P Stoller
Biographic Data
| ID | 1244 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P Stoller |
| GIVEN NAMES | P |
| FAMILY NAME | Stoller |
| SIGNATURE | STOLLER P |
| AFFILIATIONS | West Chester University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6987-5708 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 126 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 668 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 126 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1976 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Epilogue: Epistemic Shock and the Path Forward
The Epilogue discusses the book’s overall argument. It explores the general implications of the different epistemic shocks in anthropology arising from engagement with the weird, the paranormal, the unexplained, and the ineffable. It highlights the book’s conceptual innovation, with ideas such as not-knowing, blind spots, negative capability, the weird, and what lies outside reason. Drawing on the author’s personal experience of Songhay sorcery i…
The Meditation on Rasanblaj Questionnaire #8
Defined as assembly, compilation, enlisting, regrouping (of ideas, things, people, spirits; for example, fè yon rasanblaj, do a gathering, a ceremony, a protest), rasanblaj’s very linguistic format
Afterword: Healing Justice
Designed to deliver justice for all, legal systems frequently deliver injustice. There are many examples of unfairness in judicial systems. It is common knowledge that prisons are filled with inmates who cannot afford to hire high-priced defence attorneys. By the same token, wealthy men and women often break the law with abandon, confident that their ‘privilege’ protects them from legal judgements that might result in social humiliation or, worse…
Forum
There is a place on the southwest edge of Ireland, where stone and sea touch in a constant ebb and flow of memory, history and landscape. Dingle, or An Daingean as it is in the local Irish language. A name that evokes myth and magic, conjuring not only the topography of its windswept cliffs and quiet, stony fields but also the sense of something larger - a pulse, a draw, something that carries you in
Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times
Re-Sensing the Sensory
This chapter is a personal reflection on the central importance of the senses in the description of the whys and wherefores of social life. Through personal reflections of sensory encounters at the edge of consciousness, West African encounters that challenged the existential foundation of my being-in-the-world, I suggest that re-sensing the sensory is a powerful way to meet the challenges of social description in a troubled world in need of the …
Ethnography, Art, and Public Anthropology
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action‐in‐the‐world. In the early decades of the twenty‐first century—a time of political and, particularly, ecological emergency—anthropologists have offered vital insights to contribute to public discussion about the future of human viability, knowledge that could be conveyed to the public by way anthropology's core activity: ethnography. Extending the insights of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty on art‐in‐the‐wo…
High in Fiber, Low in Content: Reflections on Postmodern Anthropology
This paper is a critical reflection of the important debate on postmodernism in Anthropology. In the paper, the discourse and counterdiscourses on postmodernism are outlined and assessed. In the end the author (1) worries about plethora of obfuscating criticism and the dearth of revelatory ethnography in the postmodern debate and (2) suggests three paths to a future anthropology beyond the postmodern: sensorial anthropology, ethnographic film, an…
Afterword
In this Afterword I write about the importance of mentorship, which can take us beyond the ethnographic to a place of deeper and broader sensory comprehension
In the Shade of the Jujube Tree
This essay is a homage to Fatouma Seyni, one of my West African mentors. In it, I attempt to weave threads of narrative and ethnography to evoke the profundity of West African practical wisdom. More specifically, the narratives demonstrate how patience and respect set a course to learn not only about the mysteries of divination but also about the profound complexities of the human condition. We all sit on the shoulders of our mentors. Much of wha…
Antropología ralentizada en un mundo acelerado
Este artigo explora a prática da "antropologia lenta" como uma resposta crítica à aceleração da vida contemporânea. Paul Stoller argumenta que a imersão profunda e prolongada no campo etnográfico, característica da antropologia tradicional, oferece uma perspectiva única para compreender as complexidades do mundo atual. A lentidão, segundo o autor, permite uma observação mais atenta, a construção de relações mais significativas com os sujeitos de …
Imaging Knowledge: Visual Anthropology, Storytelling and the Slow Path Toward Wisdom
In this article, I suggest that visual anthropology shows us a powerfully ethical way -through sensuous narrative and shared anthropology -to practice slow anthropology in a fast world.In what follows I examine the work and practices of two great visual anthropologists, Jean Rouch and Lisbet Holtedahl.The research methodology and filmic strategies of these master anthropologists, I suggest, have been profoundly shaped by the slow epistemology of …
Afterword: Between Self and Other
In the thought-provoking papers that constitute ‘Stranger Races: Reflections on Alterity in Constructions of the Self’, the authors make clear that our always already social confrontation with alterity is complex, multifaceted and context sensitive. They also make clear that thinking about alterity is a central, if not the central, element of anthropological study, an endeavour that sheds light on such socially destructive forces as primitivism, …
Afterword: A Return to the Story
The parable of the footbridge: Creativity and change in the between
In this article, the author suggests that anthropologists use the creative power of 'the between', an imaginative space of invention, as one way to heal the wounds of contemporary social life. His model for such practice is the sohanci, the sorcerer among the Songhay people of Niger in West Africa. The sohanci is a liminal figure who is always between the village and the bush, between health and illness, between life and death, a vantage that mak…
Slowing Down on the Path to Knowledge
Slowing Down on the Path to Knowledge Paul Stoller Michael D. Jackson, As Wide as the World is Wise: Reinventing Philosophical Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 272 pp. Michael D. Jackson, The Work of Art: Rethinking the Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 256 pp. Elders among the Songhay people of the Republics of Niger and Mali long ago taught me an important lesson: it takes a g…
Resisting the alternate realities of global populism
Storytelling, Rouch and the Anthropological Future
In this essay, I intend to use Jean Rouch’s valorization of the ethnographic past in order to think about the ethnographic future. In the pages that follow, I explore how new digital technologies have altered the landscape of anthropological expression and attempt to briefly describe the epistemological impact of social media and visual technologies on ethnographic description. I conclude by suggesting that the complexity of a digital application…
Afterword: Engaging Public Anthropology
Why do we read the classics
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived. Whether in terms of the complex relation between the production of anthropological knowledge and the political systems in which it takes place, or the proliferation of the language of "mutual constitution" as a way to bypass questions of causality, the question of the "suffering" vs. the "g…
Chapter 5
A Remarkable Convergence 1
This essay is about an ethnographic epiphany. It is a story of two men, who, separated by ethnicity, language, culture, profession, and personal circumstance, bridged their considerable differences to reach a remarkable point of existential convergence, a deep dialogue that brought on a moving moment of profound mutual understanding. Our stories recount adventures experienced along two distinct life paths. El Hajj Yaya's path followed the twists …
What Is Literary Anthropology? Novel Approaches to Anthropology: Contributions to Literary Anthropology . By Marilyn Cohen, ed. New York: Lexington Books, 2013
Commentary: Storytelling and the Construction of Reality
Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa
A study of the West African Hauka - spirits that grotesquely mimic and mock "Europeans" of the colonial epoch. The author considers spirit possession as a set of embodied practices with serious social and cultural consequences. Embodying Colonial Memories is the first in-depth study of the West African Hauka, spirits in the body of (human) mediums which mimic and mock Europeans of the colonial epoch. Paul Stoller, who was initiated into a spirit …
In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger
Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City
In Money Has No Smell, Paul Stoller explores the dynamic world of West African street vendors in New York City. He focuses on the experiences of Muslim traders from the Songhay region of Niger who have established a vibrant commercial network, navigating the challenges of immigration, economic competition, and cultural adaptation. Stoller's ethnographic study delves into the intricacies of their informal economy, examining how they maintain their…
Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger
Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa
A study of the West African Hauka - spirits that grotesquely mimic and mock "Europeans" of the colonial epoch. The author considers spirit possession as a set of embodied practices with serious social and cultural consequences. Embodying Colonial Memories is the first in-depth study of the West African Hauka, spirits in the body of (human) mediums which mimic and mock Europeans of the colonial epoch. Paul Stoller, who was initiated into a spirit …
Horrific Comedy: Cultural Resistance and the Hauka Movement in Niger
Sound in Songhay cultural experience
This paper considers the "inner" dimension of sound in Songhay cultural experience. For the Songhay of the Republic of Niger, sound is a dimension of experience separate from the domains of human, animal, and plant life. They believe that sounds carry forces that can penetrate an object. More specifically, like many peoples of the world, the Songhay believe that the sounds of praisenames, magical words, and sacred musical instruments create an au…
The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology
Anthropologists who have lost their senses write ethnographies that are often disconnected from the worlds they seek to portray. For most anthropologists, Stoller contends, tasteless theories are more important than the savory sauces of ethnographic life. That they have lost the smells, sounds, and tastes of the places they study is unfortunate for them, for their subjects, and for the discipline itself. The Taste of Ethnographic Things describes…
Spaces, Places, and Fields: The Politics of West African Trading in New York City's Informal Economy
The Taste of Ethnographic Things
Sensuous Ethnography, African Persuasions, and Social Knowledge
This article suggests that transnational complexities require a more sensuous approach to ethnography, an approach in which local epistemologies and sensory regimes are more fully explored. More specific, the purpose of this article is to suggest that sensuous descriptions improve not only the clarity and force of ethnographic representations but also the social analysis of power relations-in-the-world. African states, as the author attempts to d…
Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology
Paul Stoller, Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology.?How do we represent the in anthropological discourse? In this paper it is argued that the tacit assumptions of the anthropological episteme embodied in the conventions of ethnographic realism determine what is, from what is not, anthropologically appropriate. These tacit assumptions are represented not only in what we see and think, but also in what we say and write. Given the epistemological foun…
Ethnographies as Texts/Ethnographers as Griots
West African griots or bards are charged with talking social life; they are burdened by a localized politics of representation. Ethnographers are charged with writing or filming social life; they are burdened by a globalized politics of representation. In this article, I suggest that ethnographers have much to learn from the localized practices of griots. More specifically, I argue that when ethnographers attempt to depict social life-to write or…
X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere
Research Article| January 01 1994 X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere Rosemary J. Coombe; Rosemary J. Coombe Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Paul Stoller Paul Stoller Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Public Culture (1994) 7 (1): 249–274. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-7-1-249 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn …
Bad Sauce, Good Ethnography
The negotiation of Songhay space: Phenomenology in the Heart of Darkness
The observation of symbolic space can often be an exercise in perceptual "delusion," in which the anthropologist observes something that does not correspond to the reality of the people he or she is studying. One of the sources of perceptual "delusion" is the static orientation to (social) science, the ongoing legacy of post-Socratic Greek philosophy to occidental (social) scientific analysis. One solution to this significant epistemological prob…
Fusion of the Worlds. An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger
The Presence of the Ethnographic Present: Some Brief Comments on Loïc Wacquant’s Body and Soul
The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress
The Death of Authentic Primitive Art and Other Tales of Progress. Shelly Errington. Berkeley. University of California Press, 1998. 309 pages. $48.00 (cloth); $19.95 (paper
Why do we read the classics
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived. Whether in terms of the complex relation between the production of anthropological knowledge and the political systems in which it takes place, or the proliferation of the language of "mutual constitution" as a way to bypass questions of causality, the question of the "suffering" vs. the "g…
Crossroads: Tracing African paths on New York City streets
This article explores the social lives of West African street vendors in New York City through the eyes of one such trader, Issifi Mayaki, an African immigrant from Niger who sold cloth and other items in Harlem and other areas of the city during the 1990s. The article describes how Issifi made his way in America and probes how he has drawn on native cultural and social resources to secure a niche in New York City. Issifi's financial and marketin…
Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa
Artaud, Rouch, and The Cinema of Cruelty
In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger
Reflections of older Iranian women
Social Experience and Anthropological Knowledge
The Language Planning Activities of the U.S. Office of Bilingual Education
Article The Language Planning Activities of the U.S. Office of Bilingual Education was published on January 1, 1976 in the journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (volume 1976, issue 11)
The Epistemology of Sorkotarey: Language, Metaphor and Healing among the Songhay
The negotiation of Songhay space: Phenomenology in the Heart of Darkness
The observation of symbolic space can often be an exercise in perceptual "delusion," in which the anthropologist observes something that does not correspond to the reality of the people he or she is studying. One of the sources of perceptual "delusion" is the static orientation to (social) science, the ongoing legacy of post-Socratic Greek philosophy to occidental (social) scientific analysis. One solution to this significant epistemological prob…
Social interaction and the management of Songhay socio-political change
Opening ParagraphKwaara banda daarey, hala ga kano, yeow s'a gar. The stranger (no matter how long he/she has lived in a town) will never possess the choicest fruit of the daarey tree behind the village.The daarey tree (Ziziphus jujuba) is found in and around Songhay towns in the Republic of Niger. Since its sweet red fruit is coveted, the whereabouts of the finest daarey are never divulged to foreigners, lest they steal from the Songhay that whi…
Dimensions of Sociolinguistics - Gillian Sankoff, The social lfe of language. (Conduct and Communication Series) Foreword by Dell Hymes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. Pp. 373
Dimensions of Sociolinguistics - Gillian Sankoff, The social lfe of language. (Conduct and Communication Series) Foreword by Dell Hymes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. Pp. 373. - Volume 11 Issue 1
Fear Thy Neighbor As Thyself: Psychoanalysis and Society Among the Anyi of West Africa . Paul Parin, Fritz Morgenthaler, and Goldy Parin‐Matthey
Beatitudes, Beasts, and Anthropological Burdens: Three Studies of Shamanism, Trance, and Possession
Man Cures God Heals: Religion and Medical Practice among the Akans of Ghana. Kofi Appiah-KubiHuman Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte. Michael LambekEcstasy and Healing in Nepal: An Ethnopsychiatric Study of Tamang Shamanism. Larry Peters
Signs in the social order: Riding a Songhay bush taxi
In any field of experience anthropologists are confronted by spates of signs, many of which they fail to perceive. By way of an analysis of the mundane activities associated with riding a Songhay bush taxi in the Republic of Niger, this article probes the reflexive process through which anthropologist and ethnographic other learn to interpret the signs that comprise the discourse of social action. Having been confronted repeatedly with the signs …
Relativity and the Anthropologist's Gaze
Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine in Africa . Abayomi Sofowara. ; Medicinal Plants of North Africa . Loufty Boulos
Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology
Paul Stoller, Eye, Mind and Word in Anthropology.?How do we represent the in anthropological discourse? In this paper it is argued that the tacit assumptions of the anthropological episteme embodied in the conventions of ethnographic realism determine what is, from what is not, anthropologically appropriate. These tacit assumptions are represented not only in what we see and think, but also in what we say and write. Given the epistemological foun…
Horrific Comedy: Cultural Resistance and the Hauka Movement in Niger
Sound in Songhay cultural experience
This paper considers the "inner" dimension of sound in Songhay cultural experience. For the Songhay of the Republic of Niger, sound is a dimension of experience separate from the domains of human, animal, and plant life. They believe that sounds carry forces that can penetrate an object. More specifically, like many peoples of the world, the Songhay believe that the sounds of praisenames, magical words, and sacred musical instruments create an au…
Representing Religion in The Postmodern Age
Crocker. Jon Christopher. Vital Souls: Bororo Cosmology, Natural Symbolism and Shamanism . Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1985. xiii. 380 pp. $29.95 (cloth). Farella. John R. The Main Stalk:. Synthesis of Navajo Philosophy . Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1984. + 221 pp. $19.95 (cloth). Angell. J. William. and E. Pendleton Banks. eds. Images of Man: Studies in Religion and Anthropology . Macon, Ga.: Mercer Press, 1984. ix. 142 pp. $13…
Bad Sauce, Good Ethnography
In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger
Son of Rouch: Portrait of a Young Ethnographer by the Songhay
Imagine an anthropological discourse in which Others classify anthropologists in same manner that We classify Them. Such a movement would be a step toward decolonization of anthropological texts; it would also help to infuse our writing with a desperately needed sense of humor. Savages, after all, enjoy savaging ethnographers. In this article I argue that their classifications of us are revelatory, for they situate ethnographic research in a broa…
A Post‐Card on Discourse
Tullio Maranhao. 1986. Therapeutic Discourse and Socratic Dialogue:. Cultural Critique . Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, xv. 276 pp. $24.95 (cloth
Social/Cultural Anthropology: An Essay on African Philosophical Thought: The Akan Conceptual Scheme . Kwame Gyekye : Social/Cultural Anthropology : The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the…
Speaking in the Name of the Real
Stoller Paul. Speaking in the Name of the Real.. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 29, n°113, 1989. pp. 113-125
In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger
Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Niger
The Python Killer: Stories of Nzema Life
Jean Rouch's ethnographic path
This article considers the multiple influences that have shaped Jean Rouch's ethnographic gaze upon the Songhay people of Niger. Marcel Griaule, Rouch's mentor, undoubtedly influenced his student's ethnographic approach to Songhay. But Rouch was equally influenced, I am convinced, by his direct and unforgettable confrontation with the mysteries of the Songhay world. After a discussion of the methodological and theoretical orientations of the Gria…
The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology
Anthropologists who have lost their senses write ethnographies that are often disconnected from the worlds they seek to portray. For most anthropologists, Stoller contends, tasteless theories are more important than the savory sauces of ethnographic life. That they have lost the smells, sounds, and tastes of the places they study is unfortunate for them, for their subjects, and for the discipline itself. The Taste of Ethnographic Things describes…
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