Cry Lonesome and Other Accounts of the Anthropologist's Project

By Miles Richardson

Subjects: Anthropology
Paperback : 9780791404065, 170 pages, September 1990
Hardcover : 9780791404058, 170 pages, September 1990

Alternative formats available from:

Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Myth-Teller

I-8

The Museum

"Gug Jjjur"

The Man-Eater

Don't Cry

Los Desconocidos

Cry Lonesome: A Novella

Index

Description

Unlike the literary tradition of ethnographic fiction that attempts to bridge the gap between the world of the Western reader and the world of the exotic other of distant places, the fiction presented here focuses on the bridge itself. Richardson documents the emergence of the anthropologist's life in the context of the culture of the American South.

Miles Richardson is Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Reviews

"The author relates anthropological theory to personal and cultural experience. He shows how the scientist, as scientist and person, can reconcile and integrate bias, observation, data, emotion, and inference. He presents a rich mixture of analytical arguments, biographical commentary, and fictional narratives. The stories and the novella depict life in our culture in an artful way. What makes the fiction different from that of most novelists is Richardson's cross-cultural vantage point, which provides a powerful perspective. I found it fascinating." — Daniel W. Ingersoll, Jr., St. Mary's College of Maryland

"The notion of an anthropologist preparing a book of mainly fiction to articulate and elucidate anthropology's project makes good sense at this time, when many anthropologists and other students of human life are discussing our descriptions as fiction/narrative. I found each chapter fascinating." — Gilbert Kushner, University of South Florida, Tampa