Thank you John for your excellent response and the great clarification! It's been awhile since those undergrad theory classes, but I did learn a lot from them, even though they were so long ago. Now I am trying to manage a theory class in my Master's course that was combined with ethnography -- except the weeks seem to be organized thematically rather than chronologically. Or in order of influence rather than historical period. All of this can be rather frustrating for a student, who can make misleading assumptions based on when the material was presented! All very confusing. Thank you for sorting that information out for me - we did not discuss the Boasians at length in my class but rather focused mostly upon Geertz. Such is the nature of the British school of Anthropology. I'll have to post more blogs about theory - I always have lots of questions and need for clarification. I wish I had more time to learn about the historical context in which some of these ideas developed, but I should have plenty of time when I graduate to read freely. :)

John, firstly, thank you for all of your input. I completely agree with what you said about the 'Western' - the idea is pretty totalizing and inaccurate in and of itself. I've been looking into more ontological theory and non-dualism since I've been studying for my Master's. I think it's easy to set up a dichotomy almost as a polemical point of departure and I guess I have been using it more evocatively in thinking through some of the ideas that have been on my mind for the past couple of weeks. I will look into the material you suggested and see what I can come up with. I suppose my main issue with conceptual categories is that they can be so linguistically conditioned, but they also have some grounding in our ideas about rationality, which can also be variable depending upon one's education. I think that's an idea I've been struggling with. I don't necessarily think the authors are arguing against that point, but it seems to be an often unidentified issue in the cognitive science literature. Of course, the anthropological literature addresses it rather well, on the whole. What are you up to in Japan? I see that you work as an independent scholar - what kinds of work do you do? I'm interested because I've considered a non-academic career in applied anthropology. Thank you again for your input, I appreciate it greatly.

I missed your original link simply because I didn't see it, and THAT'S why I appreciate direct solicitations. Now I'll go check it out.

--- Ashkuff | http://www.ashkuff.com | Venturing out of “armchair” scholarship and into action, one anthropologist tackles business, occultism, and violence! He gets spooked and roughed up a lot.

Thanks for the note! I'm thanking my lucky stars that OAC still exists.

Thanks for the tip! Sent a friend req. Re: East Asia. I studied with Steve Sangren at Cornell...the world is getting smaller already.

For the more advanced classes there is enough overlap on holistic issues so I'm not totally schizo, e.g. biocultural perspectives on Race & Ethnicity, Gender & Sexuality, etc.

The range of people here sounds terrific. I teach the full spectrum of intro classes, from biological to cultural. While my primary research interests are on the cultural side (Puerto Rico, Caribbean popular culture, ethnogenesis, etc.), I do my best to stay on top of the latest developments in primatology and paleoanthro (my first loves). Given the student population at LIU (mostly 1st generation college students from the Caribbean), I find myself teaching voodoo & evolution to Pentecostals much of the time. Keeps me on my toes!

Thanks John! I look forward to jumping in on some great conversations...learning and contributing as much as I can. I've been hoping to join a group like this for a long time, glad I stumbled on it. I'm a bit of a "generalist" teaching in a small department, so this is like being a kid in a candy store.

John, thanks for sharing your updates from Japan. I'm happy to hear that you're safe and well. Keep us informed.