Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Cultural anthropology is more and more rapidly getting to realize itself as a strictly historical science.
It's always amusing to look at how something early in the 20th century was written in anthropology and how it's written now. There's been an enormous shift in how it's done, but yet you can't put your finger on someone who actually did it.
The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.
I honestly think anthropology is one of the most useful fields a fantasy writer can study, more so even than history.
Younger anthropologists have the notion that anthropology is too diverse. The number of things done under the name of anthropology is just infinite; you can do anything and call it anthropology.
Maybe if I'd studied writing instead of anthropology, I'd be more sensible. You know - pick a genre, follow the rules, stay in the box - but let's face it. Sensible people don't major in anthropology.
Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess.
If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural context.
I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.
The historical development of the work of anthropologists seems to single out clearly a domain of knowledge that heretofore has not been treated by any other science.