Talk:James George Frazer

Move

This should probably be moved to "James George Frazer" to avoid possible ambiguities, and because that's how he's normally referred to. -- Pamplemousse 07:43, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

• Done, finally. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Link

The social anthropology link on the James George Frazer page brings up Cultural Anthropology instead. How to change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.250.237.247 (talk) 02:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Second Citation

The introduction to this article says that Frazer's argument about religion has been shown to be invalid. This is a big claim and proper citation is critical. However, the citation link directs only to other wikipedia articles. It would be better to find the citations in those two articles (Human Development and Social Darwinism) and copy them into this article's bibliography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.16.232 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Here are some quotes.

Ancient Mystery Cults. Walter Burkert. Harvard: 1987 “The Frazerian construct of a general ‘Oriental’ vegetation god who periodically dies and rises from the dead has been discredited by more recent scholarship. There is no evidence for a resurrection of Attis; even Osiris remains with the dead; and if Persephone returns to the world every year, a joyous event for gods and men, the initiates do not follow her. There is a dimension of death in all of the mystery initiations, but the concept of rebirth or resurrection of either gods or mystai is anything but explicit.”

Classical Mythology (6th ed), Mark Morford and Robert Lenardon. Longman: 1999. "Despite its faults, Sir J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough remains a pioneering monument in the field. It is full of comparative data on kingship and ritual, but its value is lessened by Frazer's ritualist interpretation of myth and by his eagerness to establish dubious analogies between myths of primitive tribes and classical myths."

Classical Myth (3rd ed). Barry Powell. PrenticeHall: 2001. "Like writers on myth during the Enlightenment, Frazer ignored the possibility that change might not always bring improvement. Frazer himself did no field work. He integrated into his master scheme a vast body of data, often carelessly gathered, and manipulated it to fit his theory."

Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend , Maria Leach (ed.), HarperRow: 1972. "The Golden Bough is an extensive study of ancient cults and folklore and comprises a vast amount of anthropological research. While remarkable as a collection of data, the work's conclusions are now often considered somewhat dubious."

Those are some harsh words. People still like to quote him though... all the time.69.254.76.77 (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Why not edit these quotes into the text of the article?--Wetman (talk) 01:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Eloquence

Qualities of Frazer's writings widely acknowledged but not mentioned in the article are his exquisite use of irony and his eloquence. If I may be allowed to illustrate: "Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should not be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species." I will try and gather some citations, but this is not my field of study, so help would be appreciated. - Oniscoid 02:14, 5 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oniscoid (talk • contribs) well i clicked on the quadruple tilde link... Oniscoid 02:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

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Criticism

@FreeKnowledgeCreator: I do not see what your objection is to the paragraph I added to the lead about Frazer's current reputation. The fact is that there is hardly a scholar alive who takes any more than a minute fraction of what Frazer wrote seriously. He has had more influence on esotericism and esoteric literature than he has on modern scholarship and the article should say this. It is not a violation of WP:NPOV to state what the current scholarly consensus on his works is. Furthermore, I do not understand why you keep restoring an uncited claim that Frazer is "often considered one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology," which I can find no source for and which seems highly dubious, given that by the 1950s, hardly any professional anthropologists still took him seriously. --Katolophyromai (talk) 21:24, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, do you have a reliable source that actually states directly, "there is hardly a scholar alive who takes any more than a minute fraction of what Frazer wrote seriously"? What specifically is it? I do agree that it is perfectly reasonable to mention scholarly criticism of Frazer in the lead of the article, but what you added was vulgar ("debunked") and needs rewriting. Your addition was, "Frazer has had a controversial reputation in the world of academia. Although he was one of the most famous cultural anthropologists of his time, many of his contemporaries sought to distance themselves from his views. Most scholars since the middle of the twentieth century have generally regarded most of his ideas as incorrect and debunked. Frazer has also been criticized for his tendency to describe ritual practices using misleading scientific analogies and his extensive use of specifically Christian theological terms to describe non-Christian cultures." It appears that only the last sentence of that addition was properly supported by the body of the article.

As for, "one of founding fathers of modern anthropology", I've no problem with removing anything uncited; the trouble is that if you make edits quickly and without an attempt at discussing them, changes like that are likely to be reverted because someone objects to different changes. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, first of all, see the list of sources and quotations listed in the "Second Citation" section of this talk page. To that already quite long list, I will add Godfrey Lienhardt, who states in this article that, during Frazer's own lifetime, other anthropologists "for the most part distanced themselves from his theories and opinions" and that most of Frazer's influence "has been in the literary rather than the academic world." Lienhardt also quotes Frazer's only biographer, Robert Ackerman, who states that Frazer is "an embarrassment" to anthropologists because of his "popular appeal" and his "disproportionate" influence "on so many creative writers," despite having only played "a much smaller part" in the history of the early development of cultural anthropology. I will also add Mary Beard, who is already quoted in the article as saying that, if someone is looking for a copy of The Golden Bough, that person is more likely to find it in an "esoteric bookstore" than an academic one. I will also add Timothy Larsen, whose chapter on Frazer in his book The Slain God: Anthropologists and the Christian Faith offers a large quantity of wide-ranging criticism of Frazer's misleading use of scientific terminology and analogies and his misleading use of Christian theological terminology when describing non-Christian cultures. There are other sources I have but do not have on me at the moment. --Katolophyromai (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The sources mentioned in the "Second Citation" section above are criticism of Frazer. None of the quotations from those sources states that, "there is hardly a scholar alive who takes any more than a minute fraction of what Frazer wrote seriously", or anything to that effect. Lienhardt's article may be a useful source, only you didn't cite it in your recent edits. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2018 (UTC)