The study of geography? Franz Boas and his canonical returns

This paper disputes aspects of this conventional narrative, using aspects of Boas's corpus and education to argue that there was a more complex relationship between discussions in German human geography in the 1880s and the development of American cultural anthropology into the twentieth century. In doing so, the paper examines the relationship of Boas, his texts and practices, to the geographical canon and notes his recent recovery in French scholarship. In consequence, the implications of these canonical turns and returns for conceptions of canonicity in geography are discussed.