LITERATURE, WRITING & ANTHROPOLOGY: THEME LIST
Literature, Writing & Anthropology: A Theme List from the Archive
Compiled by Shannon Dugan Iverson & Darren Byler
This theme list is part of the curated collection on Literature, Writing & Anthropology
Over the years, Cultural Anthropology has published several articles that address writing across cultures and within the discipline. Power and creative expression are the principal themes that intertwine in these articles, often in surprising ways. For example, several articles deal with written texts as cultural artifacts; texts are used to shed light on the ways that documents inform political thought or development. (See Bubandt 2009 on fake letters that incited religious violence in Indonesia; Cody 2009 on literacy activism in India; Messick 1989 on Yemeni legal documents; and Peteet 2007 on the religious, political, and social implications of graffiti.) These articles show how writing - officially sanctioned, illegal, or outright fake - simultaneously represent, encode, and create public narratives. (Please also consult the overlapping theme of “narrative,” which features a comprehensive list of Cultural Anthropology’s articles on that topic.)
Politics and official or popular narratives are also simultaneously affecting and affected by works of fiction, poetry, and songs, as several Cultural Anthropology articles demonstrate. For example, David Coplan’s (1991) piece highlights the ways that Basotho songs were used to “work through” the effects (particularly shifting gender roles) of colonialism in Lesotho. Bruce Grant’s (2005) article showed the ways that tropes in Russian literature and popular films have resulted in a skewed interpretation of modern violence in the Cuacasus mountains. Thomas Lyons (2001) demonstrates that the public reception, cultural content, and the form (“narrative ambiguity”) of two French-language novels by Algerian writers may be evaluated ethnographically to provide information about the experience of immigration and colonialism (as well as postmodern concerns regarding authorship). Lucine Taminian (1998) examines discourses of East-West relations through an examination of Yemen’s commemoration of the poet Arthur Rimbaud (who lived in Aden, Yemen). Finally, Talal Asad’s (1990) piece examines what has possibly been the most politically-charged piece of fiction in history, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, in order to raise reflexive awareness within anthropology about the ways that “discursive interventions by anthropologists articulate the politics of difference in the spaces defined by the modern state” (Asad 1990: 260).
Asad’s work begins to point us in the direction of the role of anthropological writing, a theme that has garnered attention from both a theoretical and stylistic point of view. Stylistically, several Current Anthropology articles have imaginatively blurred the line between literary forms and traditional ethnographic writing; these include E. Valentine Daniel’s (2008) epic poem “The Coolie”; S. Lochlann Jain’s (2007) “Cancer Butch,” and two articles by forerunners of literary anthropology (Behar 1991 and Narayan 1993). The tone and style of these articles sets the stage for a discussion of concerns regarding the democratization of the ethnographic text: such writing may simultaneously allow for the inclusion of a greater number of voices, the positioning of the author, and a greater accessibility of ethnographic writing beyond the discipline. Reflexive writing on the uses, misuses, and future possibilities of ethnographic writing include many of the authors cited above, as well as Blanchard 1990, Crapanzano 1991, McLean 2009, Roseman 1991, Samuels 1991, and Weiss 1990. Elizabeth Enslin (1994) offers an important critique about the limits of experimental ethnographic writing, emphasizing representation and advocacy during and after the fieldwork process rather than simply within anthropological documents.
Cultural Anthropology essays can be accessed electronically through AnthroSource, http://www.anthrosource.net/, which is available through most research libraries and to all members of the American Anthropological Asssociation.
ARTICLES (17):
Ethnography, Literature, and Politics: Some Readings and Uses of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses
Talal Asad, Cultural Anthropology, August 1990, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp. 239-269
Death and Memory: From Santa María del Monte to Miami Beach
Ruth Behar, Cultural Anthropology, August 1991, Vol. 6, Issue 3, pp. 346-384
Visions of the Archipelago: Michel Leiris, Autobiography and Ethnographic Memory
Marc Blanchard, Cultural Anthropology, August 1990, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp. 270-291
From the Enemy’s Point of View: Violence, Empathy, and the Ethnography of Fakes.
Nils Bubandt, Cultural Anthropology 2009, Vol. 24, Issue 3, pp. 553-588
Francis Cody, Cultural Anthropology, August 2009, Vol. 24, Issue 3, pp. 347-380
Fictions that Save: Migrants’ Performance and Basotho National Culture
David B. Coplan, Cultural Anthropology, May 1991, Vol. 6, Issue 2, pp. 164-192
The Postmodern Crisis: Discourse, Parody, Memory
Vincent Crapanzano, Cultural Anthropology, November 1991, Volume 6, Issue 4, pp. 431–446
E. Valentine Daniel, Cultural Anthropology, May 2008, Vol. 23, Issue 2, May 2008, pp. 254-278
Beyond Writing: Feminist Practice and the Limitations of Ethnography
Elizabeth Enslin, Cultural Anthropology, November 1994, Vol. 9, Issue 4, pp. 537-568
The Good Russian Prisoner: Naturalizing Violence in the Caucasus Mountains
Bruce Grant, Cultural Anthropology, February 2005, Vol. 20, Issue 1, pp. 39-67
S. Lochlann Jain, Cultural Anthropology, November 2007, Vol. 22, Issue 4, pp. 501-538
Thomas Lyons, Cultural Anthropology, May 2001, Vol. 16, Issue 2, pp. 183-201
Stories and Cosmogonies: Imagining Creativity Beyond “Nature” and “Culture”
Stuart McLean, Cultural Anthropology, May 2009, Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 213-245
Just Writing: Paradox and Political Economy in Yemeni Legal Documents
Brinkley Messick, Cultural Anthropology, February 1989, Vol. 4, Issue 1, pp. 26-50
Kirin Narayan, Cultural Anthropology, November 1993, Vol. 8, Issue 4, pp. 476-509
The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada
Julie Peteet, Cultural Anthropology, May 1996, Vol. 11, Issue 2, pp. 139-159
A Documentary Fiction and Ethnographic Production: An Analysis of Sherman’s March
Sharon R. Roseman, Cultural Anthropology, November 1991, Vol. 6, Issue 4, pp. 505-524
David Samuels, Cultural Anthropology, February 1996, Vol. 11, Issue 1, pp. 88-118
Rimbaud's House in Aden, Yemen: Giving Voice(s) to the Silent Poet
Lucine Taminian, Cultural Anthropology, November 1998, Volume 13, Issue 4, pp. 464–490
Challenge to Authority: Bakhtin and Ethnographic Description
Wendy A. Weiss, Cultural Anthropology, November 1990, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 414–430
