{"product_id":"the-palm-at-the-end-of-the-mind-9780822343813","title":"The Palm at the End of the Mind","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough sixty-one beautifully crafted, concise essays, the anthropologist Michael Jackson reflects on life situations where we are sometimes thrown open to new ways of understanding ourselves and connecting with others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Michael Jackson’s sixty-one short essays, based on his experiences in disparate geographical settings, are designed to speak to each reader individually like a sophisticated musical composition, rather than advancing a linear argument. . . . Jackson’s case that ‘history, religion, spirituality, culture are shop-worn terms,’ and should be replaced by ‘the image of life at the edge of language, a shoreline on which the sea washes ceaselessly,’ is given substance by his own literary skill. And it is possible to glimpse here the makings of a shared ‘religious’ sensibility that may be fitfully emerging to unite different peoples and traditions, in ways influenced by, but not entirely decreed by, the gods of the marketplace.” - Jonathan Benthall, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As always . . . Jackson writes with beauty and great clarity on demanding\u003cbr\u003eand elusive topics.” - Hayder Al-Mohammad, \u003ci\u003eSocial Anthropology\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jackson excels at an interpretive method in which the power resides in storytelling. \u003ci\u003eThe Palm at the End of the Mind\u003c\/i\u003e is a book to think with as it evokes the beauty and mystery of our experiences. Its stories haunt the imagination and so illustrate the power of phenomenology.” - REBECCA A. ALLAHYARI, \u003ci\u003eAnthropology and Humanism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Palm at the End of the Mind \u003c\/i\u003eis a marvelous work of deep scholarly and artistic significance. Michael Jackson reflects on those things—love, loss, pain, courage, resilience—that define the human condition. Bringing a lifetime of work in anthropology to bear, he provides a rich description of the irreducible dynamics of living in social worlds that are in continuous flux.”—\u003cb\u003ePaul Stoller\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Elegant and harrowing, this book from renowned ethnographer Michael Jackson takes us to the borderlands of human experience, where normal habits of thought and rules of social location are lost or ruptured, ‘where we confront sides of ourselves that ordinarily do not see the light of day, yet from which new modes of consciousness may take shape.’ As Jackson moves fluidly between storytelling, poetry, memoir, metaphysics, social commentary, interior exploration, and existential reflection, we travel with him around the globe and through incongruous histories: ‘penumbral domains’ that he argues do not belong exclusively to the language of religion, or even to language itself. \u003ci\u003eThe Palm at the End of the Mind\u003c\/i\u003e insists on the integrity of transmutations, even terrible ones, for these are still eternally precious and deeply true. It bears witness to the cosmic connections forged in such mystery, refusing to let us look away. Long after its last page, it haunts, it sings, it prophesies. This is a brilliant ethnography of the heart.”—\u003cb\u003eKimberley Patton\u003c\/b\u003e, Harvard Divinity School\u003cbr\u003e“As always . . . Jackson writes with beauty and great clarity on demanding and elusive topics.” -- Hayder Al-Mohammad * Social Anthropology *\u003cbr\u003e“Jackson excels at an interpretive method in which the power resides in storytelling. \u003ci\u003eThe Palm at the End of the Mind\u003c\/i\u003e is a book to think with as it evokes the beauty and mystery of our experiences. Its stories haunt the imagination and so illustrate the power of phenomenology.” -- Rebecca A. Allahyari * Anthropology and Humanism *\u003cbr\u003e“Michael Jackson’s sixty-one short essays, based on his experiences in disparate geographical settings, are designed to speak to each reader individually like a sophisticated musical composition, rather than advancing a linear argument. . . . Jackson’s case that ‘history, religion, spirituality, culture are shop-worn terms,’ and should be replaced by ‘the image of life at the edge of language, a shoreline on which the sea washes ceaselessly,’ is given substance by his own literary skill. And it is possible to glimpse here the makings of a shared ‘religious’ sensibility that may be fitfully emerging to unite different peoples and traditions, in ways influenced by, but not entirely decreed by, the gods of the marketplace.” -- Jonathan Benthall * TLS *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface xi\u003cbr\u003e 1. Ancestral Roots \u003cbr\u003e The Real 1\u003cbr\u003e Only Connect 2\u003cbr\u003e 93 Irving Street 4\u003cbr\u003e Reconnecting 8\u003cbr\u003e Missed Connections 11\u003cbr\u003e Tertium Quid 14\u003cbr\u003e The Dead 19\u003cbr\u003e Mind the Gap 23\u003cbr\u003e The Genealogical Imagination 29\u003cbr\u003e The Penumbral 34\u003cbr\u003e After Midnight 38\u003cbr\u003e Second Skins 40\u003cbr\u003e On Not Severing the Vine When Harvesting the Grapes 42\u003cbr\u003e Corrupted Con-texts 46\u003cbr\u003e The Broken Heart 48\u003cbr\u003e 2. Primary Bonds \u003cbr\u003e Incarnations 52\u003cbr\u003e The Matrixial 57\u003cbr\u003e A Letter from Athens 61\u003cbr\u003e Emily's Journal 62\u003cbr\u003e Beginnings 65\u003cbr\u003e The Pain in Painting 69\u003cbr\u003e Paths 73\u003cbr\u003e Parallel Lives 75\u003cbr\u003e My Lunch with arthur 81\u003cbr\u003e The Wellness Narratives 84\u003cbr\u003e Night 94\u003cbr\u003e Outside the Window 98\u003cbr\u003e \"What Really Matters\" 99\u003cbr\u003e 3. Elective Affinities \u003cbr\u003e Knots 103\u003cbr\u003e Marina del Rey 106\u003cbr\u003e In Limbo 108\u003cbr\u003e In Media Res 108\u003cbr\u003e In Wellington 112\u003cbr\u003e The Enigma of Anteriority 116\u003cbr\u003e Survivor Guilt 119\u003cbr\u003e Ventifact 123\u003cbr\u003e Measured Talk 129\u003cbr\u003e Heaven and Hell 131\u003cbr\u003e Manifest Destiny 134\u003cbr\u003e The Nature of Things 148\u003cbr\u003e The Road of Excess 159\u003cbr\u003e The Eternal Ones of the Dream 162\u003cbr\u003e Strange Lights 15\u003cbr\u003e Recognitions 168\u003cbr\u003e The Other Portion 173\u003cbr\u003e It Happens 176\u003cbr\u003e Ships That Pass in the Night 178\u003cbr\u003e 4. Competing Values \u003cbr\u003e Cafe Stelling 182\u003cbr\u003e Value Judgments 184\u003cbr\u003e The Bottle Imp 189\u003cbr\u003e Marginal Notes 193\u003cbr\u003e A Storyteller's Story 195\u003cbr\u003e Big Thing and Small Thing 200\u003cbr\u003e Sacrifice 203\u003cbr\u003e Prince Vessantara 208\u003cbr\u003e The Girl Who Went Beneath the Water 210\u003cbr\u003e Ill-Gotten Gains 216\u003cbr\u003e Is Nothing Sacred? 221\u003cbr\u003e Return to the Cafe Stelling 229\u003cbr\u003e Metanoia 232\u003cbr\u003e The Place Where We Live 236\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments 239","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406054203735,"sku":"9780822343813","price":25.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822343813.jpg?v=1730494375","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-palm-at-the-end-of-the-mind-9780822343813","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}