Paideuma (1938- )

Paideuma. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde was founded in 1938 in Munich by the German Africanist ethnologist and archaeologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) shortly before his death, within the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kulturmorphologie (German Society of Cultural Morphology), which became Frobenius-Institut in 1946 and was transferred to Frankfurt. The very title of the journal and the contributions of at least the first two decades reflect the diffusionist orientation of the founder, with the Greek word paideuma being appropriate for reconstructing the worldviews of ancient cultural circles (Kulturkreise). The journal (still the organ of the Institute) later surpassed this trend, but it retains its pronounced Africanist focus.

Keywords: Archaeology | Ethnology | Diffusionism | 20^th century | African Studies | Journals and periodicals