Sergei A. Kan (born March 31, 1953, in Moscow) is an American
anthropologist known for his research with and writings on the
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), people of southeast
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
, focusing on the
potlatch and on the role of the
Russian Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = ru
, image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg
, imagewidth =
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia
, abbreviation = ROC
, type ...
in Tlingit communities.
Kan is of
Russian Jewish origin and came to the U.S. in 1974. He did undergraduate studies at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
and received his master's and Ph.D. degrees from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, where he was a student of the anthropologist
Raymond D. Fogelson. Kan also cites the influence of
Nancy Munn,
George W. Stocking, Jr.
George W. Stocking Jr. (December 28, 1928July 13, 2013) was a German-born American scholar noted for his scholarship on the history of anthropology.
Early life and education
Stocking was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. His father, the economist ...
, and
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
and
Jean Comaroff.
He began fieldwork with the Tlingit in
Sitka, Alaska, in 1979 and in 1980 was adopted by Charlotte Young (Laakhdu.oo) (1916-1982) into the
Kaagwaantaan clan with her brother Ed Littlefield's name: Shaakhudastoo. In 1991, he was adopted by Mark Jacobs, Jr. (1923-2005) into the Tlingit
Dakl'aweidí clan with his brother Ernie Jacobs' name: Ghunaak'w.
He was an associate professor of anthropology at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
before going to
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, where he was granted tenure in 1993.
Kan's most recent publications reveal the relationship between Tlingit and anthropologists as well as American attitudes toward images of and relations with the Tlingit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A long-standing interest in the peoples and cultures of the entire Pacific Northwest Coast has led me to co-editing (with an American and a French colleague) a volume of essays representing some of the major recent work in the field, this book, Coming to Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions and Visions, was published in 2004.
In the fall of 2006 and the summer of 2010, Kan conducted ethnographic and archival research in southeastern Alaska on a new topic: a collection of photographs taken by Vincent Soboleff (a Russian-American photographer) in a Tlingit community of Killisnoo/Angoon in the 1890s-1920s. This project will result in a book entitled Vincent Soboleff: A Russian-American Photographer in Tlingit Country to be published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
His graduate training at the University of Chicago under Raymond D. Fogelson and many years of teaching courses on Native North American ethnology and ethnohistory, have inspired him to co-edit (with Pauline Turner Strong) a series of papers by several generations of North Americanists who have also been trained by the same mentor. This volume, which honors Fogelson and is entitled Perspectives on Native North America: Cultures, Histories, and Representations, was published in 2006.
Finally, having always had a strong interest in the history of anthropology, he had been since the late 1990s working on an intellectual biography of Lev Shternberg, one of the leading Russian anthropologists of the late imperial and early Soviet period. This research took her to the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. A book Lev Shternberg: Anthropologist, Russian Socialist, Jewish Activist, published in 2009, is the result of this work. In addition, in the last few years, he has published several articles (in English and Russian journals) on the history of Russian/Soviet anthropology and begun a new research project on the life and scholarly legacy of Alexander Goldenweiser (1880-1940), a prominent Russian-American anthropologist of the Boasian school.
In January 2018, he became the first foreign anthropologist to be a member of the editorial board of
Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie.
Bibliography
* Kan, Sergei (1983) "Words That Heal the Soul: Analysis of the Tlingit Potlatch Oratory." ''Arctic Anthropology,'' vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 47–59.
* Kan, Sergei (1985) "Russian Orthodox Brotherhoods among the Tlingit: Missionary Goals and Native Response." ''Ethnohistory,'' vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 196–223.
* Kan, Sergei (1986) "The Nineteenth-Century Tlingit Potlatch: A New Perspective." ''American Ethnologist,'' vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 191–212.
* Kan, Sergei (1989) "Cohorts, Generations, and Their Culture: The Tlingit Potlatch in the 1980s." ''Anthropos,'' vol. 84, nos. 4–6.
* Kan, Sergei (1989) ''Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century.'' Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
* Kan, Sergei (1991) "Russian Orthodox Missionaries and the Tlingit Indians of Alaska, 1880-1890. In: ''New Dimensions in Ethnohistory,'' ed. by
B. M. Gough and L. Christie, pp. 127-160. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
* Kan, Sergei (1991) "Shamanism and Christianity: Modern-Day Tlingit Elders Look at the Past." ''Ethnohistory,'' vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 363–387.
* Kan, Sergei (1996) "Clan Mothers to Godmothers: Tlingit Women and Russian Orthodox Christianity, 1840-1940." ''Ethnohistory,'' vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 613–641.
* Kan, Sergei (1999) ''Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries.'' Seattle: University of Washington Press.
* Kan, Sergei (2001) "Friendship, Family, and Fieldwork: One Anthropologist's Adoption by Two Tlingit Families." In: ''Strangers to Relatives: The Adoption and Naming of Anthropologists in Native North America,'' ed. by Sergei Kan, pp. 185–217. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kan, Sergei
Living people
American anthropologists
University of Michigan faculty
American Book Award winners
1953 births