An Anthropology of the Subject

Book excerpt: "Roy Wagner is a one-of-a-kind anthropologist whose books provide intense intellectual stimulation. His way of connecting the world of New Guinea to the world of anthropology is unique and, well, mind-blowing. . . . He writes books that you actually want to and will read more than once."--Steven Feld, author of Sound and Sentiment "Wagner asks, daringly, what it would be like to imagine one of the most significant of human activities, the activity of description or representation, as a self-scaling phenomenon. . . . One begins to glimpse a genuine 'alternative anthropology.'"--Marilyn Strathern, author of The Gender of the Gift