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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [First Page] [203], (1) Lines: 0 to 38 ——— 1.5774pt P ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [203], (1) introduction Writing the Course “Texts” From the beginning of her teaching career, Ruth Benedict’s responsibilities had been to take over much of the teaching of cultural anthropology from Franz Boas,who often alone,or with visiting faculty,had taught all four fields and all culture areas. She taught religion, mythology, social organization, methods,theory of culture,and native peoples of Australia,Melanesia,North and South America. In 1942–44 she taught Anthropology and Contemporary Problems, the basic graduate work in cultural anthropology, and she had no undergraduate responsibilities except when she replaced Gladys Reichard when Reichard was on leave from Barnard in 1926–27. Each year Benedict gave an advanced seminar, with the topic usually unlisted in the catalog. A student account describes a seminar on personality and culture in 1936– 37 in which each student was expected to assess cultural factors related to personality in the ethnographic literature on a particular culture in a report to the group. That seminar was attended by the psychoanalyst Karen Horney (Harris 1997:8). Personality and Culture was given for the first time as a lecture course in 1946–47. The traditional courses Benedict gave that year, Social Organization of Primitive Peoples and Religions of Primitive Peoples, probably followed her earlier course plans but contained theoretical points and examples from her most recent work. The same is true of Theory,Culture taught the following fall. Each course was constructed as an inclusive statement of its field. Together, they defined her position in anthropology. Several courses culminated in the same points: the last lecture in the course in theory enlarged on the last lecture of Personality and Culture. The courses included discussion of numerous anthropologists’ work and commentary on subjects outside the purview of her publications. The notes used in the course reconstructions in the appendixes are full and indicate high student attention, as the earlier students had said was needed. What differs from the earlier reports is that the notes show courses that were carefully planned and well organized, with progression and culmination. The courses had a semester structure, but her plan and her points were often not easily apparent. An introductory sentence 203 Appendixes Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [204], (2) Lines: 38 to ——— 0.0pt Pg ——— Normal Pag PgEnds: TEX [204], (2) usually identified the day’s lecture topic, but her meaning of the topic might not be clear until the lecture had proceeded or might be returned to after several preliminary subpoints or in a subsequent lecture. All sets of notes become dense and have continuity in the classes when she gave summaries of a whole ethnographic literature on a culture extemporaneously for days in a row. The notes are thinner, and continuity more obscure, when points were made briefly and with undeveloped illustrations. Some observations were left hanging, but it is interesting to see the contexts in which they were broached and the implicit inferences. Notes for a few classes show only bare bones of a lecture. For instance, notes for the first lecture in the fall in Personality and Culture are sketchy, suggesting that the newness of the subject to the students may have lowered our comprehension. Most of the sparsely recorded classes occurred at the end of the winter session, which, according to academic calendars of the time, continued for two weeks of classes after Christmas vacation. Student attendance was erratic in those two weeks; for some classes, there are only one student’s notes. Although there were low points, the contribution these classesmaketothewholecoursestructurecannotbeoverlooked;forexample, in Social Organization of Primitive Peoples Benedict attributed invalidity to several claims of evolutionary sequences, criticisms undeveloped but speci fic and inviting follow-ups. Concluding the first semester of Personality and Culture were three points she seemed to want to explore: one on the possibilities in Bateson’s idea of end-linkage, one on the validity or invalidity of typologies, and a last speculation on...

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