ABSTRACT
In the conclusion, I start by considering Mead’s dismissal of a Balinese artist’s intention in her and Gregory Bateson’s Balinese Character. This leads me into a discussion of the ways in which European literary-critical concepts such as ‘intentional fallacy,’ ‘enstrangement,’ and ‘poetic license’ may ring false when applied to other cultures. By way of concluding this book, I review three recent reappraisals of Boasian liberalism before I explain why my own take on the Boasians’ ethnographic and poetic work is by and large appreciative.
