Marshall Sahlins

Marshall Sahlins served as the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He received his AB in 1951 and AM in 1952 from the University of Michigan, followed by a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University in 1954. His early career included a lectureship at Columbia from 1955 to 1957 and a professorship at the University of Michigan, where he taught for more than 15 years before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1973. Appointed Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor in 1983, he retired in 1997 but continued scholarly pursuits, including serving as publisher of Prickly Paradigm Press.

A leading figure in Anthropology, Sahlins focused on the history and ethnography of South Pacific communities, particularly in Hawaii and Fiji, investigating indigenous political structures, kinship systems, and conceptions of nature. He critiqued sociobiology and emphasized cultural factors in human behavior, economy, and history, advocating for indigenous modes of thought. Key publications include Social Stratification in Polynesia (1958), Moala: Culture and Nature on a Fijian Island (1962), Stone Age Economics (1972), Culture and Practical Reason (1976), Islands of History (1985), How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook, For Example (1995), Culture in Practice (2000), What Kinship Is—And Is Not (2012), and The Western Illusion of Human Nature (2008). With 19 books and over 100 articles, he influenced the anthropology of history, economy, and culture, notably through debates like his exchange with Gananath Obeyesekere. Honors include two Gordon J. Laing Awards (1977, 1997), a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2011), memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy, and eight honorary doctorates. Sahlins originated the teach-in during Vietnam War protests.