Author Paul Stoller, “In Sorcery’s Shadow” will be visiting Lafayette College on Wednesday, September 25 at 4:00 p.m. in Hugel 100. His lecture will be on his forthcoming book, “Yaya’s Story: The Quest for Wellbeing in the World.” Reception & Book Signing to follow.

Paul Stoller

Paul Stoller, who is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University, has been conducting anthropological research for more than 30 years. His early work concerned the religion of the Songhay people who live in the Republics of Niger and Mali in West Africa. In that work, he focused primarily on magic, sorcery and spirit possession practices as well as on the ethnographic work of Jean Rouch. Since 1992, Stoller has pursued studies of West African immigrants in New York City. Those studies have concerned such topics as the cultural dynamics of informal market economies and the politics of immigration. Stoller’s work has resulted in the publication of 11 books, including ethnographies, biographies, memoirs as well as two novels. His latest book is The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey (2008). In 2002, the American Anthropological Association named him the recipient of the Robert B Textor Award for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology. During the past three years, Stoller has blogged regularly on culture, politics, media and education for The Huffington Post..  In June 2012 he studied ethnographic filmmaking at the Granada Centre of Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester and in the fall of 2013 will begin to shoot his first ethnographic film, Cancer Rites.  In April 2013 the King of Sweden., Carl XVI Gustav, awarded him 2013 the Anders Retzius Gold Medal for his significant scientific contributions to anthropology.