In December 1998 the University of Toronto Press released the following
title now available for ordering.
Franz Boas among the Inuit of Baffin Island 1883-1884. Journals and
Letters. Edited and introduced by Ludger Muller-Wille. Translated by William
Barr and with a preface by Valerie Pinsky. xvi, 298 p., photographs and
figures.
ISBN 0-8020-4150-7 (C); CIP: C98-931821-4. Size: 6''x9''
Price: Canada - $50.00; U.K./European: e 37.50
Orders: http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca - click on Distrubition Services
Illustrated with some of Boas's own photos and maps of his field
area, this book is a valuable addition to the historical and
anthropological literature on southern Qikirtaaluk Baffin Island
in today's Nunavut, the Inuit, Scottish and American whalers, and
the emergence of arctic social sciences at the end of the 19th century.
Ludger Muller-Wille has transcribed Franz Boas's journals and letters to
his fiancee, Marie Krackowizer, parents and sisters, and woven the texts
into a sequential narrative. The result is a fascinating study of one of
the earliest examples of participatory observation among the Inuit.
From the Preface:
"I have always wanted to read my great-grandfather's Baffin Island
journals and letters, so it was with enormous excitement and
anticipation that I first opened the pages of this translation...
Muller-Wille's skilful arrangement and sensitive editing of the
Baffin Island material highlight the rich material and insight with
which Boas wrote about this field experience and its significance
for him at the time. Moreover, Muller-Wille's introduction provides an
important backdrop for our own appreciation of the original text. It is
widely recognized that this trip signalled a crucial turning point for
Boas personally, intellectually, and professionally, and that it was the
primary context within which he developed his ethnographic field methods
and began to articulate the more fundamental philosophical and moral
attitudes that would form the core of his mature anthropological
viewpoint."
Valerie Pinsky, archaeologist, American Museum of Natural History(New York)
Ludger Muller-Wille is an associate professor of geography at
McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and the past chair (1990-95) of the
International Arctic Social Sciences Association. His book 'Franz Boas.
Bei den Inuit in Baffinland 1883-1884. Tagebucher und Briefe.' was first
published in German in Berlin in 1994.
William Barr is a professor of geography at the University of Saskatchewan
(Saskatoon, Canada). He is editor and translator of 'A Frenchman in Search
of Franklin: De Bray's Arctic Journal. 1852-1854' by Emile Frederic de Bray,
and 'Overland to Starvation Cove: With the Inuit in Search of Franklin.
1878-1880.' by Wilhelm Klutschak.
(Released January 28, 1999)