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Perilous States: Conversations on Culture, Politics, and Nation

Perilous States, the first volume in this unique new series, presents conversations between American scholars--most of them anthropologists--and individuals situated amid political and social upheaval. Primarily but not exclusively from Eastern Europe, the cast includes Russian writers, Hungarian scientists and academics, Armenian politicians, Siberian religious and medical leaders, a Gypsy leader, a Polish poet, a French politician, and a white South African musician. Their voices unite around themes of democracy, market economy, individual rights, and the reawakened force of suppressed ethnic and racial identities. This novel format blends the immediacy of interviews, the objectivity of journalism, and the intellectual rigor of scholarship.

"While this series is meant to appeal to a wide readership, it is especially directed to that vibrant arena of interdisciplinary ferment in Anglo-American academia presently known as cultural studies, but which has been forming in the humanities and some of the social sciences throughout the 1980s. This effort should exemplify ways that the tradition of anthropological inquiry might effectively establish an identity and function in this arena. ...Our intent is to produce a series of volumes that speak to the most important issues raised in academia about processes of change in the contemporary world, especially as they emerge toward the end of the century, but with an emphasis on articulating the point of view, voice, and positioning of relevant social actors through imaginative constructions of interviews and conversations."

- George Marcus