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Introduction: A Bottle of Gin, a Kola Nut,

and a Chicken
S. ASHLEY KISTLER
Department of Anthropology
Rollins College
1000 Holt Ave Box 2761
Winter Park, FL 32789

“Tell me a good story?” Bruce Grindal would ask his students when they
returned from the field. As a master storyteller, Bruce loved a good story. This
special issue is our story of a great man, influential anthropologist, and ultimate
trickster, Bruce T. Grindal. A founding editor of Anthropology and Humanism,
Bruce’s anthropological works made a lasting mark on our field and advocated
for the theoretical shift towards a more humanistic anthropology. In his schol-
arly works and his teachings, Bruce helped to forge a new path for anthropolo-
gists, one that, as he said, could “strike a proper balance between creative effort
and critical scholarly writing” (Grindal 1993:46). Bruce combined his unique
sense of humor with his passion for understanding the human condition to
create a truly unique body of literature and a new vision for the future of the
anthropological discipline. This introduction presents my account of Bruce’s
life and career as well as my interpretation of his major contributions to the field
of humanistic anthropology.
The articles included in this special issue commemorate Bruce Grindal’s
anthropological works and his role in advocating a humanistic anthropology
(e.g. Behar 1993, 1995; Grindal 1983, 1993, 1994, 2011; Grindal and Salamone
1995a; Rosaldo 1984, 2011, 2013; Turner 1987, 1990, 1992, 1995). Humanistic
anthropology, according to Grindal and Salamone (1995b:viii), “attempts to
capture the ‘felt life’ of human experience through narrative and poetically
written materials that capture those whose lives we have entered and about
whom we have chosen to write.” Following Bruce’s untimely death from amyo-
trophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2012, we sought to find a way to celebrate Bruce
and his commitment to humanistic anthropology. In November 2013, a group of
Bruce’s former students, colleagues, and loved ones gathered to present papers
inspired by his legacy at the 2013 American Anthropological Association meet-
ings in Chicago. This special issue features some of the papers presented during
this session and seeks to celebrate the life, lessons, and contributions of this
founding father of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology.1

Bruce Grindal’s Early Life

Bruce Theodore Grindal, born on June 21, 1940 in Glendale, IL, was a child of
a Swedish father. Bruce was one of three children who grew up helping his

Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 40, Issue 2, pp 125–132, ISSN 1559-9167, online ISSN 1548-1409.
© 2015 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/anhu.12083.
126 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 40, Number 2

father, a carpenter by hobby, with various building projects. He developed a

lifelong passion for woodworking and creating things. As a child, Bruce trav-
elled to Sweden to visit his father’s family. Connecting with his Swedish heri-
tage became an important part his life, perhaps igniting his interest in learning
about other cultures. As a teenager, Bruce enrolled at Northwestern University
with the intent to study chemical engineering. Shortly after his matriculation, he
developed a deep passion for studying human nature after taking a course from
renowned anthropologist Francis Hsu. This course proved transformative for
Bruce, and he instead pursued a degree in anthropology. After graduating from
Northwestern in 1962, he enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at
Indiana University at Bloomington because of its strong academic reputation.
Because the study of African culture was the anthropology department’s main
area of focus, and upon the encouragement of his dissertation advisor Alan
Merriam, Bruce chose Ghana to be the site for his doctoral dissertation research.
In 1966, he travelled to Ghana, where he lived and studied among the Sisala
people for two years. During his fieldwork in Ghana, Bruce became intrigued
with Sisala religion, rituals, taboos, friendships, and relationships. Completing
his doctoral dissertation on education and cultural change in Sisalaland,
Bruce graduated from Indiana University in 1969, having earned his Ph.D. in
Anthropology.
After a short stint teaching at Middlebury College in the early 1970s,
Bruce joined the Department of Anthropology at Florida State University
in 1972. As a member of the faculty, he played an instrumental role in
developing the anthropology curriculum for undergraduate students and in
establishing the department’s graduate programs. He led the department as
chair for many years and helped to found the university’s Peace Studies
Program, the culmination of his lifelong interests in peace and conflict reso-
lution. He was a well-known, well-liked, and well-respected member of the
faculty.

Bruce Grindal, Friendship, and the Society for Humanistic Anthropology

Anthropology was more than just a career for Bruce: it was a way of life. “For
Grindal, humanistic anthropology has been and continues to be an intensely
personal endeavor in which inquiry is intimately related to the conduct of
life. The acquisition of knowledge, meaning, and truth is intimately tied to
the interpersonal relationships formed in the field” (Grindal and Salamone
1995b:viii). He didn’t conduct ethnographic research solely in Africa but rather
perfected the ethnography of everyday life, analyzing everything from his
interactions at his car mechanic’s shop in Tallahassee to churches in the rural
South to a bus ride across the state of Florida (Grindal 1994, 2011; Shephard and
Grindal 2002). One of his last works, a column published in Anthropology News
in 2007, presents the ethnography of Borat, a popular movie Bruce admired for
its shameless breaking of rigid social taboos (Grindal 2007). He found the
opportunity for ethnography everywhere he went.
In 1974, Bruce attended the American Anthropological Association meetings
in Mexico City, not knowing that the conference would do more than play an
important role in his career: it would also change his life. Upon the request of
Kistler Introduction 127

his colleagues and mentors, Bruce had organized a session on humanistic

anthropology for the conference, one of two sessions on the emerging field
presented at that year’s AAA meetings. These sessions, Bruce recalled, served as
a springboard for founding of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology (Sarkis,
this issue). In addition, in the lobby of the conference hotel, Bruce met a
Mexican woman named Lourdes, who was studying anthropology and linguis-
tics at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Marrying in 1975, Bruce
and Lourdes became lifelong partners in founding and supporting the field of
humanistic anthropology.
In his book Bridges to Humanity: Narratives of Anthropology and Friendship,
Bruce wrote that following the 1974 American Anthropological Association
meetings, he met with Toni Flores, who chaired the other session on the human-
istic movement in anthropology. They “agreed that they were onto something”
and shortly began to publish a newsletter, unofficially forming the Society for
Humanistic Anthropology (Grindal and Salamone 1995b; Sarkis, this issue). In
1976, they founded this journal, originally known as Anthropology and Human-
ism Quarterly. Bruce’s wife, Lourdes, told me that they initially financially
supported the society, which did not become an official section of the American
Anthropological Association until 1980. Bruce served as the first editor of the
journal.
Bruce also worked to promote his vision for humanistic anthropology in
his published works, including “Humanistic Anthropology: A Perspective on
Being Human” (Grindal et al. 1980), and later his piece, “The Spirit of
Humanistic Anthropology” (Grindal 1993). Bruce wanted to make sure
that ethnography represented the human experience rather than solely devel-
oping theories about it. Recognizing the difficulty of publishing humanistic
works in a field driven by empirical thought, Bruce and his colleagues
founded Anthropology and Humanism to provide an outlet for those works
deemed “unacceptable” for publication elsewhere due to their detailed explo-
rations of the human experience, personal reflections, or unconventional
writing styles.
Bruce’s seminal work, and the piece that perhaps best exemplifies his passion
for and commitment to the field of humanistic anthropology, was his article
on Sisala death divination. In “Into the Heart of the Sisala Experience,” Bruce
provided a captivating account of his experience witnessing a Sisala death
divination ritual in October 1967 (Grindal 1983). While attending the funerary
rites of a deceased Sisala drummer, Bruce saw the extraordinary: the corpse of
a drummer rising from the dead to the accompaniment of praise songs. Bruce’s
text is rich, enveloping the reader in deep description of this miraculous event.
The lifelike account that Bruce presents thrusts the reader into the moment with
him, allowing them to witness the death divination first hand. Bruce not only
reflects on the power the death divination held for and over him but also on
how his own experiences shaped his interpretation of the event and the signifi-
cance of using his personal reflections as a key part of his ethnographic repre-
sentation. He concludes:

The canons of empirical research limit reality to that which is verifiable through the
consensual validation of rational observers. An understanding of death divination
128 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 40, Number 2

must depart from these canons and assume that reality is relative to one’s conscious-
ness of it. Thus to understand death divination, one must know and be a part of the
naturally and culturally constructed events which create the experience. [Grindal
1983:77]

Critiquing anthropology’s prevailing empirical traditions, Bruce showed that

good ethnography uses lived experiences and reflections as the core of its
analyses.
In addition to writing about the value of humanistic anthropology, Bruce
also explored the nature of the friendships that anthropologists form with those
that they meet in the field (Grindal 1994, 2011; Grindal and Salamone 1995b).
In “Immortality Denied” (Grindal 1995), for example, Bruce reflects on his
complex relationship with John Tia, a Ghanaian man he met in Accra while
studying the Sisala language in preparation for his ethnographic fieldwork.
Bruce and John’s friendship was marked with conflict due to a series of cultural
misunderstandings. “Long-term fieldwork,” Bruce wrote in a later article, “like
life, is messy.” (Grindal 2011:98). So is friendship. Bruce often felt frustrated by
John’s words and actions and had a hard time processing John’s seemingly cold
response to the death of his own father. Writing this piece more than thirty
years later, Bruce reflected on the profound impact his brief friendship with
John had on his life. The lessons he learned from John about death and mourn-
ing helped him to cope with the loss of his own father years later. This work
poignantly shows that the friendships we forge in the field define us not only as
anthropologists but as people.
In “Postmodernism as Seen by the Boys at Downhome Auto Repair” (Grindal
1994) and “Confrontation, Understanding, and Friendship in a Redneck
Culture” (Grindal 2011), Bruce wrote about his unlikely friendships with the
mechanics at a repair shop that serviced his car for years. In his final published
article (Grindal 2011), he remarked that though his interactions with Lee,
Bobby, and Clayton had, at times, been wrought with confrontation and dis-
agreement over politics, race, and gender, their ability to overcome their cul-
tural differences, come to a mutual understanding, and develop what he calls
an “enduring and transforming” friendship (Grindal 2011:89) resulted in an
unbreakable bond (Grindal 2011). To Bruce, his friendships with the
Downhome boys enriched his life, making him more open minded, culturally
tolerant, and aware.
Bruce also confronted head-on the influence postmodernist thought had in
anthropology, a trend that he found “depressing” and “torturous” (Grindal
1994:2). Bruce felt that postmodern analysis is incomprehensible and distorted,
and he feared that it would undermine the descriptive and experiential nature
of humanistic anthropology. “If the purpose of traditional humanistic scholar-
ship is to represent human cultural life in some directly descriptive, intelligent,
and compassionate manner, that of postmodernism is to doubt the possibilities
of representation” (Grindal 2011:29). While humanists sought to live life, Bruce
said, postmodernists only “think” about life (Grindal 2011).
Bruce also looked for ways to share the human experiences he documented
with audiences outside of academia. He wrote, “Anthropology has often failed
to communicate its ideas and human data to a wider public” (Grindal 1993:47).
To rectify this failure, Bruce advocated for the use of creative writing as a vital
Kistler Introduction 129

tool of ethnographic representation. His play, Flatfish Blues, formerly known as

Redneck Girl, is a prime example of how Bruce thought outside of the ethno-
graphic box, using a nontraditional genre to make his ethnographic work
accessible. The play, which Bruce co-authored with former student Will
Shephard, takes the form of a conversation between an anthropology professor
and a young Southern woman on a bus ride from Lake City to Tallahassee,
Florida, in the late 1970s (Shephard and Grindal 2002). During the bus ride, the
professor learns about the young girl’s tense relationships with her family, her
struggle to make it as a singer in Jacksonville, and her upbringing in the Deep
South. Witnessing this conversation brings the play’s audience inside the
culture of the Deep South in the late 1970s. With Flatfish Blues, Bruce not only
shared his work with a wider audience, but he broke the boundaries of tradi-
tional ethnography.

Bruce Grindal as a Teacher and Mentor

In addition to his scholarly renown (and perhaps more important to him),
Bruce taught hundreds of students during his 35-year teaching career at Florida
State University. Bruce was recognized by all as a loveable, laidback, fun-loving,
inspiring, and sometimes mischievous professor, willing to tackle important
social issues in his classes. He was an avid supporter of and advocate for
humanity; in his classes he invariably encouraged his students to stand up for
what was right. In the midst of the chaos of graduate school, Bruce was always
a calming force, and he made a lasting impact on all of his students.
I first met Bruce in the fall semester of 2000, when I enrolled in the master’s
program in Anthropology at Florida State University. Bruce immediately stood
out to us from among all of our new professors because of his charisma, his
engagement with the anthropological discipline, his enthusiasm for teaching,
and his passion for life. That semester, Bruce taught a seminar on Cultural
Anthropology, a required course for all incoming graduate students. Through-
out the semester, as he helped us wade through the complex history of the
anthropological discipline and understand different approaches to ethnogra-
phy, he regaled us with innumerable tales of his fieldwork in Ghana. We were
enthralled. Among the most memorable of his tales were his accounts of Sisalan
hospitality, which required a visitor to one’s home to thank their hosts by
presenting to them “a bottle of gin, a kola nut, and a chicken,” as Bruce would
often recall with a mischievous grin.
In the classroom, he educated his students to be skeptics, critical thinkers,
caring humanists, and inquisitors of the worlds in which we lived. He taught us
that good anthropology pushes the boundaries of the traditional and the accept-
able, and that to succeed, we must forge our own paths. He showed us that to
be effective ethnographers, “we must risk doing and publishing the outra-
geous” (Grindal 1993:46). Bruce showed his students that good ethnographers
make a difference in the world not only through their publications but also
through the friendships they make with those they meet along the way.
More important than his teachings in the classroom were his lessons outside
of it. Bruce had a contagious enthusiasm for life. In informal conversations in his
office, around the anthropology department, or at the bar next door, Bruce and
130 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 40, Number 2

his students debated politics, current events, ethnographic theory, and some-
times, the bane of Bruce’s anthropological existence, postmodernism. In such
conversations, he guided us not only to be ethical anthropologists, but more
importantly to be good, stand-up people.
Bruce served as both an anthropological and a life mentor for many of his
students. He was wise, funny, concerned for the well-being of those around
him, and always served as a calming force in our lives. Among the most
important things he taught us outside of the classroom was not to take ourselves
too seriously and to find joy in the unexpected. The following anecdote recounts
one of my favorite memories of Bruce, one that highlights his ability to remain
calm under pressure and guide his students through trying times. In January
2004, I had completed my Ph.D. coursework and was preparing to go to Gua-
temala to begin my dissertation fieldwork as a community liaison for an
archaeological project in the northern part of the country. Less than 72 hours
before I was to depart, however, I got a phone call saying that the project had
run out of money and was postponed. In a frenzy, I drove as fast as I could to
the Anthropology department to find Bruce. Panicked and worried about my
future, I knocked frantically on Bruce’s closed office door, seeking his advice.
Bruce was not there, and the two hours I waited for his return seemed like an
eternity to me as I pondered my future without a dissertation project. When
Bruce arrived to find me in my panicked state, he was calm, cool, and collected
as he responded to my near hysteria. “I don’t see what the problem is,” he said,
as he listened to my plight, relaxed in his office chair. “You have a plane ticket.
Go to Guatemala and figure it out.” The cloud of despair lifted and I followed
his advice. Three days later, I boarded a plane to Guatemala, and Bruce was
right. After a week in Guatemala, I had found a new place of focus for my field
research and embarked on the greatest journey of my life. Bruce taught me to
see the silver lining in my unexpected circumstances, and my life and career
would not have been the same without this guidance.

Organization of this Special Issue

This special issue includes seven contributions, written by Bruce’s former
students and colleagues as well as by anthropologists inspired by his work.
Each article explores a different aspect of Bruce’s anthropological contributions
in the context of the author’s own anthropological work. Among other topics,
these articles explore Bruce’s influence on the fields of ethnography, African
anthropology, archaeology, religion, and engaged anthropology.
Marianne Sarkis’s article, “The Anthropologist, the Jester, the Poet,” is based
on an interview she conducted with Bruce at Florida State University. It dis-
cusses Bruce’s role in founding the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and
explores his fight to legitimize the field of humanistic anthropology. In “Bruce
Grindal’s Hidden Theology, Kabbalah and the Need for a Humanistic
Theodicy,” Kevin Pittle considers the spiritual side of Bruce’s ethnographic
work, examining how Bruce’s secret theology influences his writing and cul-
tural analyses. My contribution, “Writing about Aj Pop B’atz’,” explores Bruce’s
charge to engage creative forms of ethnographic writing to reflect lived cultural
experiences. Based on my collaborative ethnographic field research in the Maya
Kistler Introduction 131

town of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, this chapter looks at how Bruce’s
lessons about making anthropology accessible to academic and popular audi-
ences inspired the publication of a bilingual children’s book about Chamelco’s
history. Tim Landry’s work, “Never Wholly Respectable,” compares Grindal’s
transformative experience witnessing death divination among the Sisala with
the author’s own field research on the topic in Benin. Landry argues that
humanistic anthropology is uniquely equipped to explore and represent the
complexity and sometimes “unexplainable” aspects of the human experience.
Inspired by Bruce’s love for storytelling and for indigenous mythology, Frank
Salamone examines Bruce Grindal as the personification of the West African
Trickster in “Bruce Grindal as Ijapa, the Yoruba Secular Trickster.” Julie Wil-
liams’s piece, “Of Orphans and Anthropologists,” discusses Bruce’s academic
interest in relationship building, emotional attachments, and conflict resolution
in the field. Using her research in the Andes region of South America as a case
study, Williams reflects on her own transformation in the field, from an imag-
ined orphan to an integrated community member, through the relationships
she formed during long-term fieldwork. Finally, in “Raising the Dead,” Joseph
Hellweg, Joshua Englehardt, and Jesse Miller explore Bruce’s work on death
divination as playing a crucial role in shaping how ethnographers and archae-
ologists approach the study of religious practice.
This special issue, then, honors the life and work of Bruce Grindal, beloved
anthropologist, friend, scholar, teacher, colleague, and mentor. Bruce brought
his passion and enthusiasm for life and for humanity to everything he did, from
his scholarly writings and his work to establish the Society for Humanistic
Anthropology to his teaching and mentoring of students. Bruce cared about
making a difference in the communities that he studied, in the discipline that he
loved, and for the students that he taught. Through his numerous published
works and lessons in and out of the classroom, Bruce taught us many things
about what it means to be human and about the nature and purpose of ethnog-
raphy. Most notably, Bruce reminded us to think and write about our lived
ethnographic experiences in new and creative ways, to give life and meaning to
them. For this and for his many lessons, we will forever be grateful to him.

Note
1. I thank Bruce Grindal’s family and friends for supporting us in this celebration of
his life and ethnographic legacy. In particular, I thank his wife, Lourdes Grindal, and
daughters, Lourdes Grindal Miller and Alejandra Grindal Powell. I also thank all of the
participants of the panel, “A Bottle of Gin, a Kola Nut, and a Chicken,” who presented at
the 2013 American Anthropological Association meetings in celebration of Bruce’s schol-
arly work. I am especially grateful to George Mentore and Alma Gottlieb for their insight
and commentary on the papers presented during that panel. I also thank Jesse Miller for
finding and preparing the photo of Bruce that appears on the cover of this issue. Finally,
I thank the editorial team at Anthropology and Humanism for allowing us to honor Bruce
with this special issue.

References Cited
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132 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 40, Number 2

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