What is at stake when writing about the lives of others? What political, ethical, and epistemological issues arise when representing distinct human experience? These questions shook the very foundation of anthropology, beginning in the 1980s, by scrutinizing its core methodology and form—the ethnography. Since then, anthropologists have continued to wrestle with these questions by experimenting with ethnography as a craft of research, a genre of writing, and a political force. This course examines this experimentation in ethnography by exploring a diverse set of recent, cutting-edge works. Our journey will take us from the forests of northern Paraguay where some of the last isolated indigenous bands flee encroaching bulldozers; to the high-powered offices of Wall Street bankers whose workplace culture both produces and legitimates economic crisis; and finally to a rehab clinic in northern New Mexico where heroin addicts grapple with an enduring history of material and cultural dispossession. Through our readings and discussions, we will consider both the formal properties of the texts as well as how their theoretical arguments contribute to current debates in anthropology. The overarching goal of the course is to develop a solid grasp of new trends in ethnographic research and an appreciation for the diverse ways ethnographers have produced innovative analytical works.