{"title":"Alfred Gell","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the anthropological insights of Alfred Gell, exploring art, technology, and agency. His groundbreaking work offers a unique lens on human culture and society. Browse his thought-provoking books today.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"art-and-agency-book-alfred-gell-9780198280149","title":"Art and Agency","description":"Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view, and questions the criteria that accord art status only to a certain class of objects and not to others. The anthropology of art is here reformulated as the anthropology of a category of action: Gell shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. He explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions--European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian.   Art and Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49725423747345,"sku":"NGR9780198280149","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50483864961297,"sku":"GOR001907866","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50483865813265,"sku":"GOR013806420","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53196941295889,"sku":"CIN0198280149G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53447326630161,"sku":"GOR006174887","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0198280149.jpg?v=1751036944"},{"product_id":"art-of-anthropology-book-alfred-gell-9781845204846","title":"The Art of Anthropology","description":"The Art of Anthropology collects together the most influential of Gell's writings, which span the past two decades, with a new introductory chapter written by Gell. The essays vividly demonstrate Gell's theoretical and empirical interests and his distinctive contribution to several key areas of current anthropological enquiry. A central theme of the essays is Gel's highly original exploration of diagrammatic imagery as the site where social relations and cognitive processes converge and crystallise. Gell tracks this imagery across studies of tribal market transactions, dance forms, the iconicity of language and his most recent and groundbreaking analyses of artworks.Written with Gell's characteristic fluidity and grace and generously illustrated with Gell's original drawings and diagrams, the book will interest art historians, sociologists and geographers no less than anthropologists, challenging, as it does, established ideas about exchange, representation, aesthetics, cognition and spatial and temporal processes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49727670157585,"sku":"GOR006697757","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52135147700497,"sku":"NLS9781845204846","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52953776816401,"sku":"NIN9781845204846","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1845204840.jpg?v=1750833275"},{"product_id":"anthropology-of-time-book-alfred-gell-9780854968909","title":"The Anthropology of Time","description":"Time - relentless, ever-present but intangible and the single element over which human beings have no absolute control - has long proved a puzzle.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49768866742545,"sku":"GOR001927193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49778951029009,"sku":"GOR008309084","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49919934497041,"sku":"CIN0854968903G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51121106845969,"sku":"NIN9780854968909","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52133160386833,"sku":"NLS9780854968909","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0854968903.jpg?v=1753685240"},{"product_id":"wrapping-in-images-book-gell-9780198280903","title":"Wrapping in Images","description":"In traditional Polynesian societies, tattooing played a key role in the social construction of the person. This study is the first to provide a comparative analysis of tattooing in its original setting, based on a comprehensive survey of the documentary sources, both written and visual.    Drawing on modern social theory, psychoanalysis, and contemporary anthropological studies of Polynesia, Alfred Gell demonstrates that tattooing formed part of a complex array of symbolic techniques for controlling sacredness and protecting the self. This framework is used to elucidate the iconographic meaning of tattoo motifs, as well as the rich corpus of mythology surrounding tattooing in certain Polynesian societies, and the complex rituals associated with the tattooing operation.    However, not all ancient Polynesian societies placed an equal emphasis on tattooing, and not all exploited the basic metaphors of tattooing in the same way. Dr Gell provides a wide-ranging comparative political analysis of the main Polynesian societies in order to show consistent correlations between forms of political structure and different tattooing institutions. In this way, Wrapping in Images can be read as a general introduction to Polynesian comparative sociology, viewed from the perspective of body symbolism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345536520465,"sku":"CIN0198280904G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50557184344337,"sku":"GOR005691127","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0198280904.jpg?v=1750972886"},{"product_id":"metamorphosis-of-the-cassowaries-book-alfred-gell-9780367716561","title":"Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries","description":"Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50698303242513,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50698305274129,"sku":"NGR9780367716561","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0367716569.jpg?v=1751196401"},{"product_id":"metamorphosis-of-the-cassowaries-book-alfred-gell-9780485195514","title":"Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries","description":"Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51253780971793,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51253781823761,"sku":"NIN9780485195514","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52522075750673,"sku":"NLS9780485195514","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0485195518.jpg?v=1751293266"},{"product_id":"art-of-anthropology-book-alfred-gell-9780485195675","title":"The Art of Anthropology","description":"The Art of Anthropology collects together the most influential of Gell's writings, which span the past two decades, with a new introductory chapter written by Gell. 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