''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), published quarterly by

Wiley Wiley may refer to: Locations * Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town * Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S. * Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany People * Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer * Wiley Mil ...

. The "New Series" began in 1899 under an editorial board that included Franz Boas, Daniel G. Brinton, and

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...

. The current editor-in-chief is Elizabeth Chin (ArtCenter College of Design). The journal publishes research articles from all four subfields of anthropology as well as book reviews and obituaries, and includes sections on Public Anthropologies, Multimodal Anthropologies, and World Anthropologies. The journal also maintains a website with essays, virtual issues, teaching resources, and supplementary material for print articles.

Past editors

F. W. Hodge (1899–1910)

John R. Swanton John Reed Swanton (February 19, 1873 – May 2, 1958) was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and et ...

(1911) F. W. Hodge (1912–1914) Pliny E. Goddard (1915–1920)

(1921–1923) Robert H. Lowie (1924–1933) Leslie Spier (1934–1938) Ralph Linton (1939–1944) J. Alden Mason (1945–1948) Melville J. Herskovits (1949–1952) Sol Tax (1953–1955) Walter R. Goldschmidt (1956–1959) Edward H. Spicer (1960–1962) George D. Spindler (1963–1966) Ward H. Goodenough (1967–1970)

Laura Bohannan Laura Bohannan (née Laura Marie Altman Smith), (1922 – March 19, 2002) pen name Elenore Smith Bowen, was an American cultural anthropologist best known for her 1966 article, "Shakespeare in the Bush." Bohannan also wrote two books during the ...

(1971–1973) Robert A. Manners (1974–1975) Richard B. Woodbury (1976–1978) David L. Olmsted (1979–1981) H. Russell Bernard (1982–1985) Thomas C. Greaves (1985–1986) H. Russell Bernard (1986–1989) Janet Keller (1990–1993)

Barbara Tedlock Barbara Helen Tedlock (born September 9, 1942) is an American cultural anthropologist and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Her work explores cross-cultural understanding and communication of d ...

Dennis Tedlock Dennis Ernest Tedlock (June 19, 1939 – June 3, 2016) was the McNulty Professor of English and Research Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. in 1968 from Tulane University. In 1986, he ...

(1993–1997)

Robert Sussman Robert Wald Sussman (July 4, 1941 – June 8, 2016) was an American anthropologist and professor at Washington University in St. Louis. His research concerned the evolution of primate and human behavior, and he was interested in race as a social ...

(1998–2001) Susan Lees & Fran Mascia-Lees (2001–2005) Ben Blount (2005–2007)

Tom Boellstorff Tom Boellstorff is an anthropologist based at the University of California, Irvine. In his career to date, his interests have included the anthropology of sexuality, the anthropology of globalization, digital anthropology, Southeast Asian studies ...

(2007–2012) Michael Chibnik (2012–2016) Deborah A. Thomas (2016–2020)

Four-field approach

The four main subfields of anthropology include cultural, linguistic, archeology, and biological/physical. Sometimes applied anthropology and public anthropology are added as additional subfields. Among the journals published by the AAA, ''American Anthropologist'' is the only one that follows the "four-field" approach, publishing articles from the four main subfields of anthropology. Proponents of the four-field approach see ''American Anthropologists broad scope as important to maintaining disciplinary unity, while critics have expressed serious reservations about this aim, and criticize pressures since the 1970s against editors and works that do not subscribe to four-field holism as an ideal for anthropological scholarship. In 2010, then editor-in-chief

proposed that ''American Anthropologist'' be viewed as an "interdisciplinary" journal, arguing that the goal should be "to present the best work in 'anthropology'—as defined in the broadest possible sense. That certainly includes work that speaks across subdisciplines in some manner, often by integrating methods, problematics, and relevant literatures from more than one subfield. However, it also includes work that is not invested in the four-field concept and presents itself as, say, cultural anthropology or archaeology, with no reference to a four-field vision of 'the discipline.'"

Notes

References

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External links

American Anthropologist website
{{Authority control Anthropology journals Pre-Columbian studies Publications established in 1888 Mesoamerican studies journals Wiley-Blackwell academic journals