Aftershocks of Relativity/Repercussoes da Relatividade

The essay pursues a rereading of Benedict's Patterns of Culture as her probing experiment in search of a temporality appropriate to her aspirations for ethnography. Read between the lines of various of her sources--works by Durkheim, Boas, Einstein, and Bergson--the originality of Patterns is i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAnthropological quarterly Vol. 90; no. 4; pp. 1053 - 1083
Main Author Greenhouse, Carol J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Institute for Ethnographic Research 22.09.2017
Subjects
Analysis
Anthropologists
Benedict, Ruth
Creativity
Criticism and interpretation
Relativism
United States
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Summary:The essay pursues a rereading of Benedict's Patterns of Culture as her probing experiment in search of a temporality appropriate to her aspirations for ethnography. Read between the lines of various of her sources--works by Durkheim, Boas, Einstein, and Bergson--the originality of Patterns is its unfolding of relativity as a series of temporal formulations. In this regard, she brought her powerful ethnographic imagination to bear on the question of what time it is that sustains relativity's ethical and intellectual promise. The purpose of my own experiement with Patterns is not to establish definite connections between her readings and writings, questions and answers, but to grasp something of the bold creativity of her engagement.
ISSN:0003-5491
1534-1518