The connection between Skorupski's Law and "Rapportage"

An interesting feature of the University's defence at the employment tribunal was that I had aired certain far-reaching criticisms of my former "colleague", Professor Nigel Rapport, both within the University (see Principal's attack on academic freedom) and in three publications (see below). The Chairman of the employment tribunal more than once expressed astonishment that I would criticise a professor in this way (apparently oblivious to the possible implications of such expressions). My view is that the extensive output of Professor Rapport, while often quite amusing, has very little merit as anthropology and the reader is referred to the publications below for my reasons.

For an analysis of the connection between periodic government assessments of research output, and the kind of facile thinking found in a great deal of contemporary academic writing, see "Some costs".

Publications by the author on "Rapportage"

2000 Social Anthropology and 'Rapportage': Is 'All of Human Life' in Britain? Anthropology Today 16(3): 19-20.

2001 Anthropology in Disneyworld: Rapport, Gardner, and the 'Discipline' of Social Anthropology. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 12(2): 182-189.

2002 Anthropological theory and the mysterious disappearance of historical societies. Reviews in Anthropology 31: 129-146.

The author

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Skorupski's Law: "The more vain one's ambition, the more redundant one's grasp of morality"