SAHLINS, MARSHALL

SAHLINS, MARSHALL (1930– ), U.S. anthropologist. A native of Chicago, he was educated at the University of Michigan, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1951, and at Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1954. From 1955 to 1957 Sahlins was a lecturer in anthropology at Columbia University. He then taught at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in 1957 as an assistant professor, and later as a full professor. In 1974 he left Ann Arbor to join the faculty of the University of Chicago as a professor of anthropology; he was later named the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Emeritus. Considered one of the most prominent American anthropologists of his era, Sahlins is known as an ethnographer and historian of Polynesia. His theories about European contact in Polynesia have sparked major debates, and his long-running scholarly debate with anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere of Princeton University has apparently fueled several works by both authors. Much of this debate has involved differing interpretations of the reception of Captain James Cook by native Hawaiians in 1779. Sahlins in early works argued that Cook had been initially welcomed as the god Lono; on his return a week later, Cook was killed by the natives because of a cycle of worship that emphasized the warlike god Ku. Obeyesekere responded in his Apotheosis of Captain Cook (1992), emphasizing what he considered the erroneous influence of European myth models, and arguing that Sahlins's theory implied a condescending view of the native Hawaiians. Sahlins's 1995 work, How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, for Example, continued the debate by challenging Obeyesekere's insistence on a practical rationality, which suggests that he is captive to Western concepts. Sahlins questions whether Western scholars (including Obeyesekere, as a Sri Lankan who works within a Western tradition) can ever really speak for non-Western peoples. Called an "analytical masterpiece," the work was said to challenge the definitions and practices of the postcolonial academic world. Sahlins was a Guggenheim fellow in 1967–1968. He was a fellow of the British Academy and an honorary fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Oceania. He was awarded the Laing Prize by the University of Chicago in 1978 and 1996, and he received the Staley Prize from the School of American Research in 1998. (Dorothy Bauhoff (2nd ed.)