In this piece, the senses and the physicality of writing lead the way to flash tips on how to craft a text otherwise. Focus is on my strategies to start writing, push through low points, enjoy the flow, but also to spend time and care on making the exit memorable.

This chapter explores field settings where spectral stories and beliefs of various kinds, expressed both orally and textually through local legends and folklore, myths, and even monsters, have occurred. Fieldwork on ballet as a transnational career in theatres and opera houses revealed powerful consequences of beliefs in the presence of ghostly beings and spectral behaviour, often as a way to handle the unpredictability of live performances. There was also a belief that the dancing powers of legendary dancers could be transferred via costumes used by them to younger dancers. Moreover, ghosts appear in the stories of classical ballets that often originate in 19th-century European folktales. Since the ethnographer's dancing career ended abruptly because of an injury, she was fondly referred to as a “theatre ghost” by the dancers. Doing fieldwork on Irish writers for another study later showed how their work includes ghost stories reflecting a rich tradition in Irish folklore. This chapter details visits from ghostly beings and instances of spectral behaviour. The ghosts from both fields ranged from benevolent and loving to vengeful spirits. And even though they were the creatures of imagination, they still did serious work.

With a point of departure in eighteen-century philosophy, this chapter focuses on how the concept of aesthetics comes to life in anthropology, both historically and at present. Among the different types of aesthetics considered are social aesthetics, ethnoaesthetics and everyday aesthetics. There are captivating cases of aesthetics such as the provocative choreography by William Forsythe, an instance of alternative aesthetics. While somewhat marginal in anthropology, the concept of aesthetics contributes to an understanding of key aspects of the human condition.

Writing is key in anthropology, one of its main modes of communication. Teaching, research, publications, and outreach all build on, or consist of, writing. Anthropological writing styles have evolved over time according to changing politics in the discipline. One game-changer was the 1980s ‘writing culture’ debate that led to an understanding of writing as a craft to be cultivated in the discipline. Anthropological writing genres range from memoirs to fiction and journalism. Writing in non-academic genres can be a way to make anthropological approaches more widely known, and can inspire academic writing to become more accessible. Writing accessible academic anthropology requires training, and writing public anthropology does too. However, the focus on citation indices in academia can hinder experimental and creative writings.

Emotions are vital to all of us. From love and hate to grief, fear and envy, emotions are increasingly understood as driving forces in social life. The Emotions: A Cultural Reader applies a cross-cultural perspective on emotions, which accentuates an awareness of emotions in social and cultural context. This also points to problems of comparison and translation of local terms and emotional experiences, and to what extent there are culturally distinct emotions. Are emotions cultural or universal? Emotions theory early identified the importance of the person, as collectively constructed, but also the individual, the self and subjectivity in emotional experiences. Recent social science work on emotions has incorporated ideas from neuroscience, such as the finding that emotions are central in rational choice making and social adjustment, as well as the fact that emotions influence thought. Emotions weave into cognition and biology. Importantly, this cross-disciplinary approach closes the traditional Western gap in which emotions are separated from rationality and thought: the heart versus mind debate.

Emotions are a loaded topic. From love and hate to grief, fear and envy, emotions are increasingly understood as driving forces in social life. The Emotions: A Cultural Reader applies a cross-cultural perspective on emotions. It examines the fact that emotions are socially and culturally constructed, while highlighting problems of comparison and translation of local terms and emotional experiences. Are emotions cultural or universal? To what extent are there culturally distinct emotions? The Emotions closes the traditional Western gap where emotions are separated from rationality and thought: the heart versus mind debate. By presenting both classic essays and new cutting-edge chapters from anthropology, sociology and psychology with important contributions from philosophy and neuroscience, the volume connects a rich range of cross-cultural studies to form a thriving interdisciplinary debate on emotions.

"This is a very well-conceived, multiangled volume, one sure to generate lively discussion and experiment - and that maintains the distinctiveness of each authorial voice while also bringing them into generative conversation with each other." Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz DESCRIPTION Looking at encounters that can puncture or jolt us, this volume uses art as a lens through which to register and understand exceptional experiences. The volume also includes the fieldworker's experience of unexpected events that can lead to key understandings, as well as revelatory moments that happen during artistic creation and while looking at art. By exploring exceptional experiences through art, the volume asks probing questions for anthropology. In recognizing that art is all-encompassing - including, as it does, narrative, performance, dance and images - Exceptional Experiences situates itself within a number of conversations on methodological and conceptual issues in anthropology and beyond.

This chapter examines performance and aesthetics as a conceptual pair. As the two concepts tend to be treated separately, and aesthetics has attracted the least attention in anthropology, the development of aesthetics is considered from its origin in European philosophical thought. This leads to a discussion of the role of aesthetics in anthropology including objects such as visual art, images, and design. To this belongs the idea of alternative aesthetics as well as peak experiences of art and performance and an understanding of how such rare, but revelatory, expressive events come about. The chapter concludes by observing that to the study of performance and aesthetics has now been added political aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, and social aesthetics. Future study of aesthetics is predicted to keep steering away from the notion of aesthetics as beauty, and instead focus on affective and sensorial aspects in a cross-cultural perspective.