Re-Naming the Savage Minds Blog: Your Suggestions, Please

The editorial collective at Savage Minds has decided to change our name. We have several reasons for this, but mostly feel that the name no longer fits or best represents the blog. As a title, “Savage Minds” was a sort of anthropological insider’s double pun. As we explain on our About page, the name “comes from French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss’s book The Savage Mind, published in 1966. The original title of the book in French, La Pensée Sauvage, was meant to be a pun, since it could mean both ‘wild thought’ or ‘wild pansies,’ and he put pansies on the cover of the book, just to make sure readers got the pun. Lévi-Strauss was unhappy with the English title of his book, which he thought ought to have been “Pansies for Thought” (a reference to a speech by Ophelia in Hamlet). We liked the phrase “savage minds” because it captured the intellectual and unruly nature of academic blogging. As a result, the pansy has become our mascot as well.” And thus, a blog was born in 2005.

levi-strauss

In 2016, however, we found ourselves in a different political moment in the discipline as well as the world. For a while, some of us have been privately mulling over a name change, but right now no longer feels like a time to ponder, but one to act. And so we are acting now in response to international political trends towards populism and xenophobia in general, and in response to an earlier impetus in particular. In June 2015, one of our wonderful guest bloggers, Zoe S. Todd, posed an important challenge to us in a very generous way:

“So, I’ve danced a bit around the elephant in the room in the last few weeks, which is something I want to bring up in a loving and gentle way before we begin. As I’ve sought out Indigenous and/or POC people to interview for this series, I have found myself in the rather awkward position, as a Métis scholar, of asking you (and others) to do an interview on your work and your experiences in the academy for a blog titled Savage Minds. So, I guess before we begin I just want to get it out of the way that this title bothers me somewhat. And I want to re-iterate that I say this in a loving, open way. I mean, I understand that it is a nod to a highly regarded French anthropologist. And I love a good play on words (especially one that involves wild flowers!)–particularly ones that draw attention to contested words, or those that draw attention to words with baggage. And I acknowledge that Levi-Strauss has perhaps one of the most influential people in Anthropology in a great long while. But, as an Indigenous woman, it’s another one of those moments that puts me in a ‘double bind‘, so to speak–I want to celebrate anthropology while at the same time, some of our language and our phrasing, even when used ironically, alienates me from the anthropological academy—how do I explain to my non-anthropology friends that in writing for something titled ‘savage’ that the title is meant to be a nuanced commentary on anthropology’s history? It has made it awkward for me to seek out Indigenous interviewees for this series because I feel that I have to keep explaining the context of the title in an apologetic way in order to move forward. I don’t know how to address this, other than to preface our interview with a gentle statement about it just so it’s clear that I myself am struggling with the complex position of wrangling with the multiple, complicated facets of using words like savage (or indeed other loaded words from Anthropology’s past, like primitive or ‘hunter-gatherer’) in our work. Because while this title is playful and purpose-full (and politically informed), I have also been the person in the room critiqued for ‘going native’ by a classmate. How do we make space to talk about what happens when ironic use of phrases can unwittingly create space for the un-ironic, deliberate and pejorative use of phrases within our discipline?”

We’ve sat with these words for a while now. It has taken over a year, but we are changing our name. The title “Savage Minds” was not meant to be offensive, but we acknowledge that it can be seen that way, read that way, and felt that way. We are going to choose a new name, one that will better represent us and the discipline, as well as reflect the progressive commitments to scholarship that this blog and its bloggers have held dear for so long. We will not erase our history or our love of puns or pansies, but instead will explain when asked why the blog was named Savage Minds and why, in 2016, we decided we wanted to change the name.

We have been brainstorming new names among ourselves, and would like to open up the process to you—our readers—to suggest new names for us to consider. Please put your suggestions in the comments section below. We will be soliciting suggestions through Thursday, December 15.

We look forward to moving forward together. We look forward to all a new name might bring. And we like to think there still might be some unruly irreverence every now and then. Thank you.

pansies

 

 

 

Blog post
Carole McGranahan

I am an anthropologist and historian of Tibet, and a professor at the University of Colorado. I conduct research, write, lecture, and teach. At any given time, I am probably working on one of the following projects: Tibet, British empire, and the Pangdatsang family; the CIA as an ethnographic subject; contemporary US empire; the ongoing self-immolations in Tibet; the Chushi Gangdrug resistance army; refugee citizenship in the Tibetan diaspora (Canada, India, Nepal, USA); and, anthropology as theoretical storytelling.

87 thoughts on “Re-Naming the Savage Minds Blog: Your Suggestions, Please”

  5. What about “Thick Description”? It plays off a concept in the field but also has a self-effacing pun, if that’s what you like, in that “thick” also implies not very smart, or slow in realizing the point.

  11. When I think of catchy anthropology titles, I can’t help but come back to a funny phrase Matt Thompson used in our first-year discussions of Durkheim: “super-fuzzy social effervescence”. It’s maybe a bit more tongue-in-cheek than even “Savage Minds,” but it also feels like exactly what we need in these times.

  12. On a more serious note, what about “Deep Roots”? I am jumping off here from something Boas wrote in a 1904 issue of Science: “Of greater educational importance is [the power of the anthropological method] to make us understand the roots from which our civilization has sprung, that it impresses us with the relative value of all forms of culture, and thus serves as a check to an exaggerated valuation of the standpoint of our own period, which we are only too liable to consider the ultimate goal of human evolution, thus depriving ourselves of the benefits to be gained from the teachings of other cultures and hindering an objective criticism of our own work.”

  14. “Anthropology Bigly”, or just “Bigly”
    Or “Make Anthropology Normative Again” (“MANA”) 😀 🙂

  16. I like the ‘The Strange Familiar’ but it seems to me it doesn’t quite address the key issue of insularity. I’m not big fan of renaming things in search of a magical convergence between title and content but I’m convinced by the arguments in this post that this would be a good idea for this blog.

    I think something much more pedestrian and explanatory would be more suitable in that case. How about something like Public Anthropology Blog. Or AnthroPub… Or AnthroTog for Anthropology Together.

  17. I think it depends on who the audience is. I agree that Savage Minds isn’t the best representation going forward.

    Yet I wouldn’t call it public anthropology unless (like Sapiens or PopAnth) it was truly intended for non-anthropologists… and at this point SM slants to the technical yet reflective.

    Dominik’s suggestion of “Anthropology Together” is elegant and clearly represents a collaborative blog by and for anthropologists. Having guest written for Savage Minds, Sapiens, and PopAnth, I’m certainly sensitive to the value of a venue name that communicates the value of my own work by virtue of clearly relaying what the blog is about…

  19. I like the suggestion above of Pansies for Thought… but you could also think of something with Free or Freedom, because that’s one of Lévi-Strauss’s ideas about mythical thinking or pensée sauvage: the mind thinking at its freest state.

  21. Don’t have an opinion for a new name, but want to thank you, thank you for changing the name. I have more than once wanted to share on fb with people who were not anthropology students but knew that many of my friends would find it offensive. Anthropology Together is good, or Collaborative Anthropology, Collaborative Minds, Effervescent Anthropology, Anthropological Effervescence…

  22. I don’t have another title to propose, but one of the problems with “Savage Minds” as a translation of “La pensée sauvage” is that “sauvage” does not usually mean “savage” but is closer to “wild” in a botanical context (so the flowers are “wild pansies”, growing spontaneously without human tending, not “savage pansies”). And “la pensée” in an intellectual context is “thought” not “mind”.

  24. 1) Liminalities – as developed by Victor Turner in his concept of the ‘liminoidal’. Those states (of mind/self) one enters that offer possibilities of creation and transgression, resistance and reformation of society’s structures and norms.

    2) Creative Practice – as suggested in Chapter 10 of Raymond William’s Marxism and Literature (1977). Refers to both consciousness (‘a struggle at the roots of the mind’) and practice (‘illustration, performance, embodiment of excluded and subordinated models, experiences, relationships, and articulation of latent, newly possible consciousness’)

  26. Personally, I wouldn’t change the name. But I am old, a progressive when it comes to politics, but put off by politically correct speech. As an adman, I would counsel thinking long and hard before changing a well-established brand, which Savage Minds is. I look forward to seeing if traffic increases or falls following the change. It seems, however, that the decision has already been made.

    Of suggestions so far, “Collaborative Minds” sounds best to me. It keeps a bit of the old name to maintain some continuity and announces the goal of encouraging collaboration, something of which I heartily approve. “Anthropology Together” is well-intentioned but, like the Clinton campaign’s “Stronger Together,” ultimately not at all compelling. Conversely, “The Strange Familiar” is unexpected enough to break through, but I read “Familiar” and start looking around for a witch’s black cat. Do we want to go there?

  28. I like the push for a change, it was bothering me too. First thoughts might be something like:
    HumaNaturE
    EthnoSynthesis
    Ecology of Minds (nodding to Bateson)
    A spin on the turtles (all the way down…)
    Anthropothesis
    Limen

  30. A couple comments from Twitter:

    Tim Mason (@TimMason) suggests: “The Tyger’s Chaudron – Shakespeare by way of Jack Goody with a nod to William Blake”

    And Takami Delisle (@tsd1888), regarding the name change, asks, “A name describing the current site or its future? What do they wanna be anyway?”

  31. What about playing with the terms raw and cooked? it retains a link to Levi Strauss, but also conjures a place where one can post initial ideas or brainstormy impulses, but also share links to or responses to finished works? It gestures toward the unruly and uncontained, but also to the notion of careful sustenance.

  33. Wow! I’m blown away by the enthusiasm from our readership. Thank you, thank you everyone. And I hope there’s more come. Its actually getting kind of fun! It feels like we’re naming a band.

    This might sound capricious, but I really don’t want anything to do with “anthro-” in the title. My two cents.

  34. Its also been suggested in order to make a more complete break with the old name we avoid “_____ Minds” type names. I can see the value of that, but I still like “Decolonized Minds”. Keep the suggestions coming folks! Let’s see what you’ve got!

  37. I quite like “Pansies for Thought,” but I can see that not being catchy enough and, perhaps, a bit insider-y. I think John’s point about thinking about what the blog wants to be is a good one too. I just checked the about section, and I very much like the sentiment of “doing anthropology in public.” So whatever the minds (the pansies???) land on, it should probably communicate that idea. “Strangers and Friends,” as well as “Decolonizing Minds,” seem to go in that direction.

    “The Newer” is hilarious.

  38. This is a welcome move, thank you. Given that Savage Minds is the premier hub for anthropology’s online presence, it might be worth doing some keyword research. This article on keyword strategy may seem like too much, but it is a way of addressing the question of who you are and what you want to be known for. If this is in part a response to international political trends, then how do you want to primarily position yourselves?

    Although I think I understand Matt’s aversion to anything anthro- in the title, it is probably worth reflecting on whether the biggest anthropology blog site really wants to not have “anthropology” in its title. As has been true for many years, if you type anthropology.com into your browser you’ll end up at a storefront (Anthropology.net is owned by an anthro blog, but they post infrequently).

    A generic search on “anthropology blog” turns up Savage Minds as the #1 suggestion. Excellent that you’ve been able to accomplish that, and worth thinking about for a re-titling.

  39. In an ironic twist – I’m sure unintended – “savage minds” actually captures more of the sense of “la pensee sauvage” than the clumsy and misleading official translation. The official version insinuates a particular referent, a single subject: THE savage mind. That uniformity is belied by the large bunch of pansies on the dust jacket, pansies with a multitude of colors and tones and branching out in all directions. So the several diverse writers of Savage Minds correspond more closely to the plurality of thought Levi-Strauss studied in the Americas. But that opens another, much more important problem: “Mind” is a terrible, inaccurate translation. Had LS chosen the title l’esprit sauvage , then “the savage mind” would have been okay – barring the “savage” part. But he didn’t. L’esprit is mind, but pensee is thought. Why in the world didn’t the translators go with “Savage Thought”? Then the definite article “the” would have been completely out of place and there would be no implication that those Others all think alike.
    An early Plon paperback edition of La Pensee Sauvage has an intriguing cover: rather than the bunch of picked pansies there is a bed of wild flowers and in the midst is a wolverine. The wolverine figures prominently in the myths LS analyzes in the book. As the most ferocious animal in North America, the wolverine adds an important dimension to the title: Thought is not just delicate and pretty, it is also wild, violent, free. Mind is a turbulent mix of pansies and wolverines.
    I fear that the rationale you provide for abandoning your title is an implicit renunciation of the wolverine, of the wild, free, and, yes, violent nature of human thought and human experience. It bespeaks the timidity of the times, when more and more words are found to give offense and are therefore banned from the safe space of academic discourse – only to be replaced by antiseptic neologisms (which only offend those with a respect for language).
    So, a couple of suggestions for the new name of your group:
    — keeping with the floral bouquet image, why not “Pruned Minds”
    Or
    — keeping with your penchant for restricting discussion through your practice of “moderation,” why not “Moderated Minds”.

  47. I love “Strangers and Friends” (and Powdermaker!) as well as “The Strange Familiar.” To reference the collective nature of the blog, and its place between academia and the public, perhaps something like “Anthro et al.”? Or maybe “Significant webs” a la Geertz but also being a website.

  48. I’m so happy you all are changing the name! I’ve often wanted to share blog posts, but found the name to be too alienating.

    What about A Familiar Strange? Also, I love the suggestion of Anthro et al.

  49. A thought from the UK — SM has become such an important public-facing resource for our discipline worldwide – so this is a really important decision. Here’s one suggestion — Anthropologia. It’s a title that was briefly used by the Anthropological Society of London, 1873-5, but wide open since then — But whatever the decision, the general point here is the importance of communicating that this is a major public voice for Anthropology. Something very much needed today.

  50. Responding to Zoe S. Todd’s comment on the title “Savage Minds” and its baggage alienating POC, indigenous, and LGBTQ academics and interviewees, perhaps the strategy of democratizing access to renaming this title doesn’t properly address that the project requires decolonial or unsettling anthropological practices of titling. Who is being alienated by this title, and how would they rename/remake Savage Minds? Would Zoe S. Todd’s interviewees refer back to Boas, Geertz, Williams, and Powdermaker to imagine what this blog says and does?

    While I don’t mean to insinuate that those suggesting new titles are not decolonizing or unsettling anthropological practices in their work, the referencing of “anthropological puns” seems to me entrenched in the works of colonial white minds…perhaps we need different identifiers and puns rather than regurgitating and reinterpreting stale ones. In decolonizing the title, why not turn to different sources of knowing in anthropological work?

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