Is culture simply a more or less set text we can learn to read? Since the early1970s the notion of cultureastext has animated anthropologists and otheranalysts ... » 

Is culture simply a more or less set text we can learn to read? Since the early1970s the notion of cultureastext has animated anthropologists and otheranalysts of culture. Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban present this stunningcollection of cuttingedge ethnographies arguing that the divide betweenfleeting discursive practice and formed text is a constructed one and that theconstructional process reveals culture to those who can interpret it.Eleven original essays of natural history range in focus from nuptial poetryof insult among Wolof griots to casebased teaching methods in firstyear lawschool classrooms. Stage by stage they give an idea of the cultural processesof entextualization and contextualization of discourse that they so richlyillustrate. The contributors varied backgrounds include anthropologypsychiatry education literary criticism and law making this collectioninvaluable not only to anthropologists and linguists but to all analysts ofculture. «