Marshall David Sahlins was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory.
15 Facts About Marshall Sahlins
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Marshall Sahlins was the Charles F Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.
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Marshall Sahlins was born in Chicago, the son of Bertha and Paul A Sahlins.
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Marshall Sahlins's father was a doctor while his mother was a homemaker.
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Marshall Sahlins received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Michigan where he studied with evolutionary anthropologist Leslie White.
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Marshall Sahlins earned his PhD at Columbia University in 1954.
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In 1968, Marshall Sahlins signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
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On February 23,2013, Marshall Sahlins resigned from the National Academy of Sciences to protest the call for military research for improving the effectiveness of small combat groups and the election of Napoleon Chagnon.
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Alongside his research and activism, Marshall Sahlins trained a host of students who went on to become prominent in the field.
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In 2001, Marshall Sahlins became publisher of Prickly Pear Pamphlets, which was started in 1993 by anthropologists Keith Hart and Anna Grimshaw, and was renamed Prickly Paradigm Press.
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Marshall Sahlins died on April 5,2021, at the age of 90 in Chicago.
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Marshall Sahlins's brother was the writer and comedian Bernard Sahlins.
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Marshall Sahlins is known for theorizing the interaction of structure and agency, his critiques of reductive theories of human nature, and his demonstrations of the power that culture has to shape people's perceptions and actions.
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Marshall Sahlins divided the evolution of societies into "general" and "specific".
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Marshall Sahlins developed the concept of the "structure of the conjuncture" to grapple with the problem of structure and agency, in other words that societies were shaped by the complex conjuncture of a variety of forces, or structures.