Articles on Social Theory and African Systems of Thought

Ivan Karp, 1987.

Major strands of Ivan Karp’s work dealt with social theory and African systems of thought. In many cases these were combined, as he analyzed cases drawn from Africa to develop concepts and arguments in social theory. Personhood, agency, pluralistic cultural systems, and varied notions and manifestations of power are among the themes prominent in his work, and Karp wrote one of the earliest articles introducing the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to anthropological analyses. Karp also wrote a number of articles on ethnography, fieldwork, and methodology. Inspired by Meyer Fortes’ work on the developmental cycle of domestic groups, he stressed the importance of time and process in understanding social relations and social organization. Karp turned his attention to museums and exhibitions in the mid-1980s, after becoming Curator of African Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. These became another field in which he applied and developed concepts in social theory. Karp’s work in African philosophy also developed from his work on African systems of thought and social theory.

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2000s

2002  Development and Personhood: Tracing the Contours of a Moral Discourse. In Bruce Knauft, ed., Critically Modern: Alternatives, Alterities and Ethnographies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

1990s

1997a Does Theory Travel? Area Studies and Cultural Studies. Africa Today 44(3):281-296. 

1997b Personhood, Concepts of. In Encyclopedia of Africa, ed. John Middleton. New York and London: McMillan and Co., pp. 342-346.

1995 Logic, Dialogics and Politics in International Scholarly Communication. In James W. Fernandez and Milton. W. Singer, eds., The Conditions of Reciprocal Understanding. The Center for International Studies at The University of Chicago. pp. 337-341.

1993 Foreword to the reprinted edition of The Moral Imagination in Kaguru Modes of Thought by T.O. Beidelman. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. XI-XIV.

1990 Introduction. In Personhood and Agency: The Experience of Self and Other in African Cultures, edited by Michael Jackson and Ivan Karp, pp. 15-30. (Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology 14). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. With Michael Jackson.

1980s

1989a Introduction. In The Creativity of Power, edited by W. Arens and Ivan Karp. pp. xi-xxix. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. With William Arens. 

1989b Power and Capacity in Rituals of Possession. In The Creativity of Power, edited by W. Arens and Ivan Karp, pp. 91-109. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Reprinted in Michael Jackson and Ivan Karp, eds., Personhood and Agency: The Experience of Self and Other in African Cultures, pp. 79-93. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis and Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

1988 Laughter at Marriage: Subversion in Performance. Journal of the Folklore Institute 25(1/2): 35-52. (A special issue on Performance In Contemporary African Arts; slightly revised version of 1987.)

1987a Laughter at Marriage: Subversion in Performance. In The Transformation of African Marriage, edited by D. Parkin, pp. 137-155. Manchester: Manchester University Press for the International African Institute. 

1987b Preface to the reprinted edition of Explorations in African Systems of Thought, edited by Ivan Karp and C. Bird, pp. vii-xvi. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. 

1987c Tragedy in Birth: An African View. In Generations: A Universal Family Album, ed. Anna R. Cohen and Lucinda Leach, pp. 166-167. New York: Pantheon Books. 

1987d Guest Editorial: Why Read Ethnographies? In Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition, by Emily Schultz and Robert Lavenda, pp. 60-61. Boston: West Publishing Co.

1986a Anthropology and Semiotics. In International Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics, Thomas A. Sebeok, general editor, pp. 30-35. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter. 

1986b African Systems of Thought. In Africa, edited by P. O'Meara and P. Martin, pp. 199-212. Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 

1986c Review Essay: Oedipus and Job in West African Religion by Meyer Fortes, with an essay by Robin Horton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.  International Journal of African Historical Studies 19(4): 715-720.

1986d Agency and Social Theory: A Review of Three Books by Anthony Giddens. American Ethnologist 13(1): 131-138.

1986e Foreword to the reprinted edition of Lugbara Religion by John Middleton. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. vii-xii. 

1985a Review Essay: Flash of the Spirit by Robert Farris Thompson. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Art in America (November 1985): 23-37. With Mary Jo Arnoldi.

1985b Deconstructing Culture-Bound Syndromes. Social Science and Medicine 21(2): 221-228.

1983 Reading the Nuer. Current Anthropology 24(4): 481-502; and 25(1):129-30. With Kent Maynard.

1982 Reflexivity in Fieldwork. In Explaining Human Behavior, edited by P. Secord, pp. 249-273. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. With Martha B. Kendall.

1980a Introduction. In Explorations in African Systems of Thought, edited by Ivan Karp and C. Bird, pp. 113. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, reprinted 1987 by Smithsonian Institution Press.

1980b Beer Drinking and Social Experience in an African Society. In Explorations in African Systems of Thought, edited by Ivan Karp and C. Bird, pp. 83-120. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, reprinted 1987 by Smithsonian Institution Press.

1970s

1979 Living with the Spirits of the Dead. In African Therapeutic Systems of Thought, edited by C. Adede, et al., pp. 22-35. Boston: Crossroads Press. With Patricia P. Karp.

1978a Smart Fishermen Take Care of Their Rods: Kinship in `The Misfortunes of Fyfe'. Appendix to "Culture and Non-Sense" by P. Bouissac. In Sight, Sound, and Sense, edited by T.A. Sebeok, pp. 257-260. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

1978b New Guinea Models in the African Savannah. Africa 48(1): 1-17.

1977a Levi-Strauss and Tallensi Totemism. Anthropology 1(1): 33-41. 

1977b Comment on T.J. Scheff's The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual. Current Anthropology 18(3): 496-497.

1976 Good Marx for the Anthropologist: Structure and Anti-structure in `Duck Soup'. In The American Dimension, edited by W. Arens and S. Montague, pp. 37-48. New York: Alfred Publishing House; Reprinted in One World, Many Cultures, edited by Stuart Hirschberg, pp. 305-312. NY: Macmillan, 1992.