Other Tribes, Other Scribes
Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions and Texts

In this book, James A. Boon investigates the history, dialectics and practice of the symbolic analysis of cultural diversity.

James A. Boon (Author)

9780521271974, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 April 1983

320 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

Any interpretation of another culture is itself embedded in a specific cultural context and historical moment. In this book, James A. Boon investigates the history, dialectics and practice of the symbolic analysis of cultural diversity. His aim is to formulate a general comparative approach to the study of symbolic processes, integrating the major different theories about symbolic forms that have been developed by other writers. In so doing, he discusses the varying theories and practice of such figures as Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Mauss, Frazer, Saussure, Peirce, Lowie, Malinowski, Sapir, Hocart, Benedict, Parsons, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, Barthes, Foucault and others; and brings together a wide range of related issues in anthropology, linguistics, intellectual history, the sociology of religion and comparative mythology and literature. This original integration of social scientific and literary analysis will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in anthropology, history, philosophy and literature.

Preface
Part I. Initiations: 1. Introduction: the exaggeration of cultures
2. Shades of the history of ethnology
Part II. Systematics Notwithstanding: 3. Social theories with a difference
4. Assorted semiotics and dialectics
Part III. Essays in Exotic Texts: 5. Jacobean ethnology: An east-west intercourse
6. Balinese incest recaptured: a discourse
7. Structuralism/Romanticism, reciprocally
8. Conclusion: dead moons or eclipsed?
Appendices A–C
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM]