Download or read book Spirits and Letters written by Thomas G. Kirsch and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of religion have a tendency to conceptualise 'the Spirit' and 'the Letter' as mutually exclusive and intrinsically antagonistic. However, the history of religions abounds in cases where charismatic leaders deliberately refer to and make use of writings. This book challenges prevailing scholarly notions of the relationship between 'charisma' and 'institution' by analysing reading and writing practices in contemporary Christianity. Taking up the continuing anthropological interest in Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity, and representing the first book-length treatment of literacy practices among African Christians, this volume explores how church leaders in Zambia refer to the Bible and other religious literature, and how they organise a church bureaucracy in the Pentecostal-charismatic mode. Thus, by examining social processes and conflicts that revolve around the conjunction of Pentecostal-charismatic and literacy practices in Africa, Spirits and Letters reconsiders influential conceptual dichotomies in the social sciences and the humanities and is therefore of interest not only to anthropologists but also to scholars working in the fields of African studies, religious studies, and the sociology of religion.

Download or read book Beckett in Black and Red written by Alan Warren Friedman and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1934, Nancy Cunard published Negro: An Anthology, which brought together more than two hundred contributions, serving as a plea for racial justice, an exposé of black oppression, and a hymn to black achievement and endurance. The anthology stands as a virtual ethnography of 1930s racial, historic, artistic, political, and economic culture. Samuel Beckett, a close friend of the flamboyant and unconventional Cunard, translated nineteen of the contributions for Negro, constituting Beckett's largest single prose publication. Beckett traditionally has been viewed as an apolitical postmodernist rather than as a willing and major participant in Negro's racial, political, and aesthetic agenda. In Beckett in Black and Red, Friedman reevaluates Beckett's contribution to the project, reconciling the humanism of his life and work and valuing him as a man deeply engaged with the greatest public issues of his time. Cunard believed racial justice and equality could be achieved only through Communism, and thus "black" and "red" were inextricably linked in her vision. Beckett's contribution to Negro demonstrates his support for Cunard's interest in surrealism as well as her political causes, including international republicanism and anti-fascism. Only in recent years have Cunard's ideas begun to receive serious consideration. Beckett in Black and Red radically revalues Cunard and reconceives Beckett. His work in Negro shows a commitment to cultural and individual equality and worth that Beckett consistently demonstrated throughout his life, both in personal relationships and in his writing.

Download or read book A New Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages in Two Parts written by Thomas Nugent and published by . This book was released on 1770 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo written by Gwen Kirkpatrick and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.

Download or read book Anthropology Of China The China As Ethnographic And Theoretical Critique written by Stephan Feuchtwang and published by World Scientific Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-07-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting China into the context of general anthropology offers novel insights into its history, culture and society. Studies in the anthropology of China need to look outwards, to other anthropological areas, while at the same time, anthropologists specialised elsewhere cannot afford to ignore contributions from China. This book introduces a number of key themes and in each case describes how the anthropology and ethnography of China relates to the surrounding theories and issues. The themes chosen include the anthropology of intimacy, of morality, of food and of feasting, as well as the anthropology of civilisation, modernity and the state.The Anthropology of China covers both long historical perspectives and ethnographies of the twenty-first century. For the first time, ethnographic perspectives on China are contextualised in comparison with general anthropological debates. Readers are invited to engage in and rethink China's place within the wider world, making it perfect for professional researchers and teachers of anthropology and Chinese history and society, and for advanced undergraduate and graduate study.

Download or read book Crime Justice and Culture in Black Africa written by Yves Brillon and published by [Montréal] : Centre international de criminologie comparée. This book was released on 1985 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kongo Political Culture written by Wyatt MacGaffey and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000-03-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lutete devoted much of his attention to aspects of Kongo ritual and religious belief, including minkisi and the rituals for the installation of chiefs. The original text of what he had to say about chiefship is printed, with translation notes. The work of other informants is also used."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Magic and Modernity written by Birgit Meyer and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to explore comparatively how magic—usually portrayed as the antithesis of the modern—is also at home in modernity.

Download or read book The Modern Sovereign written by Joseph Tonda and published by Africa List. This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Modern Sovereign," a notion indebted both to Hobbes's Leviathan and Marx's conception of capital, refers to the power that governed the African multitudes from the earliest colonial days to the post-colonial era. It is an internalized power, responsible for the multiform violence exerted on bodies and imaginations. Joseph Tonda contends that in Central Africa--and particularly in Gabon and the Congo--the body is at the heart of political, religious, sexual, economic, and ritual power. This, he argues, is confirmed by the strong link between corporeal and political matters, and by the ostentatious display of bodies in African life. The body of power asserts itself as both matter and spirit, and it incorporates the seductive force of money, commodities, sex, and knowledge. Tonda's incisive analysis reveals how this sovereign power is a social relation, historically constituted by the violence of the African cultural Imaginary and the realities of State, Market, and Church. It is to be understood, he asserts, through a generalized theory economic, political, and religious fetishism. By introducing this crucial critical voice from contemporary Africa into the English language, The Modern Sovereign makes a significant contribution to field of anthropology, political science, and African studies.

Download or read book Paths in the Rainforests written by Jan M. Vansina and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 1990-10-22 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vansina’s scope is breathtaking: he reconstructs the history of the forest lands that cover all or part of southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Congo, Zaire, the Central African Republic, and Cabinda in Angola, discussing the original settlement of the forest by the western Bantu; the periods of expansion and innovation in agriculture; the development of metallurgy; the rise and fall of political forms and of power; the coming of Atlantic trade and colonialism; and the conquest of the rainforests by colonial powers and the destruction of a way of life. “In 400 elegantly brilliant pages Vansina lays out five millennia of history for nearly 200 distinguishable regions of the forest of equatorial Africa around a new, subtly paradoxical interpretation of ‘tradition.’” —Joseph Miller, University of Virginia “Vansina gives extended coverage . . . to the broad features of culture and the major lines of historical development across the region between 3000 B.C. and A.D. 1000. It is truly an outstanding effort, readable, subtle, and integrative in its interpretations, and comprehensive in scope. . . . It is a seminal study . . . but it is also a substantive history that will long retain its usefulness.”—Christopher Ehret, American Historical Review

Download or read book Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction written by John L. Comaroff and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Max Gluckman memorial lecture, 1998.

Download or read book Speaking with Vampires written by Luise White and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so their blood drained into huge buckets. In Kampala, the police were said to abduct Africans and keep them in pits, where their blood was sucked. Luise White presents and interprets vampire stories from East and Central Africa as a way of understanding the world as the storytellers did. Using gossip and rumor as historical sources in their own right, she assesses the place of such evidence, oral and written, in historical reconstruction. White conducted more than 130 interviews for this book and did research in Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. In addition to presenting powerful, vivid stories that Africans told to describe colonial power, the book presents an original epistemological inquiry into the nature of historical truth and memory, and into their relationship to the writing of history.

Download or read book Death and the Invisible Powers written by Simon Bockie and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[Bockie's] description of Kongo culture is vivid, beautifullyclear, and absolutely authentic, as only a native could make it.... I don't know ofanything of its kind that is both as good, ethnographically, and asreadable." -- Wyatt MacGaffey "Simon Bockie haswritten an engaging, often personal account of the views and behaviors surroundingdeath in his own society, the Kongo of Lower Zaire, northern Angola, and theCongo." -- Cahiers d'Etudes africaines ..". excellentbook of Kongo religious life and thought... " --Religion "It is a book that is remarkably well written, bothfor its readability and for its explanatory value.... the book is a superb startingplace for understanding Kongo religion, and will work as an introduction to Africanreligion in general as well." -- International Journal of African HistoricalStudies ..". an excellent introduction for anyone seeking tounderstand Kongo traditional culture and thought." --Oshun Rich in anecdote and case histories, Death and the InvisiblePowers is a personal account of the spiritual life of the Kongo people. It describesthe ancient traditions that nourish a culture whose name symbolizes the heart ofCentral Africa.

Download or read book Modernity and Its Malcontents written by Jean Comaroff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-11 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? Some of the essays in Modernity and Its Malcontents address familiar anthropological issues—like witchcraft, myth, and the politics of reproduction—but treat them in fresh ways, situating them amidst the polyphonies of contemporary Africa. Others explore distinctly nontraditional subjects—among them the Nigerian popular press and soul-eating in Niger—in such a way as to confront the conceptual limits of Western social science. Together they demonstrate how ritual may be powerfuly mobilized in the making of history, present, and future. Addressing challenges posed by contemporary African realities, the authors subject such concepts as modernity, ritual, power, and history to renewed critical scrutiny. Writing about a variety of phenomena, they are united by a wish to preserve the diversity and historical specificity of local signs and practices, voices and perspectives. Their work makes a substantial and original contribution toward the historical anthropology of Africa. The contributors, all from the Africanist circle at the University of Chicago, are Adeline Masquelier, Deborah Kaspin, J. Lorand Matory, Ralph A. Austen, Andrew Apter, Misty L. Bastian, Mark Auslander, and Pamela G. Schmoll.

Download or read book Epistolary Histories written by Amanda Gilroy and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative collection of essays participates in the ongoing debate about the epistolary form, challenging readers to rethink the traditional association between the letter and the private sphere. It also pushes the boundaries of that debate by having the contributors respond to each other within the volume, thus creating a critical community between covers that replicates the dialogic nature of epistolarity itself, with all its dissonances and differences as well as its connections. Focusing mainly on Anglo-American texts from the seventeenth century to the present day, these nine essays and their "postscripts" engage the relationship between epistolary texts and discourses of gender, class, politics, and commodification. Ranging from epistolary histories of Mary Queen of Scots to Turkish travelogues, from the making of the modern middle class and the correspondence of Melville and Hawthorne to new epistolary innovators such as Kathy Acker and Orlan, the contributions are divided into three parts: part 1 addresses the "feminocentric" focus of the letter; part 2, the boundaries between the fictional and the real; and part 3 the ways in which the epistolary genre may help us think more clearly about questions of critical address and discourse that have preoccupied theorists in recent years. In sum, Epistolary Histories is a defining contribution to epistolary studies. Contributors: Nancy Armstrong, Brown University Anne L. Bower, Ohio State University, Marion Clare Brant, King's College, London Amanda Gilroy, University of Groningen Richard Hardack, Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges Linda S. Kauffman, University of Maryland, College Park Donna Landry, Wayne State University Gerald MacLean, Wayne State University Martha Nell Smith, University of Maryland, College Park W. M. Verhoeven, University of Groningen

Download or read book Theories of Africans written by Christopher L. Miller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Situating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ". . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis."—Y. Mudimbe

Download or read book Tristes Tropiques written by Claude Levi-Strauss and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A magical masterpiece."—Robert Ardrey. A chronicle of the author's search for a civilization "reduced to its most basic expression."