The traditional gulf between the theory and practice of literature and the various areas subjoined under anthropology has hindered the development of some very fruitful perspectives in the realm of poetics and the general theory of literature (particularly in its narrative forms). Poyatos' initial idea of literary anthropology as the study of people and their cultural manifestations through their national literatures - without doubt the richest source of documentation of human life-styles and the most advanced form of our projection in time and space and of communicating with contemporary and future generations - has been enriched by the thoughts of a multi-cultural group of scholars from both anthropology and literature who at a first symposium on the subject attempted to define this area leaving the way open to many more research possibilities.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction; 2. Part I. Signs, Culture, and Literature: Toward a Theory of Literary Anthropology; 3. 1. Literary anthropology: toward a new interdisciplinary area; 4. 2. Literature as a source for anthropological research: the case of Jaroslav Hasek's Good soldier Svejk (by Winner, Thomas G.); 5. 3. La theorie culturelle et les etudes litteraires: poetique et anthropologie litteraire (by Sarkany, Stephane); 6. Part II. National Narratives and Ethnic Narratives; 7. 4. Davy Crockett and Mike Fink: An interpretation of cultural continuity and change (by Botscharow, Lucy Jayne); 8. 5. Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann, and north German social class: an application of literary anthropology (by Erickson, Vincent O.); 9. 6. Ethnic culture texts as narration (by Portis-Winner, Irene); 10. 7. Myth and Brazilian literature (by Zilberman, Regina); 11. 8. The recovered fragments: archeological and anthropological perspectives in Edith Wharton's The age of innocence (by Trumpener, Katie); 12. Part III. Literary Anthropology of Three Rural Worlds; 13. 9. The Bible and the Hungarian peasant tradition (by Lammel, Annamaria); 14. 10. The social construction of past, present and future in the written and oral texts of the Old Order Amish: an ethnosemiotic approach to social belief (by Enninger, Werner); 15. 11. Transylvanian people and Transylvanian literature: an attempt at the literary-anthropological analysis of Tamasi Aron's, Pavel Dan's and Erwin Wittstock's Short Stories (by David, Gyula); 16. Part IV. Two Genre Approaches to Literary Anthropology; 17. 12. Avant-garde autobiography: deconstructing the modernist habitat (by Boelhower, William); 18. 13. The anthropology in/of fiction: novels about voyages (by Loriggio, Francesco); 19. 14. Symposium on Literary Anthropology - transcript of the closing discussion; 20. List of contributors; 21. Name index; 22. Subject index