Open AccessShowbiz as a Cross‐Cultural System: Circus and Song, Garland and Geertz, Rushdie, Mordden,… and More
Author(s) -
Boon James A.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
cultural anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.669
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1548-1360
pISSN - 0886-7356
DOI - 10.1525/can.2000.15.3.424
Subject(s) - citation , sociology , literature , media studies , history , art , library science , computer science
What intellectual "attitude," critical and apologetic, suits situations of showbiz? How might this vast arena of human endeavor be approached ethnographically and comparatively? What, perforce, does "the show business" mean-not just here and now (America since P. T. Barnum) but elsewhere and earlier: across cultures and eras, continually transformed and translated. Should anthropological modes of interpretation, philosophically inclined, address showbiz situations? What would distinguish such studies from, say, the anthropology of tourism?