Re: the point of your paragraphs. Since I'm an anthropologist, I don't really have to worry about how it sounds for me to mix up, for example, Ibn Arabi, Nasser, and Ahmad Adawiyya in the same paragraph, since most so-called "serious scholars" in the West don't know squat about any of these anyway. (Roughly, it's "Aquinas, LBJ, and Madonna").
I can claim to be a scientist, so the more obscure the cultural artifact, the more rare and precious it is and the more attention it demands, like a new species. I can also claim the humanities, so the socially relevant the artifact is, the more attention it demands. Finally, I can claim a comparative perspective, so I can and will (someday) persist in comparing Ogotemmeli's metaphysics to Kant's. Actually, anthropology is the future and the true home of cultural studies.
no subject
I can claim to be a scientist, so the more obscure the cultural artifact, the more rare and precious it is and the more attention it demands, like a new species. I can also claim the humanities, so the socially relevant the artifact is, the more attention it demands. Finally, I can claim a comparative perspective, so I can and will (someday) persist in comparing Ogotemmeli's metaphysics to Kant's. Actually, anthropology is the future and the true home of cultural studies.
jprs.