The Written Suburb An American Site, An Ethnographic Dilemma John D. Dorst "A wonderful book that . . . is shrewd and often quite funny . . . and] employs the tools of an anthropologist to explain the strange folkways of late 20th-century Pennsylvania suburbanites."--Philadelphia Inquirer "A subversive and postmodern work about the town of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The book considers Wyeth country--what kind of place it is and how it is constituted. . . . Dorst asks questions about how the place represents itself to itself and to tourists."--Lingua Franca "The Written...
The Written Suburb An American Site, An Ethnographic Dilemma John D. Dorst "A wonderful book that . . . is shrewd and often quite funny . . . and] em...
Enter the fascinating world of the Condomble regions of Brazil, where interaction between spirits and human is considered an everyday occurrence. Jim Wafer uncovers the social life, rituals, folklore, and engaging personalities of the villagers of Jacari, among whom trances, sorcery, and spirit possession demonstrate the coexistence of different kinds of reality.
This ethnography is intriguing not only because of the originality of its approach to the more enigmatic aspects of another culture but also because it uses insights gained from participation in that culture to reflect on...
Enter the fascinating world of the Condomble regions of Brazil, where interaction between spirits and human is considered an everyday occurrence. J...
The American West is a region, perhaps more than any other in the United States, that comes to us in visual terms. The grand landscapes, open vistas, and magisterial views have made the act of looking a defining feature of how we experience the West as an actual place. In Looking West, John D. Dorst examines a largely neglected pattern of seeing that stands in contrast to the universally familiar iconography. When we engage in the act of looking, contends Dorst, we inevitably do so according to historically determined patterns--"discourses of seeing." It is a central premise of...
The American West is a region, perhaps more than any other in the United States, that comes to us in visual terms. The grand landscapes, open vistas, ...
Among the Songhay of Mali and Niger, who consider the stomach the seat of personality, learning is understood not in terms of mental activity but in bodily terms. Songhay bards study history by "eating the words of the ancestors," and sorcerers learn their art by ingesting particular substances, by testing their flesh with knives, by mastering pain and illness. In Sensuous Scholarship Paul Stoller challenges contemporary social theorists and cultural critics who--using the notion of embodiment to critique Eurocentric and phallocentric predispositions in scholarly thought--consider the...
Among the Songhay of Mali and Niger, who consider the stomach the seat of personality, learning is understood not in terms of mental activity but in b...
Desjarlais shows us not anonymous faces of the homeless but real people.
While it is estimated that 25 percent or more of America's homeless are mentally ill, their lives are largely unknown to us. What must life be like for those who, in addition to living on the street, hear voices, suffer paranoid delusions, or have trouble thinking clearly or talking to others.
Shelter Blues is an innovative portrait of people residing in Boston's Station Street Shelter. It examines the everyday lives of more than 40 homeless men and women, both white and African-American, ranging in...
Desjarlais shows us not anonymous faces of the homeless but real people.
While it is estimated that 25 percent or more of America's homeless ...
"This rich and complex book is often moving, frequently thought-provoking."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "This book will become a classic. It has passion, compelling stories, sober reflection, and an incredibly artful structure that carries the reader along. Most important, like all great anthropology, the story speaks to the issue of what constitutes the human spirit. There is wisdom in this book, and for that rare gift I am grateful to Dil Das and Joseph Alter."--Paul Stoller, author of Sensuous Scholarship Dil Das was a poor farmer--an untouchable--living...
"This rich and complex book is often moving, frequently thought-provoking."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "This book will bec...
The saints of the African American sanctified community say that the soul is the domain not of body or mind, but of spirit. And when the Spirit touches spirit, the soul rejoices in an epiphany of truth and knowledge.
Speaking of soul, Spirit, and experience draws discourse into a realm rarely explored by ethnographic inquiry. Ethnography has traditionally avoided encounter with the subjective realm of experience -- not just supernatural experience, but experience in general. In Fire in My Bones, Glenn Hinson focuses on a single gospel program and offers a major contribution to our...
The saints of the African American sanctified community say that the soul is the domain not of body or mind, but of spirit. And when the Spirit touche...
American anthropologist Ernestine McHugh arrived in the foothills of the Annapurna mountains in Nepal, and, surrounded by terraced fields, rushing streams, and rocky paths, she began one of several sojourns among the Gurung people whose ramro hawa-pani (good wind and water) not only describes the enduring bounty of their land but also reflects the climate of goodwill they seek to sustain in their community. It was in their steep Himalayan villages that McHugh came to know another culture, witnessing and learning the Buddhist appreciation for equanimity in moments of precious joy and...
American anthropologist Ernestine McHugh arrived in the foothills of the Annapurna mountains in Nepal, and, surrounded by terraced fields, rushing str...
Where Asia Smiles offers an understanding of tourism and its cultural consequences that is neither a lament at the arrival of tourists nor an endorsement of the industry as a blanket resolution of social ills in "underdeveloped" places. Examining the relationship of tourism to cultural identity and practice in Davao City, Mindanao, Philippines, Sally Ness observes and documents what is at stake for various actors who have entirely different objectives in the creation of a new cultural landscape. Ness takes an approach that emphasizes the relationship of tourism to the idea of home...
Where Asia Smiles offers an understanding of tourism and its cultural consequences that is neither a lament at the arrival of tourists nor a...
An Imagined Geography Sierra Leonean Muslims in America JoAnn D'Alisera For more than a decade a vicious civil war has torn the fabric of society in the West African country of Sierra Leone, forcing thousands to flee their homes for refugee camps and others to seek peace and asylum abroad. Sierra Leoneans have established new communities around the world, in London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Yet despite the great geographic range of this diaspora and the diverse ethnic backgrounds among Sierra Leoneans settled in the same communities abroad, these Africans have come to...
An Imagined Geography Sierra Leonean Muslims in America JoAnn D'Alisera For more than a decade a vicious civil war has torn the fabric of society in t...
