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ABSTRACTThis article traces a genealogy of the culture concept, starting with the way it is presented in Sherry Ortner's account of "dark anthropology" (2016) and working back to the interpretations offered by Clifford Geertz, Raymond Williams, and Antonio Gramsci. Of particular interest is the shifting historical relationship between "culture" and its dark counterpart, "hegemony," which Ortner describes as "the dominant version of the culture concept in use today." While Ortner's analysis is compelling in many ways, it is flawed, in my view, by a "Boasian gap"—part of a widespread tendency in contemporary anthropology to underestimate the theoretical legacy of Franz Boas and the tradition that bears his name. This tendency is rooted, I argue, in a series of "asymmetrical ancestries." Thus, Geertz minimized the importance of the Boasian tradition in his own intellectual genealogy, and Williams recognized but downplayed the role of German Romanticism in the early development of the culture concept. The case of Gramsci is especially interesting as it involves a cryptic ancestral connection between his approach to culture and that of his Boasian contemporaries. When all these gaps are filled, dark anthropology turns out to be historically checkered—regularly articulated with a "lighter" theoretical tradition. By recovering that tradition and appreciating its rich genealogy—sensing its manifold connections to German historicism, Humboldtian linguistics, and American pragmatism—we stand a chance of integrating "dark" and "light" anthropologies rather than pitting them needlessly against each other. [culture, genealogy, hegemony, Gramsci, Boas]

Constructing Tibetan Culture: Contemporary Perspectives. Frank J. Korom. ed. St‐Hyacinthe, Quebec: World Heritage Press, 1997. 230 pp.

The Boasian conception of culture has been roundly criticized in recent years for its essentialist, or even racist, implications. Yet an alternative model that avoids these implications was proposed in the 1930s by Boas student Edward Sapir. Having long survived on the margins of anthropological theory, Sapir's "distributive" concept of culture is now entering the theoretical mainstream through recent developments in both psychological and "postmodernist" anthropology.By emphasizing the full range of variation within any so‐called culture, anthropologists have begun to apply the same style of population thinking that helped launch the Darwinian revolution in biology.

Charles Darwin Voyaging:. Biography, Janet Browne Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. 605 pp.

Intro -- Contents -- Introduction: Theoretical Considerations in the Study of Frontiers - Lars Rodseth and Bradley J. Parker -- Part I. Modes of Expansion -- 1. From Turfan to Taiwan: Trade and War on Two Chinese Frontiers - Peter C. Perdue -- 2. Three Overlapping Frontiers in Early Modern Bengal: Religious, Agrarian, Imperial - Richard M. Eaton -- 3. The Fragmentary Frontier: Expansion and Ethnogenesis in the Himalayas - Lars Rodseth -- Part II. Collision and Collusion -- 4. The Dynamics of Military and Cultural Frontiers on the Southeastern Edge of the Inka Empire - Sonia Alconini -- 5. The Final Frontier of the Maya: Central Peten, Guatemala, 1450 - 1700 CE - Prudence M. Rice and Don S. Rice -- 6. The Meetings of Peopies and Empires at the Confluence of the Missouri, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers - Stephen Aron -- Part III. Traditions of Invention -- 7. To the Supports of Heaven: Political and Ideological Conceptions of Frontiers in Ancient Egypt - Stuart Tyson Smith -- 8. Territory, Legacy, and Wealth in Iron Age Anatolia - Lynn Swartz Dodd -- 9. The Advent of Modern Education on the Sino-Central Asian Frontier - James A. Millward -- About the Editors -- About the Contributors -- Index.

For decades now culture has been a topic anthropologists argue about: WHAT it does or does not mean, IF it should or should not constitute a central concept of the discipline. This essay steps outside these arguments to rephrase the issue and our approach to it. It explores WHEN it makes sense to use the cultural concept: Should we proceed inductively or deductively in constructing connections between the concept and our data? And instead of assertions by one author, it utilizes a debate format to collectively raise possibilities to ponder,[culture, induction, deduction, anthropological analysis]