Reviews on Abdel Hernandez San juan books

Surpik angelini

  "I want to congratulate you for your boundaries and overflows book, i consider you one of those genious aviatión drivers capable to take off to the marvellous country from which the world  of paradoxs and rational sistems is clear and distinguished from the heights but from which you have opened a window to another liminality space and time aparently ephemeral but full of deep trues brings into being. From there you have attained to discover the traps and enlighment the wells in the road of contemporary structuralismn and posestructuralism, the two colums of modern thought with all the variants of isms, movements and stylistic itsms contained in between

    Now with you I feel that thought is not hate, but delightful, kind, light, smart, inteligent, playfull, deep profound with the deeperness of the skin (deleuze) which is precesilly the only thought posible to me, but your language light can be as fluid that it escape between the fingers so that as mush as i am following your construction as much as i become awarness that my memory was not constructing conceptions reading but my imaginación was enjoying with a juissance (kristeva) so powerfull to finally feel the movements of words, the  game of gravite, but to seise and remember i must read again back to the text to find that verbal 

   The deep effect of your use of language on me is that of liberation, as you say 'a multiplicity of worlds in ecológical relations, a new form of the contemporary to discourse'

  That discipline that you have conquered, and i am saying this conciente of the fact that many people have recognized you, but with the certitude of a reiteración assent in the profound and the sense of things in the transcurse which is the important"

Querido Abdel

quiero felicitarte por tu obra, Bordes y desbordes. Te considero también uno de esos aviadores geniales, capaces del despegue hacia ese país de las maravillas, donde aún la visión del mundo de paradojas y sistemas racionales es claro y discernible desde las alturas, pero desde donde se abre una ventana a otro espacio, tiempo liminal, sutil, aparentemente efímero, aunque cargado de profundas realizaciones y de verdades. Desde allí, has conseguido deslumbrar las trampas o los pozos oscuros en el camino del estructuralismo y el posestructuralismo contemporáneo, las dos columnas del pensamiento moderno, con todas las variantes de los movimientos, los ismos o itsmos estilísticos contenidos entre ellos. 

   Pero tu análisis es tan lucido, que relativiza con verdaderos paradigmas esenciales lo estetizante del mundo del arte, poniéndolo frente a su distancia con la verdadera estructura del mundo filosófico de este siglo, o del estado social tan fragmentado y empobrecido de sentido, que es el contexto del arte.

   Ahora contigo siento que el pensamiento no es odioso, sino encantador, amable, ligero, inteligente, juguetón, profundo con la conciencia de la profundidad de la piel (Deleuze). Que precisamente es el único pensamiento posible para mí. Tu lenguaje es tan fluido que se me escapa entre los dedos, de modo que te sigo en la construcción para luego darme cuenta que la memoria no estaba construyendo concepciones mientras leía, sino que la imaginación gozaba con esa juissance (kristeva) tan poderosa que al final siento el movimiento de las palabras, el juego aureo de su gravedad, pero para recordar o asir tu pensamiento es preciso que vuelva a leer y vuelvo al texto para encontrar de nuevo la prestidigitación verbal que me hipnotiza y me encanta. El efecto profundo que tiene en mí tu uso del lenguaje es liberador. Como dices tú “una multiplicidad de mundos en relación ecológica, una nueva forma de contemporaneidad para los discursos”.

 Esa disciplina extraordinaria que has conquistado, y no lo reitero consciente del hecho de que son muchos los que te reconocen, sino con la certeza que cada reiteración asienta en la profundidad y el sentido de las cosas en el transcurso que también es importante.

Surpik Angelini, writer, art critic, curator, transart foundation of Houston, director, Houston, Texas, 1995, 

https://www.thetransartfoundation.org/about

Stephen A tyler

 Stephen A Tyler

styler@rice.edu

Reviews, critiques and comments around Abdel Hernandez san Juan author books

Dear Abdel, 

Many thanks for sending me the notices of your recent writings and activities.  As usual, you continue your innovative and creative works.  You have been and continue to be a real thinker.  Keep up the good work!

I am now retired from the department and am not much involved in anthropology or linguistics.  I do, however continue finishing up the work with Ivo Strecker in Germany, but that is now almost complete with only one or two volumes still in the works.

Since retiring I have been doing a lot of travel, mainly on cruise ships, but now I think it is probably time to get serious about getting all my odds and ends of work finished up.

I do hope you continue with your writing and lecturing and displays.  You have a lot of talent, and I am happy to see that you are continuing to exercise it.

Best Wishes,

Steve   

Hi Abdel,

I've just finished going through all the material you recently sent. I'm really impressed not only with the amount of work you have been doing, but more importantly, with the quality of it.  You seem to be getting deeper and deeper into interesting areas that have not been well explored by contemporary research.  Keep going!!

Best,

Steve

Dear Abdel, 

Great to hear from you and to see that you are continuing to create wonderful and significant stuff. (...)

Thanks for letting me know what you are up to, and keep up the good work

Best Always,

Steve

Hi Abdel, 

Thanks for your messages.  Some interesting stuff you are doing.  Yes, probably remediation and super objectivation are related. Looks like you are into some interesting stuff.

Best,

Steve  

Dear Abdel,

  Good to hear from you and to see that you are continuing with your work.  Many thanks for the translation of evocation.  I really appreciate all the work you put into it.  I hope your interview goes well and all your travel plans work out. Also best of luck with all of your other projects.  We are leaving in the morning on a voyage and won't be back here for about three weeks, so this response is rather short and hurried. Do let me know how things work out for you.

Best Always,

Steve

Stephen A Tyler, Houston, Texas, USA, author of The Books The Unspeakable: Discourse, Rhetoric and Dialogue in the Posmodern world, The University of Wisconsin Press, India: An Anthropological Perspective, Cognitive Anthropology, Concepts and Assumptions in Contemporary Anthropology, author of papers as Evocation, The Unwriteable: A Response to Abdel Hernandez San Juan, Rice University, Sept 9, 1997, Prolegomenon to a Next Linguistic, Folleto, Texas, 1993, The Antinomies: Anthropology in Theory, The Meddle Voice: The Influence of Postmodernism in Empirical Research in Anthropology, Neme: Critique of Cognitive Studies, Cognitive Science: History and Prospects, Presenter (Dis) Play. 

  Editor of Books in New York: Berghahn Books, serie editor Culture and Rhetoric, publishing essays and associate editor at the Assian studies review and the Journal of Anthropological Research, Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of New Mexico, Professor of Linguistic and Anthropology at Rice University in the areas of cognitive anthropology, language and culture, India and Hermeneutics, affiliated to Asian Studies, Center for Cultural Studies and Cognitive Sciences Program, Houston, Texas, USA, Lecturer at the Rice University department of linguistic, the Cognitive Science Dept of the University of Northern Illinois, Rhetoric and Anthropology at the European Association for Social Anthropology, Frankfurt, Germany

Alberto mendez

 "De un vuelo teórico de altura, de un rigor insuperable"

Por Alberto Méndez, philosopher, the internacional university of florida

On the book "The world correlate: interpretant and structure in posmodern cultural theory", of abdel Hernández San juan

Tomado de contrapuntos: diálogos filosóficos. Por abdel Hernández San Juan y Alberto mendez

As i tell you in my previous message, it remain to when kant sustained about Hume "he raise me up from a dogmátic dream", i would say, saving distance, that my meeting with your work raise me up from ignorance. It was the meeting with your work and thesis of the maker, the meeting with Abdel Hernández San Juan the subject of an enuntiation, of a manner to read adorno, benjamín, derrida, foucault, canclini, Levis strauss. This was the manner how your  work and our conversacions become a decisive and positive influence in my next readings and intelectual choices. As i tell you my readings become marked by the conversations we sustain. But fortunatly my next duty was about to find from there my own way to walk alone, with the handback of tools i finded with you in handway, overall with the wishes and impulse to know.

Abdel, i am very happy to know on your knowledge on how capitalism function. As theoretician of social sciences even from cuba before exiting, your concepts and ideas was of an amazing, tremendus clearity, a very ussefull tool to comprehension and objective análysis.   As an effect of my talks with you --basically speaking of a period between 1990-1991-- let in me a mark of an enormeous relevance in my philosophical vocatión

I am very interested in your visión of hegel

The sharp, penetrating and rigour of your thought mean a lot of benefits to me since having the posibility of our dialogue. Equally the phenomenological thesis of the imbrication you have made of Peirce semiótic in your work let and allow me to consider another ways to afford abstract thought, the philosophical thing, another points of view

I have recently finished to read all your last messages, your answers to my starting questions and your reflexións answers, intellectually of a rigour imposible to be superated of a superior quality with all that complex and structured elaborations and arguments of ever and theoretically very high in its fly. This in general

Particularly, i am interested to read your authorial work --books--, but also your explicitations around it becouse your reflexións allow me to a counterpoints very productive to my owns. Very interesting your last answer about our methodological differences, on the one hand, your phenomenological visión, dinamic in respect to the movements of the concept and it's adecuation to reality in which the concept itself is full of reality too and from which a sense of the real older than the linguistic developments of the concept overcome as a secound level of reality overordinated.

I am overlining here how epistemological terms that you use with skill and hability determine such phenomenological reality geeting there, on the one hand, the ethnometodological and on the other, the exegetic and interpretative sides of your work (influenced) by Gadamer as well as by Peirce starting to work the sense you have defined as "performative" and "intersubjective", habermas.

We must add thus the sincronic micrométric aspects of your phenomenological análysis and later hermeneutic of such reality and the "I", "the self" and "being", noumeno, and it's correlates and subject implied in it, phenomenological sociology, your influences of Shutz

Your reflexión of "the world of life", as a micrométric space, "intramundane horizont" and the " world correlate"

I am agree in that aspects, it is a phenomenological form without historicism, however, i think we must overline how your phenomenological developments evolved a certain diacronicity too, hegeliany, which gaze the movement of the world in it's own dialectique, something provoque that your relation with that world is unfolded alone a diacronicity as an observer who cutt and recutt from the weaves of the world a sincronic fragments to describe it's internal dinámics and it's becomings even seen micrometrically.

And all this bring us to a movement of the concept that works in a phenomenological before of the often structuralist framing and structuralism itself from which without doubt you have unmarked yourself rather than myself points of view more structuralist from my pospositivist empirist reflexion

    Perhaps, you are making Derrida say beyond him toward the way you have defined as "pasarelas" (narrow step level crossing) between language and non language, language and world, language and writing. You are moving derrida to it's own limits reinterpreting him from Peirce which in your phenomenological terms the use you are doing of Derrida might be defined as certainly masterly.

I am thinking here about Derrida phenomenologist reader of Hurssel, a Derrida asking about génesis at the phenomenological reflexion. As you know this Derrida is not the more saussurean one of another of his work. The text in question is a jewel of his phenomenological period that you know how to make it productive.

However, i see the interesting way you are taking distance in your book " The world correlate" from the gramatologist Derrida opening a posibility for this polarity inside/outside returning to the derrida phenomenologist.

I see it as logic inside the developments and elaborations of your theoretician work of an enormeous complexity and rigour. I see logic too your distance from ontological structuralism asuming it in a more táctical sense as eco sustained it "operative", meaning functional, ussefull.

I understand well as logic why you as thinker and ethnometodologist áre avoiding to asume the structuralist debate in a direct form to instead asume it in a tangential form from your phenomenological perspective

Realism at the same time seems to be not crucial in your work at least not in your book "The world correlate" perhaps one might read and move to read certain parts of your book from such direction setting it to be discussed with the philosophical debate on realism; the "how" and "what" of the world, but this is not in your main focuss of attention priority. We can discuss your book in that sense, the empiricist anglosajón debate around Locke distintions between first and secound qualities as a representative realism less than the idealist subjectivism of Berkeley, or as in xx century, hurssel, Bergson, also Russel, wittgenstein, Popper, carnap, Quine, Searle, Dummet or Putnam or even the sistematic view of Mario bunge as modalities of the positivist anglosajón debate. Your book can be very productibly discussed from this debate of realism while without recognizing that the issue of realism itself is not in the main focuss of your priority attention.

  I was thus re-reading dummet, Davidson, putnam, searly, rorty to answer you higly motivated by your extensive and complex and passionated reflexións in your deeper, profound level and rigour, the masterly  form  you have afforded the themes and issues in your reflexións on derrida

I am still working in my answer without stop to think in our counterpoints which is a priority to me after your extensive messages on your work with the concept of the interpretants and peirce, your reflexións on texere and your "pasarelas" (narrow step level crossing), and on derrida of an enormeous rigour and complexity, and sharp.

Very sharp also your apreciations on psychoanalysis, on the structure of the unconcient, and your questions on subject and unconcient in lacan very pertinent.

My intention is about to answer and react to all your conceptual developments and pointing messages on your conception of intramundanity, texere in derrida, the theoretical developments and descriptions of "pasarelas" (narrow step level crossing) very yours, your interpretation of peirce semiótic and it's theoretical consequences very your too

Traín to answer considering my own references in analytical philosophy around the Vienna circle and pospositivist anglosajón analytical philosophy, overall Quine and his holístic thesis, (the thesis Duhem-quine) and the analytical critique of the theory of sense, a certain límited aspects since Quine don't have a theory of meaning after the noerthamerican rejected reflexións on sense. I am discussing this límited given by my límited knowledge of peirce which instead you know and domain with rigour and profoundity.

I would like overall to focuss and set our debate to understand well the context inside which in your perspective the text is articulared as organized signs with a meaninfulness intentionality to operate the world correlate exactly as you have discussed it in the first chapter of your book " The world correlate". The interconexions that you have made between the kind of grammatological interpretations of saussarian inspiración in derrida, the text as an autónomous entity, the correlations between "lengua" (langue) and "speach" (parole) or between sintaxis (significance) and semantique (meaning) with all the developments phenomenological-hegelian, on the one side, and logical-empirist of peirce semiótic that you have theorized, your theorization evoques to me   my reading of Giddens "The new rules of the sociological method" of durkenian inspiratión or  more over the conexión of this book with " the constitución of society" one of his previous books something about which you must be well familiarized as a social science thinker and research.

   Regarding semiosis as the dinámic of culture that you defined as " inferential reality" it is fascinating the conceptual manner you have finded to rethink this phenomena which have it's original génesis in platón dialogues and seminal Aristóteles texts and the issues linked with the relation between thought and language, you have discussed Hermeneutically and semiótically issues conect the medieval patristic (San Agustin) and the Port Royal gramatists previous to the adveniments of saussure ginebra structural linguistic, Jakobson and the Praga school in earlier xx century, and peirce semiótic in xix century.

I must sustain in this point and affirm that within all the cuban philosophical thinking to today no one domain and know the semiótic of peirce and derrida philosophy as you, no one with your masterly and skill knowledge and the deeper form you have incorporated their sistem into a new theoretical constellation, into your own abstract articulated thought from hermeneutic to grammatology and  from your epistemological acervo to think from an anthropology frame, spetially from ethnometodology, and culture as text; as well as discussing gadamer, shutz, todorov, stephen a tyler.

Back to the issue of realism i think that such       " reality" as an endless red of interpretants as you have unfolded it with masterly might be seen as intimatly related with what octogenary quine defined at the end of his life "the webs of believes" to identify protocolar enuntiations and propositionality composed and constitute the sistem of science; his Duhem-quine thesis at the top of his carrier, something he references in the 50s at his seminal essay "Two dogmas of empiricism"

The notion of the "interpretants" you explain very well strongly influenced by peirce exactly as seen in its relation with the real substracts of prelinguistic experience, according to how you have reintérpreted it from the semiótic perspective of your books theoretical sistem keept up a relation of certain identity with from my point of view what carnap named as "protocolo enuntiation" perhaps quine defined this characteristic of predicative language as "observational sentences" something that some times entail with a reality before any phenomenological experience as regional ontologies phenomenological realities.

Equally when you defines your ideas of "An interelated red of interpretants", make me think in what epistemologíst  Karl Popper defined as "world 3". Sush a popperian "world 3" have a certain similarly with peirce semiótic interpretants objectibly as i can perceive it throught your own thinking now, i see certain points of similarities.

I would even sustain as trully subtantial aditionally to your complex reflexions of an enormeous epistemological values is your methodologícal theory, what you have defined as "methodology of research" in spanish, metodología de la investigación científica ( methodology of scientific investigatión) which in your own style of inquiries and questions generates deeperly prismas of interpretation.

But also your points conecting phenomenological research, hermeneutic and semiótic with ethnometodology and anthropology and this interconexions allows your theory of research methodology, you are thinking mainly methodologically as sociologist. While we áre both pasionately doing abstract thought.

Alberto Méndez suarez, analytical philosopher, international university of florida, Miami, florida

Tomado de contrapuntos: diálogos filosóficos. Por abdel Hernández San Juan y Alberto mendez

Ernesto leon

 Abdel Hernandez San Juan is One of the great philosophers of the continent/uno de los grandes filósofos del continente

Sobre la filosofía en Los Enigmas del Ground

Por Ernesto Leon Palenzuela

"Los Enigmas del Ground" de Abdel Hernández San Juan ofrece una perspectiva innovadora y profundamente reflexiva sobre la sociología y la semiología, integrando elementos filosóficos cruciales para comprender la relación entre lenguaje y realidad. Desde una perspectiva filosófica, el libro se distingue por varios aspectos importantes:

Innovación Teórica

San Juan introduce una forma novedosa de sociología denominada "sociología semiológica". Esta propuesta no solo reinterpreta los fundamentos de la teoría semiótica de Peirce, sino que también la enriquece con enfoques de la fenomenología, la hermenéutica y la ontología. El concepto de "ground" es central en esta nueva teorización, proporcionando una base para entender cómo los signos y los objetos se originan y reflejan mutuamente.

Revisión Crítica

El autor ofrece una revisión crítica del signocentrismo y las limitaciones de las teorías semióticas tradicionales. Al regresar a la lógica de Peirce y expandirla, San Juan desafía las nociones reduccionistas del modelo emisor-mensaje-receptor, proponiendo en su lugar una visión más integrada y holística de la semiosis.

Integración Interdisciplinaria

El libro destaca por su capacidad de trazar conexiones interdisciplinarias entre la sociología, la antropología, la filosofía y la semiótica. Esta integración es particularmente evidente en la forma en que el autor utiliza el "ground" para vincular la experiencia sensorial y la formación de conceptos abstractos, proporcionando una comprensión más profunda y rica de la realidad cultural y social.

Dialéctica y Fenomenología

San Juan emplea una dialéctica hegeliana para explorar cómo los signos y los objetos se reflejan y se interrelacionan en un proceso continuo de semiosis. Esta perspectiva dialéctica permite una comprensión dinámica y fluida de la realidad, donde la naturaleza y la cultura no son entidades separadas sino elementos interdependientes que se configuran mutuamente.

Aplicaciones Prácticas

El libro no se queda en el plano teórico, sino que también explora las implicaciones prácticas del "ground" en la vida cotidiana. San Juan muestra cómo el "ground" se manifiesta en nuestras interacciones diarias, integrando experiencias, lenguaje y realidad en un continuum sin rupturas.

Complejidad y Profundidad

La obra de San Juan es notable por su profundidad y complejidad teórica. El autor no solo revisa y retoma conceptos de filósofos como Hegel, Kant y Derrida, sino que también los sitúa en un contexto contemporáneo, ofreciendo nuevas interpretaciones y ampliando su relevancia para el estudio de la cultura y la sociedad.

Metodología y Empirismo

San Juan propone nuevas metodologías de investigación que consideran el "ground" como una dimensión empírica y fenomenológica esencial. Esto sugiere una forma de investigación que no solo es teóricamente robusta sino también metodológicamente innovadora, proporcionando nuevas vías para la teorización cultural y sociológica.

Conclusión

Desde una perspectiva filosófica, "Los Enigmas del Ground" es una obra valiosa que ofrece nuevas perspectivas y herramientas para entender la relación entre lenguaje y realidad. La integración de diversas disciplinas y la revisión crítica de teorías existentes hacen de este libro una contribución significativa al campo de la sociología y la semiología. La profundidad y la complejidad del análisis de San Juan invitan a una reflexión más profunda sobre cómo entendemos y estudiamos la cultura y la sociedad, proponiendo una nueva forma de ver y analizar el mundo que nos rodea.

Resumen  2

Anotaciones ordenadas

Por Ernesto Leon Valenzuela 

Introducción a la sociología semiológica:

Abdel Hernández San Juan presenta una nueva forma de sociología que integra elementos de la teoría semiótica y la filosofía, enfocándose en la relación entre lenguaje y realidad a través del concepto de "ground".

Desarrollo del concepto de "ground":

El autor explora las múltiples definiciones y usos del "ground", destacando su importancia en la semiótica de Peirce y su aplicación en la filosofía de la lógica.

Implicaciones fenomenológicas:

Se analiza cómo el "ground" actúa como una base empírica que conecta la percepción sensorial con la formación de conceptos abstractos, permitiendo una comprensión más profunda de la realidad.

Relación entre lenguaje y realidad:

San Juan investiga cómo el "ground" facilita la interacción entre lenguaje y realidad, desafiando las divisiones tradicionales y proponiendo una perspectiva más integrada.

Crítica al signocentrismo:

El libro ofrece una crítica al signocentrismo y sugiere una revisión de la semiótica tradicional, proponiendo un enfoque que considera el "ground" como una dimensión fundamental.

Dialectica del "ground":

Se argumenta que el "ground" permite una dialéctica entre signo y objeto, donde ambos se originan y se reflejan mutuamente, estableciendo una base común.

Aplicaciones en la vida cotidiana:

Se demuestra cómo el "ground" se manifiesta en la vida diaria, integrando experiencias, lenguaje y realidad en un continuum sin interrupciones.

Semiología y sociología fenomenológica:

El autor propone una integración de la semiología con la sociología fenomenológica para una comprensión más completa de la cultura y la sociedad.

Revisión de teorías filosóficas:

Se revisan y retoman conceptos de filósofos como Hegel, Kant y Derrida, situando el "ground" en un contexto filosófico amplio y ofreciendo nuevas interpretaciones.

Aportes metodológicos:

La obra sugiere nuevas metodologías de investigación que consideran el "ground" como una dimensión esencial para el estudio empírico y fenomenológico, ofreciendo nuevas vías para la teorización cultural y sociológica.

Summary

Ernesto león, professor of visual art, Houston, Texas

George E marcus

By George E. Marcus

  By the mid-1990's, I had just about given up hope that the aesthetic issues that were implicated in the so-called Writing Culture critique of anthropology during the 1980's would be developed by anthropologists themselves. Beyond the critique of the authority of ethnographic texts and of the conditions for the production of knowledge in the traditional mise-en-scène of fieldwork, these issues might have defined the ground for rethinking the longstanding forms and practices of anthropological research (the emblematic and defining fieldwork/ethnography paradigm of the discipline) that are so much challenged at present as anthropologists involve themselves with more complicated conditions and objects of inquiry. 

   For anthropologists to have explored the aesthetics of inquiry would have required styles of thinking, rhetoric, and practice--keyed to the notion of experimentation––that proved unacceptable to the boundary keeping institutional and professional rules of order in the academy. While anthropology during the 1980's was influenced more than ever (and vice versa) by theoretical developments in the academic humanities through interdisciplinary movements that were themselves caught up in self-images evoking historic avant-gardes (the "theory" tendency in literary studies, for example, had this imago), it was still obliged to be social scientific.  Thus, any efforts at experimentation with the ethnographic form, beyond textual maneuvers, were understandably limited, largely rhetorical, and when substantive, idiosyncratic and certainly marginal.

   Perhaps, this is as it should have been. While there have been some remarkable experimental texts exploring the relation between culture, the anthropological task, and aesthetics, produced through and from the trend of 1980's critique

   Still the most compelling aspects of the Writing Culture critique of the 1980's opened questions about breaking the authoritative frames, not only of traditional ethnographic writing, but by implication of the traditional practices and professional regulative ideals of fieldwork in the name of such notions as collaboration, polyphony, reflexive inquiry, and dialogue. These were indeed radical alternative suggestions or hints for practice, and they could hardly be served by mere modifications in the way ethnographies were written or even traditional projects of fieldwork were conducted. Attempts to do so––the body of "experiments" we have––were for the most part considered to be weak, rhetorical, and idiosyncratic. One might conclude then that more radical experiments, touching upon the aesthetics of fieldwork, were something that anthropologists, operating between the critiques of the 1980s and the changing conditions of research in the 1990s onward, could benefit from, but which, because of the weight of the professional apparatus of power, authority, tradition, and self-interest, they could not do for themselves in any coherent way.

   Abdel Hernández is a Cuban cultural theorist.  In Caracas, Hernandez continued his anthropologically relevant work. Why his work should be of interest to anthropology is that it makes explicit and experimentally explores tendencies deeply a part of the ethos of the discipline having to do with a combination of scholarly distance and a more active participation in a culture but still within the frame of professional fieldwork. 

   Finally, there was the brief surge into "theater anthropology" in the late 70s and early 80s, based on the interesting partnership of Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, and the writings of Eugenio Barba, among others. The main inspiration for this in anthropology was the later work of Victor Turner, who early on had a strong sense of the value of understanding ethnographic settings in dramatistical terms. However, what Hernandez are up to is quite different than this earlier effort at theater anthropology. Turner was really bringing anthropology into the framework of theater, and Hernández have made the opposite sort of move with more radical and interesting results for effacing the boundaries of both art and anthropology as institutions. Also, Turner was less interested in matters of epistemology and method than in universalist and transcendent questions about mind and emotion that could be explored by making theatrical the rituals that anthropologists studied in the field among peoples like the Ndembu and the Kwakiutl. There was never the more provocative bringing of the experiment and the performance to the field, as in Hernandez's work.     

   Here, I refer to the idea of ethnography as performance, which has been one of the “key words" of possible alternative for anthropological practice in recent years. Also, there has been a more or less developed idea of ethnographic "competence" being performative. That is, the true standard of judgment of ethnographic interpretation and translation is whether the anthropologist "gets it right," not as judged by his professional peers but by the people he studies. Competence always begins with language, and anthropological folklore often focuses on who among the specialists in an area or region speaks the language “like a native.” To some extent, this very deep but underplayed and romantic ideal of very serious ethnography evokes the much disdained and naive "going native" syndrome.   

  Still, anthropologists have often sustained in their judgment of ethnography the related notion of competence or performativity. This perhaps had its most elaborate and scientistic expression in the ethnoscience/cognitive anthropology/new ethnography movement of the 1960s and 1970s (7). Indeed, the ability to play back category systems in speech to the native, to "elicit" action from them was to become the highest scientific standard for anthropology. Of course, this movement eventually fell on hard times once it went beyond color and kinship categories. But something of the same ideal has always been present in the interpretive/symbolic movement as well. 

Edited by Abdel Hernandez San Juan, from a 2001 george paper, Houston, texas

George E Marcus is an american professor of anthropology at the University of california, Irvine who focuses on the anthropology of elites. he was the editor of the University of Chicago press Late Editions: Cultural Studies for the End of the Century, and was the dean of the faculty of anthropology at rice university during many years

Quetzil Eugenio castañeda

 "In houston, sustained dialogues with abdel Hernández have been crucial to think throught all aspects of experimental ethnography"

Hernández, breglia and Armstrong Fumero actively participated in the lake forest installations. All of these persons and others who participated in the field school áre deeply appreciated for their contributions

Quetzil Eugenio Castañeda, between puré and applied anthropology: experimental ethnography in a transcultural tourist art world, NAPA boletín

Author of in the museum of maya culture: touring chichen Itza, 

currently Senior Lecturer, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Indiana University 2016 – present Member Graduate Faculty, Indiana University 2003 – present Founding Director, Academic Coordinator, and professor, OSEA — The Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology. Chichén Itzá, México.