Overview

Looking at encounters that can puncture or jolt us, this volume uses art as a lens through which to register and understand exceptional experiences. The volume also includes the fieldworker’s experience of unexpected events that can lead to key understandings, as well as revelatory moments that happen during artistic creation and while looking at art. By exploring exceptional experiences through art, the volume asks probing questions for anthropology. In recognizing that art is all-encompassing – including, as it does, narrative, performance, dance and images – Exceptional Experiences situates itself within a number of conversations on methodological and conceptual issues in anthropology and beyond.

Full Product Details

Author:   Petra Rethmann ,  Helena Wulff
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781836950820

ISBN 10:   1836950829
Pages:   246
Publication Date:   01 August 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Engaging with Jolting Events in Art and Fieldwork Petra Rethmann and Helena Wulff Part I: Experiencing and Conceptualizing the Exceptional Chapter 1. To Be Stunned: Uncanny Experiences and Uncertainty in ‘Ordinary’ Fieldwork Deborah Reed-Danahay Chapter 2. Looking at the African Masks at Musée du Trocadéro – He Understood…. Thomas Fillitz Chapter 3. Art and Anthropology in Graphic Form: Exceptional Experience andExtraordinary Collaboration in the Making of ‘Light in Dark Times’ Alisse Waterston and Charlotte Corden (images) Chapter 4. Exceptional Experiences in Academic Life Moshe Shokeid Chapter 5. The Exceptionalism of Art as Disclosure of Deepest Truth: Stanley Spencer and the Look of Love Nigel Rapport Part II: Literary Realms of the Exceptional Chapter 6. Haunted Reading/Haunting Johnson Petra Rethmann Chapter 7. Sacred Muses: The Lake Goddess in Flora Nwapa’s Literary Worldmaking Paula Uimonen Chapter 8. Experiential Literary Ethnography: How Creative Writing Techniques Can Capturethe Cultural Value of Live Arts-Based Experiences Ellen Wiles Part III: Exceptional Visual and Practice Experiences Chapter 9. Lighting Praxis: Lighting Aesthetics and Creativity Narratives in Professional Cinematography Cathy Greenhalgh Chapter 10. ‘Hammered by the Image’: Exceptional Experiences of Art as Aesthetic Impact Helena Wulff                                                      Chapter 11. Shaking up Worlds, Opening up Horizons: Contemporary Dance Experiences in Ramallah and Beyond Ana Laura Rodriguez Quinones Chapter 12. Participant Growing-Places in and of the World: Rendering the Transformative Atmosphere of a Contemporary Opera in the Making Maxime Le Calvé Afterword: The Sixth Sense Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Reviews

“This is a very well-conceived, multiangled volume, one sure to generate lively discussion and experiment – and that maintains the distinctiveness of each authorial voice while also bringing them into generative conversation with each other.” • Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz

Author Information

Petra Rethmann is Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Ontario and Director of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition. She is the author or editor of three books and has held guest professorships at the University of St. Petersburg, University of Cape Town, and Aleksanteri Institute/Helsinki.

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