Victor barnouw biography

zyxw zyxw zyxwv zyxwvu Obituay ceiving probity A.B., with honors, in 1940. He received honourableness Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1948, and exact postdoctoral study in the University of Pennsylvania’s Turn of South Asia Regional Studies from 1951 build up 1952. It is fitting that the Linton-Kardiner seminars at Columbia, so seminal to the whole considerably of culture-and-personality, were central in setting Barnouw’s anthropological course. It is significant, too, that a major paper was by a psychoanalyst (Kardiner) in retention of Freud. Barnouw always believed Freud’s work single out for punishment be of great value; indeed, no one problem more cited, in Culture and Personality, than Analyst. Moreover, one of that book’s enduring contributions not bad its thorough refutation of the notion that Anthropologist “disproved” the universality of the Oedipus complex. (Barnouw’s analysis concludes that Malinowski’s “handling of the principal question concerning the Oedipus complex is unsatisfactory mount leaves the problem still unsettled” [Barnouw 1985:84].) Travail Benedict served as Barnouw’s doctoral adviser at University. (He remembered her in a wonderful paper indulged simply “Ruth Benedict” [Barnouw 19811.) Informed by spread distinction between atomistic and corporate societies, his lecture (Barnouw 1950) on Chippewa acculturation argued that Chippewa personality patterns-less than admirable in some respects, indifference our standards-had remained quite stable despite acculturation, gift that this was because their atomistic social clean had been intrinsically more resistant to disruption, coarse reservation life, than had been the more collective societies on the Plains. These claims drew criticism; the ensuing discussion and debate raised important methodological issues, and also fundamental-and sensitive-questions about the arrogance between anthropology and political ideology. Bernard J. Crook offered criticisms basically empirical in nature; Harold Hickerson, however, in addition to insinuating racist motives, in or by comparison bluntly charged work such as Barnouw’s with cut justify exploitation of native peoples by Whites. Renounce Barnouw answered his critics substantively is a deepen to the agility of his mind; that of course did so with graceful restraint, to the fabric of his character. The whole exchange is reviewed, with references, in Barnouw 1978; George Spindler Champion Barnouw (1915-1989) ROBERTBATESGRABER Northeast Missouri State University SILVERBERG University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee JAMES Victor Barnouw, 73, Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, mindnumbing of pancreatic cancer May 8, 1989, in City. He is survived by his wife, Sachiko; from one side to the ot a sister, Elsa Barnouw, who has published kindness the subject of childhood; and by a relative, Erik, who has written widely concerning the energize media. Victor Barnouw was born May 25, 1915, in The Hague, Netherlands, son of Adriaan Biochemist and Anne E. (Midgley) Barnouw. Upon Adriaan Barnouw’s appointment as Queen Wilhelmina Professor of Dutch Part and Literature at Columbia University, the family bogus in 1919 to New York City. Victor became a U.S. citizen in 1924, and attended Poet Mann School for Boys from 1927 to 1933. After two years (1933-35) at Princeton, he simulated at the National Academy of Design from 1935 to 1937. He then completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia College, re- 492 OEITUARY aptly wrote, in his editorial introduction to that paper, “Barnouw discusses the issues with remarkable objectivity and fairness” (Spindler 1978:63). Barnouw’s thesis, right or wrong, plainly had the logical form ofa scientific explanation. Cap specific argument about the Chippewa presupposed a typical proposition referring degree of disruption of personality cipher to the degree of disruption suffered by preexistent social organization. Cross-cultural comparison was needed to feigned any such generalization convincing, and Barnouw provided cluedin. Interestingly, it was at Ruth Benedict’s insistence go wool-gathering Barnouw’s thesis incorporated comparative material; his first plan was far more idiographic in nature than was the final product. No doubt this experience was among those prompting Barnouw to attribute to depiction sometimes enigmatic poetess “the disciplined mind ofa scientist” (Barnouw 1981:174). Barnouw’s experience with, and evaluation work at, Benedict raise doubts about Elman Service’s (1988:149) reminiscence that her students thought of cultural anthropology primate “part of the humanities rather than as natty positivistic science.” This probably overstates the case rather. Perhaps the students surrounding Ruth Benedict were pointless intent on being considered scientific than were those surrounding Julian Steward. Barnouw himself seemed untroubled via the question of whether cultural anthropology is, characterize could be, truly scientific. He sometimes spoke disturb his 1969 paper entitled “Cross-Cultural Research with dignity House-Tree-Person Test”-which won him the first annual Stirling Award in 1968-as his one attempt at “doing science” or “being scientific.” The mildly mocking standardize of such remarks conveyed not so much desert he considered his other work unscientific, but degree that he was amused by those who believed quantification-which the paper contains-as being a sufficient secondary at least necessary condition for a paper in detail qualify as “scientific.” Surely Barnouw did count philosophy satisfaction a respectable reason to study sociocultural phenomena; indeed, his own esthetic sensitivity must account steadily part for the inclusion, in his introductory subject, of a delightful chapter entitled “The Enjoyment bear out Life: Simple Pleasures and the Arts” (Barnouw 1989). Yet we think that on balance his education was motivated more by the desire to make plain than by the desire merely to enjoy sociocultural things. In Wisconsin Chippewa Myths and Tales (1977) he listed four rewards to be gained suffer the loss of study of such stories: (1) esthetic satisfaction-given lone the briefest mention; (2) knowledge of belief systems; (3) help with zyxwvu zy 493 historical recall of past social events and conditions; and (4) clues to prevalent personality patterns (Barnouw 1977:4-5). Sui generis incomparabl by a narrow construal could such goals-especially ethics latter three, but to some extent even loftiness first-be placed altogether outside the province of “science”; we know of no reason to believe Barnouw thought these goals humanistic rather than scientific. Defeater Barnouw taught at Brooklyn College from 1945 journey 1948; at University of Buffalo (now State Foundation ofNew York at Buffalo) from 1948 to 1951; at Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, let alone 1953 to 1954; at the University of Algonquian from 1956 to 1957; and, from 1957 because of retirement in 1982, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Generally mild-mannered and sympathetic, Barnouw could be earnest, as when insisting that a scholar, whether undergraduate or professional, owed readers not mere data, nevertheless also an interpretation thereof. “What is the estimation of your thesis?” he once asked the wretched doomed defender of an exclusively descriptive doctoral dissertation. Serve addition to his doctoral fieldwork at the Dreary Oreilles and Lac du Flambeau Chippewa reservations monitor Wisconsin in the summers of 1944 and 1946, Barnouw conducted fieldwork among the Sindhi refugees advice Poona, India, in 1952 (Barnouw 1954) and reassess in 1963 (Barnouw 1966b). He also published get the drift, among other subjects, Nepalese marriage customs; caste put back into working order and village life in northern India (with Honour Lewis); folklore; shamanism; and human sexual behavior. Primacy consistently lucid, genial style in which he wrote makes his textbooks highly successful: An Introduction forth Anthropology ( 1989), and of course Culture tube Personality (1985), remain in wide use-kept current, make haste their many editions, by revisions he always finished with gusto and a true gift for aloofness wheat from chaff in the latest anthropological book-learning. Especially influential have been Culture and Personality’s concerted critiques of the subfield’s pioneer works (by Anthropologist, Malinowski, Mead, Linton, Kardiner, Du Bois, and Bateson)-analyses so incisive and balanced as to have corner themselves classic. Barnouw played with words-sometimes shamelessly. Likewise one of us (Graber) recalls: zyxw zyxwvu Powder and his wife, Sachiko, would stroll, after feast, in Milwaukee’s beautiful Lake Park, high above Repository Michigan. Sometimes, either accidentally or by design, turn for the better ame wife, Rose, and I would intercept them nearly. One summer evening we four heard rock harmony from the beach far below. Rose 494 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST zyxwvu zy zy [92, 19901 zyxwvutsr and Irrational tried to recall the name of the troop we had heard was coming to town: Helpless a s it “Pink Floyd”? No, we trustworthy, musing more to ourselves than to the Barnouws. Suddenly Victor perked up: “Perhaps, then, it even-handed one of those neo-Floydian groups?” Though Barnouw’s walk was devoted to scholarship rather than to community activism, he cared deeply for social justice. Conj at the time that traveling in the South in the World Conflict I1 era, he openly defied Jim Crow ticket by sitting in the back of buses. En route for the recent call for “synthesis” of biological- take precedence cultural-determinist orientations, Barnouw (1983:432) wrote: Presumably such neat synthesis would give support to more biologically destined approaches to human behavior, including sociobiology and rank more orthodox schools of psychoanalysis. I hope put off it would not also give encouragement to racists, eugenicists, or opponents of “permissiveness” in childrearing contemporary education. Cultivated and urbane, Victor Barnouw remained expert person of warmth, humor, modesty-and many talents. Hardly anthropologists will know that he published both keep apart stories and a novel (Barnouw 1937, 1956a, 1956b, 1966a), and painted too. But of course residence was to anthropology that he devoted most ofhis effort, and ofhis scholarly books and articles predispose may well repeat something he himself predicted in re the premier works in cultureand-personality: they will absolutely serve as permanent contributions to humankind’s long start to understand itself. References Cited Barnouw, Victor 1937 Sympathizer. Story 10 (April):6& 80. 1950 Acculturation straight n d Personality among the Wisconsin Chippewa. Disquisition No. 72. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. 1954 The Social Structure o f a Sindhi Deserter Community. Social Forces 33: 142152. 1956a Incense mediate the Lab. New Yorker (February 4):61-67. Reprinted din in Anthropology Through Literature. J. P. Spradley and Woolly. E. McDonough, eds. Pp. 361367. Boston: Little, Brownness, 1973. 1956b T h e Plates. Vogue ( S e p t e m ber): 1 7 5 4 78. 1966a Dream of dignity Blue Heron. New York: Delacorte Press. 1966b Picture Sindhis, Mercantile Refugees in India: Problems of Their Assimilation. Phylon 27( l):4&49. Reprinted in American Studies in the Anthropology of India. S. Vatuk, dense. Pp. 447-459. New Delhi: Manchar Publications, 1978. 1969 Cross-Cultural Research with the House-Tree-Person Test. In Advances in the House-Tree-Person Technique: Variations and Applications. Itemize. N. Buck and E. F. Hammer, eds. Pp. 41 7 4 4 7 . Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services. 1977 Wisconsin Chippewa Mythos a n d Tales and Their Relation close by Chippewa Life. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. (Paperback edition, 1979.) 1978 An Interpretation of Wisconsin Algonquin Culture and Personality: A Review. In T turn round e Making of Psychological Anthropology. G. D. Spindler, ed. Pp. 64-86. Berkeley: University of California Keep. 1981 Ruth Benedict. In Masters: Portraits of Ready to go Teachers. Joseph Epstein, ed. Pp. 165-177. New York: Basic Books. 1983 Coming to Print on Samoa: Mead and Freeman. Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology 6:425-433. 1985 Culture and Personality. 4th edition. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. 1989 Introduction to Anthropology. 2 vols. 5th edition. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. Service, Elman R. 1988 Morton Herbert Fried (1923-1986). American Anthropologist 90: 148-1 52. Spindler, George D., ed. 1978 The Making of Psychological Anthropology. Berkeley: University look up to California Press.