The Challenges of Storytelling Today. Interview with Paul Stoller

Abstract

Paul Stoller has conducted anthropological research for over thirty years. In 1978, he earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin (United States), with work on magic, religious practices and the possession of spirits in the Songhay culture in Nigeria and Mali. He is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of West Chester, Penn- sylvania (USA). He has published numerous scientific articles and at least 15 monographic books, among them: In Sorcery’s Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship Among The Songhay of Niger (1987), The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology (1989), Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City (2002), The Power of The Be- tween: An Anthropological Odyssey (2008), or most recently, Adventures in Blogging: Public Anthropology and Popular Media (2018). Throughout his career, Stoller has consistently worked on ethnographic narratives — or theoretical storytelling, as he considers it in this interview — visual Anthropology, public Anthropology, sensory Anthropology, and cultural critique. In recognition of his work, Stoller has received prestigious awards and scholarships, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), the Robert B. Textor Award in Anticipative Anthropology and the American Association of Anthropology’s (AAA) Media Anthropology Award (2015) and the Anders Retzius Gold Medal (2013), awarded by King Carl Gustaf of Sweden in recognition of his contributions to international Anthropology. He currently gives lectures and coordinates workshops on ethnographic writing for social scientists on a frequent basis in several countries in Europe and America, given that the training of the new genera-tions of professional anthropologists is one of his most present interests today.