Malinowski makes me happy for a few reasons... I laugh at the contents of his packing list, and at him for his grumblings about the natives not sleeping with him and how miserable he tends to be. he's so adorable and underated. :)

I really like Goffman, (though he's not strictly cult-anth...) the presentation of self, and his writings on footing - especially his interpretation of the Helen Thomas article in which she fantastically bashes Nixon.

As for classic, old-school anthros... I'll have to say Mauss is my favorite, just because gift-exchange and host-guest relationships are so good to think... but then again, good old Claude L-S. gives me lots of good to think and good to eat options that put him in a close second place.

As for current anthropologists, I'll have to go with my BA thesis advisor, Rob Brightman, though there are a few people in england who work on material culture of whom I am a big fan.

krober

Jaime de Angulo!

Donald Bahr, (teaches at ASU), because he talks to me, we both like Levi-Strauss and myths&texts.

Claude Levi-Strauss. Because he wrote his own mega-mythology: the four volume "science of mythology".

Roy Rappaport, because there's something about "Pigs for the Ancestors" I really liked.

Lord, there are so many favorites... I could go on...

for literary seduction, i always turn to geertz. but overall i'd have to say that my favorite anthropologist was a philosopher :) that'd be foucault...

Maybe it's because I received my BS in the 80's but I love Marvin Harris and especially his theories on cultural materialism. His works have stuck with me through the years.

Maybe it's because I received my BS in '89, but I love Marvin Harris. Especially his theories on cultural materialism. They have stuck with me through the years.

Zora Neal Hurston & Karen McCarthy Brown

Wade Davis ... i don't know too many but Wade is hands down one of my favorite teachers

here is one of his talks from TEDTalk
www.youtube.com/watch

"In this stunning talk, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, many of which are disappearing, as ancestral land is lost and languages die. (50 percent of the world's 6000 languages are no longer taught to children.) Against a backdrop of extraordinary photos and stories that ignite the imagination, Davis argues that we should be concerned not only for preserving the biosphere, but also the "ethnosphere," which he describes as "the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness." An anthropologist and botanist by training, Davis has traveled the world, living among indigenous cultures. He's written several books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow and Light at the Edge of the World. (Recorded February 2003 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:44)"