“Jack Glazier’s work effectively situates Paul Radin’s writing within the broader context of anthropology, African American culture, and his ground-breaking ethnographic research among the Winnebago, and sheds important light on his unique radical humanism.” —Sergei Kan, professor of anthropology, Dartmouth College, and author of A Maverick Boasian: The Life and Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser
“Glazier’s complex and humane account of Radin should help return to conversations about the history of anthropology while also challenging reductive and dismissive accounts of Boasian anthropology, particularly on the contentious issue of race and racism. Glazier’s work makes it possible to admire Radin’s real achievements without overlooking his flaws, providing a useful model for a radically humanist approach to the history of anthropology.” —Grant Arndt, associate professor of anthropology, Iowa State University
“Jack Glazier’s book about Paul Radin—the idiosyncratic, perpetually itinerate, and, by all accounts, irascible anthropologist—is an invaluable resource for those of us interested in the history of anthropology, social science, and intellectual history more generally. Glazier shows through Radin’s oeuvre how this student of Franz Boas, the ‘founding father’ of anthropology in the United States, challenged the master’s teachings and documents his fraught relationship with Boas. It presents a needed, more complex picture of Boasian anthropology. In showing how Radin used his skill as an ethnographer to critique inequality, it challenges us to read Radin anew and use him for inspiration to do the same.” —Kevin A. Yelvington, professor of anthropology, University of South Florida, and editor of Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora
“This marvelous book provides a deep understanding of the history of the anthropology discipline. The focus on Paul Radin’s life and work comes as a revelation, an important, insightful, much-overlooked chapter in the anthropological treatment of Native American and African American cultures.” —Stanley Brandes, professor emeritus of anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
This tour de force of detective work and interpretation discloses the rich intellectual and peculiarly alienating moral history of Paul Radin, a footloose, controversial, and mercurial maverick, and, from his little-known research at Fisk, the personal narratives of former slaves. It speaks profoundly from their times of racism and the rise of fascism to our own troubled times. As one of Paul’s last students, I felt deeply moved by Jack Glazier’s remarkable elucidation of my teacher’s radical humanism, his discerning approach to our shared human capacity for reflection and consciousness: it is as subversive as ever of much objectifying of our subjects in the social sciences.— Richard Werbner, Professor Emeritus in African Anthropology, and Honorary Professor in Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester
Jack Glazier’s book is the first extensive account of Paul Radin’s scholarship and his radical humanistic understanding of human experience. It is a signal contribution to the understanding and appreciation of a major figure in the history of American anthropology. - Herbert S. Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Charming, erudite, erratically employed, Paul Radin advocated an end to racism as staunchly as his teacher Franz Boas. His genuine respect for Indians and African Americans supported his famous detailed Winnebago ethnography and also, less known, an extraordinarily moving collection of autobiographical narratives by men and women born into slavery. Here, Jack Glazier gives us the man and his work with these two peoples, showing how both projects focused on religious experiences central to so many human lives.—Alice B. Kehoe, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Marquette University
Jack Glazier’s book is a most welcome addition to the history of Boasian anthropology. By focusing on the relationship between Paul Radin’s well-known Winnebago studies and his little-known work on autobiographical narratives of slavery in the US South, Glazier recovers Radin as an important contributor to anti-racist anthropology.— Richard Handler, Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia
