encounter essays

Encounter was the most distinguished English-language monthly of its time, the editor going out of his way to welcome a cosmopolitan blend of intellectual play and deep seriousness. These contributions appeared in the magazine between 1976 and 1986.

Anthropology and Farce depicts the hapless confusions of the Afrocentrist faith when transferred from America to Africa itself—along with a seminar showing a once-respectable discipline at the end of its tether.

On the Way to the Pig Festival shows the extremes to which "the dramatic metaphor" for social life was sometimes carried in literary circles, taking us from Erving Goffman in Philadelphia to Richard Schechner among the Kurumugl of New Guinea.

When I Hear the Word Culture describes the fateful transmogrification of the word "culture" in our time—an argument treating the ideas of Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, anthropology, and Raymond Williams. (A shorter restatement appeared as "The Politics of Oxymoron" inThe New Criterion for Summer 2003.)

A Curious Case of Censorship tells how a secular scientific research institute gradually turned itself into a quasi-religious custodian of sacred things. (This also available under Anthropological Farce.)

"Anthropology and Farce: White Science, Black Humour", Encounter, December 1986.
 
"On the Way to the Pig Festival", Encounter, August 1978.
 
"When I hear the Word 'Culture': from Arnold to Anthropology", Encounter, October 1980.
 
"A Curious Case of Censorship" (Letter from Australia), Encounter, July 1976