Author: Jean-Guy A. Goulet File Type: pdf What happens when anthropologists lose themselves during fieldwork while attempting to understand divergent cultures? When they stray from rigorous agendas and are forced to confront radically unexpected or unexplained experiences? In Extraordinary Anthropology leading ethnographers from across the globe discuss the importance of the deeply personal and emotionally volatile ecstatic side of fieldwork.Anthropologists who have worked in communities in Central America, North America, Australia, Africa, and Asia share their intimate experiences of tranformations in the field through details of significant dreams, haunting visions, and their own conflicting emotional tensions. Their experiences demonstrate the necessary fluidity of research agendas, the value of going beyond an accepted (and safe) cultural and academic vantage point, and the inevitability of wrestling with tension and unhappiness when faced with irreconcilable cultural and psychological dichotomies. The contributors explore ways in which conventional research methods can be adapted to creatively engage the intellectual, ethical, and practical dimensions of these dislocations and capitalize on them. Unsettling and revealing, Extraordinary Anthropology will spark debate and reflection among anthropologists for years to come.(20080506)ReviewThis work is a refreshing counter to an increasingly neopositivist academy, a must-read for those interested in what a critical, phenomenological ethnography looks and feels like in anthropology today.Leslie A. Robertson, BC Studies(Leslie A. Robertson BC Studies )In this book, thick ethnographic description, thoughtful analysis, and theoretical postulate borrowed from cognitive psychology, social psychology, anthropology, folklore and history are interwoven into a beautiful fabric so that ethnography in practice emerges in present acts as narratives about the past. . . . The result is an illuminating volume about a complex research method, imbued with spontaneity and much affected by a wide array of emotional, ethical, practical, and moral tensions and dichotomies. . . . Readers may also find it useful and interesting to go backstage with an anthropologist, and see what lies behind the finished performance.Gregory S. Szarycz, Anthropological Forum (Gregory S. Szarycz Anthropological Forum ) About the AuthorJean-Guy A. Goulet is an anthropologist teaching conflict studies at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. His books include Being Changed by Cross Cultural Encounters The Anthropology of Extraordinary Experience and Ways of Knowing Experience, Knowledge, and Power among the Dene Tha (Nebraska 1998).Bruce Granville Miller is a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. His books include The Problem of Justice Tradition and Law in the Coast Salish World (Nebraska 2001) and Invisible Indigenes The Politics of Nonrecognition (Nebraska 2003). Johannes Fabian is the author of Time and the Other How Anthropology Makes Its Object.Contributors Edward Abse, Millie Creighton, Duncan Earle, Peter Gardner, Guy Lanoue, Deirdre Meintel, Denise Nuttall, Petra Rethmann, Deborah Bird Rose, Edmund Searles, Jeanne Simonelli, Janferie Stone, Anahi Viladrich, and Barbara Wilkes.

Author: Shirley Samuels File Type: pdf This Companion presents the current state of criticism in the field of American fiction from the earliest declarations of nationhood to secession and civil war. ullDraws heavily on historical and cultural contexts in its consideration of American fiction llRelates the fiction of the period to conflicts about territory and sovereignty and to issues of gender, race, ethnicity and identity llCovers different forms of fiction, including childrens literature, sketches, polemical pieces, historical romances, Gothic novels and novels of exploration llConsiders both canonical and lesser-known authors, including James Fennimore Cooper, Hannah Foster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and Harriet Beecher Stowe llTreats neglected topics, such as the Western novel, science and the novel, and American fiction in languages other than EnglishlulReviewParticularly impressive... Taken together the essays constitute a dense realization of a critically resurgent period, with the historical dimension emphatic throughout.American Literary Scholarship A good resource for those just embarking on the study of American literature. Recommended.ChoiceBook DescriptionA Companion to American Fiction 1780ndash1865 presents current critical responses to the broad range of American fiction written from the earliest declarations of nationhood to secession and civil war. The volume features contributions from over 35 leading international critics and scholars, who offer a cultural and historical context that serves to illuminate the fiction. The Companion covers both less well-known writers, such as Lydia Maria Child and George Lippard, and canonical authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Contributors demonstrate how these authors present conflicts about territory and sovereignty and questions of gender, race, ethnicity, and identity.