This is a book that will certainly prompt many readers to stop, think and reconsider their own disciplines from different perspectives. It should appeal to readers from all academic specialisms, from culture studies and sociology to language and linguistics, and indeed the arts and humanities and the social sciences much more broadly. . . .The book prises words out of their comfortable and familiar linguistic environments and embeds them instead in a series of contexts which illustrate the range of ways in which we engage with them.

Forum For Modern Language Studies

This is a fascinating study of human existence as both embodied and as having a being in language. Written with generosity but not shying away from serious controversy on the relation between word, gesture and writing, Word: Beyond Language, Beyond Image, shows a deep understanding of what Wittgenstein called the physiognomy of words. This is a book of impeccable scholarship and grace.”

- Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University,