A Matter of Detail inspires new ways of thinking about detail by bringing anthropology, philosophy, art history, and aesthetics into direct conversation. Co-editors Brandel, Das, Laugier, and Pitrou challenge a long-standing assumption that the history of detail begins with European modernity and follows a teleological course from an object of scorn to a sign of the good. In its place, they offer a history of attention to detail that draws on classical and vernacular histories and traditions found in grammar, ritual, and poetics around the world. Emphasizing detail as a method and moving between its usage as a noun (detail) and a verb (detailing) enables them to tell stories about the reassembly of detail across accidents, contingencies, and unintended consequences. From this vantage, the book argues that details are not always small and insignificant. Rather, there is a dynamic relationship between the minute and the grand, detail and surface, which makes the proliferation of details threatening to the idea of an authoritative and integrated imagination of the whole. This expanded context generates ways of conceiving detail as a conceptual and moral mode of self-formation and being toward others, both human and non-human.
Edited by:
Andrew Brandel,
Veena Das,
Sandra Laugier,
Perig Pitrou
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 159mm,
Spine: 24mm
Weight: 560g
ISBN: 9781487550646
ISBN 10: 1487550642
Series: Anthropological Horizons
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 04 March 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
1. On Detail, Details, Detailing: An Overview Veena Das, Andrew Brandel, Sandra Laugier, and Perig Pitrou 2. The Matter of Description: Detailing, Telling, Collecting Sandra Laugier 3. Ethics and the Details of Life Piergiorgio Donatelli 4. Detailing Scenes of Ordinary Grief across Ethnography and Poetry Lotte Buch Segal 5. Details in a Minor Key Marco Motta 6. Forgetting Quotation: Detail in the Dreams of Borges and Le Guin Andrew Brandel 7. Effecting and Affecting Emotion: When Words Are Not Innocent Veena Das 8. Hearing the Bird Sing: Chinese Poetry in the Mirror of Life Michael Puett 9. The Visual Experience of the Details Claire Brunet 10. The Patience of Detail Frédérique Ildefonse 11. Tearing the Detail from the Totality: Adorno’s Micrological Gaze Estelle Ferrarese 12. Following the Clues: Detailing as Anthropological Method Perig Pitrou
Andrew Brandel is an associate instructional professor of the social sciences at the University of Chicago. Veena Das is a professor emerita of anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University. Sandra Laugier is a professor of philosophy at Universite Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne. Perig Pitrou is a CNRS senior researcher at the Maison Francaise d’Oxford.
