from tylor to frazer, from benedict to durkheim, armchair anthropologists have worked hard from the comfort of their own lounge chairs to imagine what the strange practices, lives, and beliefs of people and places they have never seen could be about. drawing primarily from materials collected by others - usually missionaries, explorers, or colonial officials - armchair anthropologists never had to engage in the trials and tribulations of actual field work. with the exception of a brief revitalization in the form of ruth benedict's and margaret mead's studies of "culture at a distance" during the second world war, armchair anthropology has been largely abandoned by present-day professional anthropologists.

with our brandy sifters and pipes in hand, it is the SAAA's mission to begin imagining what other cultures are up to without ever having to interact with them firsthand. in the process, our members will undoubtedly make great strides in revitalizing armchair anthropology as a recognized form of scholarly practice and to reposition it to the forefront of contemporary culture theory.