Maria Czaplicka: Gender, Shamanism, Race: An Anthropological Biography

This biography of the Polish British anthropologist Maria Czaplicka (1884–1921) is also a cultural study of the dynamics of the anthropological collective presented from a researcher-centric perspective. Czaplicka, together with Bronisław Malinowski, studied anthropology in London and later at Oxford, then she headed the Yenisei Expedition to Siberia (1914 – 15) and was the first female lecturer of anthropology at Oxford. She was an engaged feminist and an expert on political issues in Northern Asia and Eastern Europe. But this remarkable woman’s career was cut short by suicide. Like many women anthropologists of the time, Czaplicka journeyed through various academic institutions, and her legacy has been dispersed and her field materials lost. Grażyna Kubica covers the major events in Czaplicka’s life and provides contextual knowledge about the intellectual formation in which Czaplicka grew up, including the Warsaw radical intelligentsia and the contemporary anthropology of which she became a part. Kubica also presents a critical analysis of Czaplicka’s scientific and literary works, related to the issues of gender, shamanism, and race. Kubica shows how Czaplicka’s sense of agency and subjectivity enriched and shaped the practice of anthropology and sheds light on how scientific knowledge arises and is produced. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations Series Editors’ Introduction Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. History of Anthropology as a Contemporary Research Field 2. The Anthropological Biography as a New Genre of Historical Writing 3. Why Her, Why Me, and Methods of Research and Sources Review 4. The Warsaw Radical Intelligentsia at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century 5. Maria Czaplicka’s Family Background and Polish Youth 6. Love, a Novel, and Poetry in Zakopane 7. Female Anthropologists in the British Association for the Advancement of Science 8. Women in the Royal Anthropological Institute, Folklore Society, and Royal Geographical Society 9. London Studies and the Beginnings of Czaplicka’s English Career 10. Robert Marett and Anthropological Research on Religion 11. The Ups and Downs of Anthropological Racial Discourse 12. The Oxford School of Anthropology and Work on Aboriginal Siberia 13. Preparations for the Siberian Expedition and Its Participants 14. Summer on the Yenisei and Everyday Fieldwork 15. Winter in the Tundra and the Results of the Expedition 16. Czaplicka’s Shamanism in Theory and Practice 17. Deconstructing the Concept of “Arctic Hysteria” 18. Shamans and the Discourse of the Third Sex 19. The Intrepid Traveler Returns 20. Physical Anthropology and the Concept of Race in Czaplicka’s Research 21. My Siberian Year as a Work of Literary Ethnographic Writing 22. Feeling at Home at Lady Margaret Hall and a New Life as an Oxford University Lecturer 23. A Trip Home and the Situation in Polish Ethnology 24. An Anthropologist Engaged in the Public Debate 25. America and Disillusionment 26. Another Visit to Poland, Work in Bristol, and a Tragic Decision 27. Research on Shamanism after Czaplicka and the Response to Her Work 28. “Through Arctic Siberia with My Camera,” or Biographies of Maria Czaplicka’s Field Photographs 29. Life after Life Conclusion Notes References Index ""Maria Czaplicka: Gender, Shamanism, Race" is a biography of the Polish-British anthropologist and also a cultural study of the dynamics of the anthropological "tribe" presented from a researcher-centric perspective"-- Provided by publisher