
The Primitive Within
The Entanglements Between Anthropology and Folklore Studies in Germany, 1850s-1930s
Christof Dejung(Author)
Oxford University Press
Will be published approx. on 10. September 2026
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-19-790268-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book is the first to examine the relation between German folklore studies and colonial anthropology in the age of empire. It expounds how anthropologists and folklorists aimed to compare rural cultures in the European hinterland to supposedly primitive societies in the colonial peripheries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This allows for a reconsideration of two fields that all too often have been examined in isolation. Whereas folklore studies has been interpreted as an aspect of nation-building, anthropology has been primarily examined in its relation to imperialism. The links between these two areas of research--and their eventual separation--have barely been examined in any detail to date.
By taking Germany as an exemplary case, the book addresses the following questions: how did scholars think about comparing traditional cultures that were thousands of kilometres apart? Why were such cultural ties eventually severed at the turn of the twentieth century? How was the study of so-called primitive societies linked to metropolitan class struggles and assertions of territorial sovereignty, such as nationalism and imperialism? How far was the shifting relation between overseas and domestic primitivism caused, or accompanied, by the increasing importance of racial theories after the end of the First World War? And, last but not least, how was the study of primitivism linked to the concept of historical temporality?
By taking Germany as an exemplary case, the book addresses the following questions: how did scholars think about comparing traditional cultures that were thousands of kilometres apart? Why were such cultural ties eventually severed at the turn of the twentieth century? How was the study of so-called primitive societies linked to metropolitan class struggles and assertions of territorial sovereignty, such as nationalism and imperialism? How far was the shifting relation between overseas and domestic primitivism caused, or accompanied, by the increasing importance of racial theories after the end of the First World War? And, last but not least, how was the study of primitivism linked to the concept of historical temporality?
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-19-790268-4 (9780197902684)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Christof Dejung is Professor in Modern History at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He is the author of Commodity Trading, Globalization and the Colonial World: Spinning the Web of the Global Market (2018) and the co-editor, together with David Motadel and Juergen Osterhammel, of The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire (2019).
Content
- Introduction
- 1: Comparing Primitive Cultures Home and Abroad: Paradigms of Nineteenth-Century German Anthropology
- 2: Between Primitiveness and Nationalist Endeavours: The Emergence of Folklore Studies as a Distinct Field of Research
- 3: People with and without History: Anthropology, Folklore Studies, and the Challenge of Historical Time
- 4: Primitivism and Popular Culture: Museums, Exhibitions, and Narratives of Time and Space
- 5: The Abyss of Race: Folklore Studies and Physical Anthropology after the Turn of the Century
- Conclusion