Writing culture : the poetics and politics of ethnography : a School of American Research advanced seminar

In These New Essays, A Group Of Experienced Ethnographers, A Literary Critic, And A Historian Of Anthropology, All Known For Advanced Analytic Work On Ethnographic Writing, Place Ethnography At The Center Of A New Intersection Of Social History, Interpretive Anthropology, Travel Writing, Discourse Theory, And Textual Criticism. The Authors Analyze Classic Examples Of Cultural Description, From Goethe And Catlin To Malinowski, Evans-pritchard, And Le Roy Ladurie, Showing The Persistence Of Allegorial Patterns And Rhetorical Tropes. They Assess Recent Experimental Trends And Explore The Functions Of Orality, Ethnicity, And Power In Ethnographic Composition. Writing Culture Argues That Ethnography Is In The Midst Of A Political And Epistemological Crisis: Western Writers No Longer Portray Non-western Peoples With Unchallenged Authority; The Process Of Cultural Representation Is Now Inescapably Contingent, Historical, And Contestable. The Essays In This Volume Help Us Imagine A Fully Dialectical Ethnography Acting Powerfully In The Postmodern World System. They Challenge All Writers In The Humanities And Social Sciences To Rethink The Poetics And Politics Of Cultural Invention. -- From Https://www.amazon.com (nov. 14, 2016). Introduction : Partial Truths / James Clifford -- Fieldwork In Common Places / Mary Louise Pratt -- Hermes' Dilemma : The Masking Of Subversion In Ethnographic Description / Vincent Crapanzano -- From The Door Of His Tent : The Fieldworker And The Inquisitor / Renato Rosaldo -- On Ethnographic Allegory / James Clifford -- Post-modern Ethnography : From Document Of The Occult To Occult Document / Stephen A. Tyler -- The Concept Of Cultural Translation In British Social Anthropology / Talal Asad -- Contemporary Problems Of Ethnography In The Modern World System / George E. Marcus -- Ethnicity And The Post-modern Arts Of Memory / Michael M.j. Fischer -- Representations Are Social Facts : Modernity And Post-modernity In Anthropology / Paul Rabinow -- Afterword : Ethnographic Writing And Anthropological Careers / George E. Marcus. Edited By James Clifford And George E. Marcus. Experiments In Contemporary Anthropology.--jacket. Revised Versions Of The Papers Presented At A Seminar Held In Santa Fe, N.m., April 1984. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [267]-294. Places ethnography at the center of a fresh intersection of social history, interpretive anthropology, discourse theory, and textual criticism. This work analyzes classic examples of cultural description, from Goethe and Catlin to Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, and Le Roy Ladurie, showing the persistence of allegorial patterns and rhetorical tropes. Our frontispiece shows Stephen Tyler, one of this volume's contributors, at work in India in 1963.