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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

"Paul Stoller has been writing a popular blog for the Huffington Post since 2011. His desire to bring an anthropological perspective to contemporary debates drove him to try his hand at blogging, but it's the joy and skill he has derived from the experience that has kept him at it. Blogging, says Stoller, has made him a better academic writer - snappier, more concise, and more focused on the connection he wants to make with readers. In this collection of selected blog essays, Stoller models good writing while sharing his insights on this popular media format. In the process he discusses the academy's need for greater public engagement, and the changing nature of scholarly communication. Avoiding a prescriptive voice and opting instead to educate by example, Stoller shows, rather than tells, how to connect academic research and concepts with current public events. Divided into four parts, the book includes blogs on politics, the state of the social sciences, the state of contemporary higher education, media representation, and human well-being. The result is a highly readable and engaging account of one Anthropologist's adventures in public blogging."--

A study of the West African Hauka - spirits that grotesquely mimic and mock ""Europeans"" of the colonial epoch. The author considers spirit possession as a set of embodied practices with serious social and cultural consequences. Embodying Colonial Memories is the first in-depth study of the West African Hauka, spirits in the body of (human) mediums which mimic and mock Europeans of the colonial epoch. Paul Stoller, who was initiated into a spirit possession troupe, recounts an insider's tale of the Hauka with respect and ""brotherly"" deference. He combines narrative description, historical a

Introduction: A return to the senses -- pt. I. Tastes in anthropology: The taste of ethnographic things -- pt. II. Visions in the field: Eye, mind, and word in anthropology -- "Gazing" at the space of Songhay politics -- Signs in the social order: Riding a Songhay bush taxi -- Son of Rouch: Songhay visions of the other --pt. III. Sounds in cultural experience: Sound in Songhay possession -- Sound in Songhay sorcery -- pt. IV. The senses in anthropology: The reconstruction of ethnography -- Detours

In Sensuous Scholarship Paul Stoller challenges contemporary social theorists and cultural critics who - using the notion of embodiment to critique both Eurocentric and phallocentric predispositions in scholarly thought - consider the body primarily as a text that can be read and analyzed. He 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. In many of these societies not only are reading and writing unimportant but vision is not the central perceptual mode. Instead, the "lower" senses are central to the metaphoric organization of experience. 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

"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 "Stoller brilliantly recreates the reality of spirit presence; hosts are what they mediate, and spirits become flesh and blood in the 'fusion' with human existence. . . . An excellent demonstration of the benefits of a new genre of ethnographic writing. It expands our understanding of the harsh world of Songhay mediums and sorcerers."-Bruce Kapferer, American Ethnologist "A vivid story that will appeal to a wide audience. . . . The voic

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. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, The Power of the Between is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller's life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prologue: The Scholar's Body -- Part One: Embodied Practices -- Introduction: The Way of the Body -- 1. The Sorcerer's Body -- 2. The Griot's Tongue -- Part Two: Body and Memory -- Introduction: The Texture of Memory -- 3. Embodying Colonial Memories -- 4. "Conscious" Ain't Consciousness: Entering the Museum of Sensory Absence -- Part Three: Embodied Representations -- Introduction: Embodying the Grammar -- 5. Spaces, Places, and Fields: The Politics of West African Trading in New York City's Informal Economy -- 6. Artaud, Rouch, and the Cinema of Cruelty -- Epilogue: Sensuous Ways of Knowing/Living -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Films Cited -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.