马歇尔·萨林斯

马歇尔·大卫·萨林斯（Marshall David Sahlins；/ˈsɑːlɪnz/ SAH-linz；1930年12月27日—2021年4月5日）是一位美国人类学家，以其在太平洋地区做的田野调查及其他一些理论研究知名，他亦曾是芝加哥大学教授。

生平

萨林斯在密歇根大学攻读过本硕，导师是莱斯利·怀特。1954年进入哥伦比亚大学攻读博士。 毕业后返回密歇根大学执教，学术职涯早期是莱斯利·怀特进化论的追随者，在1972年出版《石器时代经济学》彻底推翻早年观点，并转向反进化论阵营。1960年代进行反越战政治活动。 1960年代末曾在巴黎寓居两年，1973年进入芝加哥大学执教，在校内以激进主义者闻名，曾反对在芝加哥大学内设立孔子学院（该学院后来于2014年秋季关闭）。

2013年2月23日，萨林斯辞去美国国家科学院院士职务，以抗议呼吁开展旨在提高小型作战群作战效能的军事研究，以及拿破仑·沙尼翁当选院士。此前，沙尼翁的回忆录于当月出版，并受到广泛关注，其中包括《纽约时报杂志》对沙尼翁的专访。

2020年底，萨林斯摔倒后瘫痪。之后，在他即将迎来90岁生日之际，他的意识陷入了分离状态。医生断言他只有几天可活，但他奇迹般地恢复了过来，从分离状态中走出来。数月后，他于家乡芝加哥逝世。

Marshall David Sahlins ( SAH-linz; December 27, 1930 – April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Life

Sahlins was born in Chicago, the son of Bertha (Skud) and Paul A. Sahlins. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. His father was a doctor while his mother was a homemaker. He grew up in a secular, non-practicing family. His family claims to be descended from the Baal Shem Tov, a mystical rabbi considered to be the founder of Hasidic Judaism. Sahlins' mother admired Emma Goldman and was a political activist as a child in Russia.

Sahlins received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Michigan where he studied with evolutionary anthropologist Leslie White. He earned his PhD at Columbia University in 1954. There his intellectual influences included Eric Wolf, Morton Fried, Sidney Mintz, and the economic historian Karl Polanyi. In 1957, he became assistant professor at the University of Michigan.

In the 1960s he became politically active, and while protesting against the Vietnam War, Sahlins coined the term for the imaginative form of protest now called the "teach-in", which drew inspiration from the sit-in pioneered during the civil rights movement. In 1968, Sahlins signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s, he also spent two years in Paris, where he was exposed to French intellectual life (and particularly the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss) and the student protests of May 1968. In 1973, he took a position in the anthropology department at the University of Chicago, where he was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology Emeritus. His commitment to activism continued throughout his time at Chicago, most recently leading to his protest over the opening of the university's Confucius Institute (which later closed in the fall of 2014). On February 23, 2013, Sahlins resigned from the National Academy of Sciences to protest the call for military research for improving the effectiveness of small combat groups and also the election of Napoleon Chagnon. The resignation followed the publication in that month of Chagnon's memoir and widespread coverage of the memoir, including a profile of Chagnon in The New York Times Magazine.

Alongside his research and activism, Sahlins trained a host of students who went on to become prominent in the field. One such student, Gayle Rubin, said: "Sahlins is a mesmerizing speaker and a brilliant thinker. By the time he finished the first lecture, I was hooked."

In 2001, 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. The imprint specializes in small pamphlets on unconventional subjects in anthropology, critical theory, philosophy, and current events. He died on April 5, 2021, at the age of 90 in Chicago.

His brother was the writer and comedian Bernard Sahlins (1922–2013). His son, Peter Sahlins, is a historian.

Work

Sahlins is known for theorizing the interaction of structure and agency, his critiques of reductive theories of human nature (economic and biological, in particular), and his demonstrations of the power that culture has to shape people's perceptions and actions. Although his focus has been the entire Pacific, Sahlins has done most of his research in Fiji (especially the island of Moala) and Hawaii.