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Webb Keane

Webb Keane is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, known for pioneering work on semiotics, religion, and the anthropology of ethics. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in Indonesia, his books trace how language, material things, and moral life shape one another — from ritual speech and Calvinist missions to the ethical questions raised by animals and artificial intelligence.

sites.lsa.umich.edu/webbkeane/ →

Bibliography

4 books
Cover of Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination

Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination

2025

Keane asks where the edge of the human lies, tracing ethical entanglements with hunted animals, sacrificial cattle, care robots, AI chatbots, and gods. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork across the world, he shows that moral life has never been confined to humans.

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Cover of Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories

Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories

2016

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Cover of Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter

Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter

2007

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Cover of Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society

Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society

1997

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