In Invisible Contrarian Regna Darnell and Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz have assembled scholars to memorialize and celebrate the prescient vision and interdisciplinary contributions of the late Stephen O. Murray (1950–2019), who did pioneering research in ethnolinguistics and anthropology of gender and homosexuality. His socially relevant work continues to provide a cogent example of an emergent, forward-looking anthropology for the twenty-first century.
Murray’s wide-ranging work included linguistics, regional ethnography in Latin America and Asia, activism, history of anthropology in relation to social sciences, and migration studies.

Along with a complete list of his publications, Invisible Contrarian highlights Murray’s methodological innovations and includes key writings that remain little known, since he never pursued a tenured research position.  Murray’s significant, prolific contributions deserve not only to be reexamined but to be shared with contemporary and future audiences. Ideal both as a primer for those who have not yet read Murray’s work and as an in-depth resource for those already familiar with him, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging accomplishments of a man who modeled how to be an independent scholar outside an academic position.

Regna Darnell is Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology Emerita at the University of Western Ontario. She is coeditor of The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 1: Franz Boas as Public Intellectual—Theory, Ethnography, Activism (Nebraska, 2015). Darnell is the general editor of the multivolume series The Franz Boas Papers: Documentary Edition and co-editor of the Critical Studies in History of Anthropology series. 

Regna Darnell's profile page

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz's profile page

“Stephen Murray emerges from these pages as a committed scholar, brilliant, incisive, tenacious, courageous, and—occasionally—grumpy and contentious. Invisible Contrarian demonstrates that signal contributions to the discipline can be made amid other work as more and more anthropologists are developing careers outside the academy.”—Andrea Laforet, coeditor of The Franz Boas Papers, Volume 2

“No other book assembles both papers by Stephen Murray and comments on his work. This is a treasure trove for any scholar working on Murray or wanting to know more about his work in either anthropology or queer studies. Invisible Contrarian will be the definitive Murray reference.”—Yves Winkin, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of anthropology and communication studies at the University of Liège