Just in case you didn’t read the footnotes to Roger Keesing’s contribution to the Ian Hogbin festschrift, I offer the following quotation:
Most of what I think I know about giving an address on such an illustrious occasion, I have learned from reading ceremonial lectures by distinguished British colleagues. As a professional student of strange customs, I have sought to distill out the essential principles of ritual lecturing and to follow them here. They seem, first, to be heretical and, if possible, occasionally outrageous; second, to be polemical and contentious, overstating one’scause and creating straw men where rhetorically useful; and third, to exaggerate the importance of one’s own work
-Roger Keesing, Simple Models of Complexity, 1972
Classic Roger. He sought to be heretical, outrageous, polemical & contentious in his academic relationships and friendships as well! I leave it to others to assess whether he exaggerated the importance of his own work.
For context, I knew Roger in the field in the early 1980s. He helped set up the Kwaio Cultural Centre on Malaita, in the Solomon Islands, and asked Peace Corps to find a married couple who were both anthropologists to work at the Cultural Centre. I will always be grateful to “Kisini” for creating that opportunity for two recent BAs in anthropology. He was, in fact, polemical, contentious, and outrageous, which made him very interesting to talk to about anthropology. And I’m with him … those talks are far more interesting than some of the data-driven talks I’ve been to (and performed, myself).
Recent research suggests that Keesing’s reference to “ceremonial lectures by distinguished British colleagues” may, unwittingly, have been ethnocentric. See Sperber and Mercier, “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory” .
I am on fire.
Funny ’cause it’s true! Fantastic observation. This made me laugh aloud and giggle for some time. Thanks for posting.