The accomplishments and enduring influence of renowned anthropologist Dell Hymes are showcased in these essays by leading practitioners in the field. Hymes (1927–2009) is arguably best known for his pioneering work in ethnopoetics, a studied approach to Native verbal art that elucidates cultural significance and aesthetic form. As these essays amply demonstrate, nearly six decades later ethnopoetics and Hymes's focus on narrative inequality and voice provide a still valuable critical lens for current research in anthropology and folklore. Through ethnopoetics, so much can be understood in diverse cultural settings and situations: gleaning the voices of individual Koryak storytellers and aesthetic sensibilities from century-old wax cylinder recordings; understanding the similarities and differences between Apache life stories told 58 years apart; how Navajo punning and an expressive device illuminate the work of a Navajo poet; decolonizing Western Mono and Yokuts stories by bringing to the surface the performances behind the texts written down by scholars long ago; and keenly appreciating the potency of language revitalization projects among First Nations communities in the Yukon and northwestern California. Fascinating and topical, these essays not only honor a legacy but also point the way forward.

Contributions From Twenty-Five Distinguished Scholars Are Brought together here to provide a comprehensive, accessible, state of the art appraisal of interdisciplinary research at the boundaries of anthropology, linguistics and Native Studies. The collection seeks to correct the prevailing notion that the Americanist tradition in anthropology. (typified by Franz Boas and his colleagues) is a theoretical. Participants in this dialogue accepted the challenge of making their underlying theoretical assumptions explicit. The papers range from the history of anthropology and linguistics to present innovations within this tradition. Issues of authenticity lead to examination of changing traditions in text and literacy in linguistics and education, and in emerging contemporary discourse spanning the Americas. The volume is framed by Coyote, the quintessential American trickster who is the inspiration for much of the volume's play with tradition and change, with the construction of identity through discourse, and with the interaction of Americanists and First Nations/Native American communities. Remarks on the future of the Americanist tradition forms a critical part of this collection. The collection pioneers in juxtaposing Canadian and American theoretical work on language and revitalizes a shared tradition centred around the study of meaning. Readers are invited to enter this open-ended and vibrant Americanist discourse.

Regna Darnell offers a critical reexamination of the theoretical orientation of the Americanist tradition, centered on the work of Franz Boas, and the professionalization of anthropology as an academic discipline in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. History of Theory and Method in Anthropology reveals the theory schools, institutions, and social networks of scholars and fieldworkers primarily interested in the ethnography of North American Indigenous peoples. Darnell’s fifty-year career entails foundational writings in the four fields of the discipline: cultural anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Leading researchers, theorists, and fieldwork subjects include Claude Lévi-Strauss, Franz Boas, Benjamin Lee Whorf, John Wesley Powell, Frederica de Laguna, Dell Hymes, George Stocking Jr., and Anthony F. C. Wallace, as well as nineteenth-century Native language classifications, ethnography, ethnohistory, social psychology, structuralism, rationalism, biologism, mentalism, race science, human nature and cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, standpoint-based epistemology, collaborative research, and applied anthropology. History of Theory and Method in Anthropology is an essential volume for scholars and undergraduate and graduate students to enter into the history of the inductive theory schools and methodologies of the Americanist tradition and its legacies.

Approaches to Discourse Analysis demonstrates the importance of the diverse perspectives that various approaches to discourse bring to bear on human communication. Linguists and other readers interested in the interplay of language and culture will gain new insight and understanding from this rich compilation.

This book persuasively argues the case that ethnography must be viewed as a full theoretical system, rather than just as a research method. Blommaert traces the influence of his reading of classic works about ethnography on his thinking, and discusses a range of authors who have influenced the development of a theoretical system of ethnography, or whose work might be productively used to develop it further. Authors examined include Hymes, Scollon, Kress, Bourdieu, Bakhtin and Lefebvre. This book will be required reading for students and scholars involved in ethnographic research, or those interested in the theory of ethnography.

Today, the long-assumed belief in the permanence of an enlightened world is suddenly open to challenge. Human rights, participatory government, and social justice are losing global influence, and the world of ordinary people is pushing back against Enlightenment conceits. Accumulated anger links Taliban, Tea Party, and Trump, threatening women's rights, social justice, and democracy. To understand and counteract the threat to these ideas, we must set aside embedded explanations and embrace a new frame of observation and tolerance grounded in the power of belief, legend, and tradition. In Rebuilding an Enlightened World, Bill Ivey explores how folklore offers a unique and compelling new way to understand the underlying forces disrupting the world today. If we are to salvage the best of the Enlightenment dream and build a better future, we must begin to listen, patiently and inquisitively, in order to interpret the customs, norms, and traditional practices that shape all human behavior.

This collection of work addresses the contribution that ethnography and linguistics make to education, and the contribution that research in education makes to anthropology and linguistics.; The first section of the book pinpoints characteristics of anthropology that most make a difference to research in education. The second section describes the perspective that is needed if the study of language is to contribute adequately to problems of education and inequality. Finally, the third section takes up discoveries about narrative, which show that young people's narratives may have a depth of form and skill that has gone largely unrecognized.