Alfred (Antony Francis) Gell (June 12, 1945-January 28, 1997): British social anthropologist whose most influential work concerned art, language, symbolism and ritual. Gell is considered one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation. He as a student studied with Edmund Leach (MPhil, Cambridge University) and Raymond Firth (PhD, London School of Economics). He did his fieldwork in Melanesia and tribal India. He was Reader in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and was a fellow of the British Academy. The School posthumously awarded him a Professorship, a post that he had declined during his life time.

Review

This book changes the very basis of the way art has been viewed in the human sciences. It presents what is the first fundamental theory for an anthropology of art. Its publication is a major event. Maurice Bloch, FBA, Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics. This is a remarkable work ... witty, elegant, broad in its compass and scintillating in its detail. It is characteristically polemical ... alive with his sense of purpose and his quite original and captivating account of how we are captivated by relations between forms ... The book know what to do with the limits of form--one suddenly sees how anthropology might surpass itself. Marilyn Strathern, FBA, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge An extraordinary achievement. Gell offers a profound new understanding of collective agency which completely reshapes the anthropology of art, redefines its objects of study, and inspires new conclusions. Caroline Humphrey, Reader in Asian Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Review

"[This] is not only a contribution to anthropology but a subtle and original counterweight to the banalities of globalization theory."--Times Literary Supplement