" Philology's a Thing of God!": Edward Sapir and the Jewish Subtexts of American Anthropology. Edward Sapir and the Jewish Subtexts of American Anthropology

This Social Thought & Commentary piece explores certain Jewish subtexts of American anthropological thought from the first half of the 20th century, focusing on the theoretical and artistic work of Edward Sapir. Utilizing Sapir’s academic, lay, and distinctly Jewish publications, along with newly uncovered archival material, I argue that Sapir’s deep ambivalence regarding the prospects for Jewishness and modern Jewish identity in the United States can be seen as a subtext woven within his cultural and poetic writings. This essay demonstrates the ways in which Sapir’s individualist interpretation of Boasian cultural theory was conditioned by his profound concern for the prospects for Jewish ethnic, national, and religious survival in the US. Drawing on these subtexts found in Sapir’s cultural corpus, this piece seeks to better understand the ways in which ideas of Judaism and Jewishness manifest themselves more broadly within the history of American anthropological thought.