American Muse

"American Muse: Anthropological Excursions into Art and Aesthetics uses traditional tools of cultural anthropology, such as in-depth interviews with thoughtful "native" informants, examination of "native" texts, and analysis of "native" rites of passages. In this case, however, the natives are Americans, and the focus of study is the arts they produce and enjoy. True to anthropology's hallmark relativism, Anderson includes the popular arts in his analysis, giving as much attention to such things as wedding cakes, rock-n-roll, and tattoos as he does to fine arts, such as gallery paintings,…