Arcand et Bouchard: Two anthropologists in the 'Lieux Communs'

Anthropologists, Bernard Arcand and Serge Bouchard use two old scientific i nstruments, close reading and writing, in their analysis of the contemporar y, post-modernist, North-American civilization. They published five collect ions of 'Lieux communs'--more than cliches: ideological patterns, social au tomatisms--that are satiric descriptions of sports, TV, domestic games, tec hnologies, advertising and merchandising. Who are their ancestors, their re latives? Sceptic philosophers, classic French moralists, surrealists, struc turalists, deconstructionists? On the inner links between things and words, these new anthropologists have some theoretical and literary questions.