In the witches’ kitchen: The anarchist anthropology of Hans Peter Duerr

Abstract

An introduction to Hans Peter Duerr’s severely neglected classic, Dreamtime (1978) 1985b.

German anthropology is finally receiving much-needed attention; hence, the present work is partly intended as a contribution to these ongoing efforts to explicate it for an Anglophone audience. But more than this, Dreamtime’s challenging argument critically engages with themes of major importance to contemporary anthropology more generally—among them, the interrelated issues of ontology, translation, and transformation. I attempt to explore this and trace out the significant affinities and resonances of Duerr’s argument with the work of an eclectic collective of others, including Evans-Pritchard, William James, Sahlins, Stengers, and Deleuze.