In traditional Polynesian societies, tattooing has played a key role in the social construction of the individual. This is the first study to provide a comparative analysis of tattooing in its original setting--based on a comprehensive survey of both written and oral sources. Drawing on modern social theory, psychoanalysis, and anthropological studies, Gell demonstrates the role of tattooing in the complex array of controlling sacredness and protecting the self.

Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology - Cultural Forms)

Arts & Photography

Gell, Alfred

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Wrapping In Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology - Cultural Forms)

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

Oxford University Press, U.S.A.

The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images (Explorations in Anthropology)

Social Sciences

Routledge

Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries: Umeda Society, Language and Ritual (London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology)

Longwood Pr Ltd

In this work, author Alfred Gell offers the most detailed interpretation of the symbolic system of a New Guinea people yet attempted. An analysis of the social structure and languages of the Umeda-Punda connubium in the West Sepik district of Northern New Guinea brings to light a 'three-fold analogy' containing the key elements of Umeda symbolism. This is then applied in a full account of the Umeda fertility ritual, as embodied in the metamorphosis of the Casowary, emblem of the wild, into a 'New Man', the epitome of Umeda cultural values. This book will interest all students of ritual systems and all Melanesian specialists, as well as workers in the field of primitive art, structural theory, and semantics.

Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries: Umeda Society, Language and Ritual Volume 51 (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)

The Athlone Press

The Art of Anthropology collects together the most influential of Gell's writings, which span the past two decades, with a new introductory chapter written by Gell. The essays vividly demonstrate Gell's theoretical and empirical interests and his distinctive contribution to several key areas of current anthropological enquiry. A central theme of the essays is Gel's highly original exploration of diagrammatic imagery as the site where social relations and cognitive processes converge and crystallise. Gell tracks this imagery across studies of tribal market transactions, dance forms, the iconicity of language and his most recent and groundbreaking analyses of artworks. Written with Gell's characteristic fluidity and grace and generously illustrated with Gell's original drawings and diagrams, the book will interest art historians, sociologists and geographers no less than anthropologists, challenging, as it does, established ideas about exchange, representation, aesthetics, cognition and spatial and temporal processes.

The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)

This work collects together the most influential of Gell's writings with a new introductory chapter written by Gell. The essays vividly demonstrate Gell's theoretical and empirical interests and his distinctive contribution to several key areas of current anthropological enquiry. A central theme of the essays is Gel's highly original exploration of diagrammatic imagery as the site where social relations and cognitive processes converge and crystallise. Gell tracks this imagery across studies of tribal market transactions, dance forms, the iconicity of language and his most recent and groundbreaking analyses of artworks.

The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams (Monographs on Social Anthropology)

Bloomsbury Academic

Time - relentless, ever-present but intangible and the single element over which human beings have no absolute control - has long proved a puzzle. The author examines the phenomenon of time and asks such fascinating questions as how time impinges on people, to what extent our awareness of time is culturally conditioned, how societies deal with temporal problems and whether time can be considered a `resource' to be economized. More specifically, he provides a consistent and detailed analysis of theories put forward by a number of thinkers such as Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard, Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, Piaget, Husserl and Bourdieu. His discussion encompasses four main approaches in time research, namely developmental psychology, symbolic anthropology (covering the bulk of post-Durkheimian social anthropology) `economic' theories of time in social geography and, finally, phenomenological theories. The author concludes by presenting his own model of social/cognitive time, in the light of these critical discussions of the literature.

The Art of Anthropology collects together the most influential of Gell's writings, which span the past two decades, with a new introductory chapter written by Gell. The essays vividly demonstrate Gell's theoretical and empirical interests and his distinctive contribution to several key areas of current anthropological enquiry. A central theme of the essays is Gel's highly original exploration of diagrammatic imagery as the site where social relations and cognitive processes converge and crystallise. Gell tracks this imagery across studies of tribal market transactions, dance forms, the iconicity of language and his most recent and groundbreaking analyses of artworks.Written with Gell's characteristic fluidity and grace and generously illustrated with Gell's original drawings and diagrams, the book will interest art historians, sociologists and geographers no less than anthropologists, challenging, as it does, established ideas about exchange, representation, aesthetics, cognition and spatial and temporal processes.

The Art of Anthropology (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gell, Alfred. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gell, Alfred

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gell, Alfred. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology - Cultural Forms)

Wrapping In Images: Tattooing in Polynesia (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology - Cultural Forms)

The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images (Explorations in Anthropology)

Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries: Umeda Society, Language and Ritual (London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology)

Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries: Umeda Society, Language and Ritual Volume 51 (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)

The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)

The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams (Monographs on Social Anthropology)

The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images (Explorations in Anthropology)

The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images (Explorations in Anthropology)

The Art of Anthropology (LSE Monographs on Social Anthropology)