный эксперимент продолжает рассуждения автора о необходимости пересмотра истории
антропологии и возвращении ее в пространство антропологии как таковой, или, как писал еще в 1960-е гг. американ-
ский антрополог Альфред Ирвинг Хэллоуэлл, концептуализации истории антропологии как антропологической про-
блемы. Под возвращением автор понимает восстановление диалога между историей антропологии и историей сооб-
ществ, которые изучали и изучают антропологи, а также построение связей между историей антропологических идей
и текущими дискуссиями как внутри дисциплины, так и за ее пределами. Такие изменения, по мнению автора, могут
значительно расширить стили антропологического письма и выявить новые генеалогии антропологического знания.
К люч е в ы е с л о в а : Штернберг, Сибирь, советская этнография, антропологическое письмо, история антропологии.
Reviews in Anthropology, 2023
This is a review of 2 books: Dawdy, Shannon (2021) American Afrterlives: Reinventing Death in the... more This is a review of 2 books:
Dawdy, Shannon (2021) American Afrterlives: Reinventing Death in the 21st Century.
Dawdy, S. & Kneese, T., eds. (2022) The New Death: Mortality and Death Care in the Twenty-First Century.
Reviews in Anthropology, 2022
The present review discusses two recent works dealing with Franz Boas: a biography by Rosemary L ... more The present review discusses two recent works dealing with Franz Boas: a biography by Rosemary L evy Zumwalt and a book on Boas and several members of his school by Charles King. The information presented in Zumwalt's biography is compared with the one found in an earlier one by Douglas Cole as well as in various books and articles on the specific aspects of Boas's life and career. King's book is commended for its depiction of Zora Neil Hurston's ethnographic work but criticized for paying too much attention to Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict at the expense of several other key Boasians, such as Alexander Goldenweiser
Taking their cue from Writing Culture, an influential collection of anthropological essays from t... more Taking their cue from Writing Culture, an influential collection of anthropological essays from the mid-1980s, Andreas Kilcher and Gabriella Safran (both scholars of literature and Jewish Studies) bring together fourteen essays that illustrate an argument that Jewish ethnography is a particularly complex and paradoxical kind of writing. There are several obvious reasons for it. Firstly, as a " people of the Book, " Jews as eth-nographic subjects were not as sharply separated from the ethnographers who studied them, especially since most of the latter were themselves Jewish. Secondly, while studying the customs and folklore of the shtetl Jews (the major subject of ethnographic research of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries discussed in this volume), Jewish ethnographers were not always certain whether the information they were collecting had come from the oral tradition, the written one, or a combination of both. Thirdly, even though these writers labored in an era and ideological milieu when many Jews and non-Jews perceived Jewishness as an essentially unchangeable category of identity, their own " data " suggested that the notion of Jews as a single and clearly identifiable people comparable with the other peoples described by ethnographers was problematic. Thus, as the editors suggest, the Jewish ethnographers discussed in this book, produced so-called epistemic and aesthetic " aporias, " or moments that give rise to philosophically-systemic doubts. In this particular case, these were doubts about the consistency of Jewish culture across time and space as well as other related issues. It should be pointed out that most of the scholars whose work is discussed in this volume were not ethnographers in a narrower sense of the term. In other words, only a few of them conducted the kind of research that we have come to associate with Semyon An-sky, the " father of Jewish ethnography, " who led the first ethnographic expedition among east European Jews and the program for which he had developed in consultation with the St. Petersburg Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society under the guidance of such a prominent professional Russian-Jewish ethnographer as Lev Shternberg. In the tradition of much of Russian and European Volkskunde, An-sky and his colleagues focused on recording the customs, beliefs, and folklore of the Jewish shtetl as well as collecting objects of material culture pertaining to Jewish religious and everyday life. The closest analogy to his project was the work of Yiddish folklorists discussed in Safran's paper. In it she demonstrates that such early twentieth century folklore collectors as Herschele (Hershl Danilevitsh), Shmuel Lehman, and A. Almi linked their work to that of nineteenth-century Russian Romantic and narodnik folklorists, poets and writers such as Aleksei Kol΄tsov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol΄, and Ivan Turgenev. The inspiration identified by Safran is obvious, just as was the case with An-sky, who himself had started as a narodnik interested in Russian workers' folklore. However, as she correctly points out, while the Russian folklore collectors had to deal with a major class divide between themselves and their subjects, Yiddish folklorists' biggest challenge was to bridge the gap between their
![Research paper thumbnail of Claude Levi Strauss (1987) Review of Kan's Edited and Annotated Translation of Kamenskii "Tlingit Indians of Alaska" [1906] 1985](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/42713151/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](l'Homme 27e Année, No. 101, (Jan. - Mar., 1987), pp. 175-176
... Social/Cultural Anthropology: Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast. ... more ... Social/Cultural Anthropology: Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast. Wayne Suttles. Sergei Kan. ... No abstract is available for this article. Get PDF (189K). More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Sergei Kan. ...
This monograph is the first in a new series "Fourth World Rising," edited by the Kirk D... more This monograph is the first in a new series "Fourth World Rising," edited by the Kirk Dombrowski and Gerald Sider. In the spirit of this venture, Dombrowski presents a contempo-rary ethnography, which addresses economic and political differentiation among Native ...
Vienna Slavic Yearbook 2015 (3): 268-74 (in English)
