Syrian Episodes: Sons, Fathers, and an Anthropologist in Aleppo

(Paperback)

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Description

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

Reviews

"First of all, the book is gorgeously written. Second, it is the anthropology of experience rather than the anthropology of abstruse theory."--Martin Peretz, New Republic "Vivid detail fills Syrian Episodes, a book startling in its frankness about the Princeton professor's friendly, frustrating, and even flirtatious encounters in Syria's second-largest city... The author fulfills his early promise of an ethnography that is as much about others' questions as his own. Both intrigue the reader as one reads conversations about subjects as varied as God, sex, movies, George W. Bush, and the Ba'ath Party. Drawing on his experiences at the souk, and the university, Mr. Borneman tells the stories of young men, some oppressed by paternal authority, some adrift without it."--Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education "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

Author Bio

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)