I’ve been what might charitably be called less than rigorous when it comes to keeping this blog up to date, and this post is no way is a complete undoing of this trend, but I did want to mention a few new (and relatively minor) things that have come out recently. First, my review of Militant Christianity: An Anthropological History by Alice Beck Kehoe is out right now in Religion and Society: Advances in Research. To be frank, I’m rather critical of it, but for right now at least I’ll just let the review speak for me.
The second small thing is a written version of my opener for an “anthropology roundtable” we had in lieu of a colloquium a few days ago here at SocAnth Edinburgh; the topic was The Value of Values. I was given a position that, while I don’t necessarily agree with, is not entirely alien to me either: “Value is nothing but a series of disconnected homonyms; the concept has no utility as an anthropological analytic or as a comparative frame.” If I was promoting my own views, I would probably have shifted the emphasis, and a little ontological weight as well, onto the trailing part of my talk, where I discuss the generative nature of the problematic over any ‘value’ (however understood) that might be generated: this would of course undo the plank that was given me, and so it was a foreclosed option, at least in the roundtable. The important thing is that it was a great deal of fun, and I’m looking forward to future ones here at UEdinburgh.
Jon Bialecki 