the undergrad garth

welcome back to the undergrad garth — that wonderful little space where we sort through and dissect my undergrad notes in hopes of finding a few useful tidbits to save (and organize) for future reference!

there's been a lot of work going on around here over the past week or so. 

kitsch week 2 is starting tomorrow morning in seeds. 

we've opened the global gardens, an ever-growing list of community garden groups, slow food activist organizations, anthropology groups, soup kitchens, and volunteer groups. it's not very big right now, but we're always looking for new sources.

we also started the gastronomic anthropologist's almanac, a selection of food, anthropology, and writing related holidays and birthdays. 

essentially, we're we've been taking steps to become a research hub. 

eventually we'd love the cactus garden to grow up to be an amusing sort of one-stop shop for food, anthropology, and literary sources.

wouldn't that be fun? 

with all of that in mind, for the next few undergrad garth posts i'd like to focus on important people bios.

of course, since these are all based on my old undergrad notes, these bios are all incredibly rough and don't really do anyone justice.

that's okay, though.

sometimes you just need a stepping stone to get started. 

so, according to my religion, magic, and witchcraft class...

edward b. tylor

• is considered to be the father of modern anthropology.
• was first person from a western tradition to recognize that all people have culture (i.e. all people have something learned, shared, cultivated).
• was looking to make social applications of charles darwin's biological theory. 
• ranked all people on a scale.
• equated animism with savagery, which essentially made people who saw some sort of spiritual element to nature equivalent to animals. 
• identified social progress to this order: savagery to barbarism to civilization.
• polytheistic cultures were equated to barbarism
• civilization was equated to monotheism.

and... that's enough for today. 

also, i used a lot of equals signs in my notes. 

oh! by the way, mr. tylor's birthday is listed over in the gastronomic anthropologist's almanac. 

hint: the month he's born in ends in an "r."

you'll notice that a lot of my definitions and such are amalgamations since they're based off of old notes that i haven't read in years. when possible, necessary, or interesting, i'll try to link through to official definitions or sources. in these cases, wikipedia might actually be our friend...

these notes were taken sometime between 2005-2009. how accurate they still are i can't really say.

also, my handwriting is ridiculously annoying to read: f.y.i.