Anthropology Off The Shelf - Anthropologists On Writing

• First of its kind volume in anthropology in which prominent anthropologists and 3 respected professionals outside the discipline follow the tradition of the “writers on writing” genre to reflect on all aspects of the writing process
• Contributors are high-profile in anthropology and many have a strong presence outside the field, in popular culture
• Unique in its format: short essays, revealing and straightforward in content and writing style

Maria D. Vesperi is Professor of Anthropology at New College of Florida and a trustee of the Poynter Institute. Author of City of Green Benches: Growing Old in a New Downtown (1986), she is currently completing a book on the relationship between ethnographic narrative and narrative journalism and developing a 150-year social history of a utopian community turned company town.

Notes on Contributors.

Foreword (Cheryl Mwaria).

1. Introduction: The Writer in the Anthropologist (Maria D. Vesperi and Alisse Waterston).

Part I: Conceptions.

2. Speaking Truth to Power with Books (Howard Zinn).

3. Remember When Writing Was Fun? Why Academics Should Go On a Low Syllable, Active Voice Diet (Karen Brodkin).

4. The Bard (Carolyn Nordstrom).

5. Saggin' and Braggin' (Lee D. Baker).

6. Stories for Readers: A Few Observations from Outside the Academy (Andrew Barnes).

Part II: Creations.

7. Writing Poverty, Drawing Readers: Stories in Love, Sorrow and Rage (Alisse Waterston).

8. Write‑ous Indignation: Black Girls, Dilemmas of Cultural Domination and the Struggle to Speak the Skin We Are In (Signithia Fordham).

9. Writing Truth to Power: Racism as Statecraft (Arthur K. Spears).

10. Remembering Octavia (Sharon Ball).

11. Believing in Anthropology as Literature (Ruth Behar).

Part III: Receptions.

12. Walking in Zora's Shoes or "Seek[ing] Out de Inside Meanin' of Words": The Intersections of Anthropology, Ethnography, Identity, and Writing (Irma McClaurin).

13. Off the Shelf and Into Oblivion? (Catherine Kingfisher).

14. "Don't Use Your Data as a Pillow" (S. Eben Kirksey).

15. The Trope of the Pith Helmet: America's Anthropology, Anthropology's America (Micaela di Leonardo).

16. The Book that Wrote Me (Roger Sanjek).

17. Fighting Words (Paul Farmer).

18. Taking Chances (Maria D. Vesperi).

Index.