Skip to main content

Franz boas Biography

Franz Boas

(Minden, present-day Germany, 1858-New York, 1942) American anthropologist of German origin.He studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn, and in 1881 he received a doctorate in physics and geography from the University of Kiel.In 1883-1884 he carried out an expedition among the Eskimos of Baffin Island, and in 1886 he participated in a scientific expedition through the Canadian region of British Columbia and the United States, the latter country where he decided to settle in 1887.After teaching in several American universities, in 1899 he entered Columbia University, where he directed the most influential anthropology department in the country, contributing with his teaching work to the formation of a whole school of young anthropologists; his disciples include such relevant figures as Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, as well as the German linguist Edward Sapir.

Franz Boas

Specialist in the languages ​​and cultures of the American Indian society, he was the founder of the relativistic school, whose field of study was the culture and its evolution from primitive societies.In its conception, each culture is a unit formed by a set of interrelated and dependent elements whose function must be analyzed.His ideas were opposed, in this sense, to evolutionary theses, which attributed an excessive importance to the notion of independent cultural development, and which, using a generalized comparative method, prevented considering the cultural achievements of each group as a living whole.

For Boas, each culture represents an original development conditioned by both the social and geographical environment, as well as the way in which it uses and enriches cultural materials from abroad or from its own creativity ; consequently, it makes no sense to speak of inferior or superior cultures.Different cultures must be studied from within, and not from the ethnocentric perspective of an observer situated in an alien and "superior" culture.Only after having carried out this study can the comparison of tribal histories be attempted, with the aim of arriving at the eventual formulation of general laws of development.

In 1911 he wrote The mind of primitive man , a work that was considered, since its publication, as one of the fundamental texts of anthropology, a discipline that Boas contributed greatly to settle and spread.In the field of pre-Columbian languages, Boas wrote the important introduction to the Handbook of American Indian Languages ​​ (1911) and established its basic approaches; in 1917 he founded the International Journal of American Linguistics .He was also a co-founder of the American Anthropological Association and, since 1931, president of the American Association for the Development of Science.His numerous works include Primitive Art (1928), Anthropology and Modern Life (1929) and the collection of essays Race, language and culture (1940).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Social classes in the Roman Empire: Patricios, Noble Commoners and Gentlemen Commoners

The Roman Empire has been one of the most powerful, extensive and important in the history of Humanity.Many peoples fell under the yoke of Rome, and today you can still admire the architectural remains of a civilization that reached a splendor almost absolute.However, in the Roman Empire there were great differences between the different strata that made up the society.Although from the oldest civilizations there were already different orders or "classes", today we focus on the different social classes in the Roman Empire: Patricios, Noble Commoners and Gentlemen Plebeians . Social classes in the Roman Empire The Roman civilization is one of the most complex societies of universal history.Given its long duration (since 8th century BC until the 5th century AD ) historians have divided the History of Rome into different historical periods: Monarchy, Republic of Empire .Today I propose you to enter the most splendid years of the Roman Empire ( sI and II BC .),
Post a Comment
Read more

The Church in the Middle Ages: influence and power

In a previous post we talked about Christianity and how I influence during the Middle Ages .Time of greater prominence and both political and economic power.We will tell you what exactly this power consisted of and how it was held ideologically. Index of the article The Middle Ages The Middle Ages is one of the most fascinating stages in history, a period that is strongly characterized by the existence of the Feudal System or Feudalism .A world of nobles, peasants, tributes, vassals, feuds, and weakened monarchies.But beyond this, the medieval world was dominated by the Catholic Church or Christian.that is essential that in order to understand the development of the middle ages, we investigate in depth the importance of Medieval Church . D In fact, we can say that the Catholic church had an influence on all the orders of life of the medieval age, and no sector of society remained oblivious to these influences. Various circumstances explain this extraordinary ecclesi
Post a Comment
Read more

José María Trías de Bes Biography

José María Trías de Bes (Barcelona, ​​1891-1965) Spanish lawyer and politician.He developed his professional career in the academic field and in public life where, among other positions, he was a member of the International Tribunal in The Hague. From his youth he sympathized with the conservative nationalism of Cambó and, now a distinguished jurist, was a deputy to the Catalan Parliament and Parliament for the Regionalist League and for the renamed Catalan League, in the turbulent years of the Spanish Restoration.He held the chair of International Law at the University of Barcelona and in 1928 he was appointed associate member of the Institute of International Law. He published several works of analysis on his specialty, among which are Private International Law Studies and Public and Private International Law .Until his death he also held the presidency of the company SAEMAR (Socidad Anónima Española de Empresas Marítimas), which since its foundation in 1932 became the firs
Post a Comment
Read more

Elizabeth I of Russia Biography

Elizabeth I of Russia (Elizabeth Petrovna Romanova; Kolomenskoie, 1709-Saint Petersburg, 1762) Empress of Russia (1741-1762) of the Romanov dynasty, daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I He occupied the throne after the fall of Ana Leopoldovna, regent of Ivan VI, with the support of the military.He carried out some important reforms: restoration of the Senate, creation of a supreme political council and abolition of internal customs; he also founded the University of Moscow (1755).It favored the nobility, whose power grew remarkably; the lower classes, on the contrary, saw their situation aggravated.His foreign policy was characterized by the confrontation with Prussia and a rapprochement with England and Austria. Elizabeth I of Russia Before governing, Elizabeth I of Russia had to contemplate, after the death of his father, the reign of his mother Catherine I (1725-1727); of his nephew Pedro II, son of his stepbrother Alejo (1727-1730); of his cousin Ana Ivanovna (1730-17
Post a Comment
Read more

Eduardo Úrculo Biography

Eduardo Úrculo (Santurce, 1938-Madrid, 2003) Spanish painter.A decisive creator in the history of the avant-garde in Spain, Eduardo Úrculo was the promoter of pop art in Spain and, together with the late Equipo Crónica, one of its highest representatives.Although throughout his artistic career he went through various styles, from the social expressionism of his beginnings to the neo-cubism of some paintings in recent years, it was within the current of pop art where his work was manifested with a more audacious language and personal.Throughout his life, he held countless exhibitions, some of them as important as the one dedicated to him in 1997 by the Cultural Center of the Villa de Madrid or the anthological exhibition offered by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas in 2000. Eduardo Úrculo Eduardo Úrculo was born on September 21, 1938 in the Biscayan town of Santurce.In 1941, the rigors and hardships after the Civil War led his family to move to Sama de Langreo, a small, an
Post a Comment
Read more

John naber Biography

John Naber (Evanston, Illinois, 1956) American swimmer, winner of four gold medals and one silver at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.He achieved his first major sporting success at the Championships of the 1973 Swimming World by getting the bronze medal in 200 meters backstroke.As a member of the University of Southern California team, he went on to win fifteen championships, and set a record of ten NCAA finals won, against twelve.In 1975 he participated in the Pan American Games, where he won three gold medals; In total, throughout his career, he won 25 national titles. John Naber At the Montreal Olympics (1976) he was the real deal "King of the pool" and one of the sensations of those games: in the 200-meter backstroke test, he won the victory and broke the world record with a mark of 1: 59.19 hundredths, the first time he had dropped below 2 minutes, and he repeated in the short distance of the specialty, the 100 meters backstroke, where he again broke the record with a
Post a Comment
Read more

Abu Bakr al-Razi [Rhazes] Biography

Abu Bakr al-Razi [Rhazes] (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi; ar-Rayy, c .865-Baghdad ?, c .923) Persian physician, alchemist and philosopher.Known in medieval Europe by the name of Rhazes, he is considered, along with Avicenna, the most notable doctor in the Arabic language.Among the more than fifty works attributed to him, we must highlight Continens , a medical encyclopedia used in Europe until the 16th century, and On Smallpox and Scarlet fever .He also wrote more than forty works on philosophy (logic, metaphysics and theology), in which he revealed the influence of Plato and his belief in the impossibility of reconciling religion and philosophy. Al-Razi or Rhazes Born in the Persian town of ar-Rayy (from which he takes his name), the activity of this famous Arab doctor was not limited to the practice of medicine; his studies also covered alchemy, philosophy, mathematics and physics.Apparently, he was in Spain and lived in Córdoba for some time.His most important w
Post a Comment
Read more

Adolfo Suarez Biography

Adolfo Suárez (Adolfo Suárez González; Cebreros, 1932-Madrid, 2014) Spanish politician, key figure in the Spanish democratic transition.Doctor of Law, he began his political career as civil governor of Segovia (1968).In 1975 he participated in the founding of the Democratic Union of the Spanish People (UDPE), a group that he would later preside over. Adolfo Suárez After the death of Francisco Franco, King Juan Carlos I appointed him president of the government to replace Carlos Arias Navarro; Adolfo Suárez then immediately began a dialogue with the different political forces.In August 1976 an amnesty was effective for politically motivated crimes, persecuted by the previous regime.The measure had been demanded by a wide sector of Spanish society.His government prepared the Law for Political Reform, the content of which proposed a transition without traumatic ruptures with the previous regime. Legalized the socialist and communist parties, as well as the different unions existi
Post a Comment
Read more

Abraham Lincoln Biography

Abraham Lincoln (Hodgenville, United States, 1809-Washington, 1865) American lawyer and politician who was the 16th president of the United States (1861-1865).Always evoked as the president who abolished slavery, Abraham Lincoln is one of the most admired figures in American history; honesty, strength of spirit, and depth of thought and conviction, evident in his writings and speeches, stand out among the virtues of a statesman whose performance was not without hesitation. Abraham Lincoln Unfortunately, when Lincoln assumed the presidency, a national crisis that had lasted since the beginning of the century was reaching its culmination: the confrontation between the dynamic and modern industrial societies of the northern states, which rejected slavery, and the aristocracy of the southern landowners, who owned huge plantations that employed millions of slaves, and who saw the abolition of slavery as the end of their way of life. In 1820, by the Missouri Compromise, the country
Post a Comment
Read more