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Public faces, private voices: community and individuality in South India
No full textIndividuality is often viewed as an exclusively Western value. In non-Western societies, collective identities seem to eclipse those of individuals. These generalities, however, have overlooked the importance of personal uniqueness, volition, and achievement in these cultures. As an anthropologist in Tamil Nadu, South India, Mattison Mines found private and public expressions of self in all sectors of society. Based on his twenty-five years of field research, Public Faces, Private Voices weaves together personal life stories, historical description, and theoretical analysis to define individuality in South Asia and to distinguish it from its Western counterpart.This engaging and controversial book will be of great interest to scholars and students working in anthropology, psychology, sociology, South Asian history, urban studies, and political science
Voyage of rediscovery: a cultural odyssey through Polynesia
No full textIn the summer of 1985, a mostly Hawaiian crew set out aboard Hokule'a, a reconstructed ancient double canoe, to demonstrate what skeptics had steadfastly denied: that their ancestors, sailing in such canoes and navigating solely by reading stars, ocean swells, and other natural signs, could intentionally have sailed across the Pacific, exploring the vast oceanic realm of Polynesia and discovering and settling all its inhabitable islands. Their round-trip odyssey from Hawai'i to Aotearoa (New Zealand), across 12,000 nautical miles, dramatically refuted all theories declaring that - because of their unseaworthy canoes and inaccurate navigational methods - the ancient Polynesians could only have been pushed accidentally to their islands by the vagaries of wind and current. Voyage of Rediscovery is a vivid, immensely readable account of this remarkable journey through the Pacific, including tales of a curiosity attack by sperm whales and the crew's welcome to Aotearoa by Maori tribesmen, who dubbed them their sixth tribe. It describes how Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson guided the canoe over thousands of miles of open ocean without compass, sextant, charts, or any other navigational aids. In so doing, it documents the experimental voyaging approach, developed by Ben Finney, which has both transformed our ideas about Polynesian migration and voyaging and been embraced by present-day Polynesians as a way to experience and celebrate their rich ancestral heritage as premier seafarers.By sailing in the wake of their ancestors, the Hawaiians and other Polynesians who captained, navigated, and crewed Hokule'a made the journey described here a cultural as well as a scientific odyssey of exploration
Cecil B. DeMille and American culture: the silent era
No full textCecil B. DeMille and American Culture demonstrates that the director, best remembered for his overblown biblical epics, was one of the most remarkable film pioneers of the Progressive Era. In this innovative work, which integrates cultural history and cultural studies, Sumiko Higashi shows how DeMille artfully inserted cinema into genteel middle-class culture by replicating in his films such spectacles as elaborate parlor games, stage melodramas, department store displays, Orientalist world's fairs, and civic pageantry. The director not only established his signature as a film author by articulating middle-class ideology across class and ethnic lines, but by the 1920's had become a trendsetter, with set and costume designs that influenced the advertising industry to create a consumer culture based on female desire. Drawing on a wealth of previously untapped material from the DeMille Archives and other collections, Higashi provides imaginative readings of DeMille's early feature films, viewing them in relation to the dynamics of social change, and she documents the extent to which the emergence of popular culture was linked to the genteel tradition
Religious nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India
No full textReligious nationalism is a subject of critical importance in much of the world today. Peter van der Veer's timely study on the relationship between religion and politics in India goes well beyond other books on this subject. He brings together several disciplines - anthropology, history, social theory, literary studies - to show how Indian religious identities have been shaped by pilgrimage, migration, language development, and more recently, print and visual media.Van der Veer's central focus is the lengthy dispute over the Babari mosque in Ayodhya, site of a bloody confrontation between Hindus and Muslims in December 1992. A thought-provoking range of other examples describes the historical construction of religious identities: cow protection societies and Sufi tombs, purdah and the political appropriation of images of the female body, Salman Rushdie and the role of the novel in nationalism, Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda, the Khalsa movement among Sikhs, and nationalist archaeology and the televised Ramayana .Van der Veer offers a new perspective on the importance of religious organization and the role of ritual in the formation of nationalism. His work advances our understanding of contemporary India while also offering significant theoretical insights into one of the most troubling issues of this century
The tragedy of Mariam, the fair queen of Jewry
No full textThe Tragedy of Mariam (1613) is the first original play by a woman to be published in England, and its author is the first English woman writer to be memorialized in a biography, which is included with this edition of the play. Mariam is a distinctive example of Renaissance drama that serves the desire of today's readers and scholars to know not merely how women were represented in the early modern period but also how they themselves perceived their own condition.With this textually emended and fully annotated edition, the play will now be accessible to all readers. The accompanying biography of Cary further enriches our knowledge of both domestic and religious conflicts in the seventeenth century
Politician's dilemma: building state capacity in Latin America
No full textIn Latin America as elsewhere, politicians routinely face a painful dilemma: whether to use state resources for national purposes, especially those that foster economic development, or to channel resources to people and projects that will help insure political survival and reelection. While politicians may believe that a competent state bureaucracy is intrinsic to the national good, political realities invariably tempt leaders to reward powerful clients and constituents, undermining long-term competence. Politician's Dilemma explores the ways in which political actors deal with these contradictory pressures and asks the question: when will leaders support reforms that increase state capacity and that establish a more meritocratic and technically competent bureaucracy?Barbara Geddes brings rational choice theory to her study of Brazil between 1930 and 1964 and shows how state agencies are made more effective when they are protected from partisan pressures and operate through merit-based recruitment and promotion strategies. Looking at administrative reform movements in other Latin American democracies, she traces the incentives offered politicians to either help or hinder the process.In its balanced insight, wealth of detail, and analytical rigor, Politician's Dilemma provides a powerful key to understanding the conflicts inherent in Latin American politics, and to unlocking possibilities for real political change
Images and ideologies: self-definition in the Hellenistic world
No full textThis volume captures the individuality, the national and personal identity, the cultural exchange, and the self-consciousness that have long been sensed as peculiarly potent in the Hellenistic world. The fields of history, literature, art, philosophy, and religion are each presented using the format of two essays followed by a response.Conveying the direction and focus of Hellenistic learning, eighteen leading scholars discuss issues of liberty versus domination, appropriation versus accommodation, the increasing diversity of citizen roles and the dress and gesture appropriate to them, and the accompanying religious and philosophical ferment. The result is an arresting view of the incredible and unprecedented diversity of the Hellenistic world
The New World of the gothic fox: culture and economy in English and Spanish America
No full textClaudio Véliz adopts the provocative metaphor of foxes and hedgehogs that Isaiah Berlin used to describe opposite types of thinkers. Applying this metaphor to modern culture, economic systems, and the history of the New World, Véliz provides an original and lively approach to understanding the development of English and Spanish America over the past 500 years.According to Véliz, the dominant cultural achievements of Europe's English- and Spanish-speaking peoples have been the Industrial Revolution and the Counter-Reformation, respectively. These overwhelming cultural constructions have strongly influenced the subsequent historical developments of their great cultural outposts in North and South America. The British brought to the New World a stubborn ability to thrive on diversity and change that was entirely consistent with their vernacular Gothic style. The Iberians, by contrast, brought a cultural tradition shaped like a vast baroque dome, a monument to their successful attempt to arrest the changes that threatened their imperial moment.Véliz writes with erudition and wit, using a multitude of sources - historians and classical sociologists, Greek philosophers, today's newspaper sports pages, and modern literature - to support a novel explanation of the prosperity and expanding cultural influence of the gothic fox and the economic and cultural decline endured by the baroque hedgehog
African-American Christianity: essays in history
No full textEight leading scholars have joined forces to give us the most comprehensive book to date on the history of African-American religion from the slavery period to the present.Beginning with Albert Raboteau's essay on the importance of the story of Exodus among African-American Christians and concluding with Clayborne Carson's work on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s religious development, this volume illuminates the fusion of African and Christian traditions that has so uniquely contributed to American religious development. Several common themes emerge: the critical importance of African roots, the traumatic discontinuities of slavery, the struggle for freedom within slavery and the subsequent experience of discrimination, and the remarkable creativity of African-American religious faith and practice. Together, these essays enrich our understanding of both African-American life and its part in the history of religion in America
Darkness moves: an Henri Michaux anthology, 1927-1984
No full textHenri Michaux defies common critical definition. Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux "genius," and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux's work "is without equal in the literature of our time." This anthology contains substantial selections from almost all of Michaux's major works, most never before published in English, and allows readers to explore the haunting verbal and pictorial landscape of a twentieth-century visionary