[Originally filmed on Low-Band U-matic, transferred to Hi-8, and then to mini-DV tape, then edited on iMovie into a film of c. 62 mins, from about 66 original]
[Some buzz on the original]
0:00:05
Jean La Fontaine introduces Lucy Mair
How did you move into anthropology?
Who was at Malinowski’s seminar before you went to the field and what was it like?
What was the format of the Malinowski seminar?
Did he have ethnography from returned fieldworkers?
Was it Malinowski who encouraged you to go to Buganda?
If he had not wanted you to go, would you have gone?
What did people think about your going to Africa?
Did you enjoy the fieldwork?
How Christianized were the people?
Jean comments on traditional religion and religious syncretism
Do you remember any individuals with particular affection? Key informants.
0:12:04
Was Malinowski’s seminar different when you came back?
Was Kenyatta there then?
How did the Department at the LSE work and Malinowski?
What was the colonial role of anthropology?
Who were the first undergraduates at the LSE?
When did Edmund Leach and Audrey Richards join the Department?
Edmund Leach’s exciting ideas.
Schapera’s south African accent
Malinowski and Schapera – why relations so bad? Malinowski’s anti-Semitism
Malinowski’s ideas, methods and role
Were students then more mature?
0:24:27
Raymond Firth’s character and ideas
Meyer Fortes and his dwindling socialism
Edmund Leach as an eccentric and the first Malinowski lecture
Evans-Pritchard and his feud with Malinowski
Firth’s way of dealing with Malinowski
Seligman’s position and character
0:29:05
The character and ideas and influence of Radcliffe-Brown
Culture and structure and Audrey Richards
The value of Radcliffe-Brown’s simple principles
Malinowski’s schemes
Radcliffe-Brown – reminiscences by Jean La Fontaine – an enthusiast
Anarchy Brown
0:34:14
Did you enjoy teaching Colonial cadets and keep in touch with any of them?
Visit to Nigeria and later trip to Nigeria
Trip to Australia and New Guinea – impressions
Sailing round the coast steered by a murderer
Contrast with Africa
0:39:28
Evans-Pritchard as a person
Max Gluckman and his influence, Paul Stirling
Max Gluckman, Elizabeth Colson and others
Modern specialization of knowledge and increasing difficulty of spanning anthropology
0:43:27
What were the effects of working within the Colonial structure?
Was anthropology the handmaiden of colonialism?
What effect did taking grants from the Colonial Research Council have?
0:46:01
What did you enjoy working on most in terms of writing?
Do you enjoy writing and why?
The necessity of combining teaching and research.
Insecurities about teaching; preferring lecturing
Raymond Firth’s superlative seminar handling
Alan reminisces about the seminars
Where did the real conversations occur? Pubs, lunches etc?
Malinowski’s parties and sociality
What were the house parties in Austria like?
Discussions and walks in Austria
Opinions of Malinowski’s diary
Malinowski as believer in universal rationality
Why the Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard feud?
0:54:20
Maurice Freedman
Godfrey Lienhardt and E-P
E-P’s tall stories…
Meyer Fortes – as a man and thinker
Lucy Mair’s gaucheness
Who does she think of her contemporaries are immortal? Meyer and E-P and perhaps Max Gluckman
Not much influenced by workers outside Britain and anthropology
(Total length: 62 mins)