Study Guide for

G. Stocking’s Victorian Anthropology, Prologue through Chapter 3

Answer the following questions in writing and then email me the complete set of your answers by 11 pm on 2 September (that is the night before our first class).  Please also bring a printed copy of your answers to the class on Friday, 3 September.   

1. Write a one paragraph statement of what you found to be the central point of the discussion of “the Crystal Palace” in the prologue.

2. What time period is covered by chapter one?

3. In chapter one, Stocking discusses, at a breakneck pace, what is likely to be a bewildering array of figures in European intellectual history.  I am assigning each of you one of these figures.  Your task is to prepare a brief sketch (roughly 300 words) that introduces the figure and her/his most prominent intellectual views and accomplishments.  To do this, you should consult appropriate scholarly reference works available at Honnold.  The Encyclopedia Britannica is one place to start; the recent International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences is another work that might be consulted; both of these reference works are available online through the library.  There are other reference works to use as well and you are encouraged to consult with me and the reference librarians at Honnold about these other possibilities. Here is the list that gives you your assigned figure:

1. S. Butler: Auguste Comte

2. A Chapa: Dr. Johnson

3. K. Chew: John Locke

4. C. Gilchrist: Giambattista Vico

5. L. Healey: Montesquieu

6. K. Hoppa: Adam Smith

7. B. Jenner: B. Turgot

8. J. Panayiota: Thomas Malthus

9. K. McManus: Condorcet

10. R. Randel: Johann Gottfried Herder

11. L. Vogel: John Stuart Mill

4. From chapter one, select a brief passage (one paragraph or less) that you suspect makes an important point in the argument but that you found difficult to understand.  I will look at the passages you have each identified and select some of them for us to “work through” and “unpack” collectively in class on Friday.

5. What time period is covered by chapter two?

6. Provide a concise explanation of each of the following terms, phrases, or pair of terms, as they are used in chapter two:

   1. the “ethnological problem” of James Cowles Prichard.

   2. polygenism and mongenism

   3. the revolution in human time (What was the dominant “scientific” understanding of human time before this revolution? What was the dominant “scientific” understanding of human time after this revolution? When did this “revolution” take place?  What precipitated this revolution?  What was the primary source of resistance to this revolution?)

7. What time period is covered by chapter three?

8. From what sorts or categories of persons was the “ethnographic data” of Victorian anthropology obtained.  Briefly explain each category you identify, based on this chapter.