Publications by Peter Wogan
Books:
Hollywood Blockbusters: The
Anthropology of Popular Movies. Berg Press,
2009. Co-author David Sutton.
Anthropological
analyses of Jaws, Field of Dreams, The
Godfather, The Big Lebowski, and The
Village. Search entire book here.
For further
exploration of questions raised in this book—e.g. What do Jaws and WWII have in common? What is the cultural meaning of the
slide in baseball?—see my other website.
Magical
Writing in Salasaca: Literacy and Power in Highland Ecuador. Westview Press, 2004.
Ethnography of an indigenous group in
Ecuador, with chapters on witchcraft, Day of the Dead, weaving, etc.
Search entire book here.
You can also listen to a podcast
interview I did about this book.
Journal Articles:
·"Compliment
Topics and Gender."
Women and Language 29: 21-28, 2006. Co-author Christopher Parisi. An
analysis of gender differences in American compliments on appearance, skill,
personality, and/or possessions. Compliments_and_Gender.pdf
·"Audience
Reception and Ethnographic Film: Laughing at First Contact." Visual
Anthropology Review 22:14-33, 2006. An analysis of what college students
find funny in a documentary film about first contact in the 1930s between
Australian gold miners and Papua New Guineans.
·"Deep
Hanging Out: Reflections on Fieldwork and Multi-sited Andean Ethnography." Identities: Global Studies in
Culture and Power 11: 129-139, 2004. Commentary on Andean ethnographies
that span multiple locations.
·"The
Gun, the Pen, and the Cannoli: Orality and Writing in The Godfather, Part I." Anthropology and Humanism
28:155-167, 2003 (with David Sutton). An analysis of literacy and food
symbolism in The Godfather, such as
the famous offer he can't refuse ("either his brains or his signature
would be on that contract"). Gun,
Pen, Cannoli Article. Note: Sutton and I updated this analysis in our 2009
book, Hollywood Blockbusters.
·"Imagined
Communities Reconsidered: Is Print-Capitalism What We Think It Is?" Anthropological Theory
1:403-418, 2001.
A critique of implicit notions of print
and orality in Benedict Anderson’s Imagined
Communities.
·"Magical
Literacy: Encountering a Witch's Book in Ecuador," Anthropological Quarterly
71:186-202, 1998. Reprinted in Sacred Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief,
and Society. Richard Warms, James Garber, Jon McGee, eds. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004. Describes a witch who kills people with a book of
names, including my own run-in with the witch.
·"Perceptions
of European Literacy in Early Contact Situations." Ethnohistory 41:407-29, 1994.
Debunks the theory that Native Americans were in awe of 17th-century
missionaries because of their books and writing.
Contact
Information: Mail:
Peter Wogan, Professor of Anthropology, Willamette University, Department of
Anthropology, Eaton Hall, 900 State Street, Salem, OR 97301 (USA). Email:
pwoganATwillamette.edu. Tel.:
503-370-6032.
University home page: http://www.willamette.edu/cla/anthro/faculty/wogan/index.php