Summary: | "This book focuses on how gossip contributes to knowledge. Karen Adkins utilizes scholarship and case studies that span centuries and disciplines to show that gossip is a constant in human activity, but is rarely studied as a source of knowledge. People gossip for many reasons, but most often out of desire to make sense of the world while lacking access to better options for obtaining knowledge. This volume explores how, when our access to knowledge is blocked, gossip becomes a viable path by which questions can be asked, ideas and people can be challenged, and theories can be offered."--Back cover.
|