CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS (FALL 2004)

© [All Rights Reserved.] Placed on the World Wide Web on October 13, 2004, for Professor William Loker's ANTH 300, at California State University, Chico, on October 20, 2004. Urbanowicz received his B.A. (1967) from Western Washington University and the M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1972) from the University of Oregon. Charlie taught at the University of Minnesota in 1972-1973 and came to Chico in August 1973.

I. INTRODUCTION
II. EDUCATION, TEACHING, DARWIN, BACK TO THE PACIFIC, AND RETIREMENT....(AND BEYOND!)
III. VARIOUS IDEAS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND INDIVIDUALS
IV. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
V. ON-GOING CONCLUSIONS?
VI. PS
VII. URBANOWICZ SELECTED WEB REFERENCES (IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)
VIII. OCTOBER 2004 POSTSCRIPT: SEARCH ENGINE REFERENCES
IX. SELECTED APPROPRIATE VISUALS:

I. INTRODUCTION

My last appearance at the ANTH 300 seminar was in fall 2002 (and prior to that in fall 1999) and I create "web pages" to capture some of my enthusiasm (and information) for virtually all of my classes; the pages for those previous ANTH 300 presentations(1999 and 2002d) are in the web references below (as well as other web pages).

My "passion" continues to be Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and while I will only briefly mention Darwin (and my ANTH 303 seminar in spring 2005: Cultural Anthropology Seminar: Charles Darwin), I will talk more about my own intellectual development, how I came to be where I am today, and what my potential "retirement" plans are at the end of the 2004-2005 academic year! You are encouraged to look at as many of the web pages as possible, perhaps beginning with my "home page" [http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/] and then going to other items of your choice.

The personality and background of every anthropologist influences what he or she is interested in, be it Darwin or.... anything. One cannot avoid the personality of the individual observer and as one has written:

"The Russians have a proverb: He lies like an eyewitness. Few eyewitnesses see it all, fewer still understand all the implications. And their reports are always personal. Yet what they see is essential. History begins with people caught in the moment-by-moment rush of events. The correspondent on the scene shares the jolt of joy or horror in watching the world change in an instant. Personal bias becomes part of the story, and often makes the account more vivid [stress added]." David Colbert [Editor], 1997, Eyewitness to America: 500 Years of America in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happen (NY: Pantheon Books), page xxvii.

To me, this statement is similar to one made by the distinguished British Social Anthropologist, Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) on a videotape (available in the Ethnographic Laboratory in Butte 305):

"And so for anthropology, you are studying not just as an observer but also as a participant; you are not just a member of the audience, you are also on the stage. To understand the Nuer, you've got to learn to think as the Nuer, to feel as a Nuer, in a kind of way to be a Nuer. And this can't be done in any kind of scientific technique; and this is why the anthropologist I think is in a very peculiar position because he's trying to interpret what he sees not just with the head but with his own personality, with his heart as well." Strangers and Friends, Videotape # 325.

I utilize numerous quotes in my papers, presentations, and publications, following the (translated) words of the French essayist Montaigne (1533-1591): "I quote others only the better to express myself." I also appreciate the words of R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) who once spoke on this campus several decades ago: "Whatever resolves uncertainty is information. Power will accrue to the man [or woman!] who can handle information." Please note, that in virtually all that I do, I provide the listener (or reader) with information pertaining to the birth and death of the individual that I cite: in essence, just as the anthropologist stresses "culture" so do I stress the "context' of the individual.

"He had a term for people like this: temporal provincials--people who were ignorant of the past, and proud of it. Temporal provincials were convinced that the present was the only time that mattered, and that anything that had occured earlier could be safely ignored. The modern world was compelling and new, and the past had no bearing on it [stress added]." Michael Crichton, 1999, Timeline (NY: Ballantine Books), page 84.

Michael Chrichton (born October 23, 1942) received his A.B. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1965. (For comparison purposes, I was born on September 23, 1942.) Chrichton was once a "Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Cambridge University" and he has written numerous novels (some with an anthropological twist) and I freely admit that I am an individual who believes in the importance of chronology. I am biased, and for decades I have believed that the most important course in the anthropology curriculum is one that deals with the history of the discipline, since with historical background (blended with anthropological insight), one gets to appreciate the development of anthropology and one is allowed to formulate his or her own theories to deal with the interpretation(s) of anthropologists about culture(s). (This was the basic point made in a 1993 presentation.) Consider, if you will, the article from the June 2002 issue of California Monthly, dealing with "Anthropology" at the University of California, Berkeley:

"Now, as American anthropology enters its second century, the call to reinvent is being heard once more, and nowhere more loudly than at Berkeley, where anthropologists set the trend for the discipline." Ayala Ochert, 2002, One Hundred Years of Attitude: Anthropology. California Monthly: The Magazine of the California Alumni Association, June, Vol. 112, No. 6, pages 20-24, page 20.

If one does not know of "the past" how can one possibly reinvent for the future? In writing about the Department at Berkeley and Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960), Ochert writes that "Kroeber was the first Ph.D. student of the founder of American Anthropology, Franz Boas" (page 21). While Kroeber was the first student of Boas to receive his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1901 (on Arapaho decorative symbolism), Kroeber was not the first Ph.D. in anthropology in this country. In writing about Franz Boas (1858-1842), Marshall Hyatt pointed out that Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts, was the location of a docentship for Franz Boas in 1890 and 1891:

"During this time Boas achieved a milestone in the History of American Anthropology. In 1892 the university conferred on Alexander Chamberlain [1865-1914] a doctorate in anthropology. It was the first such academic honor bestowed in America, and Boas took pride in having directed Chamberlain's study [stress added]." Marshall Hyatt, 1990, Franz Boas--Social Activist: The Dynamics of Ethnicity, page 27.

"Clark [University] attained the distinction of granting the first American Ph.D. in anthropology to Alexander Francis Chamberlain (1865-1914) in 1892. Chamberlain was a Canadian, who had obtained an M.A. in modern languages from the University of Toronto... [stress added]." Regna Darnell, 1998, And Along Came Boas: Continuity And Revolution In Americanist Anthropology (Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.), page 108.

Again, how can one reinvent the future if one doesn't have an accurate view of the past?

II. EDUCATION, TEACHING, DARWIN, BACK TO THE PACIFIC, AND RETIREMENT....(AND BEYOND!)

I received my B.A.(1967) in Sociology/Anthropology from Western Washington University and the M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1972) in Anthropology from the University of Oregon. My first full-time teaching experience was at in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota over the 1972-1973 Academic Year (although I did serve as a "Teaching Assistant" one semester at the University of Oregon and was a "Research Assistant" while at Western). After graduating high school in 1960, I attended New York University in 1960-1961 and flunked out at the end of my freshman year. I enlisted in the United States Air Force (1961-1965) and while stationed at a small radar station in Washington State (1962-1965), I began to take various Anthropology courses. After I was Honorably Discharged in 1965 I went on to complete my B.A. (1967), M.A. (1969), and Ph.D. (1972) in seven years. (Fieldwork for the Ph.D. was conducted in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga in 1970 and 1971, combined with archival research in major libraries in Hawai'i, Australia, and New Zealand). Incidentally, a 1991 report pointed out that for Anthropology, the median time from the B.A. to the Ph.D. was 12.4 years. For comparison purposes, it was pointed out that for Psychology it was 10.1 years and for Economics 9.1 years from B.A. to Ph.D. R. L. Peters, 1992, Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide To Earning A Master's Or A Ph.D. (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux), page 12.

I was "turned on" to anthropology while at Western and the first course I ever took was from Lionel Tiger (who was teaching an "extension" course on my military base): I think I received a "C" in that course! (Lionel is now the "Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology" at Rutgers University and, after a lapse of a few decades, we entered into e-mail correspondence some years ago!) The individual who really made me consider being an anthropologist (and a Professor of Anthropology) was Dr. Herbert C. Taylor, Jr. (1924-1991), an individual with a eidetic memory who could lecture for an entire quarter term without a single note on a fascinating topic: anthropology. Another early instructor at Western was Dr. Angelo Anastasio (1915-2002): note that they are both dead. As my instructors have passed away I have noted that my peers are also dying: Keith Morton was a fellow graduate student of mine at the University of Oregon (a few years younger than I), who also did his fieldwork in Tonga just about the same time as I did mine and who also received his Ph.D. in 1972. Born in 1945, Keith died in 1998. I have come to appreciate the following words of Isaac Asimov (1920-1992):

"However, as I grew older, the obituary page slowly became at once more important to me and more threatening. It has become morbidly obsessive with me now. I suspect this happens to a great many people. Ogden Nash [1902-1971] wrote a line that I have always remembered: 'The old men know when an old man dies.' With the years, that line has become ever more poignant to me. After all, an old person to one who has known him for a long time is not an 'old person' but is much more likely to be thought of as the younger person who inhabits our memory, vigorous and vibrant. When an old person dies who has been a part of your life, it is part of your youth that dies. And although you survive yourself, you must watch death take away the world of your youth, little by little [stress added]." Janet Jeppson Asimov, 2002, Isaac Asimov: It's Been a Good Life (NY: Prometheus Books), pages 242-243.

Death has also struck this department: Dr. Arthur C. Lehmann was a colleague of mine in the Department of Anthropology since my first days here: born in 1930, Art died in 1999.

Since joining the faculty of this institution in August 1973 I have been both an administrator and full-time teaching faculty member. Over the years 1975-1977 I was the Social Science Coordinator, housed in the College of Behavioral And Social Sciences and over the years 1977-1988 I was the Associate Dean in The Center for Regional and Continuing Education. I took a sabbatical in 1988-1989 and then returned to full-time teaching. (I also had a second sabbatical in 1997.) After being nominated by Professor Turhon Murad, I was selected as a "Master Teacher" of California State University, Chico for the 1997-1999 academic years and I have provided a web page that about this: http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/archive/97_10_23/enthusiasm.html. I have also placed http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/FARFall2004.html on the web. At one point in time all faculty had to do an "Activity Report" every year because of the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) and although it is no longer required, I found it very valuable and continue to create the document. The latest page covers my academic activities for the period of July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, and it attempts to document the fact that faculty are not only required to teach, but also do research, be involved in university activities ("committees"), and be involved with the community. You might be interested in http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/30YearsPartTwoAnthroForums.html, which covers the various "Anthropology Forums" I have presented at public lectures on this campus since 1973 (and please see Figure 1 below).

California State University, Chico or "Chico State" will probably never lose the "party image" that it has (regardless of how many rankings occur!): when I was coming out here in 1973, Playboy magazine had recently identified Chico as a "party school" and in the October 1987 issue of Playboy, Chico was ranked #1: "It's so hot here that it'll make your skin bubble" (page 136); San Diego State was ranked third. Unfortunately, one can read the following Orin Starn's 2004 Ishi's Brain:

"We stopped for dinner in Chico. This early Anglo outpost with the Spanish name has grown into a spreading town of almost seventy thousand people. Although the local state university may be best known as one of America's top ten party schools, a visitor to Chico can also tour the award-winning Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and the restored Victorian mansion of founding father John Bidwell [1819-1900], with an adjacent museum." Orin Starn, 2004, Ishi's Brain: In Search of America's Last "Wild" Indian (NY: W. W. Norton & Co.), pages 267-268.

Although I don't believe we have been ranked in the top ten for this year (or many previous years!) and the population of Chico is slightly over 101,000, this hasn't apparently caught up with Starn. (Please click on the following highlighted locations for additional information about the city of Chico, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, or John Bidwell.) Incidentally, Chico State is ranked very highly in the US News and World Report rankings of Liberal Arts colleges in the West!

My own teaching philosophy, developed over years, is one where I atempt to keep things "simple" and I interpret my version of anthropology as simple as the ABCs: The Appreciation of Basic Cultural Diversity Everywhere and have written and published on this topic: "Mnemonics, Quotations, Cartoons, And A Notebook: "Tricks" For Appreciating Cultural Diversity." Teaching Anthropology (2000), Edited by Patricia Rice and David McCurdy (NJ: Prentice-Hall), pages 132-140. I appreciate (and believe in) the words of another favorite anthropologist of mine (with whom I had one exchange of "snail" mail with before she died):

"The anthropologist is a human instrument studying other human beings and their societies. Although he [and she!] has developed techniques that give him [and her] considerable objectivity, it is an illusion for him to think he can remove his [or her] personality from his work and become a faceless robot or a machinelike recorder of human events [stress added]." Hortense Powdermaker [1896-1970], 1966, Stranger And Friend: The Way Of An Anthropologist, page 19.

I have been interested in Charles R. Darwin since 1965 and have already mentioned the spring 2005 seminar on Darwin. In summarizing my view: I attempt to "humanize" Charles R. Darwin and place him within the context of his times, and discuss some of the impact (and interpretations) of his ideas. Working with others, we have created four videotapes wherein I portray Darwin in the first person. An interesting statement by a Darwin scholar is the following:

"The fact is that Charles Darwin was in almost all respects a fairly standard example of the nineteenth century student, well off, active in field sports, working hard enough to avoid academic failure, but a long way from academic success." Peter Brent 1981, Charles Darwin: A Man Of Enlarged Curiosity (NY: Harper & Row), page 89.

Darwin definitely proved many individuals wrong, and nothing is as clear as his monumental 1859 publication (and subsequent editions of 1860, 1861, 1866, 1869, and 1872): On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life [Note: this is the on-line version of the 1859 edition]; Darwin himself was to write in his Autobiography that the Origin "is no doubt the chief work of my life [stress added]" (Nora Barlow, 1958, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored Edited With An Appendix And Notes By His Grand-Daughter, page 122); and a succinct statement on Charles Darwin is the following:

"He was an Englishman who went on a five-year voyage when he was young and then retired to a house in the country, not far from London [sixteen miles southeast]. He wrote an account of his voyage, and then he wrote a book setting down his theory of evolution, based on a process he called natural selection, a theory that provided the foundation for modern biology. He was often ill and never left England again [stress added]." John P. Wiley, Jr., 1998, Expressions: The Visible Link. Smithsonian, June, pages 22-24, page 22.

Conrad Kottak's Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity (2004, Tenth Edition), does point out the role of Charles R. Darwin: "Darwin offered natural selection as a principle that could explain the origin of species, biological diversity, and similarities among related life forms [stress added]" (page 87). Unfortunately, from my biased position (and personality), and even though Kottak is an introductory textbook, I don't believe he provides enough "historical" information on how ideas came into being or how ideas were developed and/or rejected over time. To me, when Kottak writes that "[American] Anthropology developed into a separate field as early scholars worked on Indian (Native American) reservations and traveled to distant lands to to study small groups of foragers and cultivators" I contextualize this statement with his preceeding paragraph (on the same page, 324), where he simply stated: "Cultural anthropology started to separate from sociology around the turn of the 20th century [stress added]." It was, I wish to write, a little more "complex" than that. 

"One who makes a close study of almost any branch of science soon discovers the great illusion of the monolith. When he [or she] stood outside as an uninformed layman, he [or she] got a vague impression of unanimity among the professionals. He [or she] tended to think of science as supporting the Establishment with fixed and approved views. All this dissolves as he [or she] works his [or her] way into the living concerns of practicing scientists. He [and she] finds lively personalities who indulge in disagreement, disorder, and disrespect. He [and she] must sort out conflicting opinions and make up his [and her] own mind as to what is correct and who is sound. This applies not only to provinces as vast as biology and to large fields such as evolutionary theory, but even to small and familiar corners such as the species problem. The closer one looks, the more diversity one finds [stress added]." Norman Macbeth, 1971, Darwin Retried: An Appeal To Reason (NY: Dell Publishing Co.), page 18.

In my own approach to Darwin I attempt to understand some of Darwin's scientific research, specifically his monumental 1859 publication entitled On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life and how it (and Charles Darwin) has been interpreted over time. I look at who influenced Darwin, his various travels, and interpretations of the evidence he gathered. The 1937 Hungarian-American Nobel Prize winner for Physiology/Medicine, Albert Szent-Györgyi [von Nagyrapolt] (1893-1986), wrote that a scientist should "see what everybody else has seen and then think what nobody has thought" and it has been written that "nobody did this better than Charles Darwin, who first realized that the evolution of life took place by Natural Selection" (J. Livingston and L. Sinclair, 1967, Darwin And The Galapagos, n.p.). One of my favorite quotes concerning Darwin comes from the second volume of Janet Brown's magnificent work on Darwin and perhaps I have tried to incorporate "the accumulative powers of the small" in everything that I do:

"He [Charles Darwin] believed that the natural world was the result of constantly repeated small and accumulative actions, a lesson he had first learned when reading Lyell's Principles of Geology on board the Beagle and had put to work ever since. ... No one, not even Lyell himself, or any of Darwin's closest friends and supporters, accepted as ardently as Darwin that the book of nature was about the accumulative powers of the small [stress added]." Janet Browne, 2002, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place - Volume II of a Biography (NY: Alfred A. Knopf), page 490.

In my courses (and the future seminar), I look at at Darwin's influence in anthropology and how Darwin's numerous ideas have been used (and mis-used). Darwin was an important individual for a variety of reasons: the data he collected, the experiments he conducted, and the theory he proposed influenced a variety of disciplines, from anthropology to zoology as well as ecology, ethology, geology, and the general social sciences. His influence continues to be condemned, debated, and supported after almost 150 years. I am personally conducting my on-going research into Darwin with an eye towards the year 2009 which will be the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The year 2008 will also be important as the sesquicentennial year of the joint Darwin-Wallace papers in 1858:

"On 1 July 1858 Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace [1823-1913] made the first public statement of their theory of evolution by natural selection before the Linnaean Society of London, and their papers were published on 20 August of the same year. The eighteen pages which they covered were among the most pregnant ever printed, and deserve to rank with those of Isaac Newton, since they provide for the realm of living beings the first general principle capable of universal application [stress added]." Sir Gavin De Beer, 1958, Charles Darwin And Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution By Natural Selection, page 1.

Incidentally, there is one point I consistently make in any presentation or paper about Darwin: "change" might well be his middle name! Please consider, if you will, the changes that occured in his celebrated 1859 magnum opus, taken from Morse Peckham [Editor, 1959] The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: A Variorum Text (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press):

What Darwin do you know? (Please see Figures 4, and 5 at the end of this page.) If one is reluctant to read ALL of Darwin's Origin, there is a delightful book by Maurice Sagoff (1970) which is called to your attention: Shrinklits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down To Size (New York: Workman Publishing) wherein the following appears on page 99:

Information on a forthcoming campus conference later this month is on the web (including links to the four first-person Darwin videos available on the web as well as various "Darwin Self-Tests" that I have created for classroom use). I have also published about portraying Darwin in the first person as follows:

"A few years ago, I decided to appear in class as a theorist, in this case, Charles Darwin, and present his (now my character's) thoughts about his research and theory and his response to some of his critics in a way that would more closely involve students. Appearing as Darwin, in costume (and shaved head) is not a new idea: Zoology professor Richard Eakin portrayed great scientists in his classes at Berkeley in the 60s and 70s. (See Eakin 1975 [Great Scientists Speak Again. University of California Press]) I have presented Darwin in the first person since 1990. Students could listen to Darwin as a person, and ask him questions about his theory and contributions to science. Recently, I converted the presentation to video tape and show several visuals showing Darwin's place in 19th century scientific thought. Sudents seem to like this approach and display increased involvement and enthusiasm about theory [stress added]." Charles F. Urbanowicz, 2002, Teaching as Theatre. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, Second Edition (2002), edited by Patricia Rice & David W. McCurdy, Editors (NJ: Prentice Hall), pages 147-149, page 147.

As I have written (and published) about Darwin elsewhere:

"Perhaps no individual has done as much as Charles Robert Darwin did to help us (at least partially) to understand the question: 'why are there so many different kinds of living things?' A decisive event that led to his perspective on the question was when he was chosen by Captain Robert FitzRoy [1805-1865] to be the "gentleman naturalist" on board HMS Beagle (with no naval duties to perform). Darwin, however, conducted a great deal of research and in April 1832 Robert McCormick (1800-1890), who was the official naturalist on the Beagle, was "invalided out" back to England and Darwin was the naturalist for the rest of the voyage. His observations in the Galápagos are particularly important to the evolution of his own thinking: 'The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and well deserves attention. … Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact--that mystery of mysteries--the first appearance of new beings on this earth." [stress added]'" Charles F. Urbanowicz, 2002, There Is A Grandeur in This View of Life. Darwin Day Collection One: The Best Single Idea Ever (2002) edited by Amanda Chesworth et al. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Tangled Bank Press), pages 67-70, page 67.

I have been to the Galápagos Islands (2000) but my own fieldwork was in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga in 1970-1971 and although the World Wide Web was not available then, I have placed some of my older professional papers (both pre-and post Ph.D.) on the World Wide Web: http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1971TonganPaper.html and http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1972TonganPaper.html.

I encourage students to attend various anthropological meetings and in November 2004, the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association will be held in San Francisco. In November 2003, at the annual meeting in Chicago, there were 5,035 individuals in attendance and a total of 2,846 papers were presented! Clearly, there is interest in anthroplogy! When I attended my first national meeting in Seattle in 1968, there were a total of 370 papers presented. When the annual meetings were held in San Francisco in 1992 there were 5,161 individual registered and 2,274 papers were presented. There has been growth in my time! (Please see Figure 2 at the end of this web page.) Incidentally, according to the "Preliminary Program" in the September 2004 Anthropology News, there will be plenty to see in San Francisco in November 2004:

"This year, our members submitted 3579 papers (396 more than the last time the meeting was held in San Francisco [1996]). After the section program chairs looked them over and organized individually-volunteered papers into panels, there were a total of 593 panels to schedule in 474 room slots [stress added]. Tanya Luhrmann, 2004, Preliminary Program, 2004 AAA Annual Meeting, November 17-21, San Francsico, CA.

No one could have predicted that at the 1972 annual meetings, where I presented a paper on my Tongan fieldwork of 1970-1971 (http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1972TonganPaper.html), I would have a prelimary interview with Dr. Valene Smith of the Department of Anthropology at California State University, Chico (just recently re-named from Chico State College) and that I would eventually be hired by the Department of Anthropology at CSU, Chico to begin teaching in August 1973 and that I would go on to have three chapters in the three editions of Valene's outstanding Hosts and Guest volumes (1977, 1989, and 2001), dealing with anthropology and tourism. It pays to go to meetings and I am truly fortunate to be associated with an outstanding Department of Anthropology for more than three decades! (If you haven't seen Clan Destiny, the annual Alumni Newsletter of the Department of Anthropology, check it out!)

I have not been in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga since 1971 but I have traveled throughout the Pacific for many years and have been to Hawai'i 26 times since 1970 (the most recent being in 2003). Since 1970, and through 2003, I have conducted very modest research into tourism in the Pacific islands of the Galápagos, Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji, Western Samoa, and American Samoa. Additional research into tourism as well as economic development was conducted in China (Singapore), Taiwan, Malaysia, and Japan at various points in time in the 1980s, when I was in my administrative position as Associate Dean. I am now preparing to return to the Pacific and am considering a future as a lecturer on cruise ships in the Pacific (and perhaps elsewhere). Should I retire from full-time teaching at the end of the 2004-2005 Academic Year I might consider lecturing at sea; and if there is something called FERP or Faculty Early Retirement Program, I might consider that for the 2005-2006 academic year (and beyond!). If the December 2004 and January 2005 cruises prove to be successful and fun), where I will be lecturing in the "ScholarShip@Sea Program" for Princess Cruises, I might apply for a Honolulu-Beijing cruise in May 2005. (Please see Figures 5, 6, and 7 at the end of this page for the maps of the cruises.)

With a return to Tahii imminent (I was first in Tahiti in 1971 and last there in 1980), an "on-going" web page has been established at http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/PacificReferences.html. A potential on-board lecture (dealing with Tahiti) for the "Anthropology Forum" on November 4, 2004, will be available at http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TahitiAndEuropeansFa2004.html. Incidentally, the October 2004 issue of Cruise Travel has an article for the "Cruise of the Month: South Pacific" (pages 40-44) which covers the Tahiti-Marquesan cruise on which I will be lecturing and points out the "ScholarShip@Sea Program."

I have also published about the "gaming" (or gambling) industry, most recently in 2001) and "retirement" might see me getting back into that area of research once again. While I thoroughly agree with the words of the celebrated Las Vegas entrepreneur Steve Wynn, namely "If you wanna make money in a casino, own one" I have an interest in the following words of Bob Thompson: "Poker is a tough way to make an easy living." Richard Lederer, in Mardy Grothe, 2004, Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit And Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths (NY: HarperCollins), page vii.) I am now in my 33rd year of "making a living" as a Professor of Anthropology (one year at Minnesota and now into my 32nd year at CSU, Chico) and I now may become more than a "participant-observer" in yet another aspect of the human condition: poker! I also may consider pursuing some additional "theatrical" productions and even take some classes! Who knows what the future will bring: one cannot "predict" the future but one can certainly work at "inventing" it!

III. VARIOUS IDEAS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND INDIVIDUALS

In order to "contextualize" Darwin (and others), I created the following "chart" (and, as stated, all will probably not agree on either the definitions or the placement of individuals), but how would you create such a chart? I have always been interested in the "history' of our discipline and some web papers are listed below: http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/NatureCulture1970.html, http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1969Levi-StraussPaper.html , and http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Malinowski1968.html. The Malinowski paper was done for as part of a graduate seminar at the University of Oregon and the Lévi-Strauss paper resulted from a year-long graduate seminar at the University of Oregon on French anthropologie. Lévi-Strauss and I had a brief exchange of mail and he provided some very cogent comments on my paper. Imagine what can be done today with e-mail capabilities!

	IDEAS	ASSUMPTION(s)	ONLY "SOME" INDIVIDUALS
#1	Acculturation: also called, by some, Cultural Dynamics.	Change(s) through time.	Melville J. Herskovits (1895-1963), H.G. Barnett (1906-1985); Nancy O. Lurie (1924->).
#2	(American) Cultural Anthropology: also called, by some, Historical Empiricism.	Ethnographic "facts" are obtained through fieldwork.	Franz Boas (1858-1942); Alexander Chamberlain (1865-1914); Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960); Elsie Parsons (1874-1941); Robert H. Lowie (1883-1957) ; Paul Radin (1883-1959); Ella Cara Deloria (1888-1971); Esther Goldfrank (1896-); Erna Gunther (1896-1982); Robert Redfield (1897-1958); Ruth Bunzel (1898-1990); Julian Steward (1902-1972); Gene Weltfish (1902-1980); Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960); Ruth Landes (1908->1991); Ernestine Friedl (1920->); Eric Wolf (1923-1998); William S. Willis Jr. [1921-1983] Morton Klass (1927-2000).
#3	(British) Social Anthropology.	The "social" aspect (and "social organization") is crucial for an understanding of people.	Robert H. Codrington (1830-1922); Alfred C. Haddon (1855-1940); W.H.R.Rivers (1864-1922); Charles G. Seligman (1873-1940); A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955); Beatrice M. Blackwood (1889-1975); Hortence Powdermaker (1896-1970); Camilla Wedgwood (1901-1955); Raymond Firth (1901-2002); Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973); Sigfried Nadel (1903-1954) Isaac Schapera (1905-2003); Monica Wilson (1908-1982); Edmund Leach (1910-1989); Max Gluckman (1911-1975); Ann K. Fischer (1919-1971); Victor Turner (1920-1983); Mary Douglas (1921->); F.G. Bailey (1924->).
#4	Cross-Cultural Research.	Statistical analyses based on previous research.	Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917); George P. Murdock (1897-1985).
#5	Diffusionism (Kulturkreise and Heliolithic).	Change as a result of diffusion (borrowing).	Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904); Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954); Grafton Elliot Smith (1871-1937); Leo Frobenius (1873-1938); Fritz Graebner (1877-1934); Wilhelm Koppers (1886-1961); William J. Perry (1889-1949); V. G. Childe (1892-1957).
#6	Evolutionary ideas (various).	Change(s) over time.	Charles R. Darwin (1809-1882); Johann Jacob Bachofen (1815-1887); Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917); Lewis H. Morgan (1818-1881); Herbert Spencer (1820-1903); Karl Marx (1818-1883); Henry Maine (1822-1888); Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880]; Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895); John McLennan (1827-1881); Augustus Pitt-Rivers (1827-1900); Paul Topinard (1830-1911); John Lubbock (1834-1914); Max Weber (1864-1920); Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955); Leslie White (1900-1975); Robert Carneiro (1927->); Marshall Sahlins (1930->)
#7	French Sociologie / Structuralism.	Culture (and Society) shaped by pre-programmed codes (of the human brain).	Émile Durkheim (1858-1917); Marcel Mauss (1872-1950); Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957); Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908->)
#8	Functionalism.	Discovering how parts of a culture function (not concerned with "origins" or "history").	Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942); Audrey I. Richards (1899-1984)
#9	Modernism / Postmodernism.	Thinking about what we are thinking about (and more!)	Eleanor B. Leacock (1922-1987), Clifford Geertz (1926-); Renato Rosaldo (1941->); Sherry Ortner (1941->); George Marcus (1943->).
#10	Neoevolutionism: also called, by some, Cultural Ecology.	Cultures develop in relation to their capacity for harnessing energy.	Julian Steward (1902-1972); Roy Rappaport (1926-1997); Marvin Harris (1927-2001)
#11	Positivism.	Use of the Scientific Method and natural "laws" can be discovered.	Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1775); Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794), August Comte (1798-1857); Gregory Bateson (1904-1980); Derek Freeman (1916-2001).
#12	Pre [Non]-Boasian American Cultural Anthropology.	Somewhat Self-Explanatory.	Joseph François Lafitau (1670-1746) ; Henry Schoolcraft (1793-1864); John Wesley Powell (1834-1902); Erminnie Smith (1836-1886); Alice Fletcher (1838-1923); Frederick Putnam (1839-1915); Matilda Stevenson (1849-1915); Anténor Firmin (1850-1911); Franklin Cushing (1857-1900); Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933); Frederick Starr (1858-1933); Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952).
#13	"Primitive" Mentality.	Somewhat Self-Explanatory.	Theodore Waitz (1821-1864); Adolph Bastian (1826-1905); Lucien Levy-Bruhl (1857-1939).
#14	Psychological Anthropology; also called, by some, Culture & Personality.	Dealing with the relationship between culture and psychology.	Sigmund Freud (1856-1939); Edward Sapir (1884-1939); Ruth Benedict (1887-1948); Margaret Mead (1901-1978); Abram Kardiner (1891-1981); Ralph Linton (1893-1953); Cora DuBois (1903->); John Whiting [1908-1990] & Beatrice Whiting [1914-2003]; Horace Miner (1912-1993); Rhoda Metraux (1914->).
#15	Scholasticism.	Research / writing based on previously published and unpublished information.	James George Frazer (1854-1941); Charles F. Urbanowicz (1942->)

Created for the first time in fall 2002, the above revision appears in the current ANTH 296 class, and as I state in that Guidebook (available at http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/syllabi/SYL_296-FA2004.html) This is in no way intended to be a "definitive" listing (or categorization) and some individuals could (obviously) be placed in one or more "boxes" below! Also please note: Not everyone in the world would necessarily agree with my definition of "assumption(s)" nor my placement of "some individuals" ...." In that same Guidebook I also have the following: according to Leslie A. White & Beth Dillingham, "The whole history of ethnological theory is embraced [below] by this simple diagram" Leslie A. White (1900-1975) and Beth Dillingham, The Concept of Culture, 1973, page 38.

IV. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

In addition to all of the words and ideas I have shared with the readers of this brief web page, I also adhere to the following words of Thomas Keneally (remembered perhaps for being the author of Schindler's List (1982):

"A play [or a classroom lecture or a public presentation] should make you understand something new. If it tells you what you already know, you leave it as ignorant as you went in [stress added]." (The character John Wisehammer. In Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good [based upon the novel The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally], 1989, Act II, sc. 7, page 89.]

Perhaps the term "ignorant" is too harsh but hopefully you have given some thought to the information made available to you.

V. ON-GOING CONCLUSIONS?

In the words of the distinguished United States Supreme Court Jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935): "Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man [or any individual!] that he [or she] should share the passion and action of his [or her] time at peril of being judged not to have lived." I have written a whimsical piece about the "future" of Chico in the year 2027 and I hope to see what this community (and university) develops into by that date (and well after that date!). Finally, some words from a recent author:

"Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young." (Albus Dumbledore, in} J. K. Rowling, 2003, Harry Potter And the Order of The Phoenix (NY: Scholastic Press), page 826.

 

VI. PS

In addition to returning to gaming/gambling activities, retirement research might see me going back to an earlier interest: science fiction and the relationship between science fiction and science fact (first discussed on this campus in 1973). Quoting Isaac Asimov (once again) and his 1950 I, Robot (page 8), let me end with the following (which deals with an interview with the character Dr. Susan Calvin who was involved with her interests for fifty years). I have been a professional anthropologist for less than fifty years, but the words are appropriate:

in progress http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TahitiAndEuropeansFa2004.html [Europeans in Tahiti: From Cook to Gauguin. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forum, November 4, 2004.]

in progress http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/PacificReferences.html [Various Pacific References].

in progress http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/UrbanowiczCitations.html [UrbanowiczCitationsOnTheWeb].

2004a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/CELTOctober2004Darwin.html [The Darwin Project: 1996 to 2004! To be presented October 21, 2004, at the Tenth Annual Conference on Learning and Teaching sponsored by CELT (Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching), October 21-22, 2004, at CSU, Chico.]

2004b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/FARFall2004.html [September 15, 2004: California State University Faculty Activity Report for Charles F. Urbanowicz For the period: July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004].

2004c http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/PacificWAMLApril2004.html [Mapping The Islands of the Pacific: Islanders and Others (Including Cook and Darwin). For a presentation at the WAML (Western Association of Map Libraries) Conference, April 29-30, 2004, at CSU, Chico.]

2004d http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/FourDarwinVideosFeb2004.html] [Four Darwin Videos from CSU, Chico. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forums, February 12 and 19, 2004.]

2004e http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TeachingAboutDarwinJan2004.html] [Teaching About Darwin. For a workshop sponsored by the Outreach Programs of the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco) and held at the Museum of Anthropology at California State University, Chico, January 10, 2004.]

2003a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/DestinationPolynesia.html [Destination Polynesia: Tahiti And The Neighbor Islands. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forum, November 6, 2003.]

2003b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/30YearsPartTwoAnthroForums.html [The Anthropology Forum: 1973->2003, Part II. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forum, September 4, 2003.]

2003c http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/BrechtSp2003.html [Dramaturge information for the CSU, Chico Spring 2003 production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Directed by Professor Sue Pate, CSU, Chico, March 4-9, 2003.] [Also performed as several characters; please see the web page for further information.]

2002a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/StrategiesTwo.html [Teaching as Theatre. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, Second Edition (2002), edited by Patricia Rice & David W. McCurdy, Editors (NJ: Prentice Hall), pages 147-149.]

2002b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/DarwinDayCollectionOneChapter.html [There Is A Grandeur in This View of life. Darwin Day Collection One: The Single Best Idea Ever (2002) Edited by Amanda Chesworth et al. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Tangled Bank Press), pages 67-70.]

2002c http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/aStoryof2027.html [A "Story" (Vision or nightmare?) of the Region in 2027. For classroom use at CSU, Chico, September 30, 2002.]

2002d http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/ANTH300Fall2002.htm [Intellectual History Comments for ANTH 300, Fall 2002. September 18, 2002.]

2001 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Gambling_into_the_21st_cent.pdf. [Gambling Into The 21st Century. Hosts And Guests Revisited: Tourism Issues of the 21st Century, edited by Valene Smith and Maryann Brent (NY: Cognizant Communication Corp.), pp. 69-79. (NOTE: this is based on a 1998 item, Gambling (Gaming) In The United States of America From An Anthropological Perspective. Presented at the 14th ICAES [International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences] Meetings on the Anthropology of Tourism for the 1998 Congress held at Williamsburg, Virginia, July 26-August 2, 1998.]

2000 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/TeachingT.html [Mnemonics, Quotations, Cartoons, And A Notebook: "Tricks" For Appreciating Cultural Diversity. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, Patricia Rice & David W. McCurdy, Editors (NJ: Prentice Hall), pages 132-140.]

1999 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/DarwinMiscSep99.html [Charles R. Darwin: Fall 1999 Miscellaneous Information (For various Activities, Including ANTH 300.]

1998a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/FApril30-98.html [One Anthropologist Looks At The Future of Education and Technology. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forum, April 30, 1998.]

1998b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin_Folklore.html] [Folklore Concerning Charles R. Darwin. For the 1998 Meetings of the Southwestern Anthropological Society and The California Folklore Society, Sacramento, California, April 16-18, 1998.]

1997a http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/archive/97_10_23/enthusiasm.html [The enthusiasm of Teaching. Urbanowicz as one of five "Master Teachers" for 1997-1999 Academic Years] Inside Chico, Vol 26, No. 7 (October 23), page 2; and see http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/MT1997Essay.html.]

1997b http://www.csuchico.edu/pub/inside/archive/97_09_25/tech.html [Camping is Great: But Nothing Beats Home: Across the USA in Pursuit of Educational Technology. Inside Chico, Vol 26, No. 3 (September 25), Page 2.]

1993 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin116.html [Charles R. Darwin: Happy 116th Anniversary!. For the 92nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 17-21.]

1992 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Pub_Papers/4field.html [Four-Field Commentary]. Published in the Newsletter of the American Anthropological Association, 1992, Volume 33, Number 9, page 3.]

1990 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1990DossierOnDarwinLetter.html [A Dossier on Darwin: A Letter to the Editor; originally published in the Chico [California] Enterprise-Record on September 26, 1990, page 4B.]

1989 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Tourism_in_Tonga_revisited.pdf [Tourism in Tonga Revisited: Continued Troubled Times? Hosts And Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, edited by V. Smith, 2nd Edition (University of Pennsylvania), pp. 105-117.]

1977 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Tourism_in_Tonga.pdf [Tourism in Tonga: Troubled Times.Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, edited by V. Smith (University of Pennsylvania), pp. 83-92.]

1976 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Pub_Papers/John_Thomas.html [John Thomas, Tongans, and Tonga! The Tonga Chronicle (July 15, 1976), Nuku'alofa, Tonga, Vol. 13, No. 7: 7.]

1973 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1973Forum.html [Science Fiction. For the CSU, Chico Anthropology Forum, November 7, 1973.)

1972 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1972TonganPaper.html [Tongan Social Structure: Data From An Ethnographic Reconstruction. For the 71st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association,Toronto, Canada, December 2, 1972].

1971 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1971TonganPaper.html [Tongan Culture: From the 20th Century to the 19th Century. For the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New York, New York, November 17, 1971.]

1970a http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1970CurrentDirections.html [Discussion Words from 1969 / 1970.] Published in Current Direction in Anthropology: A Special Issue [Bulletins of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. 3, No. 3, Part 2, September 1970], edited by Ann Fischer, (Washington, D.C., American Anthropological Association, pages 55-56.]

1970b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/NatureCulture1970.html [Mother Nature, Father Culture. For the 28th Annual Meeting of the Oregon Academy of Science, Eugene, February 28.]

1969 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/1969Levi-StraussPaper.html [A Selective View of Lévi-Strauss' Intellectual Antecedents For the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 20-24, 1969.]

1968a [with D. Roth] Scale Analyses and the Elaboration of Menstrual Taboos. (For the 67th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Seattle, Washington, November 21-2, 1968.]

1968b http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Malinowski1968.html [Comments on Bronislaw Malinowski. For a University of Oregon ANTH 507 Graduate Seminar, October 29, 1968.]

1965 http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin1965WWSC.html [Darwin - 1859: An Important Historical Event. For SPEECH 100, Western Washington State College [now Western Washington University], Bellingham, Washington, June 30, 1965.]

For virtually every web page I do that mentions "Darwin" I attempt to incorporate the information on the "changes" in the various editions of Origin ("redundancy" is key in getting a message across!) and I also try to incorporate "Search Engine" results for Charles R. Darwin. In 2000 there was a delightful book entitled Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters On The Evolution of Life And Human Behavior, wherein the author has Darwin saying:

"I am so glad you have taken the time and trouble to write to me. It is one of the saddest aspects of human existence that, as soon as one passes away, it is generally assumed that the deceased has no further interest in what he or she spent a great part of life investigating. From what you tell me of the Darwin industry of scholars in your day, busy seeking out every nuance of my life and thoughts, I have to conclude that there is indeed life after death [stress added]." Gabriel Dover, 2000, Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters On The Evolution of Life And Human Behavior (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), page 3. 

Before examing the "Search Engine References" below, please consider the following:

"Google--or any search engine--isn't just another website; it's the lens through which we see that information, and it affects what we see and don't see. At the risk of waxing Orwellian, how we search affects what we find and by extension, how we learn what we know [stress added]. Lev Grossman, 2003, Search And Destroy. Time, December 22, 2003, pages 46-50, page 50.

And, for any readers of this page, please consider the following from March 31, 2004:

"Ten years from now--maybe five or even less--we will recall Google circa 2004 and wonder how we could have tolerated it. ... A search engine of 2010 will know who you are, where you are and what you're doing, and look across every form of information to automatically find what will help you. That's when today's Google will seem as quaint as the special effects in an old Godzilla movie [stress added]." Kevin Maney, 2004, Future search efforts wil make Google look like 8-tracks. USA Today, March 31, 2004, page 4B.

On October 12, 2004, "search engine hits" for "Charles R. Darwin" resulted in the following information: Google had 292,000 items; Alta Vista Search had 601,000 WiseNut had 5,186; and AllTheWeb had 497,000 web pages. Previous search engine results and the dates they were done are below:

* Additional search engine sites were consulted on various dates on and before November 27, 2002: MonkeySweat had numerous items and Northern Light had 2,720 items.

On May 2, 2002, MonkeySweat had numerous items and Northern Light had 2,623 items.

On February 6, 2002, MonkeySweat had numerous items and Northern Light had 2,587 items.

On October 17, 2001, MonkeySweat had numerous items and Northern Light had 51,939 items.

Two things should be obvious: (#1) interest in Darwin continues and (#2), obviously, just as with people, all "search engines" are not created equal and there is "cultural selection" involved in everything we do! How does one "evaluate" and "use" this wide range of information? One does it just as Darwin did, carefully, patiently, and slowly, for as Darwin wrote:

"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness: and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." Charles R. Darwin, 1871, The Descent of Man And Selection in Relation to Sex[1981 Princeton University Press edition, with Introduction by John T. Bonner and Robert M. May], Chapter 21, page 385.

FIGURE I: http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/30YearsPartTwoAnthroForums.html (Source: Urbanowicz, 2003)

FIGURE II: Selected American Anthropological Association Meetings: 1967-1992. (Source: Urbanowicz, 1993, http://www.csuchico.edu/~curban/Darwin116.html)

FIGURE III: Location: Natural History Museum, London; photograph by Charles F. Urbanowicz [1999].	FIGURE IV: Darwin, California USA 93522

FIGURE V: 23 December 2004 -> 2 January 2005	FIGURE VI: 2 January 2005 -> 12 January 2005

FIGURE VII: 29 May 2005 -> 24 June 2005

# # #

[~ 8,715 words] = 13 October 2004

Copyright © 2004; all rights reserved by Charles F. Urbanowicz

13 October 2004 by cfu