My edge in cultural anthropology

Now that UCLA has rejected me, I am choosing between two excellent anthropology PhD programs, Stanford and Davis. Both are great places to study human behavioral ecology (and anthropology in general). It's rare for me to question my ability to succeed but -- to be candid -- I am daunted by the prospect of taking difficult anthropology classes with talented students who have been studying the field for years. I am most worried about cultural anthropology classes, especially at Stanford which is a Mecca for post-everything thought (post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-processualism in archaeology, etc.). Coming from physics, I anticipate significant "translation" difficulties. Fortunately, I've found an edge.

Whilst scanning my bookshelf for a book to read before heading to a Clippers game tonight, I came across my cache of books from the Classical Studies classes I took at Scripps. I have encountered significant "translation" difficulties before, just in historical contexts rather than ethnographic contexts. Earlier today I read the abstract for a talk on patronage in modern India given by a cultural anthropologist. Patronage?! Why that's a major theme of Roman history! I have plenty of material to draw from -- Petronius' Satyricon (hedonism, counter culture), Lucan's Civil War (violence, literary engagement with the state), Homer's Iliad/Odyssey (oral tradition)... the list goes on. So, I know I'll have to work hard to do well in my cultural classes, but I'm no longer particularly intimidated. In fact, my cultural classmates had better prepare for some difficult discussions of anthropological methodology vis a vis quantum ontology! The tables can be turned :).