The Role of the Anthropologist in the 21st Century

Aspiring Polymath, Actually Just Neurotic

Illustration from the 17^th-century German Jesuit scholar and polymath Athanasius Kirchur in his book Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (The Great Art of Light and Shadow) published in Rome in 1646. Credit: SSPL/Getty Images

The anthropologist might have the most neurotic job of all. Next to philosophers, our skill set seems dubiously marketable at best. If we on…