Publisher's Synopsis
In this book, Julie Marcus examines the ways in which popular genres, like the novel and travel literature, shape the narrative structures of anthropology. Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which popular dreams of the Orient lead the anthropologist toward the East, the author explores the possibility of producing more accurate descriptions of both the similarities and differences that can be located in Christian and Islamic approaches to women's bodies.;Julie Marcus spent 12 months in Turkey carrying out research into urban life, Islam and women. "A World of Difference" grew out of this fieldwork and her attempts to grapple with the recent theoretical challenges to anthropology.;Students of anthropology, women's studies and religion should find "A World of Difference" an interesting analysis of the ways in which concepts of purity and pollution work on women's bodies to establish the hierarchical gender relations that characterize both Islam and Christianity.
