Ram Research Directory

Paul Stoller

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, 1978
• M.S., Sociolinguistics, Georgetown University, 1974
• B.A., Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1969

Research Interests

spirit possession practicescultural dynamicsmarket economiespolitics of immigration

Opportunities

Work Study Positions Available: No

Grant Funded Positions Available: No

Course-Credit Research Opportunities Available: No

Volunteer Research Positions Available: No

Biography

Paul Stoller has been conducting anthropological research for 30 years. His early work concerned the religion of the Songhay people who live in the Republics of Niger and Mali in West Africa. In that work, he focused primarily on magic, sorcery and spirit possession practices. Since 1992, Stoller has pursued studies of West African immigrants in New York City. Those studies have concerned such topics as the cultural dynamics of informal market economies and the politics of immigration. The results of this ongoing research has led Stoller to the study of the anthropology of religion, visual anthropology, the anthropology of senses and economic anthropology. Stoller's work has resulted in the publication of 11 books, including ethnographies, biographies, memoirs as well as two novels. An essay, "Blogging Bliss," will appear in the December 2013 edition of Anthropology Now. In 2014, Dr. Stoller has a forthcoming book entitled: Yaya's Quest: The Quest for Wellbeing in the World. His work is widely read and recognized. In 1994 he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2002, the American Anthropological Association named him the recipient of the Robert B Textor Award for Excellence in Anthropology. On April 24, 2013, Dr. Stoller was awarded the Anders Retzius Gold Medal in Anthropology (given once every three years by the King of Sweden. He lectures frequently both in the United States and Europe and has appeared on various NPR programs as well as on the National Geographic Television Network.

Contact Information

Phone: 610-436-2840

List of Publications

• The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2008 Gallery Bundu: A Story of an African Past. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press., 2005 Stranger in the Village of the Sick: A Memoir of Cancer, Sorcery and Healing. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004 Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Winner of the American Anthropological Association’s Textor Prize in Anticipatory Anthropology. Nominated for the J.I.Staley Prize, 2002. Jaguar: A Story of Africans in America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997 Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa. New York: Routledge. 1995 The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Finalist for Herskovits Prize), 1992. Fusion of the Worlds: Ethnography of Possession Among the Songhay of Niger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Nominated for the J.I. Staley Prize), 1989. The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1989. In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship Among The Songhay of Niger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (co-authored with Cheryl Olkes), 1987 Black American English: Its Background and Its Usage in The Schools and in Literature. New York: Dell (Editor). 1975 Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story. Anthropology and Humanism 32(2): 178-91. 2007 Sensuous Knowledge, African Persuasions and Social Knowledge. Qualitative Inquiry 10 (6): 817-35. 2004 Circuits of African Art/Paths of Wood: Exploring an Anthropological Trail. Anthropological Quarterly 76(2): 204-27. 2003 Crossroads: Tracing African Paths on New York City Streets. Ethnography 3(1):35-62. 2002 City Life: West African Communities in New York City. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30(6): 651-77. 2001 Back to the Ethnographic Future. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 28(6): 698-704. 1999 Globalizing Method: The Problems of Doing Ethnography in Transnational Spaces. Anthropology and Humanism 22(1): 81-95. Reprinted in Etnografica, Lisbon, Portugal. 1997 Spaces, Places and Fields: The Politics of West African Trading in New York City’s Informal Economy. American Anthropologist 98(4): 776-88. 1996 Embodying Colonial Memories. American Anthropologist 96(3): 634-49. X Marks the Spot: The Ambiguities of African Trading in the Commerce of the Black Public Sphere. Public Culture 7(1): 249-75 (co-authored with Rosemary J. Coombe). 1994 Ethnographies as Texts/Ethnographers as Griots. American Ethnologist 19:353-67. 1992

Links

• ResearchGate