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thus attractive—the behaviors and information we need to master in order tosurvive.

Homo Aestheticus surpasses What Is Art For? while losing none of that work'soriginality and charm. When the earlier book appeared, sociobiology was stillidentified—not without reason—with "man the hunter" views of human natureand conservative social agendas, and the author took pains to distance her own"Darwinian" framework from both. Now that so many sociobiological insightshave been absorbed into the more balanced and inclusive approaches of evolu-tionary psychology and "general" anthropology, she can present her argumentswithout the edge of defensiveness that marked the earlier work. She also seemsto feel freer to draw upon her own training in ethology; for example, she includesa truly delightful discussion of the bowerbird, who designs and decorates anelaborate "built environment" to attract its mate that would put a New Yorkinstallation artist to shame, and addresses the ways that its behavior does anddoesn't reflect the aesthetic acts of our own species. The earlier work included alengthy interpretation of the relevance of psychologist Howard Gardner's workon "modes" and "vectors," which, as I noted in a review of What Is Art For? atthe time (Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, 1988, p. 20), was essen-tially a recasting of the Lipps-Worringer empathy hypothesis. In Homo Aes-theticus, I was pleased to see, the material on Gardner has been reduced, and theauthor has devoted an entire chapter to empathy theory, thus locating her ownwork more accurately in the intellectual tradition of Western aesthetic theory.Finally, by keeping her analysis of aesthetic behaviors rigorously cross-culturaland "multimedial," she manages to lay bare some of the ethno- and temporocen-tric features of recent postmodernist characterizations of "art," without negatingtheir usefulness in exploring recent developments in Western-style fine-art gen-res.

The last section, "Art Restored," summarizes in language that is at once preciseand poetic her conclusion that "the arts are as intrinsic and imperative in our livesas our lovers, our children, and our gods" (p. 225). It also sketches the implica-tions of that finding for future public policy and personal praxis that should berequired reading for anyone who cares deeply about the quality of human life inyears ahead.

In sum, Dissanayake has given us a thoughtful, elegant, and provocativeanalysis of aesthetic behavior in the development of our species—one thatacknowledges its roots in the work of prior thinkers while opening new vistasfor those yet to come. If you're reading just one book on art anthropology thisyear, make it hers.

Nurturing Doubt

Elmer S. Miller. Nurturing Doubt: From Mennonite Missionary to Anthropologist inthe Argentine Chaco. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. 225 pp.

ADRIANA SARRAMEADepartment of DanceUniversity of CaliforniaRiverside, CA 92521

This book represents the reflexion of Elmer Miller, a professor at Temple Univer-sity, about his intellectual commitment to the Argentine tobas. Miller went toArgentina first as a Mennonite missionary and later as an anthropologist. "Nur-

Book Reviews 217

hiring doubt," says Miller, "describes field experience as essentially an encounterwith personal doubt about one's own myths and traditions" (p. vii).

Descartes, Marx, LeVi-Strauss, and Leenhardt, among others, have made doubtthe mark of intellectual knowledge. Miller reenacts that Western tradition whilecrafting a delightful book. We are invited to participate in the circles of doubt,often painful, that constitute Miller's selfhood. His life evolves from a childhoodon a Pennsylvania farm to a professorship at Temple, and through the majorintellectual signs of his life as a Mennonite missionary and as an anthropologistin Argentina's Central Chaco. One of the main questions underlying the text ishow to represent ethnographic experience to people (North Americans) who"have not lived in a radically different culture" (p. 110).

Upon finishing my reading, I have myself a set of doubts about the doubts ofProfessor Miller, doubts such as do the toba women have a name? What is theirrelationship to the community besides being wives or daughters or mothers? Dothey have a productive activity? What is their relationship to the religious cult ofthe Iglesia Evangelica Unida (an Indian church until now under the tutelage ofthe Mennonites)? Gender and sex systems, and how they produce meaning,never went into Miller's array of doubts, as if to demonstrate that no matter howreflexive anthropology might become, women will continue to be absent frommajor anthropological reflections.

During my reading of Nurturing Doubts, Maurice Leenhardt's Do Kamo(Eudeba, 1960) kept flashing back to me. Leenhardt, also a Protestant ministerand an ethnologist, could understand the hopes of the Canaco people for evan-gelical Christianization as a salvation from the colonial context. Leenhardt,however, is not cited by Miller. Instead, the world system articulation framework(p. 186) is employed. However, if world system articulation is understood as theprime originator of native cultures, where is the autonomy and the culturalresistance of the Indians? Where are the memories of the Napalpi uprising (pp.46,131,126)?

Some of the text's main theoretical arguments appear to come from the longdebate Miller had with two leading Argentine anthropologists, Edgardo Cordeuand Alejandra Siffredi. The debate started in the 1970s, rooted in differingpractices and trainings in anthropology. In Nurturing Doubts Miller takes a moreobjective perspective than previously. However, in my opinion, he still tends tohomogenize the field of anthropology in Argentina.

This is a sophisticated book with many layers of insights, critiques, and healthyreflections. There is no doubt that this book should become required reading foranyone interested in the peoples of the Argentine Chaco, their contemporaryreligious transformations, and debates concerning the production of ethnogra-phy.

Tamil Literature in Performance

Saskia Kersenboom. Word Sound Image: The Life of the Tamil Text. Washington, DC:Oxford University Press, 1995. 259 pp.

AVANTHI MEDURIWomen's Studies ProgramUniversity of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, CA 90024

Saskia Kersenboom's book Word Sound Image: The Life of the Tamil Text presentsitself as a breakthrough work not only in the field of South Asian dance scholar-