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Zusatztext "Readers who are nostalgic for the orientalist tradition of encounters with the exotic other would enjoy this book! particularly given the accessible narrative style in which it is written." ---Faedah M. Totah! H-NET Reviews Informationen zum Autor John Borneman is professor of anthropology at Princeton University. His books include Death of the Father: An Anthropology of the End in Political Authority and Settling Accounts: Violence, Justice, and Accountability in Postsocialist Europe (Princeton) Klappentext " Syrian Episodes , a novel and seductive mix of conversation, description, and interpretation, radiates happily from the small to the big picture. The dynamics of desire-of mutual attraction fueled by difference; of buying, selling, and collecting; of eating, living, teaching, and traveling in a new environment-structure each of the book's episodes. It doesn't avoid the anguish and risks of encountering people and persuading them to accept us. Simply put, Syrian Episodes comes at a good time to help give shape to an anthropology that posits human encounters as a rich source of knowledge that the reading of texts, no matter how sophisticated, can't provide." --Abdellah Hammoudi, author of A Season in Mecca "John Borneman's Syrian Episodes is an exquisite and compulsively readable account of a picaresque sojourn in Aleppo, Syria. The book raises the nervous matter of experience in anthropology, troubles the bad faith of much ethnographic intention, and develops an approach that refuses to patronize. This is one of the more exciting--and ethically and intellectually demanding--works of anthropology that I have read in years, and also among the most beautiful. There is no other book like it." --Lawrence Cohen, University of California, Berkeley Zusammenfassung When Princeton anthropologist John Borneman arrived in Syria's second-largest city in 2004 as a visiting Fulbright professor, he took up residence in what many consider a "rogue state" on the frontline of a "clash of civilizations" between the Orient and the West. Hoping to understand intimate interactions of religious, political, and familial auth Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations vii Preface ix Acknowledgments xxix Chapter I: P Aleppo 1 "Prayer is better than sleep" 1 Imad's Japanese Girlfriend 7 Farce 11 "I would rather have children than fly" 13 "Once you love deeply! you never forget" 21 "My father says he saves for me" 23 "As long as she gets along with me! she will have no problems with my mother" 26 "Do you desire your mother?" 29 Traffic! or the Normal Order of Things 31 Preparing to Teach 42 Administrative Pleasantries 43 "But we are homophobic!" 52 "So! what do you think of Muslims?" 62 "I'd like to be the next president" 68 "The religious people see this and hate it! but they cannot turn it off" 74 "God will tell us when we have to do something" 84 "Kiss Daddy! Kiss Daddy!" 88 Chapter II: P The Souk 96 "Come into my shop and let me take you" 96 "Do you have a brother?" 100 "Ossi oder NorMAL?" 103 The Souk's Logic of Exchange 107 Fathers! Sons! Brothers! and Inheritance 112 Dream Collector 115 Dream of the Mistress 117 "How great is my disappointment when I see my dreams breaking down" 119 "Every woman thinks I only want to sleep with her" 123 Cell Phone! Cassettes! String Underwear 127 "That is fieldwork!" 128 "A father! perhaps a brother" 130 Fathers and Sons 145 "It is a blessing" 149 The Rumor 153 Chapter III: P Syria 156 "These are my children" 156 Aleppian Food! in Public 162 Obtaining an Exit Visa 166 The Ba'ath Party 169 Student Radicals 175 Teaching Anthropology and American Culture 178 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 187 Wild Dog Attack 190 Chapter IV: P Reflections on Teaching and Learning in Syria 192 Pedagogy 192 Lectures 194 Fil...
