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 | Margaret Mead: |
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."--Margaret Mead This quotation--found on posters and bumper stickers, and adopted as the motto for hundreds of organizations worldwide--speaks to the global influence and legacy of the American anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-78). In this insightful and revealing book, Nancy Lutkehaus explains how and why Mead became the best-known anthropologist and female public intellectual in twentieth-century America. Using photographs, films, television appearances, and materials from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals, Lutkehaus explores the ways in which Mead became an American cultural heroine. Identifying four key images associated with her--the New Woman, the Anthropologist/Adventurer, the Scientist, and the Public Intellectual--Lutkehaus examines the various meanings that different segments of American society assigned to Mead throughout her lengthy career as a public figure. The author shows that Mead came to represent a new set of values and ideas--about women, non-Western peoples, culture, and America's role in the twentieth century--that have significantly transformed society and become generally accepted today. Lutkehaus also considers why there has been no other anthropologist since Mead to become as famous. Margaret Mead is an engaging look at how one woman's life and accomplishments resonated with the issues that shaped American society and changed her into a celebrity and cultural icon. Nancy C. Lutkehaus is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Zaria's Fire: Engendered Moments in Manam Ethnography. While a student, she worked for several years as an assistant to Margaret Mead at the American Museum of Natural History, and, like Mead, she has done ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea. "Lutkehaus effectively and perceptively examines Mead's impact (both subtle and overt) on anthropology and American popular culture from the 1928 publication of her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa, to the present day. With its fresh approach, this work is a valuable addition to the body of literature on Mead. Highly recommended for anthropology and popular culture collections in academic and large public libraries."--Elizabeth Salt, Library Journal "[Nancy C. Lutkehaus has] written an illuminating book--more a sociohistorical portrait than a birth-to-death biography--that examines how Margaret Mead became an American icon."--Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History Endorsements: "This is an absorbing, expertly researched, and much-needed treatment of Margaret Mead. It is the definitive book about Mead's fame and her complicities in creating it."--George E. Marcus, University of California, Irvine "Engaging and illuminating, this book shows how Margaret Mead deftly worked with different media forms, and how her celebrity evolved with transformations in popular media. Margaret Mead renders the anthropologist's life with new meaning and insight, and helps us to understand why Mead emerged as a cultural figure and icon."--Faye Ginsburg, New York University List of Illustrations ix Subject Areas: | |||||
Prices subject to change without notice File created: 11/4/2009 | |||||
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