The promise of particularism and the theology of culture: Limits and lessons of "neo-Boasianism"

This article compares the status of "culture" as a politically engaged concept in Franz Boas's time and in our own time. Taking a Boasian approach to "neo-Boasianism," I examine the limits of this comparability in order to shed light on the nature of public culture-talk today and to identify dimensions of the Boasian concept of "culture" particularly relevant to a contemporary anthropology.