Theory Can Be More Than It Used to Be

Dominic Boyer is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences at Rice University. He is the author of The Life Informatic: Newsmaking in the Digital Era; Spirit and System: Media, Intellectuals, and the Dialectic in Modern German Culture; and Understanding Media: A Popular Philosophy. James Faubion is the Radoslav Tsanoff Chair and Professor of Anthropology at Rice University. He is the author of An Anthropology of Ethics, The Shadows and Lights of Waco: Millennialism Today, and Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Constructivism. George E. Marcus is Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He is coauthor of Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences and coeditor of Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. He was the founding editor of Cultural Anthropology.

• Introduction: New Methodologies for a Transformed Disciplineby Dominic Boyer and George E. MarcusPart I. Ethnography, Fieldwork, Theorization1. Portable Analytics and Lateral Theoryby Dominic Boyer and Cymene Howe2. On Programmaticsby James D. Faubion3. The Ambitions of Theory Work in the Production of Contemporary Anthropological Researchby George E. Marcus4. Theorizing the Present Ethnographicallyby Andreas Glaeser5. Trans-formations of Biology and of Theoryby Kaushik Sunder Rajan6. Figuring Out Theory: Ethnographic Sketchesby Kim FortunPart II. Pedagogy, Training, Analytical Method7. ResponsesTheory as Parallax and Provocationby Andrea BallesteroUndisciplined Engagements: Anthropology, Ethnography, Theoryby Lisa BregliaTheory Making: From the Raw to the Cookedby Jessica Marie FalconePeople in Glass Cages (Shouldn't Throw Theoretical Stones)by Jamer HuntEthnography and Social Theory: A Dialectic to Hang Our Hats Onby Townsend MiddletonTheory as Methodby Deepa S. Reddy8. DialogueEncountering and Engaging Theory (or Not)Theory in the Positive Sense of the TermTeaching Theory and Analytical MethodAfterword: On the Need to Reinvent Anthropological Teaching and Training in Theoryby Dominic BoyerNotesBibliographyContributorsIndex

"Theory Can Be More than It Used to Be illuminates and jeopardizes notions long central to anthropology. Fieldwork and ethnography have both come under much more thorough scrutiny than theory. This book explores the complexities, resonances, and possibilities of theory in relation to contemporary and near-future anthropology. It opens up complex and challenging terrain and provides us with the analytical wherewithal for thinking through—and with—questions of what theory can be and how it can shape and be shaped by the field. Lucid, fascinating, exceptionally engaging, and highly sophisticated, this book is a major contribution to key debates within and beyond anthropology."