Dennis Tedlock – författare

Major figures in contemporary anthropology present a dialogic critiqueof ethnography. Moving beyond sociolinguistics and performance theory,and inspired by Bakhtin and by their own field experiences, the contributorsrevise notions of where culture actually resides. This pioneering effortintegrates a concern for linguistic processes with interpretive approachesto culture.Culture and ethnography are located in social interaction. The collectioncontains dialogues that trace the entire course of ethnographic interpretation,from field research to publication. The authors explore an anthropologythat actively acknowledges the dialogical nature of its own production.Chapters strike a balance between theory and practice and will also beof interest in cultural studies, literary criticism, linguistics, andphilosophy.CONTRIBUTORS: Deborah Tannen, John Attinasi, Paul Friedrich, BillieJean Isbell, Allan F. Burns, Jane H. Hill, Ruth Behar, Jean DeBernardi,R. P. McDermott, Henry Tylbor, Alton L. Becker, Bruce Mannheim, DennisTedlock

Mayan literature is among the oldest in the world, spanning an astonishing two millennia from deep pre-Columbian antiquity to the present day. Here, for the first time, is a fully illustrated survey, from the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions to the works of later writers using the Roman alphabet. Dennis Tedlock - ethnographer, linguist, poet, and award-winning author - draws on decades of living and working among the Maya to assemble this groundbreaking book, which is the first to treat ancient Mayan texts as literature. Tedlock considers the texts chronologically. He establishes that women were among the ancient writers and challenges the idea that Mayan rulers claimed the status of gods. "2000 Years of Mayan Literature" expands our understanding and appreciation not only of Mayan literature but of indigenous American literature in its entirety.

Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, is not only the most important text in the native languages of the Americas, it is also an extraordinary document of the human imagination. It begins with the deeds of Mayan gods in the darkness of a primeval sea and ends with the radiant splendor of the Mayan lords who founded the Quiché kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. Originally written in Mayan hieroglyphs, it was transcribed into the Roman alphabet in the sixteenth century. This new edition of Dennis Tedlock's unabridged, widely praised translation includes new notes and commentary, newly translated passages, newly deciphered hieroglyphs, and over forty new illustrations.

Dennis Tedlock presents startling new methods for transcribing, translating, and interpreting oral performance that carry wide implications for all areas of the spoken arts. Moreover, he reveals how the categories and concepts of poetics and hermeneutics based in Western literary traditions cannot be carried over in their entirety to the spoken arts of other cultures but require extensive reevaluation.