Verging on Extra-Vagance

Verging on Extra-Vagance PDF Author: James A. Boon
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069123115X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
In this book, James Boon ranges through history and around the globe in a series of provocative reflections on the limitations, attractions, and ambiguities of cultural interpretation. The book reflects the unusual keyword of its title, extra-vagance, a term Thoreau used to refer to thought that skirts traditional boundaries. Boon follows Thoreau's lead by broaching subjects as diverse as Balinese ritual, Montaigne, Chaucer, Tarzan, Perry Mason, opera, and the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Ruth Benedict, Kenneth Burke, and Mary Douglas. He makes creative and often playful leaps among eclectic texts and rituals that do not hold single, fixed meanings, but numerous, changing, and exceedingly specific ones. Boon opens by exploring links between ritual and reading, focusing on commentaries about the seclusion of menstruating women in Native American culture, trance dances in Bali, and circumcision (or lack of it) in contrasting religions. He considers the ironies of "first-person ethnography" by telling stories from his own fieldwork, reflecting on ethnological museums, and making seriocomic connections between Mark Twain and Marcel Mauss. In expansive discussions that touch on Manhattan and Sri Lanka, the Louvre and the "World of Coca-Cola" museum, willfully obscure academic theory and shamelessly commercial show business, Boon underlines the inadequacies of simple ideologies and pat generalizations. The book is a profound and eloquent exploration of cultural comparison by one of America's most original and innovative anthropologists.

Verging on Extra-Vagance

Verging on Extra-Vagance PDF Author: James A. Boon
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069123115X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book, James Boon ranges through history and around the globe in a series of provocative reflections on the limitations, attractions, and ambiguities of cultural interpretation. The book reflects the unusual keyword of its title, extra-vagance, a term Thoreau used to refer to thought that skirts traditional boundaries. Boon follows Thoreau's lead by broaching subjects as diverse as Balinese ritual, Montaigne, Chaucer, Tarzan, Perry Mason, opera, and the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Ruth Benedict, Kenneth Burke, and Mary Douglas. He makes creative and often playful leaps among eclectic texts and rituals that do not hold single, fixed meanings, but numerous, changing, and exceedingly specific ones. Boon opens by exploring links between ritual and reading, focusing on commentaries about the seclusion of menstruating women in Native American culture, trance dances in Bali, and circumcision (or lack of it) in contrasting religions. He considers the ironies of "first-person ethnography" by telling stories from his own fieldwork, reflecting on ethnological museums, and making seriocomic connections between Mark Twain and Marcel Mauss. In expansive discussions that touch on Manhattan and Sri Lanka, the Louvre and the "World of Coca-Cola" museum, willfully obscure academic theory and shamelessly commercial show business, Boon underlines the inadequacies of simple ideologies and pat generalizations. The book is a profound and eloquent exploration of cultural comparison by one of America's most original and innovative anthropologists.

The Survey

The Survey PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Charities
Languages : en
Pages : 1178

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Greater Britain

Greater Britain PDF Author: Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : Lippincott
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 752

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The Social Science Encyclopedia

The Social Science Encyclopedia PDF Author: Adam Kuper
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134359691
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 2435

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Book Description
The Social Science Encyclopedia, first published in 1985 to acclaim from social scientists, librarians and students, was thoroughly revised in 1996, when reviewers began to describe it as a classic. This third edition has been radically recast. Over half the entries are new or have been entirely rewritten, and most of the balance have been substantially revised. Written by an international team of contributors, the Encyclopedia offers a global perspective on key issues within the social sciences. Some 500 entries cover a variety of enduring and newly vital areas of study and research methods. Experts review theoretical debates from neo-evolutionism and rational choice theory to poststructuralism, and address the great questions that cut across the social sciences. What is the influence of genes on behaviour? What is the nature of consciousness and cognition? What are the causes of poverty and wealth? What are the roots of conflict, wars, revolutions and genocidal violence? This authoritative reference work is aimed at anyone with a serious interest in contemporary academic thinking about the individual in society.

Greater Britain: a Record of Travel in English-speaking Countries During 1866 and 1867

Greater Britain: a Record of Travel in English-speaking Countries During 1866 and 1867 PDF Author: Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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... Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia

... Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia PDF Author: Herbert Baxter Adams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Universities and colleges
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Danton, George Jacques-Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Danton, George Jacques-Emerson, Ralph Waldo PDF Author: David Josiah Brewer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Speeches, addresses, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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The World's Best Orations

The World's Best Orations PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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A Brief History of Old English Porcelain and Its Manufactories

A Brief History of Old English Porcelain and Its Manufactories PDF Author: Louis Marc Solon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Porcelain
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School PDF Author: Alois Brandl
Publisher: Ardent Media
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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