Ruth Landes : a life in anthropology / Sally Cole.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cole, Sally Cooper, 1951-

Series:

Critical studies in the history of anthropology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Landes, Ruth, 1908-1991.

Landes, Ruth.

Anthropologists--United States--Biography.

Anthropologists.

United States.

Women anthropologists.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xvi, 299 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2003]

Summary:

Ruth Landes (1908-91) is now recognized as a pioneer in the study of race and gender relations. Ahead of her time in many respects, Landes worked with issues that defined the central debates in the discipline at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Ruth Landes, Sally Cole reconsiders Landes's life, work, and career, and places her at the heart of anthropology.

The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, Landes studied under the renowned anthropologist Franz Boas and was mentored by Ruth Benedict. Landes's rejection of domestic life led to an early divorce. Her ideas regarding gender roles also shaped her 1930s fieldwork among the Ojibwa, where she worked closely with Maggie Wilson to produce a masterpiece study of gender relations, The Ojibwa Woman. Her growing prominence and subsequent work in Bahia, Brazil, was marked by outstanding fieldwork and another landmark study, The City of Women. This was a tumultuous time for Landes, who was accused of being a spy, and her remarkable work fed the envy of such prominent scholars as Melville Herskovits and Margaret Mead. Ultimately, however, the errors and excesses that her critics complained of long ago now point us to the innovations for which she is responsible and that give her work its lasting value and power.

Contents:

Part 1 Beginnings

1 Immigrant Daughter 19

2 New Woman 37

3 Student at Columbia 49

Part 2 Apprenticeship in Native American Worlds

4 Maggie Wilson and Ojibwa Women's Stories 71

5 Lusty Shamans in the Midwest 109

Part 3 She-Bull in Brazil's China Closet

6 Fieldwork in Brazil 155

7 Writing Afro-Brazilian Culture in New York 179

8 The Early Ethnography of Race and Gender 203

Conclusion: Life and Career 227

1. Ruth Landes, 1912

2. Ruth's parents

3. Joseph Schlossberg, Ruth, and "Mattie"

4. Anna Grossman, Ruth, and "Mattie"

5. Brookwood School graduation, 1924

6. Ruth, summer 1929

7. Ruth Benedict

8. Ruth at Red Lake, 1933

9. Maggie Wilson

10. Will Rogers

11. In the garden, Museu Nacional de Rio de Janeiro

12. Sabina's festa de Iemanja, Bahia

13. A Festa da Lavagem do Bonfim, Bahia

14. Edison Carneiro

15. E. S. Imes

16. Ruth in London, 1951

17. Ruth in Los Angeles, 1963.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [253]-291) and index.

ISBN:

0803215223

OCLC:

51336552