A Genealogy of Method

“This is a bold book, daring to revive but also to reconsider the culture concept within anthropology. Moving with great clarity across American, British, French and German intellectual debates, Hausner provides a powerful response to two questions of central importance to the discipline: do we need to reconceptualize our notion of culture; and if so, how? The result is a work that is historically informed yet utterly timely.” — Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Professor, University of Toronto  “This is a very welcome and insightful attempt to restart a conversation that was central to anthropology not so very long ago.” — Michael Lambek, University of Toronto “A compelling read and deft exploration of anthropology’s core contributions via a series of encounters with its ancestors. Sophisticated and subtle, the argument is thoroughly persuasive—we should reclaim anthropology’s tools, and indeed, today need them more than ever. To read is to rekindle and recommit!” — Julie Hemment, Professor & Chair, Department of Anthropology, UMass Amherst “A Genealogy of Method gets readers to think deeply about the approaches to cross-cultural comparison that became influential in German and Anglophone anthropologies and the reasons why they formed into distinct traditions ––or, at times, managed to mutually shape each other. This highly accessible book highlights in particular the dialogues between anthropology, comparative religion, philology, and history from the nineteenth century to the 1970s.” — Dr. Katherine Swancutt, Reader in Social Anthropology, King’s College London