"Making Up Kinds of People Making Kinds of Things: The Origin of Anthropology and Ethnology" with Adam Kuper
Friday, November 15th, 2019 12:00 – 1:30 pm
African Studies Seminar Room, Fifth Floor 232 Bay State Road
Anthropology and ethnology were among the ‘human sciences’ that emerged in Europe in the 1820s and 1830s. The ethnologists looked to find a home for themselves in the new constellation of public museums. Their first theoretical debates were therefore about both the classification of kinds of people and the classification of kinds of things. These debates were crucial to the development of anthropology and ethnology. Their legacy is still with us.
Adam Kuper is Visiting Professor in the Anthropology Department. A specialist on the ethnography of Southern Africa, he has written widely on the history and theory of anthropology. His most recent book is Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.