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The anthropology of art is currently at a crossroads. Although well versed in the meaning of art in small-scale tribal societies, anthropologists are still wrestling with the question of how to interpret art in a complex, post-colonial environment. Alfred Gell recently confronted this problem in his ...

The anthropology of art is currently at a crossroads. Although well versed in the meaning of art in small-scale tribal societies, anthropologists are still wrestling with the question of how to interpret art in a complex, post-colonial environment. Alfred Gell recently confronted this problem in his posthumous book Art and Agency. The central thesis of his study was that art objects could be seen, not as bearers of meaning or aesthetic value, but as forms mediating social action. At a stroke, Gell provocatively dismissed many longstanding but tired questions of definition and issues of aesthetic value. His book proposed a novel perspective on the roles of art in political practice and made fresh links between analyses of style, tradition and society.Offering a new overview of the anthropology of art, this book begins where Gell left off. Presenting wide-ranging critiques of the limits of aesthetic interpretation, the workings of objects in practice, the relations between meaning and efficacy and the politics of postcolonial art, its distinguished contributors both elaborate on and dissent from the controversies of Gell's important text. Subjects covered include music and the internet as well as ethnographic traditions and contemporary indigenous art. Geographically its case studies range from India to Oceania to North America and Europe.

Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view ...

Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view, and questions the criteria that accord art status only to a certain class of objects and not to others. The anthropology of art is here reformulated as the anthropology of a category of action: Gell shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. He explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.

"This is the first detailed study in African oral literature that examines the complementary elements of praise and criticism in traditional oral poetry.... One of the few studies today that give us an insight into the folklore of less well known African communities, as against the vast majority of ...

"This is the first detailed study in African oral literature that examines the complementary elements of praise and criticism in traditional oral poetry.... One of the few studies today that give us an insight into the folklore of less well known African communities, as against the vast majority of works that concentrate on larger groups like the Yoruba.... There is a freshness about this work that recommends it greatly" -- Isidore Okpewho, Suny-Binghamton

"A very important and welcome addition to the growing scholarship on song traditions in Africa". -- Helen Nabasuta Mugambi, California State University, Fullerton

Conventionally, scholars of oral literature have studied works of praise and criticism as distinct from one another. Ogede examines the ways in which praise and criticism work in tandem in the oral performance of the Igede of West Africa. He explains how they are used in negotiating social relationships and in navigating the political, religious, and spiritual spheres. He further demonstrates how oral performance among the Igede is not the exclusive preserve of any particular group but is ultimately a means of public expression, available to and employed by all in dealing with powerful emotions and events.

Ogede focuses on the minority Igede of Nigeria's Benue State in order to extend the study of oral literature beyond such familiar majority ethnic groups as the Yoruba, Igbo, and Zulu. By drawing from work by leading oral artists and younger composers, he examines how oral materials are created and transmitted among the unlettered Igede, how they vary from one performance to another, and how mutual influences between the audience and the artist are essential to thepower of the oral performance.