Anthropology, art, and aesthetics

This collection of essays on anthropological approaches to art and aesthetics is the first in its field to be published for some time. In recent years a number of new galleries of non-Western art have been opened, many exhibitions of non-Western art held, and new courses in the anthropology of art established. This collection is both part of and complements these developments, contributing to the general resurgence of interest in what has been until recently a comparatively neglected field of academic study and intellectual debate. Unlike many previous collections, the focus of this volume is resolutely anthropological. The contributors draw on contemporary anthropological theory as well as on analyses of classic anthropological topics such as myth, ritual, and exchange, to deepen our understanding of particular aesthetic traditions in their socio-cultural and historical contexts. In addition, the cross-cultural applicability of the very concepts 'art' and 'aesthetics' is assessed. Each essay illustrates a specific approach and develops a particular argument. Many present new ethnography based on recent field research among Australian Aborigines, in New Guinea, Indonesia, Mexico, a