anthropology of letter writing

[Gretchen Pfeil]

All,

Frank Cody is indeed working on these issues. He gave a wonderful  
talk at the U of Chicago Monday colloquium. The talk addressed  
letters, handwriting, adult literacy, and the representation of  
political subjects in Tamil Nadu. I have seen other talks he's done  
which take up fairly directly the question of scribal mediation in  
epistolary projects. I highly recommend talking to him about his  
current work. I think it might be of direct interest (and regional  
relevance?). I do not know, however, if/how he is reachable right now.

Best,

Gretchen Pfeil

Graduate Student
Department of Anthropology
University of Chicago
pfeil at uchicago.edu



On Jun 22, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Jim Wilce wrote:

> Apart from Allen Grimshaw, the key factor in the participant  
> structure—the mediation of a literate person doing the writing
> for the "principal" in Goffman's sense—is being neglected in some  
> the bibliographic suggestions being made. I do believe Frank Cody  
> is working on such things in Tamil Nadu, but I can't seem to reach  
> him.