www.anthropos.eu

The Institute at present has 43 members from 14 nationalities, working in 17 countries. Joachim G. Piepke has worked in  São Paulo, Brazil, and took his degree at the Gregorian Pontifical University (Rome) in Theology. His special area of interest  has to do with the cultures and folk religions of Latin America, especially the Afro-Brazilian cults. Dariusz J. Piwowarczyk holds MA in Ethnology from the University of Wroclaw and in Theology from the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. He worked and conducted fieldwork in Paraguay. He completed his doctorate in Cultural Anthropology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Fields of research are Anthropology of Religion, in particular Anthropology of Missions and Sociology of Missionary Organizations, and Indigenism. Othmar Gächter, after Sanskrit studies in Vienna, London, and Varanasi (Banaras), received his degree from the Banaras Hindu University Varanasi with specialization in Indian Philosophy and Religious Studies. Anton Quack did his studies in Cultural  Anthropology at the Universities of Münster and Cologne with emphasis on Southeast Asia (Taiwan, Philippines) and Africa,  where he specialized in Anthropology of Religion.
 

 Objective and Activities

The Institute concerns itself with the study of the human sciences in the area of Ethnology and related sciences (Linguistics, Religious Studies). The Institute has been closely linked with the Society of Divine Word and also shares its mission interest. As part of this objective, the Institute sets for itself the following tasks:

• research and the systematic processing of the result of the materials collected by this research;
• publications: the Anthropos journal (ISSN 0257-9774), the two monograph series: Studia Instituti Anthropos and Collectanea Instituti Anthropos, Micro Bibliotheca Anthropos, and Anthropology & Mission;
• teaching activity in universities and seminaries;
• working in and directing museums and institutes of Ethnology;
• transmittal and sharing of the results of research and information to those who might be interested, also to missionaries;
• encouragement and support of missionaries who are interested in further education or doing research in line with the goals of the Institute;
• fostering and coordinating the work of the members and coworkers of the Institute.

 History

The Institute was founded in 1931 in St. Gabriel's near Vienna by Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt, who was the founding editor of the Anthropos journal. The first statutes urged the members "to share in the discovery and description of the mysterious workings of God and the restless searching of the human spirit in the history of peoples and cultures." The founding members of the Institute, in addition to Schmidt who became director, were Frs. Koppers, Schebesta, and Gusinde.

After Hitler marched into Austria in 1938, Schmidt and the Anthropos Institute quickly ran afoul of the ideology of the  National Socialists and they moved to Switzerland, where the Institute found a new home in the Chateau de Froideville near  Fribourg. In 1942 Schmidt succeeded in establishing a Chair and an Institute for Ethnology at the University of Fribourg, both of which were attached to the Anthropos Institute.

By the end of the 1950s, the General Council of the Society of the Divine Word decided to move the Institute to Saint  Augustine's near Bonn, to bring it closer to the universities of Cologne and Bonn, both of which had departments of Anthropology, which thus enabled broader scientific contact. This also moved the Institute closer to the major seminary of the  Society of the Divine Word, giving the philosophy and theology students access to a deeper understanding of Ethnology, Linguistics, and Religious St udies. The newly-built Institute was ready for occupation in 1962.

In 2003, the Anthropos Institute has been restructured und received a Coordinator for international cooperation and contact. His contact address: rschroeder@ctu.edu

 Library

The library was built around the needs of the Anthropos journal. It was planned as a specialized library for the editorial staff  and concentrated on literature from the fields of Ethnology, Linguistics, Religious Studies, Folklore, Prehistory, and Physical Anthropology. At the time when the library was moved to Switzerland it contained 15.000 volumes. Four fifths of it was safely moved to its new home; the rest of the library was confiscated by the Gestapo and turned over to the University of Vienna. After 1945 these volumes were returned to the Institute.

During its stay in Fribourg (1938-1962) the library grew to 40.000 volumes. In addition to an emphasis on the languages of Oceania, the ethnographic literature on New Guinea was also expanded. In addition, a section was devoted to Latin America.

With the move to Saint Augustine's the library was opened to the public and was further developed both by the Society of Divine Word and by the support it received from public, governmental sources. A valuable addition in 1971 was the  acquisition of the private library of Professor Franz Bernhard, with was especially rich in linguistic materials from India, especially its northern regions, including Tibet. At present the library contains 92.000 volumes. In addition it has more or less complete runs of 1. 400 journals and currently subscribes to 310 journals. New acquisitions concentrate on: general works in the areas of Ethnology, Religious Studies, and Linguistics; monographs on Oceania with special emphasis on Papua New Guinea, on Southeast Asia, Africa (West, East, and Central), as well as on Middle and South America.

For those using the library there is a card catalogue with an alphabetic listing according to author and subject. A useful addition to the library is another "library" on microfilm. Attached to the library is an archive containing the materials of deceased members of the Institute (manuscripts, photos, slides, and recordings). According to the judgement of specialists, the library has a unique place among the other specialized anthropological libraries in Germany.
 

 Publications

The first volume of the Anthropos journal appeared in 1906. Fr. Wilhelm Schmidt was the founder and first editor of the new journal, which was to be a forum in which missionaries could publish the results of their research and make it available to their fellow missionaries and to other who had a scientific interest in these kinds of materials. In the first place, therefore,  the journal was interested in those materials, which seemed important for mission work. It was, how ever, to be a strictly scientific journal devoted to Ethnology. From the beginning, and still today, articles can be written in the language of the author, for example, in English, German, French, Spanish.

Anthropos is one of the ten largest and most important journals in the world devoted to Cultural Anthropology. Its  international character and its pluralistic approach have always been distinguishing marks of the journal. Discussions on  the theory and method of Cultural Anthropology find their place in the journal as well as extensive ethnographic descriptions and other documentation. The different specialities in Anthropology are also well represented (Anthropology of Religion,  Economic and Social Anthropology, Culture History, Linguistics, etc.). All else being equal, preference is given to articles that deal, in however broad a sense, with religious materials. Every issue has about 700 pages to which roughly 125 authors typically contributed. Each issue of Anthropos has a distribution of 900 copies to 60 countries.

In 1909, in addition to the journal, Schmidt also set up an ethnological monograph series and in 1914 a series of linguistic monographs, both published by Aschendorff. By 1950, a total of 31 large monographs had been published in these two series, which were combined when Fritz Bornemann was editor, into one series, called Studia Instituti Anthropos, the first volume of  which appeared in 1950. In 1967, under the direction of Wilhelm Saake, another series was inaugurated, the Collectanea  Instituti Anthropos, which was to gather and publish documents related to preliterate societies. Parallel to the printed series,  the linguistic and ethnografic material was collected on safety film in the Micro Bibliotheca Anthropos. In 1989 the publishing program of the Institute was further broadened by Anthropology & Mission , which appears twice a year and reviews anthropological books and articles relevant for those doing mission work.