Robert Shanafelt
Biographic Data
| ID | 158048 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Shanafelt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Shanafelt |
| SIGNATURE | SHANAFELT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgia Southern University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
“Ooo Ooo, Aah Aah”
This paper is a preliminary discussion of findings based on observations made at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in 2009 and 2010. Ethnoprimatology and the synonym cultural primatology are names first suggested in the 1990s for the study of human primate relationships and how humans conceive of those relationships Key texts in the field by anthropologists include The work of
Culture as Information
On the Supernatural and Extraordinary Experience
This review describes four disparate books that relate to the anthropology of religion. Each has a distinctive approach, ranges over a wide subject matter, and makes provocative claims. In summarizing and critiquing them most attention is paid to their perspectives on the natural and the supernatural. This leads to consideration of related work in the anthropology of extraordinary experience. It is argued that while our different approaches to th…
Fractured Circles of Race
This paper presents a heuristic model for teaching about human variation and transformations of concepts of race over time. It suggests that key aspects of the complexities related to the topic can be fruitfully discussed by making use of the image of a feedback loop between folk models and scientific models of human kinds and human variations. In order to elucidate this discussion, a brief review of the history of racial thinking and some curren…
Synergy, Meshworks, and the Nature of Anthropology
Textbooks in general anthropology describe the subject as a holistic endeavor with distinct subfields. However, other than paying lip service to the concept of holism, most establish few fundamental links between the biological, social, and linguistic features of the discipline. In this paper I argue that four-field anthropology is best taught not as a set of layered blocks but as a meshwork of interacting layers of complexity. Moreover, the meta…
The nature of flag power
Conventionally, flags are explained as symbols of group solidarity that achieve force through ritual processes. Alternatively, flags may be seen as symbols with positive or negative associations derived from our experiences with physical space. While this article accepts these interpretations, it also argues that they need to be augmented. Flag meaning is not entirely a social or linguistic construction because there is a link between flag displa…
Conservative Critiques of African-American Culture
This essay discusses a set of interlinked criticisms of black-American culture that have been put forward by commentators who are commonly associated with American conservatism. It looks in particular at the works of Dinesh D'Souza, John McWhorter, and Shelby Steele in light of ethnographic accounts of schooling and in terms of perspectives on rationality drawn from Jürgen Habermas and Dan Sperber. While the conservative assessments have the admi…
Magic, miracle, and marvels in anthropology
As ethnographic reports variously relating to magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and shamanism have expanded in recent years, so too has our thinking about them. However, deep epistemological, ontological, and methodological issues remain that cut to the heart of anthropology (Kapferer Citation2003a: 1-2). This paper discusses the concepts of magic and miracle, with a focus on how they have been and are being researched and taught. It argues that events…
How Charles Darwin Got Emotional Expression out of South Africa (and the People who Helped Him)
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Darwin makes brief reference to a 'curious document' obtained from a South African man whom he described as the brother of a prominent chief (1965 [1872]:22). This document was received, not during the brief stop made by the Beagle at the Cape in 1836, but thirty-two years later as a written response to a questionnaire about emotion that Darwin had sent by post to various institutions and associat…
Idols of Our Tribes
This article discusses relativism and the evaluation of belief in contemporary ethnography. Various examples of conflicting beliefs are described, as well as the author's experience of a disagreement with members of a Christian community, the New Order Amish, over the nature of evolution and spirituality. Because conflicts over `truth' are an increasingly prominent feature of our globalizing world, now more than ever they must be dealt with direc…
Knowing Our Limits
Tracing the Topography of Wealth in Lesotho
Bushman Folktales
Books reviewed
Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Pp. viii and 206. £25.00 Dorothy O. Helly, Livingstone's Legacy: Horace Waller and Victorian Mythmaking (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987). Pp. xviii + 404. £37.95. Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism. (London and New York: Longman, 1987). Pp. xiii + 462. £9.95 paperback Phyllis Lewsen, Voices of Protest. (…
The heroic ideal in three Sotho novellas of labour migration
Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance
No abstract
Magic, miracle, and marvels in anthropology
As ethnographic reports variously relating to magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and shamanism have expanded in recent years, so too has our thinking about them. However, deep epistemological, ontological, and methodological issues remain that cut to the heart of anthropology (Kapferer Citation2003a: 1-2). This paper discusses the concepts of magic and miracle, with a focus on how they have been and are being researched and taught. It argues that events…
The nature of flag power
Conventionally, flags are explained as symbols of group solidarity that achieve force through ritual processes. Alternatively, flags may be seen as symbols with positive or negative associations derived from our experiences with physical space. While this article accepts these interpretations, it also argues that they need to be augmented. Flag meaning is not entirely a social or linguistic construction because there is a link between flag displa…
Idols of Our Tribes
This article discusses relativism and the evaluation of belief in contemporary ethnography. Various examples of conflicting beliefs are described, as well as the author's experience of a disagreement with members of a Christian community, the New Order Amish, over the nature of evolution and spirituality. Because conflicts over `truth' are an increasingly prominent feature of our globalizing world, now more than ever they must be dealt with direc…
Conservative Critiques of African-American Culture
This essay discusses a set of interlinked criticisms of black-American culture that have been put forward by commentators who are commonly associated with American conservatism. It looks in particular at the works of Dinesh D'Souza, John McWhorter, and Shelby Steele in light of ethnographic accounts of schooling and in terms of perspectives on rationality drawn from Jürgen Habermas and Dan Sperber. While the conservative assessments have the admi…
How Charles Darwin Got Emotional Expression out of South Africa (and the People who Helped Him)
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Darwin makes brief reference to a 'curious document' obtained from a South African man whom he described as the brother of a prominent chief (1965 [1872]:22). This document was received, not during the brief stop made by the Beagle at the Cape in 1836, but thirty-two years later as a written response to a questionnaire about emotion that Darwin had sent by post to various institutions and associat…
Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance
No abstract
The heroic ideal in three Sotho novellas of labour migration
Books reviewed
Johannes Fabian, Language and Colonial Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Pp. viii and 206. £25.00 Dorothy O. Helly, Livingstone's Legacy: Horace Waller and Victorian Mythmaking (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1987). Pp. xviii + 404. £37.95. Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism. (London and New York: Longman, 1987). Pp. xiii + 462. £9.95 paperback Phyllis Lewsen, Voices of Protest. (…
Bushman Folktales
Tracing the Topography of Wealth in Lesotho
Knowing Our Limits
Idols of Our Tribes
This article discusses relativism and the evaluation of belief in contemporary ethnography. Various examples of conflicting beliefs are described, as well as the author's experience of a disagreement with members of a Christian community, the New Order Amish, over the nature of evolution and spirituality. Because conflicts over `truth' are an increasingly prominent feature of our globalizing world, now more than ever they must be dealt with direc…
How Charles Darwin Got Emotional Expression out of South Africa (and the People who Helped Him)
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Darwin makes brief reference to a 'curious document' obtained from a South African man whom he described as the brother of a prominent chief (1965 [1872]:22). This document was received, not during the brief stop made by the Beagle at the Cape in 1836, but thirty-two years later as a written response to a questionnaire about emotion that Darwin had sent by post to various institutions and associat…
Conservative Critiques of African-American Culture
This essay discusses a set of interlinked criticisms of black-American culture that have been put forward by commentators who are commonly associated with American conservatism. It looks in particular at the works of Dinesh D'Souza, John McWhorter, and Shelby Steele in light of ethnographic accounts of schooling and in terms of perspectives on rationality drawn from Jürgen Habermas and Dan Sperber. While the conservative assessments have the admi…
Magic, miracle, and marvels in anthropology
As ethnographic reports variously relating to magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and shamanism have expanded in recent years, so too has our thinking about them. However, deep epistemological, ontological, and methodological issues remain that cut to the heart of anthropology (Kapferer Citation2003a: 1-2). This paper discusses the concepts of magic and miracle, with a focus on how they have been and are being researched and taught. It argues that events…
Synergy, Meshworks, and the Nature of Anthropology
Textbooks in general anthropology describe the subject as a holistic endeavor with distinct subfields. However, other than paying lip service to the concept of holism, most establish few fundamental links between the biological, social, and linguistic features of the discipline. In this paper I argue that four-field anthropology is best taught not as a set of layered blocks but as a meshwork of interacting layers of complexity. Moreover, the meta…
The nature of flag power
Conventionally, flags are explained as symbols of group solidarity that achieve force through ritual processes. Alternatively, flags may be seen as symbols with positive or negative associations derived from our experiences with physical space. While this article accepts these interpretations, it also argues that they need to be augmented. Flag meaning is not entirely a social or linguistic construction because there is a link between flag displa…
Fractured Circles of Race
This paper presents a heuristic model for teaching about human variation and transformations of concepts of race over time. It suggests that key aspects of the complexities related to the topic can be fruitfully discussed by making use of the image of a feedback loop between folk models and scientific models of human kinds and human variations. In order to elucidate this discussion, a brief review of the history of racial thinking and some curren…
On the Supernatural and Extraordinary Experience
This review describes four disparate books that relate to the anthropology of religion. Each has a distinctive approach, ranges over a wide subject matter, and makes provocative claims. In summarizing and critiquing them most attention is paid to their perspectives on the natural and the supernatural. This leads to consideration of related work in the anthropology of extraordinary experience. It is argued that while our different approaches to th…
“Ooo Ooo, Aah Aah”
This paper is a preliminary discussion of findings based on observations made at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in 2009 and 2010. Ethnoprimatology and the synonym cultural primatology are names first suggested in the 1990s for the study of human primate relationships and how humans conceive of those relationships Key texts in the field by anthropologists include The work of
Culture as Information
Sociology (14 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Anthropology (9 works) · History (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · History (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)