Podcast Summary: LSE Public Lectures and Events

Episode: "Frazer Strikes Back From The Armchair: A New Search for Origins"

Date: May 13, 2010
Speaker: Rane Willerslev
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team

Main Theme

This lecture, delivered by Danish anthropologist Rane Willerslev as the Malinowski Memorial Lecture, challenges the prevailing ethos in anthropology that prioritizes empiricism and fieldwork over speculative imagination. Drawing on classic figures like James Frazer and revisiting neglected aspects of 'armchair' anthropology, Willerslev advocates for a creative, imaginative approach as an essential means to explore the virtual, non-empirical origins of social life, particularly in relation to the concept of the soul in animist cosmologies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening and Lecture Context

• Introduction to Rane Willerslev – Noted for his research among Siberian indigenous peoples and his acclaimed monograph "Soul Hunters" (00:00–02:39).
• Purpose – Questions the dominance of ethnographic empiricism initiated by Malinowski, suggesting anthropological understanding must also embrace speculative imagination.

Critique of Empiricism & the Malinowskian Tradition

• Willerslev recognizes Malinowski’s revolution in anthropology:

  “The anthropologist must get out of his comfortable position in the long chair and live it. Only by living a way of life can he get a sober and considerate account of it without falsification.” (05:41)

• But he worries it’s become common-sense dogma:

  “Is the determining role given to empirical observation really the way forward with regard to our interpretive efforts?” (07:10)

• Cites Deleuze’s concepts:
  • The Actual: What is observable and measurable.
  • The Virtual: The foundational, imaginative forces shaping reality, not accessible through direct experience (08:30).

The Role of the Speculative Imagination

• Willerslev revives Frazer’s (Golden Bough) approach, asserting:

  “True anthropological insight begins not from what we conventionally regard as the solidity of actual empirical observation, but on the contrary from the scholar’s speculative imagination.” (03:40–04:10)

• He clarifies this is not a call to return to Frazer’s evolutionism:

  "Frazer's evolutionism is not merely dated but stone dead." (16:41)

• Instead, he finds value in Frazer’s poetic, mythic style—anthropology as storytelling, not just documentation.

Frazer and the ‘Mythic’ in Anthropology

• Frazer is often criticized for his lack of fieldwork and literary style, but Willerslev argues this speculative, creative mode is necessary:

  "Anthropology can express social reality only by making it alive again, that is, by in some way distorting it through the high function of the scholar's speculative imagination..." (28:40)

• Notable critique quotes:
  • “Making out a piece of writing as literary is like making out a person as having personality... Fraser is certainly guilty of this charge... accused of tampering with his source material.” – Marilyn Strathern (24:50)
• Willerslev sees Frazer not as a failed scientist, but as a creative synthesist, playing with context and encouraging anthropologists to do the same.

Animist Cosmology and the Concept of the Soul

• Drawing from work among the Chukchi, Willerslev outlines a perspectival, animist world:

  “The Chukchi live in a world full of vision, full of eyes. Every being... is said to see or have a perspective of their own.” (34:10)

• Hunter and prey roles are reciprocated; vision is a primary animist metaphor.
• This relates to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s 'perspectivism':

  “The ability to adopt a point of view is undoubtedly a power of the soul... the soul is formally identical in all species…” (40:55)

• But Willerslev points to ambiguities:

  “One cannot fail to take notice of the widespread tendency to conceive the soul as something corporeal, physical rather than spiritual.” (43:50)

The Duality of Soul: Body, Perspective, and Translation Problems

• Animist souls are corporeal—'soul' and 'body' are reversible based on perspective (Chukchi amulet example, 45:12).
• The English word 'soul' may be misleading in cross-cultural analysis:

  “The soul in our Judeo Christian discourse... is part and parcel of an ontological opposition of spirit and matter, which implies that the soul is immaterial ... However, according to animist, perspectival thinking... it’s a body.” (48:10)

• Direct empirical observation cannot capture this logic.

Supreme Beings as the Virtual Ground

• Willerslev introduces the overlooked concept of the ‘High God’ (Pon/Wagin), present yet elusive, in Siberian societies:

  “Pan and Waggan hardly exist [empirically]... and yet I believe them to be of paramount importance to the issue that interests us here, namely the animist concept of soul and its origin.” (59:12)

• Drawing on Merleau-Ponty: vision is always partial, but total perception is imagined as a virtual view from everywhere (01:04:00).
• The ‘Supreme Being’ is the imaginative necessary background—the “anonymous primordial totality of vision”—that underpins individual perspectives.

Visuality, Spirituality, and Mythic Origins

• Analyses ancient cave art (the ‘Dancing Sorcerer’):

  “A person, human or non-human, seen from all predatory viewpoints at once, which is nothing but the virtual expanse of the view from everywhere.” (01:15:34)

• Argues for the need of speculative, mythic reasoning in anthropological explanations that touch on the question of origins and the virtual.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the speculative imagination:

  "We will get nowhere if we confine ourselves to a trust in ethnographic facts. Every manifestation of actual social life is... expressive of an imaginary totality...which cannot... be object of empirical observation. True anthropological insight begins... from the scholar's speculative imagination." — Rane Willerslev (02:45–04:05)

• On Frazer’s literary method:

  “Frazer thus foreshadowed the post-structuralist point that words function completely different from mirrors... anthropology can express social reality only by making it alive again... by distorting it through the scholar’s speculative imagination.” (28:10)

• On animist perspectivism:

  “Duplicity is the law of every being and every event ... The soul becomes in this way the person’s double body... worldwide the most common indigenous word for soul is shadow.” (47:40)

• On the limits of empiricism:

  “What concrete ethnographic evidence can be mastered in support of my claim... Not much, I’m afraid. The virtual... cannot be practically given... insight into the virtual is never a matter of empirical evidence.” (69:00)

• Concluding wisdom on mythic origins:

  “The key point... is that it is impossible to study the non empirical questions of human origins without first moving into mythic discourse. Frazer understood this... all we can ask of an origin story is that it makes good horse sense, that it has its own imaginative logic and self contained rationality. And as does any myth.” (01:20:00)

Important Timestamps

• 00:00–02:39 – Introduction and bio
• 02:40–10:00 – Critique of empiricism, Deleuze’s actual and virtual, introduction of speculative imagination
• 16:00–22:00 – Malinowski’s legacy vs. Frazer’s armchair anthropology
• 28:00–30:10 – Frazer’s literary style and methodological value
• 34:10–50:00 – Chukchi animism, perspectivism, and the body-soul conceptual debate
• 59:00–69:45 – 'High God' and the virtual totality (Pan/Wagin), Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of vision
• 75:20–80:00 – Paleolithic cave art as mythic evidence, necessity of myth in anthropological interpretation

Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with the host commending Willerslev's boldness and imaginative approach in front of an empirically-minded audience:

“I admire you for coming into the hornet’s nest of empiricists and making your bold claims.” (01:22:00)

Summary Table

| Section | Timestamp | Key Ideas | |-------------------------------------|--------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | Introduction & Context | 00:00–02:39 | Speaker intro, overview of research and topic. | | Critique of Empiricism | 02:40–10:00 | Limits of observation, necessity of imagination (Deleuze). | | Frazer & the Armchair Tradition | 16:00–30:00 | Frazer’s literary style, value of speculation and myth. | | Animist Cosmologies & Perspectivism | 34:10–50:00 | Chukchi worldviews, perspectives, body-soul interfaces. | | The Virtual & High Gods | 59:00–69:45 | Pon/Wagin as primordial vision, Merleau-Ponty on perception. | | Closing & Reception | 80:00–end | Host's closing commendation, event wrap-up. |

Takeaway

Rane Willerslev’s lecture is a bold defense of incorporating mythic, poetic, and speculative imagination into anthropology to access the virtual, foundational elements of social life—an approach inspired by Frazer’s much-maligned ‘armchair’ method. The quest for origins, he argues, must take us beyond what can be empirically observed, into the very terrain of myth that animates all human societies.