Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion

Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion PDF Author: Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042917545
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
In the terms of Durheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Although they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can obviously be examined for the norms, values and presuppositions of the cultures in which they take place. Thus conversion can help us to shed light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conversion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defining a new - religious - identity. From 21-24 May 2003, the University of Groningen hosted an international conference on 'Cultures of Conversion'. The contributions have been edited in two volumes, which pay special attention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetorical tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to religious or political conventions and idealizations. The present volume contains theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion, with special attention to the rational choice theory, and on the history of research into conversion. It also offers stimulating case studies, ranging from the late Middle Ages to present times and taken from Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. The other volume, Cultures of Conversion, offers in-depth studies of conversion that are mainly taken from the history of India, Islam and Judaism, ranging from the Byzantine period to the new Muslimas of the West.

Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion

Paradigms, Poetics, and Politics of Conversion PDF Author: Jan N. Bremmer
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042917545
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the terms of Durheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Although they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can obviously be examined for the norms, values and presuppositions of the cultures in which they take place. Thus conversion can help us to shed light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conversion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defining a new - religious - identity. From 21-24 May 2003, the University of Groningen hosted an international conference on 'Cultures of Conversion'. The contributions have been edited in two volumes, which pay special attention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetorical tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to religious or political conventions and idealizations. The present volume contains theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion, with special attention to the rational choice theory, and on the history of research into conversion. It also offers stimulating case studies, ranging from the late Middle Ages to present times and taken from Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. The other volume, Cultures of Conversion, offers in-depth studies of conversion that are mainly taken from the history of India, Islam and Judaism, ranging from the Byzantine period to the new Muslimas of the West.

Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology

Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology PDF Author: Bruce M. Knauft
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136661271
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
In the wake of tensions between modern and postmodern sensibilities, what larger directions now emerge in cultural anthropology? In this major work, Bruce Knauft takes stock of important recent initiatives in cultural and critical theory. By combining critical reviews and ethnographic engagements with fresh readings of major figures and approaches, the work develops a larger vantage point for considering the dispersing influence of practice theories, postmodernism, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, modern/post-positive feminism, and multicultural criticisms.

Watunna

Watunna PDF Author: Marc de Civrieux
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292715899
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Originally published in Spanish in 1970, Watunna is the epic history and creation stories of the Makiritare, or Yekuana, people living along the northern bank of the Upper Orinoco River of Venezuela, a region of mountains and virgin forest virtually unexplored even to the present. The first English edition of this book was published in 1980 to rave reviews. This edition contains a new foreword by David Guss, as well as Mediata, a detailed myth that recounts the origins of shamanism.

From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology

From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology PDF Author: Bruce M. Knauft
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472066872
Category : Ethnology
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
A prominent scholar surveys the special place of Melanesia in our understanding of human cultural variation

Shamanism, History, and the State

Shamanism, History, and the State PDF Author: Nicholas Thomas
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472084012
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Nine case studies of shamanic practice in widely different cultures

Intellectual Journey

Intellectual Journey PDF Author: John V. Apczynski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780536014054
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description


The Land-without-Evil

The Land-without-Evil PDF Author: Hélène Clastres
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252063510
Category : Chiefdoms
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description


Fr Cary-Elwes S.J. and the Alleluia Indians

Fr Cary-Elwes S.J. and the Alleluia Indians PDF Author: Audrey Butt Colson
Publisher: Amerindian Research Unit University of Guyana
ISBN: 9789766240103
Category : Acawai Indians
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description


Sexing the World

Sexing the World PDF Author: Anthony Corbeill
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691163227
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
From the moment a child in ancient Rome began to speak Latin, the surrounding world became populated with objects possessing grammatical gender—masculine eyes (oculi), feminine trees (arbores), neuter bodies (corpora). Sexing the World surveys the many ways in which grammatical gender enabled Latin speakers to organize aspects of their society into sexual categories, and how this identification of grammatical gender with biological sex affected Roman perceptions of Latin poetry, divine power, and the human hermaphrodite. Beginning with the ancient grammarians, Anthony Corbeill examines how these scholars used the gender of nouns to identify the sex of the object being signified, regardless of whether that object was animate or inanimate. This informed the Roman poets who, for a time, changed at whim the grammatical gender for words as seemingly lifeless as "dust" (pulvis) or "tree bark" (cortex). Corbeill then applies the idea of fluid grammatical gender to the basic tenets of Roman religion and state politics. He looks at how the ancients tended to construct Rome's earliest divinities as related male and female pairs, a tendency that waned in later periods. An analogous change characterized the dual-sexed hermaphrodite, whose sacred and political significance declined as the republican government became an autocracy. Throughout, Corbeill shows that the fluid boundaries of sex and gender became increasingly fixed into opposing and exclusive categories. Sexing the World contributes to our understanding of the power of language to shape human perception.

Keepers of the Sacred Chants

Keepers of the Sacred Chants PDF Author: Jonathan David Hill
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816511358
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The Wakuenai of the upper Rio Negro region in southern Venezuela a form of singing called malikai for ceremonies of childbirth, initiation, and healing. This ritual chanting, a rich amalgam of myth and music, serves as a means of integrating individuals into a vertical hierarchy of powers relations between mythic ancestors and human descendants. In Keepers of the Sacred Chants, Jonathan Hill shows how the musical and semantic transformations of everyday discourse in malikai integrate the everyday world into a poetic process of empowerment. He interprets malikai through mythic narratives that explain the cosmos as an ongoing process of musically naming-into-being the species, objects, and activities that define individual humanness and society, and he further shows how semantic and musical meanings are joined to construct each chant and how these chants are manipulated in different contexts. Hill explains how the musical elements of malikai contribute to the success of performance, comparing different genres for which different musical criteria are appropriate. He considers the integration of speech and song through a close analysis of such elements as microtonal pitch rise, rhythm, and timbre, showing how these features are linked to poetic speech and imbued with social power. Hill's penetrating study of malikai is made within the context of Wakuenai history and cosmology and considers influences resulting from contact with the outside world. Because Northern Arawakan-speaking peoples have received less attention than others of the region, his book thus makes a significant contribution to Amazonian ethnography. It is the author's focus on malikai, however, that commends keepers of theSacred Chants to all interested in the multitextured uses of song and story by peoples of the world.