Brian Morris

A Brian Morris Reader

Anthropology, Ecology, and Anarchism

Western society is individualised; we feel at ease talking about individuals and we study individual behaviour through psychology and psychoanalysis. Yet anthropology teaches us that an individual approach is only one of many ways of looking at ourselves. 

In this wide-ranging text Morris explores the origins, doctrines and conceptions of the self in Western, Asian and African societies passing though Greek philosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confuscism, Tao and African philosophy and ending with contemporary feminism. 

Scholarly and written in a lucid style, free of jargon, this work is written from an anthropological perspective with an interdisciplinary approach. Morris emphasises the varying conceptions of the self found cross-culturally and contrasts these with the conceptions found in the Western intellectual traditions.

Anthropology of the Self The Individual in Cultural Perspective

The Politics of Community

Kropotkin

A lucid outline of explanations of religious phenomena offered by such great thinkers as Hegel, Marx, and Weber.

An Introductory Text

Anthropological Studies of Religion

Over the course of a long career, Brian Morris has created an impressive body of engaging and insightful writings—from social anthropology and ethnography to politics, history, and philosophy—that have made these subjects accessible to the layperson without sacrificing analytical rigor. But until now, the essays collected here, originally published in obscure journals and political magazines, have been largely unavailable to the broad readership to which they are so naturally suited. The opposite of arcane, specialized writing, Morris’s work takes an interdisciplinary approach that moves seamlessly among topics, offering up coherent and practical connections between his various scholarly interests and his deeply held commitment to anarchist politics and thought. Approached in this way, anthropology and ecology are largely untapped veins whose relevance for anarchism and other traditions of social thought have only recently begun to be explored and debated. But there is a long history of anarchist writers drawing upon works in those related fields. Morris’s essays both explore past connections and suggest ways that broad currents of anarchist thought will have new and ever-emerging relevance for anthropology and many other ways of understanding social relationships. His writings avoid the constraints of dogma and reach across an impressive array of topics to give readers a lucid orientation within these traditions and point to new ways to confront common challenges.

Western society is individualised; we feel at ease talking about individuals and we study individual behaviour through psychology and psychoanalysis. Yet anthropology teaches us that an individual approach is only one of many ways of looking at ourselves.In this wide-ranging text Morris explores the origins, doctrines and conceptions of the self in Western, Asian and African societies passing though Greek philosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confuscism, Tao and African philosophy and ending with contemporary feminism.Scholarly and written in a lucid style, free of jargon, this work is written from an anthropological perspective with an interdisciplinary approach. Morris emphasises the varying conceptions of the self found cross-culturally and contrasts these with the conceptions found in the Western intellectual traditions.

The Individual in Cultural Perspective

Anthropology of the Self

ABOUT THE BOOK A pioneer ethnobiologist Brian Morris has been studying the wildlife of Malawi for over forty years, and has spent more than a decade of his life living and researching in the country. Always engaged in exploring the relationship of the matrilineal peoples of Malawi to its wildlife, Morris has written several important and seminal studies that focus on this relationship: "Common Weeds of Malawi"(1986) "Common Mushrooms of Malawi"(1987) "Chewa Medical Botany"(1996) "The Power of Animals"(1998) "Animals and Ancestors"(2000) And "Insects And Human Life"(2004) All his writings have aimed to bridge the divide between academic scholarship and a wider audience, and combine the perspectives of ethnobiology, environmental history and cultural anthropology. The present book consists of a collection of his various writings on the landscapes and wildlife of Malawi, written over the last forty years, forming the basis of his oral presentations to varied audiences, they are lucidly and engagingly written, and will appeal to scholars, students and all general readers interested in environmental issues and the wildlife of Africa. They represent an enduring contribution to the natural history of Malawi.

Selected Essays on Natural History

Wildlife and Landscapes in Malawi

Jerome Dennis Msonthi

Although it rarely receives the attention it deserves from anthropologists, medical herbalism is perhaps the most widespread and most ancient form of therapy. This book describes in detail one such herbalist tradition, that found in southern Malawi. Offering the first comprehensive examination of medical herbalism in Malawi, this study combines anthropological and botanical insights into medical herbalism. The book is divided into two parts: the first outlines the ethnographic context of the herbalist tradition with discussion of Chewa ethnobotany and the local classification of plants; the various categories of medicine that are expressed in the local culture; the nature and scope of folk herbalism, its practitioners and its relation to biomedicine; local conceptions of disease; and beliefs relating to witchcraft and divination. The second part, which incorporates the researches of a Malawian chemist, Dr Jerome Msonthi, contains detailed information on over 500 Malawian plants with notes on their local names, distribution, botanical descriptions and various medicinal uses.

A Study of Herbalism in Southern Malawi

Chewa Medical Botany

The life and thought of Bakunin has contemporary relevance, particularly for his definitions of freedom. This book confirms Bakunin as an important and influential political theorist whose anarchism was dominated by a desire to achieve a unity of theory and practice. Everything about him is colossal...he is full of a primitive exuberance and strength. Richard Wagner He was not a conventional intellectual if anything, he was anti-intellectual and so never produced a systematic corpus of his ideas in the manner of Marx or Herbert Spencer. But his philosophy is by no means incoherent, and he fully deserves to be recognized as an important and influential political theorist. That his anarchism was dominated by a desire to achieve a unity of theory and practice, of fact and value, of thought and action, within the reality of a given historical social order and that he opposed all the dualism which Western culture had bequeathed from mechanistic philosophy and bourgeois political theory particularly the opposition between individual and society, philosophy and empirical knowledge, nature and humans.

The Philosophy of Freedom

Bakunin

University of York, 11 to 13 April, 1969]

John Webster: [proceedings of the Second York Symposium Held at Langwith College

Special Forces team is in for a ride on this pleasure cruise. Fighting to survive a living nightmare. Will the team prove themselves to be the best they were trained to be? Or will the team fail for the final test? Who can they trust? Who will live? and Who will die?

Nightmare at Sea

Al llarg de la història, explicava Kropotkin, “fetillers, profetes, sacerdots i caps d’organitzacions militars” han intentat establir el seu poder i autoritat sobre la gent normal, i la gent sempre s’hi ha resistit. Per tant en aquest sentit, conclou Kropotkin, els delerosos per governar i la gent comuna, com els anarquistes, han coexistit al llarg de la història de la Humanitat.\n

Reflexions sobre antropologia i anarquisme / Reflections on Anthropology and Anarchism

This book provides an introduction to the extensive anthropological literature on religion that has been produced over the past forty years.

A Critical Introduction

Religion and Anthropology

This pioneering book looks at the importance of insects to culture. While in the developed West a good deal of time and money may be spent trying to exterminate insects, in other cultures human-insect relations can be far more subtle and multi-faceted. Like animals, insects may be revered or reviled - and in some tribal communities insects may be the only source of food available. How people respond to, make use of, and relate to insects speaks volumes about their culture. In an effort to get to the bottom of our vexed relationship with the insect world, Brian Morris spent years in Malawi, a country where insects proliferate and people contend. In Malawi as in many tropical regions, insects have a profound impact on agriculture, the household, disease and medicine, and hence on oral literature, music, art, folklore, recreation and religion. Much of the complexity of human-insect relations rests on paradox: insects may represent the source of contagion, but they are also integral to many folk remedies for a wide range of illnesses. They may be at the root of catastrophic crop failure, but they can also be a form of sustenance. Weaving science with personal observations, Morris demonstrates a profound and intimate knowledge of virtually every aspect of human-insect relations. Not only is this book extraordinarily useful in terms of the more practical side of entomology, it also provides a wealth of information on the role of insects in cultural production. Malawian proverbs alone provide many such delightful examples - 'Bemberezi adziwa nyumba yake' ('The carpenter bee knows his own home'). This final volume in Morris' trilogy on Malawi's animal and insect worlds is certain to become a classic study of uncharted territory - the insect world that surrounds us and how we relate to it. Praise for The Power of Animals: Although based upon examination of a single culture, Morris incorporates ecological and anthropological concepts that expand this study of

Insects and Human Life

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant famously defined anthropology as the study of what it means to be a human being. Following in his footsteps "Anthropology and the Human Subject" provides a critical, comprehensive and wide-ranging investigation of conceptions of the human subject within the Western intellectual tradition, focusing specifically on the secular trends of the twentieth century. Encyclopaedic in scope, lucidly and engagingly written, the book covers the man and varied currents of thought within this tradition. Each chapter deals with a specific intellectual paradigm, ranging from Marx's historical materialism and Darwin's evolutionary naturalism, and their various off shoots, through to those currents of though that were prominent in the late twentieth century, such as, for example, existentialism, hermeneutics, phenomenology and poststructuralism. With respect to each current of thought a focus is placed on their main exemplars, outlining their biographical context, their mode of social analysis, and the "ontology of the subject" that emerges from their key texts. The book will appeal not only to anthropologists but to students and scholars within the human sciences and philosophy, as well as to any person interested in the question: What does it mean to be human? "Ambitions in scope and encyclopaedic in execution...his style is always lucid. He makes difficult work accessible. His prose conveys the unmistakable impression of a superb and meticulous lecturer at work." Anthony P Cohen Journal Royal Anthropological Institute "There is a very little I can add to the outstanding criticism Brian Morris levels at deep ecology...Insightful as well as incisive...I have found his writings an educational experience." Murray Bookchin Institute of Social Ecology

Anthropology and the Human Subject

Completísima guía introductoria que guía al lector, a través de un esquema temático, por los mejores y más significados trabajos antropológicos, y sociológicos, relativos al estudio de las religiones.

Brian Morris

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