
Stuck Moving
Or, How I Learned to Love (and Lament) Anthropology
Peter Benson(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Published on 11. April 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
380 pages
978-0-520-38874-1 (ISBN)
Description
This one-of-a-kind literary and conceptual experiment does anthropology differently-in all the wrong ways. No field trips. No other cultures. This is a personal journey within anthropology itself, and a kind of love story. A critical, candid, hilarious take on the culture of academia and, ultimately, contemporary society.
Stuck Moving follows a professor affected by bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and a stalled career who searches for meaning and purpose within a sanctimonious discipline and a society in shambles. It takes aim at the ableist conceit that anthropologists are outside observers studying a messy world. The lens of analysis is reversed to expose the backstage of academic work and life, and the unbecoming self behind scholarship. Blending cultural studies, psychoanalysis, comedy, screenwriting, music lyrics, and poetry, Stuck Moving abandons anthropology's rigid genre conventions, suffocating solemnity, and enduring colonial model of extractive knowledge production. By satirizing the discipline's function as a culture resource for global health and the neoliberal university, this book unsettles anthropology's hopeful claims about its own role in social change.
Stuck Moving follows a professor affected by bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and a stalled career who searches for meaning and purpose within a sanctimonious discipline and a society in shambles. It takes aim at the ableist conceit that anthropologists are outside observers studying a messy world. The lens of analysis is reversed to expose the backstage of academic work and life, and the unbecoming self behind scholarship. Blending cultural studies, psychoanalysis, comedy, screenwriting, music lyrics, and poetry, Stuck Moving abandons anthropology's rigid genre conventions, suffocating solemnity, and enduring colonial model of extractive knowledge production. By satirizing the discipline's function as a culture resource for global health and the neoliberal university, this book unsettles anthropology's hopeful claims about its own role in social change.
Reviews / Votes
"Peter Benson takes his readers on a wild ride into the depths of his emotional turmoil and to the limits of his profession, propelled by writing that is genre-busting and beautiful." * American Anthropologist * "Benson takes us on a wild ride of reflections and analysis. . . to lay open an academic life, a neoliberal order, and a man stuck in the middle."* Missiology: An International Review * "This book would be of value to those interested in experiments in ethnographic writing or the anthropology of the United States. Faculty members or graduate students who feel conflicted about the field would find this unique book generative in their own rethinking of what anthropology might be. . . . Intimacy is essential to the kind of writing that moves us. Yet, as Benson explores over the course of the book, it is often extractive and subsequently erased in our writing in the name of professionalism. The book is a call to consider what else might be possible or if we are all simply stuck moving." * Anthropological Quarterly * "With Stuck Moving, Peter Benson has written an unconventional book. It's self-critical, honest and deeply personal. . . . It takes courage to write a book like this, and skill to write it in this way. Benson has proven both, and his book will appeal to students and professionals interested in the human behind the monograph, the person behind the tenure." * Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale *
More details
Series
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
37 b-w photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-38874-1 (9780520388741)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2023
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Peter Benson is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Delaware. He is the author of Tobacco Capitalism and a coauthor of Broccoli and Desire.
Content
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
1. Sixteen Candles
2. Lost in Translation
3. And Everything Is Going Fine
4. Murmur of the Heart
5. Do the Right Thing
6. Rushmore
7. Toy Story
8. Shame
9. Life Is Sweet
10. The Graduate
11. My Own Private Idaho
12. Boyhood
13. Broken Flowers
14. Stagecoach
15. The Red Balloon
16. Planet of the Apes
Credits
Bibliography
Index
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
1. Sixteen Candles
2. Lost in Translation
3. And Everything Is Going Fine
4. Murmur of the Heart
5. Do the Right Thing
6. Rushmore
7. Toy Story
8. Shame
9. Life Is Sweet
10. The Graduate
11. My Own Private Idaho
12. Boyhood
13. Broken Flowers
14. Stagecoach
15. The Red Balloon
16. Planet of the Apes
Credits
Bibliography
Index