Outstanding B.A. Student Joseph Sloan (magna cum laude)

Commencement Speech

Sunday, May 29, 2005

A wise man once told me, “Anthropology can take any science, any domain of inquiry, and turn it back on us to illuminate what it means to be human.”  To those of us graduating today,

I think that has a special resonance.  To those of you, our family and friends in attendance, it probably illuminates the fact that we seem to have an opinion on just about everything.  But then I'm sure that I am, as they say, the chief of sinners in this regard.  I know I've developed the ability to turn a casual mention of bananas into a discourse on the evils of colonialism.  Dad, I do apologize.

Being a college student, you are frequently asked, “What's your major?”  When I reply that it is anthropology, another frequent question is, “what is that?”  After some explanation involving “the study of humans,” linguistics, biology, culture, and archaeology – and ruling out anything to do with dinosaurs – the all-too-familiar follow-up is, “What are you going to do with that?”  Well here we are, and that question is more than ever before us.  My usual pat answer of, “I'm going to do anthropology” doesn't feel quite adequate enough in this situation.

This brings to mind a conversation I had recently, in the office of one of my professors.  I was discussing the possibility of doing graduate study in a different field, and I said that being so in love with anthropology, I didn't think I wanted to leave it.  She said to me, “well, that's just it.  After this, wherever you go, you will be doing anthropology.”  Having once heard it, I realized it was true.  For that matter, many of us have spent a good deal of time in the last few years doing the Anthropology of Food Service, as I like to call it. 

But I think we all harbor the hope today of moving on to other avenues of “illuminating what it means to be human.”  For some of us, this will mean further academic study.  For others, it is leading into various teaching, professional, public, and research-oriented vocations. 

But wherever we go, we are going to carry with us the formative experience of our education as anthropologists.  This means being willing and able to suspend our own way of looking at things, and see them, if only temporarily, through the eyes of other people.  Hopefully, this will enable us to be both flexible and compassionate in our dealings with others, no matter what field we are working in.

I feel tremendously lucky today.  I have spent the last few years more or less completely engrossed in what I was studying, earning credit for reading books I would have read anyway.  I feel like a Star Wars nerd who has suddenly realized that his obsession has earned him an academic degree while he wasn't looking.  My ability to quote Clifford Geertz does not feel much different to me than some kid's ability to recite lines from the Empire Strikes Back.  I think each of us graduating from this department has this feeling in some way. 

I won't presume to offer advice; but I will voice my hope.  Let's keep that feeling as we move on.  Let's always love what we do, and keep doing what we love.