Alan H. McGowan

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Alan H. McGowan, selected as 2019’s Top Science and Technical Expert by the International Association of Top Professionals, also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Marquis Who’s Who that same year. Now a Lecturer at The New School, he served first as chair of the Science, Technology, and Society Program (now called the Interdisciplinary Science Program) then as chair of the Environmental Studies Program, where he developed several new initiatives, including a newsletter going to four hundred leaders in global environmental studies, and an internal “Friday Letter” going to interested staff and faculty.

The Donna Seebo Show - The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist by Alan H. McGowen

The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist by Alan H. McGowan

I first learned of “Papa Franz,” as Boas’ women students called him, from Margaret Mead, who chaired the board of an organization I ran, the Scientists’ Institute for Public Information. Then, upon becoming very interested in the racist idea of racial superiority, I ran into him again. On race, all roads lead to Boas.

I pursued the issue and wrote a few articles about Boas in both peer-reviewed and popular outlets. And then I began to realize what a fascinating person he was, having an impact not only on racial issues but on the politics of his era as well.

There are many books written about Franz Boas, but none that adequately weave his very active political career into his ground-breaking anthropology. I thought I would try to write a book interlacing the two. Fifteen years later, the book has appeared