Synopses & Reviews
Grimshaw sets a new agenda for visual anthropology, attempting to transcend the old division between image and text-based ethnography. She argues for the use of vision as a critical tool with which anthropologists can address issues of knowledge and technique. The first part of the book critically examines anthropology's history, focusing on the work of key individuals--Rivers, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown--in the context of early modern art and cinema. In the book's second part, Grimshaw considers the anthropological films of Jean Rouch, David and Judith MacDougall and Melissa Llewelyn-Davies.
Review
"Grimshaw then moves into three detailed studies of postwar ethnographic filmmakers...all three studies are detailed and perceptive, making this ambitious book invaluable to those who teach these films." International Journal of African Historical Studies
About the Author
Anna Grimshaw is Lecturer in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester. She is the author of Servants of the Buddha (1992) and editor of the C.L.R. James Reader (1992).
Table of Contents
Part I. Visualizing Anthropology: The Modernist Moment and After, 1895-1945: 1. Anxious visions: rivers, cubism and anthropological modernism; 2. The innocent eye: Flaherty, Malinowski and the romantic quest; 3. The light of reason: Grierson, Radcliffe-Brown and the Enlightenment project; Part II. Anthropological Visions: Cinema and Anthropology in the Postwar World: 4. The anthropological cinema of Jean Rouch; 5. The anthropological cinema of David and Judith MacDougall; 6. The anthropological television of Melissa Llewelyn-Davies.