Tim Ingold

There is no prepared script for social and cultural life. People work it out as they go along. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation casts fresh, anthropological eyes on the cultural sites of creativity that form part of our social matrix. The book explores the ways creative agency is attributed in the graphic and performing arts and in intellectual property law. It shows how the sources of creativity are embedded in social, political and religious institutions, examines the relation between creativity and the perception and passage of time, and reviews the creativity and improvisational quality of anthropological scholarship itself. Individual essays examine how the concept of creativity has changed in the history of modern social theory, and question its applicability as a term of cross-cultural analysis. The contributors highlight the collaborative and political dimensions of creativity and thus challenge the idea that creativity arises only from individual talent and expression.-- Publisher description.

"Every year, leading social anthropologists meet in Manchester to debate a motion at the heart of current theoretical developments in their subject. Key Debates in Anthropology collects together the first six of these debates, spanning the period from 1988 to 1993. For each debate there are four principal speakers: one to propose the motion, another to oppose it, and two seconders. These debates give unprecedented insight into the process of anthropological theory in the making, as the many contributors both engage with each other's positions and respond to wider intellectual currents of the time." "With its unique format, Key Debates in Anthropology addresses issues that are currently at the top of the theoretical agenda, and registers the pulse of contemporary thinking in social anthropology. The presentations, by leading anthropologists of both older and younger generations, are clear, original and provocative."--Jacket.

How do women treat one another in the absence of men to treat them badly? Martha finds out when, reeling from the shock of yet another failed romance and sick of her own starchy literal-mindedness, she seeks solace among a group of somewhat addled devotees of the ancient matriarchal Goddess. Befriended by Isis Moonwagon, an academic turned New Age priestess, Martha follows the Goddess worshippers from the upscale beaches of Fire Island to the inhospitable Arizona desert, where a Native American medicine woman bullies them through the punitive rituals of the sweat lodge and vision quest. As petty tensions and major crises escalate out of control, the women's dream of returning to the simple ways of primitive hunters and gatherers shatters under the pressure of a more predatory reality. . With the acerbic wit and compassion that have marked her widely acclaimed previous works, Francine Prose here offers a sharp-eyed consideration of how men and women differ in their pursuit - and avoidance - of power, sex, and competition. A satire of the pieties of New Age religion and knee-jerk feminism, Hunters and Gatherers nevertheless radiates sympathy for our efforts to reconcile spiritual longings with our earthbound, all-too-human nature.

"A comprehensive survey of contemporary thinking in biological, social, and cultural anthropology"--Back cover.

xi, 276 p. : 22 cm