The Beast on the Table

Reviews / Votes

The array of symposia covered offers at least something of interest to any anthropologist and plenty of interest to those seeking a synoptic grasp of the discipline as a whole. -- Joel Wallman American Anthropologist The beast celebrates the conferences convened by the Wenner-Gren Foundation under the authoress's direction, including 'Critical approaches in archaeology' Antiquity, Vol. 77, No. 296 June 2003 Her candid description...provides an overview of the changes in the discipline over this period and documents the influence of the Wenner-Gren conference tradition on its cutting edge...Silverman has given us an inside view of an important anthropological institution as well as of the more general process of conferencing. Readers will find details of substance as well as reflections on how our discipline progresses and where it ought to be going. -- Regna Darnell, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario Current Anthropology, Vol. 45, No. 2, April 2004 This book is the report by the former president of the Wenner Gren Foundation on her career as president of the most important foundation in anthropology...this book is unique and should be welcomed...Silverman shows herself to be an able ethnographer...a very interesting book, which gives the reader (lay person and anthropologist) sometimes practical and often conceptual insights in the role and impact of conferences and the structure they have. -- Rik Pinxten Anthropos The Wenner-Gren Foundation is one of the most influential organizations in contemporary anthropology. As president, Sydel Silverman has been at the heart of the field, witnessing the discipline's attempts to move forward and understand humanity's culture, social structures, and nature. As a theoretical scholar, strong leader, administrator, historian of anthropology and active researcher, Dr. Silverman has had numerous opportunities to help steer this debate, through the funding and organization of international conferences, where she set the stage so scholars could talk, debate, communicate, and misunderstand each other. As a social anthropologist with a rare ability to analyze organizations, Dr. Silverman analyzes these encounters as primary sites of disciplinary interaction with a rare candor and insight. The result is a compelling look at how intellectual ideas and theories are formulated, how they grow or are derailed. This is a critical book for anyone who is interested in where anthropology will go in the 21st century. -- Nancy Parezo, (University of Arizona)