Berichte und Kommentare
593
Vhi-
°Pos 102.2007
preoccupations of the past two decades (voice, nar
rative, authority, agency, and gender as so elegantly
demonstrated by the autobiographical sketches in
this volume) so narrowed our discipline’s foci as to
have made the discipline irrelevant or, at the very
least, nonresonant with many, including most male
Undergraduates?
I hope these ruminations prompt discussion.
I would like to hear the views and experiences of
others about my suspicion that, in our zeal to make
anthropology responsive to our intellectual con
cerns, we may have caused a marginalization of the
discipline as a newly gendered intellectual locus.
I have a quibble, and it is only that, with the
title of the book. “Women in Anthropology” seems
overly broad given the volume’s core theme. My
advertising background will be evident in these
suggestions of alternative titular attention compel-
lers. Maybe something more catchy and to the
Point like “’Late Bloomers:’ (ironic quotes to un
derscore the silliness of such a label as Schweitzer
and Calteli [212] have both duly noted) Women,
Midlife Career Shifts, and Anthropology” would
have gotten more people to pick the book up and
scan its table of contents. (I think of my several
and sometimes simultaneous careers as sequential
blooming.) Or “She Had to Have It! Women, Mid-
Hfe Career Shifts, and the Seduction of Anthropol
ogy” might have prompted greater interest in the
Adume’s contents. And then, of course, there is the
Wonderfully arcade term, opsimathy (coming late
1° education), for the knowledge of which Maria
fatteli (13, 211), thanks to her crossword puzzle-
e uthusiast mother, and to which she introduces us
'hat, surely, as a book title, would have provoked a
Jook see. But then, such titular alternatives are moot
at this point. I must content myself with appropriat-
ln g Maria’s found word and using it to lead off the
title of this review essay.
The contents, though obscured by the book’s too
general title, are well worth a read. In fact, I encour-
a reading of these fascinating self-revelations.
" helps tremendously that a number of the authors
are dam good writers. Maria Calteli’s thoughtful
analysis of and insightful pattern-findings in her in
troductory chapter are most helpful in establishing
a clear overview of the book’s larger and overar
ching themes. To paraphrase one of her graduate
school mentors, Maria (210) writes just about as
well as “anyone I have ever known.” I was (to
use an adolescent phrase) “blown away” by Judy
Rosenthal’s (59-74) luminous prose. Her current
autobiographical voice has clear roots in her early
inspiration to express herself poetically. I suspect
that you will find yourself unable to put down Eliz
abeth Hoobler’s (153-162) painfully honest ac
count of her intellectual struggle with her attempts
to rectify belief with academic science. And Jean
Harris’s (163-172) moving description of what it
was like to be African-American and female in
academia is not to be missed as well. Women of
all ages should be inspired by the success stories
of these plucky, not to be denied, anthropology
Ph.D.s. They not only had to have, but got it - so
can you.
References Cited
Cattell, Maria G., and Marjorie M. Schweitzer (eds.)
2006 Women in Anthropology. Autobiographical Narratives
and Social History. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Conroy, James
2004 Betwixt and Between. The Liminal Imagination, Educa
tion, and Democracy. New York: Peter Lang
Kondo, Dorinne
(in progress) (Re)visions of Race. Performance, Ethnography,
and Politics in Motion. [Book manuscript]
Mead, Margaret
1970 Culture and Commitment. Garden City; Doubleday.
1972 Blackberry Winter. My Earlier Years. New York: Wil
liam Morrow.
Schweitzer, Marjorie (ed.)
1999 American Indian Grandmothers. Traditions and Transi
tions. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Sokolovsky, Jay (ed.)
1990 The Cultural Context of Aging. Worldwide Perspectives.
New York: Bergin and Garvey.