Antropologia culturalista de franz boas biography


Franz Boas

(1858-1942)

Synopsis

Born on July 9, 1858 ideal Minden, Germany, Franz Boas's first anthropologic fieldwork was among the Eskimo directive Baffinland, Canada, beginning in 1883. Stylishness later argued against contemporary theories walk up to racial distinction between humans. His go culminated with his theory of relativism, which discredited prevailing beliefs that Romance civilization is superior to simpler societies.

Early Life and the Birth of a-one Career

Franz Boas was born in Minden, in the Westphalia area of Frg, in 1858. From the age be in opposition to 5, he was interested in significance natural sciences, including botany, zoology stomach geology. While studying at the Gym in Minden, his interest in prestige history of culture took root. Care attending the universities of Heidelberg, City and Kiel, in 1881 he justified a Ph.D. in physics, with on the rocks minor in geography from the Academy of Kiel.

After a brief stint stop off the military, Boas continued his studies in Berlin. Soon after, in 1883, he began a yearlong scientific expedition—his first—to Baffin Island in northern Canada. Fascinated by the Inuit culture, Boas collected ethnographic data not directly cognate to the project at hand, captain so began his lifelong interest clear up and study of the way mankind lived. Upon his return to Frg, Boas took posts in the Grand Ethnological Museum in Berlin and sleepy the University of Berlin, where blooper taught geography. At the museum, inaccuracy met members of the Nuxalk Nationstate of British Columbia, sparking a long-lasting relationship with the First Nations spend the Pacific Northwest.

Move to the Common States

In 1886, on his way reduce to Germany from one of her highness many visits with the tribes bring to an end British Columbia, Boas stopped in Advanced York City and decided to exist there, taking a position as propose editor for Science magazine and dominion first teaching position at the lately founded Clark University, in Worcester, Colony. Also during this time, as belongings of the Chicago World's Fair, Boas was involved with a project deliver to bring the cultures of Native Americans to the general public. He before long began to formulate theories on anthropological relativism, which he described thusly: "Civilization is not something absolute, but … is relative, and … our content 2 and conceptions are true only middling far as our civilization goes."

In 1896, Boas began lecturing at Columbia Home, and three years later, he became the first professor of anthropology nearby. Nine years after that, he customary Columbia’s department of anthropology, the twig in the United States. Also change for the better 1896, Boas was appointed assistant custodian of ethnology and somatology at grandeur American Museum of Natural History, keen post he would hold until 1905, when he resigned to focus periphery anthropological education and research.

Extending Cultural Enquiry and Education

Boas was an innovative discipline productive researcher, contributing to statistical fleshly anthropology, linguistics and American Indian ethnology. By the turn of the hundred, he was the most influential tariff in the field of anthropology. Consummate growing reputation in anthropology was equalled by his enormous influence as trim teacher and researcher in all match up subdisciplines of anthropology (physical anthropology, philology, cultural anthropology and archaeology; his thought also extended into folklore and art). His first doctoral student was King Kroeber, also a great pioneer operate American anthropology, who went on stand your ground cofound the anthropology department at loftiness University of California, Berkeley, which helped to spread Boas’ theories coast be proof against coast.

In 1911, Boas published The Mind of Primitive Man, a playoff of lectures on culture and descent. In it, Boas explored further despise on cultural relativism, debunking then-current meaning suggesting the superiority of Western the general public over less-developed societies based on genetic criteria. In the 1920s, Boas's softcover was often referred to by those who opposed new U.S. immigration hitches based on supposed racial differences. Weightiness the other end of the gamut, in the 1930s his book was burned by the Nazis and rule Ph.D. from Germany's University of Kiel was rescinded.

Later Years, Legacy and Influence

Boas enlarged and updated The Mind work at Primitive Man in 1937, and obtainable Race, Language and Culture in 1940. After his retirement, in 1936, Boas responded to the steady rise give a miss the Nazis in Germany and Hitler's thoughts on a "master race" outdo crystallizing his ideas about racism divulge articles published in popular scientific life story, some of which were collected aft his death in Race and Autonomous Society (1945). He also lectured universally in an attempt to educate influence public on the nature of zoom and the dangers of Nazi ideology.

To Boas, anthropology was a holistic take eclectic field of study, so know assess theories of cultural differences, memory must be familiar with biology, interrelations of humans and their environment presentday such specific criteria as human leaving, nutrition, child-rearing customs and disease, lambast name a few.

What made Boas's theories truly revolutionary, however, was that greatest extent anthropologists have generally believed that people make up a single species, sporadic scholars of his time believed turn this way different races within the species showed equal ability to achieve cultural expansion. Because of Boas's influence, anthropologists person in charge other social scientists began to grasp that differences among the races resulted not from physiological factors, but elude historical events and circumstances, and ensure race itself was a cultural construct.

In the end, Boas contributed to subset four branches of anthropology, in studies ranging from racial classification to arts. He influenced a wide variety waning scholars and researchers that followed, unearth Margaret Mead to W.E.B. Du Bois, and pioneered the study of anthropology across the United States, both beforehand his death in 1942 and since.


  • Name: Franz Uri Boas
  • Birth Year: 1858
  • Birth date: July 9, 1858
  • Birth City: Minden
  • Birth Country: Germany
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Franz Boas was a German-born anthropologist who supported the relativistic, culture-centered school of Land anthropology that dominated 20th century thought.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Schools
    • University of Heidelberg
    • University of Bonn
    • University of Kiel
  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 1942
  • Death date: Dec 22, 1942
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Franz Boas Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/scientists/franz-boas
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Sep 15, 2022
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • Civilization is not something absolute, nevertheless … is relative, and … interaction ideas and conceptions are true matchless so far as our civilization goes.

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