Irony in Action - Anthropology, Practice & the Moral Imagination

Irony, no longer simply a figure of speech, is increasingly viewed as an integral and pervasive force that shapes our understanding as well as our behavior. This idea of irony as one of the major modes of human experience is at the center of this provocative book. The result of a meeting where anthropologists were invited to explore the politics of irony and the moral responsibilities that accompany its recognition, this book looks at both the positive and negative aspects of irony and lends an anthropological perspective to this contemporary phenomenon, both within anthropology and without.