Chris Knight (born 1942) is a British anthropologist.
Chris Knight (born 1942) is a British anthropologist.
Following an MPhil in Russian Literature from the University of Sussex in 1975, [1] Knight gained his PhD in 1987 at the University of London for a thesis on Claude Lévi-Strauss's four-volume Mythologiques . He became a lecturer in anthropology at the University of East London in 1989 and a professor at the same institution in 2000. [2] A founding member of the "Radical Anthropology Group" (RAG), [3] Knight is currently a senior research fellow in the Department of Anthropology, University College London. [4]
Since graduating from the University of Sussex in 1966, Knight has been exploring the idea that language emerged in the human species through a process of incremental Darwinian evolution culminating at a certain point in revolutionary change. Becoming human was, from this perspective, a classic instance of a dialectical process, i.e. one in which quantitative change culminates eventually in a qualitative leap. In pursuing this line of thought, Knight takes inspiration not only from modern Darwinian theorists such as Eörs Szathmáry and John Maynard Smith but also from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who in their later years were fascinated by what was then the new science of anthropology. [5]
In 1996, working with Professor James Hurford, Knight co-founded the EVOLANG series of international conferences on the origins of language, since when he has become a prominent figure in debates on this topic.
“The ‘special’ nature of human words has been well captured by Chris Knight in a series of works. By being truly symbolic, words are ‘patently false signals.’ As Knight observes, ‘linguistic utterances are symbolic to the extent that they are patent falsehoods serving as guides to communicative intentions’. They are communicatively useful untruths, as it were. The reason words could be that way is, as Knight insightfully remarks, largely down to a matter of trust.”
— Cedric Boeckx, Department of General Linguistics, University of Barcelona.
Knight's central insight – that the evolutionary emergence of language in Homo sapiens presupposed unprecedented levels of community-wide trust [6] – has led to the establishment of a distinctive EVOLANG school. Sometimes identified as ‘the platform of trust’ perspective, scientists in this intellectual tradition include robotics engineer and pioneer in artificial intelligence Luc Steels, [7] evolutionary linguists Sławomir Wacewicz and Przemysław Żywiczyński [8] and the theoretical linguist and specialist in Chomsky's Minimalist approach to syntax Cedric Boeckx. [9] In recognition of his contribution to evolutionary linguistics, Knight was awarded the Evolutionary Linguistics Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award at an event held in Vienna in April 2014. [10]
Published in 1991, Knight's first full-length book, Blood Relations: Menstruation and the origins of culture was favourably reviewed in The Times Higher Education Supplement , The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books ; it also received publicity through an interview on the BBC World Service Science Now programme.
Although Knight's theory of human cultural and symbolic origins remains controversial, in the years since Blood Relations was published it has become central to an increasing body of archaeological research and debate on how symbolic culture first emerged during the evolution of our species. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
Knight's more recent book, Decoding Chomsky is a sustained exploration of Noam Chomsky's approach to science and its relationship to politics.
The book's publication in October 2016 sparked instant public controversy. A reviewer for the US The Chronicle of Higher Education hailed it as perhaps 'the most in-depth meditation on "the Chomsky problem" ever published', recommending it as 'a compelling read'. [16] In Britain, The New Scientist described Knight's controversial account as 'trenchant and compelling.' [17]
Chomsky responded dismissively to Knight's book in both The New York Times [18] and The London Review of Books. [19]
Initially a supporter of the Militant tendency in the Labour Party, Chris Knight was later a founder editor of the journal Labour Briefing [20] (he remains on the board) [21] and has a long record of political activism. [22] Although sometimes described as an anarchist, [23] Knight defines himself intellectually as working within the tradition of Marxism. [24]
During the 1984-1985 miners' strike, Knight was involved in setting up a group called Pit Dragon with the aim of bringing together writers and artists in support of the miners. Roland Muldoon of the CAST theatre company played a significant role in the organisation's success, as did the children's writer Michael Rosen. According to the New Musical Express, writing at the time: 'Pit Dragon has managed to harness the talents of every worthwhile artist on the seamier side of the London cabaret circuit and the potential to develop into the most dynamic political/cultural organisation since Rock Against Racism.' In February 1985, the group planned an unusual way of turning a mass picket into a lively cultural occasion. Knight had the idea of inviting fire-eaters, tightrope walkers, poets, comedians, jugglers and musicians to meet at the gates of Neasden Power Station in Brent, North London. The police were warned in advance, the artists staged their performances on the picket line and not one truck even attempted to get through. The picket was counted a success when the power station was shut down for the day. [25] [26]
Reminiscent of the carnivalesque atmosphere outside the Neasden Power Station was the mass picket held in Liverpool to celebrate the first anniversary of the Liverpool dockers' strike and lock-out which had begun late in 1995. Linking up with activists in the anti-car movement Reclaim the Streets, Knight used his position in the London Support Group to introduce the dockers to these 'Kill the Car' environmentalists. [27] Realizing they had much in common, the two culturally different groups spent the summer of 1996 working on an ambitious plan. On 28 September, a 10,000 strong celebratory cultural event and street party was held on the quayside, followed at break of dawn next morning by a mass picket and symbolic roof-top occupation of what the dockers termed 'the rat house' – the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company headquarters and nearby gantries. [28]
For twelve months, Britain's mainstream media outlets had effectively ignored the long-running dispute. But the dockers' alliance with musicians and environmentalists now drew global attention to their cause, giving them new courage and inspiring them to continue their strike into its second year. The dispute now gathered momentum in such a way that by late January 1997, trade unionists in over a hundred ports and cities across the world had linked up with environmentalists and others in making the action global. In the end, the dockers' picket line proved to be not only global in reach but a record-breaker in lasting for more than two years. [29]
Since the early decades of the twentieth century, industrial militancy by dockers had been uniquely internationalist for reasons intrinsic to their particular trade. Once a tanker has been forced by pickets to unload elsewhere, other ports get drawn into the dispute. And so it was that in the months building up to the 'Battle of Seattle', the slogan invented for their own reasons by Liverpool's militant dockers – 'Another World Is Possible' – began hitting the headlines across the world. [27]
Among the roots of the 'Battle of Seattle' which broke out in November 1999 were the cultural events sponsored by Knight and his Reclaim the Streets friends in Liverpool on the opposite side of the world. Seattle had been the port where, two years earlier, an alliance between dockers, musicians, environmentalists and others had combined forces in support of an internationalist cause. 'Save the Whales' and 'Save the Turtles' activists had long been working alongside 'Save Our Jobs' trade unionists. These developments in Seattle ensured that when the World Trade Organization decided to hold its 1999 Convention in the city, activists across the area were primed for unusually creative and imaginative resistance to the WTO's globalisation project. Seattle and its surroundings had by this stage become effectively a powder keg.
During the build-up to the 2009 G-20 Summit in London, Knight was involved in a street theatre group known as The Government of the Dead. Statements he made at this time in an interview [20] for the London Evening Standard [30] (and the PM programme [31] ) led the Corporate Management Team at the University of East London to charge him with 'advocating violence' and 'bringing the university into disrepute'. He was suspended and, despite a petition signed by over 700 academics and others, [32] 'summarily dismissed' on 22 July 2009.[ citation needed ]
On 28 April 2011, Knight was one of three people arrested "on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance and breach of the peace". The three were planning a mock execution of the Duke of York (Prince Andrew) in Central London the following day, to coincide with the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. All three were later released without charge. [33] [34] [35] [23]
On 30 November 2011, Knight was one of 21 'Occupy London' activists arrested and later charged with public order offences for occupying the Haymarket (Central London) offices of the mining company Xstrata in a protest against the company's diversion of the McArthur River in the Northern Territory of Australia, violating sites held sacred by the Yanyuwa, Mara, Garrawa and Gurdanji Traditional Owners of the region. On 8 August 2012, following a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Knight and his co-defendants were all found not guilty. [36]
In 2017, Knight supported Ken Livingstone in a controversy over allegedly anti-Semitic remarks made by the former London Mayor in 2016. [37]
Knight was born in 1942 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, where his mother Nora Dalton (born 1922, daughter of Philip Dalton and Nora Hennessy) had been serving in the Land Army. His father, Denis Knight, was born in 1921 in Volos, Greece, while Denis' own father, W. L. C. Knight, was serving as Consul General in Salonika. [38] William Lowry Craig Knight was born in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone in 1889 and educated in the Royal School, Dungannon and Pembroke College, Cambridge. British Consul-General in Tunis, 1937–40; Basra, 1942–46; Athens, 1946 and Salonica, 1946–49, W. L. C. Knight is today perhaps best known as the author of a Foreign Office memorandum which, in 1941, recommended the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece. [39] From 1 September 1941 to 10 January 1947, Denis served in the 44th Royal Tank Regiment as a tank co-driver. He stayed with the same crew in C Squadron throughout, first joining them in Egypt and Palestine in 1942. His first frontline action was in July 1943 as part of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, with especially heavy fighting south of Catania at Primasole Bridge. He continued to be in the thick of it in late 1943 as the Eighth Army pressed up from the heel of Italy along the Adriatic coast. In early 1944 the 44th RTR returned to the UK to prepare for the invasion of Normandy, landing on Gold Beach on D-Day +2. Once again they were in the heart of the action around Caen and Falaise, then through northern France and into Holland where they were a vital part of Operation Market Garden, protecting the land corridor to Arnhem. Their final campaign was the invasion of Germany itself, crossing the Rhine at Xanten on 24 March 1945 – the first British tanks to do so. They continued to face stiff opposition from diehard Nazi troops as they took Bremen, and then on to Hamburg, when hostilities ceased on 5 May 1945. Denis and his tank crew were fortunate to survive – many of their comrades did not. [40] [41] In later life, Denis achieved recognition as a significant war-poet, [42] while in 1986 he published an edited collection of essays by William Cobbett. [43] Nora and Denis remained together for life and had five children (Christopher, Kevin, Elizabeth, Peter and Simon). When he was 30, Chris formed a long-term relationship with Ann Bliss. The couple have three children (Rosie, Olivia and Jude) and eight grandchildren.
Evolutionary linguistics or Darwinian linguistics is a sociobiological approach to the study of language. Evolutionary linguists consider linguistics as a subfield of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The approach is also closely linked with evolutionary anthropology, cognitive linguistics and biolinguistics. Studying languages as the products of nature, it is interested in the biological origin and development of language. Evolutionary linguistics is contrasted with humanistic approaches, especially structural linguistics.
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.
Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.
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Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterized by abstract thinking, planning depth, symbolic behavior, music and dance, exploitation of large game, and blade technology, among others. Underlying these behaviors and technological innovations are cognitive and cultural foundations that have been documented experimentally and ethnographically by evolutionary and cultural anthropologists. These human universal patterns include cumulative cultural adaptation, social norms, language, and extensive help and cooperation beyond close kin.
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Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British biological anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primate behaviour. Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".
In evolutionary biology, a spandrel is a phenotypic trait that is a byproduct of the evolution of some other characteristic, rather than a direct product of adaptive selection. Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin brought the term into biology in their 1979 paper "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme". Adaptationism is a point of view that sees most organismal traits as adaptive products of natural selection. Gould and Lewontin sought to temper what they saw as adaptationist bias by promoting a more structuralist view of evolution.
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Michael Studdert-Kennedy was an American psychologist and speech scientist 1927–2017.https://haskinslabs. We org/news/michael-studdert-kennedy. He is well known for his contributions to studies of speech perception, the motor theory of speech perception, and the evolution of language, among other areas. He is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and a professor emeritus of linguistics at Yale University. He is the former president (1986–1992) of Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He was also a member of the Haskins Laboratories Board of Directors and was chairman of the board from 1988 until 2001. He was the son of the priest and Christian socialist Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy.
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This is a list of writings published by the American author Noam Chomsky.
James Raymond Hurford, FBA is a linguist and academic.
The origins of society — the evolutionary emergence of distinctively human social organization — is an important topic within evolutionary biology, anthropology, prehistory and palaeolithic archaeology. While little is known for certain, debates since Hobbes and Rousseau have returned again and again to the philosophical, moral and evolutionary questions posed.
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Daniel Dor is an Israeli linguist, media researcher and political activist. He is a professor in the Dan Department of Communication in Tel Aviv University. He has written extensively on language and its evolution, as well as on the role of the media in the construction of political hegemony. His theory of language is described in The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology (2015).
Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture is a book by the evolutionary anthropologist Chris Knight. Published by Yale University Press in hardback 1991 and in paperback four years later, it has remained in print ever since.
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