Reading Benedict/reading Mead : feminism, race, and imperial visions

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Reading Benedict/reading Mead : feminism, race, and imperial visions

edited by Dolores Janiewski and Lois W. Banner

(New studies in American intellectual and cultural history)

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004

  • : hardcover
  • : pbk

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Reading Benedict reading Mead : feminism, race, and imperial visions

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Includes bibliographical references

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

As anthropologists, public intellectuals, and feminists, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead played remarkable roles in twentieth-century life and thought-and far beyond the academy. Their work helped to popularize anthropology while introducing such terms as culture and racism into common parlance. At the same time, they contributed to wider debates about environmentalism, sexuality, the women's movement, and American foreign policy. In this collection, prominent international scholars come together to explore the lives, works, and legacies of two influential figures in American anthropology. The contributions reflect a wide range of topics and perspectives: Benedict and Mead's complicated personal and professional relationship; their activities as scholars and outspoken intellectuals; their efforts to promote feminism and undermine racism; their contributions to (and the challenges they posed to) the imperialist project; and the stories behind their best-known works, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword and Coming of Age in Samoa. Together, the essays provide a useful and provocative introduction to Benedict and Mead as well as to the ongoing debate about the legacy they left behind. Contributors: Lois Banner, University of Southern California; Margaret M. Caffrey, University of Memphis; Nanako Fukui, Kansai University; Angela Gilliam, Evergreen State College; Pauline Kent, Ryukoku University; C. Douglas Lummis, Okinawa International University; Nancy Lutkehaus, University of Southern California; Judith Schachter Modell, Carnegie Mellon University; Maureen Molloy, University of Auckland; Louise M. Newman, University of Florida; Dolores E. Janiewski, Victoria University of Wellington; Christopher Shannon, University of Notre Dame; Gerald Sullivan, University of Notre Dame; Sharon Tiffany, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater; Jean Walton, University of Rhode Island; Virginia Yans, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Table of Contents

Introduction: Being and Becoming Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead Part I: Becoming Benedict, Becoming Mead Chapter 1. Woven Lives, Raveled Texts: Benedict,Mead, and Representational Doubleness Chapter 2. "The Bo-Cu Plant": Ruth Benedict and Gender Chapter 3. Margaret Mead, the Samoan Girl and the Flapper: Geographies of Selfhood in Coming of Age in Samoa Part II: Erasures and Inclusions Chapter 4. Coming of Age, but Not in Samoa: Reflections on Margaret Mead's Legacy for Western Liberal Feminism Chapter 5. "A World Made Safe for Differences": Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword Chapter 6. White Maternity, Rape Dreams, and the Sexual Exile in A Rap on Race Part III: Imperial Visions Chapter 7. Of Feys and Culture Planners:Margaret Mead and Purposive Activity as Value Chapter 8. The Lady of the Chrysanthemum: Ruth Benedict and the Origins of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword Chapter 9. Ruth Benedict's Obituary for Japanese Culture Chapter 10. The Parable of Manus: Utopian Change, American Influence, and the Worth of Women Part IV: Echoes and Reverberations Chapter 11. Imagining the South Seas:Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa and the Sexual Politics of Paradise Chapter 12. Symbolic Subordination and the Representation of Power in "Margaret Mead and Samoa" Chapter 13. Misconceived Configurations of Ruth Benedict Part V: Re-Thinking Benedict and Mead Chapter 14. Margaret Mead: Anthropology's Liminal Figure Chapter 15. "It is besides a pleasant English word"-Ruth Benedict's Concept of Patterns Revisited Chapter 16. On the Political Anatomy of Mead-bashing, or Re-thinking Margaret Mead Notes Contributors Index Illustrations

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