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Showing 1 - 18 of 18 matches in All Departments
This book emerges from the author's 35 years of research and thought about the Songhay people of Niger. This ethnographic novel follows the life of Omar Dia, the oldest son of a West African sorcerer. When his father falls ill and dies, the great sorcerer vomits a small metal chain onto his chest. Following the path of his ancestors, Omar swallows the chain, becoming his father's successor, which means that he takes on the sorcerer's burden. The book also describes how custodians of traditional knowledge are creatively adapting to the forces of globalization-all in a highly accessible narrative text.
This book emerges from the author's 35 years of research and thought about the Songhay people of Niger. This ethnographic novel follows the life of Omar Dia, the oldest son of a West African sorcerer. When his father falls ill and dies, the great sorcerer vomits a small metal chain onto his chest. Following the path of his ancestors, Omar swallows the chain, becoming his father's successor, which means that he takes on the sorcerer's burden. The book also describes how custodians of traditional knowledge are creatively adapting to the forces of globalization-all in a highly accessible narrative text.
Wisdom From the Edge describes what anthropologists can do to contribute to the social and cultural changes that shape a social future of wellbeing and viability. Paul Stoller shows how anthropologists can develop sensuously described ethnographic narratives to communicate powerfully their insights to a wide range of audiences. These insights are filled with wisdom about how respect for nature is central to the future of humankind. Stoller demonstrates how the ethnographic evocation of space and place, the honing of dialogue, and the crafting of character depict the drama of social life, and borrows techniques from film, poetry, and fiction to expand the appeal of anthropological knowledge and heighten its ability to connect the public to the idiosyncrasies of people and locale. Ultimately, Wisdom from the Edge underscores the importance of recognizing and applying indigenous wisdom to the social problems that threaten the future.
It is the anthropologist's fate to always be between things:
countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than
lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the
creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us,
changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we
live in the world.
The most prolific ethnographic filmmaker in the world, a pioneer of
cinema verite and one of the earliest ethnographers of African
societies, Jean Rouch (1917-) remains a controversial and often
misunderstood figure in histories of anthropology and film. By
examining Rouch's neglected ethnographic writings, Paul Stoller
seeks to clarify the filmmaker's true place in anthropology.
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 body primarily as a text that can be read and analyzed. Stoller argues that this attitude is in itself Eurocentric and is particularly inappropriate for anthropologists, who often work in societies in which the notion of text, and textual interpretation, is foreign. Throughout "Sensuous Scholarship" Stoller argues for the importance of understanding the "sensuous epistemologies" of many non-Western societies so that we can better understand the societies themselves and what their epistemologies have to teach us about human experience in general. Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthroopology at West Chester University and the author of "The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology," also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.
The tale of Paul Stoller's sojourn among sorcerors in the Republic
of Niger is a story of growth and change, of mutual respect and
understanding that will challenge all who read it to plunge deeply
into an alien world.
Wisdom From the Edge describes what anthropologists can do to contribute to the social and cultural changes that shape a social future of wellbeing and viability. Paul Stoller shows how anthropologists can develop sensuously described ethnographic narratives to communicate powerfully their insights to a wide range of audiences. These insights are filled with wisdom about how respect for nature is central to the future of humankind. Stoller demonstrates how the ethnographic evocation of space and place, the honing of dialogue, and the crafting of character depict the drama of social life, and borrows techniques from film, poetry, and fiction to expand the appeal of anthropological knowledge and heighten its ability to connect the public to the idiosyncrasies of people and locale. Ultimately, Wisdom from the Edge underscores the importance of recognizing and applying indigenous wisdom to the social problems that threaten the future.
After more than fifty years as the model of perfect health,
anthropologist Paul Stoller suddenly finds himself diagnosed with
lymphoma. The only thing more transformative than his fear and
dread of cancer is the place it ultimately takes him--twenty-five
years back in time to his days as an apprentice to a West African
sorcerer.
Anthropologists who have lost their senses write ethnographies that are often disconnected from the worlds they seek to portray. For most anthropologists, Stoller contends, tasteless theories are more important than the savory sauces of ethnographic life. That they have lost the smells, sounds, and tastes of the places they study is unfortunate for them, for their subjects, and for the discipline itself. The Taste of Ethnographic Things describes how, through long-term participation in the lives of the Songhay of Niger, Stoller eventually came to his senses. Taken together, the separate chapters speak to two important and integrated issues. The first is methodological—all the chapters demonstrate the rewards of long-term study of a culture. The second issue is how he became truer to the Songhay through increased sensual awareness.
In February 1999 the tragic New York City police shooting of Amadou
Diallo, an unarmed street vendor from Guinea, brought into focus
the existence of West African merchants in urban America. In "Money
Has No Smell," Paul Stoller offers us a more complete portrait of
the complex lives of West African immigrants like Diallo, a
portrait based on years of research Stoller conducted on the
streets of New York City during the 1990s.
"This ethnography is more like a film than a book, so well does
Stoller evoke the color, sight, sounds, and movements of Songhay
possession ceremonies."--"Choice"
Yaya's Story is a book about Yaya Harouna, a Songhay trader originally from Niger who found a path to America. It is also a book about Paul Stoller-its author-an American anthropologist who found his own path to Africa. Separated by ethnicity, language, profession, and culture, these two men's lives couldn't be more different. But when they were both threatened by a grave illness-cancer-those differences evaporated, and the two were brought to profound existential convergence, a deep camaraderie in the face of the most harrowing of circumstances. Yaya's Story is that story. Harouna and Stoller would meet in Harlem, at a bustling African market where Harouna built a life as an African art trader and Stoller was conducting research. Moving from Belayara in Niger to Silver Spring, Maryland, and from the Peace Corps to fieldwork to New York, Stoller recounts their separate lives and how the threat posed by cancer brought them a new, profound, and shared sense of meaning. Combining memoir, ethnography, and philosophy through a series of interconnected narratives, he tells a story of remarkable friendship and the quest for well-being. It's a story of difference and unity, of illness and health, a lyrical reflection on human resiliency and the shoulders we lean on.
Issa Boureima is a young, hip African street vendor who sells
knock-off designer bags and hats in an open-air market on 125th
street in Harlem. His goal is to become a "Jaguar"--a West African
term for a keen entrepreneur able to spot trends and turn a profit
in any marketplace. This dynamic world, largely invisible to
mainstream culture, is the backdrop of this timely novel.
The most prolific ethnographic filmmaker in the world, a pioneer of
cinema verite and one of the earliest ethnographers of African
societies, Jean Rouch (1917-) remains a controversial and often
misunderstood figure in histories of anthropology and film. By
examining Rouch's neglected ethnographic writings, Paul Stoller
seeks to clarify the filmmaker's true place in anthropology.
There comes a time for most of us when we knowingly face a decision
of such consequence that it will drastically affect the shape of
our lives. Some people are prepared to carry the weight of that
decision. David Lyons, the protagonist of "Gallery Bundu, "was not.
It is the anthropologist's fate to always be between things:
countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than
lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the
creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us,
changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we
live in the world.
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