Family resemblances: Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological heritage

This dissertation reconstructs the historical and cultural context of Zora Neale Hurston's anthropology by examining her relationship with some of the most famous anthropologists of the twentieth-century: Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead. Although her relationship with Boas has been widely recognized, her connection to the female anthropologists of the day has been largely ignored.; At the start of the dissertation, I correct the imbalance of attention focused on Boas as Hurston's overbearing mentor. Using newly-released material from the archives of Ruth Benedict, I demonstrate that Hurston had a closer relationship with Benedict than Boas.; After this consideration of Hurston's anthropological education, I reconstruct the historical context of one of her fieldtrips, called the "Southern Expedition," to show how Hurston defined herself against Margaret Mead. Finally, I examine her collection of folklore, Mules and Men as a signification on the standard anthropological folklore collections written by Boas and Benedict.