The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey - Softcover

Stoller, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226775356 ISBN 13: 9780226775357

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 over decades of reading and research. Stoller imparts his accumulated wisdom not through grandiose pronouncements but by drawing on his gift for storytelling. Tales of his apprenticeship to a sorcerer in Niger, his studies with Claude Lévi-Strauss in Paris, and his friendships with West African street vendors in New York City accompany philosophical reflections on love, memory, power, courage, health, and illness.

Graced with Stoller’s trademark humor and narrative elegance, The Power of the Between is both the story of a distinguished career and a profound meditation on coming to terms with the impermanence of all things.

About this title

Review:

"The Power of the Between offers something truly original: a personal intellectual history that combines rigorous scholarship, engaging discussions of theory, and intimate portraits of an ethnographer in the field, at home and abroad. By stitching together the narrative of his career in anthropology with discussions of his own intellectual development along the way, Stoller demonstrates how doing anthropology and living it are, or at least should be, one and the same."--Russell Leigh Sharman, author of Nightshift NYC

“"The Power of the Between" offers something truly original: a personal intellectual history that combines rigorous scholarship, engaging discussions of theory, and intimate portraits of an ethnographer in the field, at home and abroad. By stitching together the narrative of his career in anthropology with discussions of his own intellectual development along the way, Stoller demonstrates how doing anthropology and living it are, or at least should be, one and the same.”--Russell Leigh Sharman, author of "Nightshift NYC"
“Paul Stoller is an adventurer, following a sensuous path whose sudden turns connect rationality with relativism, rivers with sand dunes, ancient deities with postcolonial politicians, West African villages with the streets of Harlem, rural traders with urban art collectors, and the methods of the sorcerer with those of the chemotherapist. This is the story of a true ethnographer.”--Dennis Tedlock, author of "Breath on the Mirror: Mythic Voices and Visions of the Living Maya"
"Paul Stoller''s signature style of crafting dramatic, often humorous stories to convey ethnographic insights and explore wider theoretical themes has taken him across many genres of writing, including the fieldwork memoir and fiction. With "The Power of the Between", Stoller brings us a powerful disciplinary memoir: vivid, eloquent, and laden with wisdom."--Kirin Narayan, author of "My Family and Other Saints"

"Paul Stoller's signature style of crafting dramatic, often humorous stories to convey ethnographic insights and explore wider theoretical themes has taken him across many genres of writing, including the fieldwork memoir and fiction. With "The Power of the Between", Stoller brings us a powerful disciplinary memoir: vivid, eloquent, and laden with wisdom."--Kirin Narayan, author of My Family and Other Saints

""The Power of the Between" offers something truly original: a personal intellectual history that combines rigorous scholarship, engaging discussions of theory, and intimate portraits of an ethnographer in the field, at home and abroad. By stitching together the narrative of his career in anthropology with discussions of his own intellectual development along the way, Stoller demonstrates how doing anthropology and living it are, or at least should be, one and the same."--Russell Leigh Sharman, author of "Nightshift NYC"
"Paul Stoller is an adventurer, following a sensuous path whose sudden turns connect rationality with relativism, rivers with sand dunes, ancient deities with postcolonial politicians, West African villages with the streets of Harlem, rural traders with urban art collectors, and the methods of the sorcerer with those of the chemotherapist. This is the story of a true ethnographer."--Dennis Tedlock, author of "Breath on the Mirror: Mythic Voices and Visions of the Living Maya"

About the Author:

Paul Stoller is professor of anthropology at West Chester University and the author of ten books, including Money Has No Smell, Jaguar, and In Sorcery's Shadow.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0226775356
• ISBN 13: 9780226775357
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 214