Maria Czaplicka

Gender, Shamanism, Race

Grazyna Kubica, Ben Koschalka

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781496223173
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

This biography of the Polish British anthropologist Maria Czaplicka (1884–1921) is also a cultural study of the dynamics of the anthropological collective presented from a researcher-centric perspective. Czaplicka, together with Bronis?aw Malinowski, studied anthropology in London and later at Oxford, then she headed the Yenisei Expedition to Siberia (1914 – 15) and was the first female lecturer of anthropology at Oxford. Shewas an engaged feminist and an expert on political issues in Northern Asia and Eastern Europe. But this remarkable woman's career was cut short by suicide. Like many women anthropologists of the time, Czaplicka journeyed through various academic institutions, and her legacy has been dispersed and her field materials lost. Gra?yna Kubica covers the major events in Czaplicka's life and provides contextual knowledge about the intellectual formation in which Czaplicka grew up, including the Warsaw radical intelligentsia and the contemporary anthropology of which she became a part. Kubica also presents a critical analysis of Czaplicka's scientific and literary works, related to the issues of gender, shamanism, and race. Kubica shows how Czaplicka's sense of agency and subjectivity enriched and shaped the practice of anthropology and sheds light on how scientific knowledge arises and is produced.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Series Editors’ Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. History of Anthropology as a Contemporary Research Field
• 2. The Anthropological Biography as a New Genre of Historical Writing
• 3. Why Her, Why Me, and Methods of Research and Sources Review
• 4. The Warsaw Radical Intelligentsia at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century
• 5. Maria Czaplicka’s Family Background and Polish Youth
• 6. Love, a Novel, and Poetry in Zakopane
• 7. Female Anthropologists in the British Association for the Advancement of Science
• 8. Women in the Royal Anthropological Institute, Folklore Society, and Royal Geographical Society
• 9. London Studies and the Beginnings of Czaplicka’s English Career
• 10. Robert Marett and Anthropological Research on Religion
• 11. The Ups and Downs of Anthropological Racial Discourse
• 12. The Oxford School of Anthropology and Work on Aboriginal Siberia
• 13. Preparations for the Siberian Expedition and Its Participants
• 14. Summer on the Yenisei and Everyday Fieldwork
• 15. Winter in the Tundra and the Results of the Expedition
• 16. Czaplicka’s Shamanism in Theory and Practice
• 17. Deconstructing the Concept of “Arctic Hysteria”
• 18. Shamans and the Discourse of the Third Sex
• 19. The Intrepid Traveler Returns
• 20. Physical Anthropology and the Concept of Race in Czaplicka’s Research
• 21. My Siberian Year as a Work of Literary Ethnographic Writing
• 22. Feeling at Home at Lady Margaret Hall and a New Life as an Oxford University Lecturer
• 23. A Trip Home and the Situation in Polish Ethnology
• 24. An Anthropologist Engaged in the Public Debate
• 25. America and Disillusionment
• 26. Another Visit to Poland, Work in Bristol, and a Tragic Decision
• 27. Research on Shamanism after Czaplicka and the Response to Her Work
• 28. “Through Arctic Siberia with My Camera,” or Biographies of Maria Czaplicka’s Field Photographs
• 29. Life after Life
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About Grażyna Kubica
• About Ben Koschalka
• Series List