Comments on: NYRB for Social Science?

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:29:52 +0000

Kerim asks, “I guess whomever it is has to be a well established public intellectual before they hire her, and already have tenure so that’s not an issue, any nominations?”

Strathern? Is the world ready?

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:56:00 +0000

Why should there be a journalism program that specializes in social science reporting?

Let me play the devil’s advocate. There was a time when social science was part of a big story–science as a way to understand everything, including us. For nearly a century, from Marx to Mao, half the world believed in scientific laws of history. We’ve seen how that turned out. Isaac Asimov could base the whole Foundation series around the idea that psychohistory would be a mathematical discipline that was right most of the time, which was what made the Mule, the mutant who upset the time table. such a big deal. End of the series it turns out that the whole thing only seemed to work because a literal deux ex machine, the robots, were taking care of it all the time. The whole postmodern and interpretive turn turns out to be a lot of fancy language used to say what is pretty obvious to anyone who stops to think about it–No grand narrative means no news value. The social “science” thing was a big idea, but it’s fizzled. A publisher would be out of his or her mind to try to sell this stuff.

Now obviously I still get a kick out of doing what I think of as anthropology, and I know there are some really smart people on this list who work really hard at what they do. If the world were fair we’d be famous. Who ever told you the world was fair?

By: Victor Kumar

Victor Kumar — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:02:00 +0000

I’ve always wondered why their there is a category for science writers but not a corresponding one for social science writers. Is there a journalism program that specializes in social science reporting?

By: Kerim

Kerim — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:24:12 +0000

So the problem is that they haven’t found a replacement for Geertz? I guess whomever it is has to be a well established public intellectual before they hire her, and already have tenure so that’s not an issue, any nominations?

By: Marissa

Marissa — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:45:35 +0000

Geertz’ contributions… more than I thought!

http://www.nybooks.com/authors/116

By: Marissa

Marissa — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:29:58 +0000

Well, Geertz did a review of Discipline and Punish, and there was the Cannibals and Kings exchange between Sahlins and Harris that went for a few rounds. This was a while back though, of course, before I was even born.

By: David Taylor

David Taylor — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:10:45 +0000

The general absence of anthropology in the NYRB seems especially odd if you follow the Times Literary Supplement, which reviews a good bit of anthropology by comparison. I wonder if part of the problem is that the NYRB has long been an outlet for ‘public intellectuals,’ and it’s been a long time since there has been an anthropologist with the broad middle-brow name recognition of most of the contributors to NYRB? Geertz might have met that standard — I seem to recall that he wrote a NYRB review of the book that prompted the Yanomamo controversy, or am I seriously confused? (Is someone going to tell me that it was Sahlins in the NY Times Book Review….???)