1st Edition
The Textual Life of Savants Ethnography, Iceland, and the Linguistic Turn
By Gisli Pálsson
Copyright 1995
222 Pages
by
Routledge
224 Pages
by
Routledge
224 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
First Published in 1995. This book focuses on the role and significance of texts and textualism for anthropology and ethnography and, more specifically, the understanding of particular aspects of Icelandic society and history. The discussion is centred on a range of issues; moving between general social theory and ethnographic details, the immediate present and the distant past, language and... Read more
1. Introduction; Part I From Life to Text; 2. The conventional metaphor of cultural translation; 3. The factual, the fictive and the fabulous: novel and ethnography; Part II Times, Lives and Medieval Texts; 4. Sagas, history, and social life; 5. The power of words and the context of witchcraft; Part III Lives, Texts and Modern Realities; 6. Fetishized language, symbolic capital, and social identity; 7. Beyond environmental Orientalism; 8. Conclusions: towards a theory of living discourse;
Biography
Gisli Pálsson
"Icelanders have always been keenly aware of the cultural importance of language and the social power of texts; the language and literature have been the touchstones of Icelandic identity from the medieval Commonwealth to the modern nation-state. In this masterful and innovative study by anthropologist Gísli Pálsson, the preoccupation of Icelanders with language and texts serves not only as a highly productive point of departure for the anthropological exploration of Icelandic history, society, and culture, but also as a frame of reference for a trenchant critique of textual ideologies and practices in anthropology itself. The range of BThe Textual Life of the Savants/B - from the Sturlunga Saga to the Sexual Life of Savages, ni to novels, orientalism to the dative case - is truly remarkable."
