Social and cultural anthropology Books

Book SynopsisThe most controversial foundational issue today in both legal philosophy and constitutional law is the relationship between objective moral norms and the positive law. Is it possible for the state to be morally “neutral” about such matters as marriage, the family, religion, religious liberty, and – as the Supreme Court once famously phrased it – “the meaning of life”? If such neutrality is possible, is it desirable? In this volume of essays one of our country’s leading constitutional lawyers answers “no” to both questions. In the first three chapters, Gerard Bradley investigates the central moral justification of punishment, the morality of plea bargaining, and how the criminal justice system should treat the family. These essays reflect both Bradley’s decades as a teacher of criminal law as well as his earlier experience as a trial prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The second triptych of papers has to do with the raging controversy over same-sex “marriage,” and the broader movement toward a socially sanctioned orthodoxy about sexual orientation of which the “marriage” movement is one part. These papers reflect the author’s years of philosophical work on the marriage question, as well as his more practical experience as a popular debater and expert witness. Finally, Bradley takes up the questions of religious liberty and how our democratic polity should treat religion. These chapters cover the original meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the role of Catholicism in the post-World War II controversies over movie censorship as they played out in the Supreme Court, and emerging challenges to religious liberty in the 21st century.

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Book SynopsisMaintains that poverty has become, to the peril of us all, an ordinary part of lifeTrade Review"This is a book written by a frustrated and angry man [who] spent nearly 20 years working as a volunteer in the Bread and Life soup kitchen.[it] is an attempt to make sense of that experience .. DiFazio does not have all the answers. But he asks the right questions and puts poverty and hardship back at the centre of discussion. He challenges us to face up to our responsibility to act. Inequality and low wages are key issues which have been ignored for too long-in Britain as in America." The Tribune "DiFazio has made a clear critique of current poverty theories, policies, and responses...this is a provocative and illuminating synthesis that urges students, scholars, researchers, advocates, activists, and policymakers to think and act outside our current poverty definitions, theories, and policies, the structure of our advocacy and helping organizations, and the overall national and global economy in which these are set." Contemporary Sociology "The book presents a cogent analysis of poverty gleaned in part from the author's work at St. John's Bread and Life soup kitchen in Brooklyn. His interviews, observations, and social analysis powerfully rebut those social theorists and politicians who argue that people are poor out of cultural or personal inferiority." - Socialism and Democracy "Ordinary Poverty is an astute book that stands out from most of the work that is published on poverty and anti-poverty activism. It is far better theoretically informed than most of that work and its dual emphasis...provides the likely demands for a rejuvenated anti-poverty movement headed by the poor." Labour/Le Travail "DiFazio offers an outraged exegesis of the exacerbation of poverty amid an economic boom that has increased the wealth of only the richest...His ethnographic contribution is strongest in his description of the travails of long-term social service provision in the late 1980s and into the 1990s." The American Journal of Sociology "This estimable book is at once an ethnographic account of the author's experiences from 1988 to 2001 as a volunteer field worker for the St. John's Bread and Life soup kitchen in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn... DiFazio's proposals for solving the problem of poverty in the United States are not new...but they acquire a fresh relevance... One of the strengths of this book is its vivid portraits of the people whose poverty has become 'ordinary' inasmuch as present-day capitalist America looks upon their existence as a normal part of the social fabric... Ordinary Poverty is an impassioned, politically engaged, intellectually challenging study of one of the central unresolved problems of American social and political life." Science & Society, April 2009

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Book SynopsisMaintains that poverty has become, to the peril of us all, an ordinary part of lifeTrade Review"This is a book written by a frustrated and angry man [who] spent nearly 20 years working as a volunteer in the Bread and Life soup kitchen.[it] is an attempt to make sense of that experience .. DiFazio does not have all the answers. But he asks the right questions and puts poverty and hardship back at the centre of discussion. He challenges us to face up to our responsibility to act. Inequality and low wages are key issues which have been ignored for too long-in Britain as in America." The Tribune "DiFazio has made a clear critique of current poverty theories, policies, and responses...this is a provocative and illuminating synthesis that urges students, scholars, researchers, advocates, activists, and policymakers to think and act outside our current poverty definitions, theories, and policies, the structure of our advocacy and helping organizations, and the overall national and global economy in which these are set." Contemporary Sociology "The book presents a cogent analysis of poverty gleaned in part from the author's work at St. John's Bread and Life soup kitchen in Brooklyn. His interviews, observations, and social analysis powerfully rebut those social theorists and politicians who argue that people are poor out of cultural or personal inferiority." - Socialism and Democracy "Ordinary Poverty is an astute book that stands out from most of the work that is published on poverty and anti-poverty activism. It is far better theoretically informed than most of that work and its dual emphasis...provides the likely demands for a rejuvenated anti-poverty movement headed by the poor." Labour/Le Travail "DiFazio offers an outraged exegesis of the exacerbation of poverty amid an economic boom that has increased the wealth of only the richest...His ethnographic contribution is strongest in his description of the travails of long-term social service provision in the late 1980s and into the 1990s." The American Journal of Sociology "This estimable book is at once an ethnographic account of the author's experiences from 1988 to 2001 as a volunteer field worker for the St. John's Bread and Life soup kitchen in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn... DiFazio's proposals for solving the problem of poverty in the United States are not new...but they acquire a fresh relevance... One of the strengths of this book is its vivid portraits of the people whose poverty has become 'ordinary' inasmuch as present-day capitalist America looks upon their existence as a normal part of the social fabric... Ordinary Poverty is an impassioned, politically engaged, intellectually challenging study of one of the central unresolved problems of American social and political life." Science & Society, April 2009

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Book SynopsisTalking about toilets--in all their material, social, symbolic and discursive complexityTrade Review"Thoughtful analysis of the place of toilets in modern culture and psyche has often been as hard to find as a decent public convenience in any major Western city. Ladies and Gents is a timely and educational addition to the unheralded and hitherto sorely neglected field of toilet studies."—Rose George, author of The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It MattersTable of ContentsForeword Acknowledgments Introduction: The Private Life of Public ConveniencesPotty Politics: Toilets, Gender, and Identity 1. The Role of the Public Toilet in Civic Life 2. Potty Privileging in Perspective: Gender and Family Issues in Toilet Design 3. Geographies of Danger: School Toilets in Sub-Saharan Africa 4. Gender, Respectability, and Public Convenience in Melbourne, Australia, 1859–1902 5. Bodily Privacy, Toilets, and Sex Discrimination: The Problem of “Manhood” in a Women’s Prison 6. Colonial Visions of “Third World” Toilets: A Nineteenth-Century Discourse That Haunts Contemporary Tourism 7. Avoidance: On Some Euphemisms for the “Smallest Room”Toilet Art: Design and Cultural Representations 8. Were Our Customs Really Beautiful? Designing Refugee Camp Toilets 9. (Re)Designing the “Unmentionable”: Female Toilets in the Twentieth Century 10. Marcel Duchamp’s Legacy: Aesthetics, Gender, and National Identity in the Toilet 11. Toilet Training: Sarah Lucas’s Toilets and the Transmogrification of the Body 12. Stalls between Walls: Segregated Sexed Spaces 13. “Our Little Secrets”: A Pakistani Artist Explores the Shame and Pride of Her Community’s Bathroom Practices 14. In the Men’s Room: Death and Derision in Cinematic Toilets 15. “White Tiles. Trickling Water. A Man!” Literary Representations of Cottaging in London 16. The Jew on the Loo: The Toilet in Jewish Popular Culture, Memory, and Imagination Afterword Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisAccording to Pauline Adema, you smell Gilroy, California, before you see it. In Garlic Capital of the World, the folklorist and culinary anthropologist examines the role of food and festivals in creating a place brand or marketable identity. The author scrutinizes how Gilroy, California, successfully transformed a negative association with the pungent bulb into a highly successful tourism and marketing campaign.This book explores how local initiatives led to an iconization of the humble product in Gilroy. The city, a well-established agricultural center and bedroom community south of San Francisco, rapidly built a place-brand identity based on its now-famous moniker, ""Garlic Capital of the World."" To understand Gilroy's success in transforming a local crop into a tourist draw, Adema contrasts the development of this now-thriving festival with events surrounding the launch and demise of the PigFest in Coppell, Texas. Indeed, the Garlic Festival is so successful that the event is all that many people know about Gilroy.Adema explores the creation and subsequent selling of foodscapes or food-themed place identities. This seemingly ubiquitous practice is readily visible across the country at festivals celebrating edibles like tomatoes, peaches, spinach, and even cauliflower. Food, Adema contends, is an attractive focus for image makers charged with community building and place differentiation. Not only is it good to eat; food can be a palatable and marketable symbol for a town or region.

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Book SynopsisIn The Story-Time of the British Empire, author Sadhana Naithani examines folklore collections compiled by British colonial administrators, military men, missionaries, and women in the British colonies of Africa, Asia, and Australia between 1860 and 1950. Much of this work was accomplished in the context of colonial relations and done by non-folklorists, yet these oral narratives and poetic expressions of non-Europeans were transcribed, translated, published, and discussed internationally. Naithani analyzes the role of folklore scholarship in the construction of colonial cultural politics as well as in the conception of international folklore studies.Since most folklore scholarship and cultural history focuses exclusively on specific nations, there is little study of cross-cultural phenomena about empire and/or postcoloniality. Naithani argues that connecting cultural histories, especially in relation to previously colonized countries, is essential to understanding those countries' folklore, as these folk traditions result from both internal and European influence. The author also makes clear the role folklore and its study played in shaping intercultural perceptions that continue to exist in the academic and popular realms today. The Story-Time of the British Empire is a bold argument for a twenty-first-century vision of folklore studies that is international in scope and that understands folklore as a transnational entity.

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Book SynopsisIn 1969, Tom Wesaw was an 83-year-old Shoshone doctor and religious leader on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. He could no longer drive, which posed problems in making house calls. The arrival of young anthropologist Tom Johnson changed that. Johnson would drive Wesaw, and cook, pump water, and build fires for sweat lodges. In exchange, the elder Tom would show the younger Tom his work. The two were together so often that the people of Wind River began to refer to them affectionately by one name: Two Toms. By the light of the lamp Wesaw gave him, Johnson would write down what he learned. The Shoshone doctor wanted his student to share everything he saw and heard. Now, in Two Toms: Lessons from a Shoshone Doctor, he has. Presented as an engaging narrative, Johnson's book reveals details about the Shoshone culture and it chronicles the story of the friendship between these two men of different backgrounds. Filled with valuable anthropological information, this book is also highly readable and entertaining.Trade Review“This is a gentle book, yet it contains powerful descriptions of traditions and life among the Eastern Shoshone Indians. The dialogue epitomizes the Shoshone way of teaching and the authors should be justly proud of capturing the spirit of culture in this manner.”—Henry E. Stamm IV, Idaho State University "An engaging memoir...highly readable. The authors do not hamper the reader with repeated thematic discussions. Rather their words reveal truths quietly, in small bits and pieces that add up to a tremendous amount of information.... It can be read in one sitting but is best savored slowly."—Montana, The Magazine of Western History "Delightful book.... The most important aspect of this work is the traditional Shoshone philosophy of Wesaw, which taught tolerance and inclusiveness of all people, no matter their background or ethnicity."—Great Plains ResearchTable of ContentsContentsList of FiguresIntroduction1. The Pink Phone2. Hat and Shoes3. Peyote4. Another Way5. Tom the Listener6. A Visit with Bill Shakespeare7. Politics8. The Sweat Solution9. What I Learned from TomGlossary

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics.Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people.The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century.Book One describes in detail the gods of the Aztec people, including Uitzilopochtli, Tlatoc, and Quetzalcoatl. This colorful and clear translation brings to life characteristics of each god, describing such items as clothing or adornment worn by individual gods, as well as specific personality traits.

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated SahagÚn’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of SahagÚn’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Two gives comprehensive accounts of the religious ceremonies and days of feasting during the time of the Aztecs, including prayers, songs, and the duties and roles of Aztecs inside the temples during the ceremonies. This book also details the various tributes and sacrifices given to specific gods.

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Seven tells the origin stories of the sun, the moon, and the stars—what gods created them, what powers they each embody, and how they are related to Aztec astrology. This book also discusses the meaning and cause behind hail, lightning, rainbows, wind, and different types of weather.

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Nine begins with how commerce grew in Mexico from the trade of only feathers to jewelry, precious stones, animal skins, embroidered clothing, and chocolate. It discusses how the merchants prepare for a journey and the celebrations that take place when they arrive home safely. This book also lists different types of merchants, such as lapidaries, who worked with precious stones, and ornamenters, who made feather articles.

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Ten gives a broad overview of the different occupations, classes, and characteristics of Aztecs during this time period. Arguably the most fascinating part of this book is the detailed documentation of human anatomy and commonly used cures for physical ailments

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Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated SahagÚn’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of SahagÚn’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics.Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Eleven is a beautifully written and careful documentation of all of the animals and plants known to the Aztecs in the sixteenth century. As the volume with the most illustrations, Earthly Things allows the reader to look at the natural world through the eyes of the Aztec.

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Book SynopsisPrehistoric Games of North American Indians is a collection of studies on the ancient games of indigenous peoples of North America. The authors, all archaeologists, muster evidence from artifacts, archaeological features, ethnography, ethnohistory, and to a lesser extent linguistics and folklore. Chapters sometimes center on a particular game(chunkey rolling disc game or patolli dice game, for example) or sometimes on a specific prehistoric society and its games (Aztec acrobatic games, games of the ancient Fremont people), and in one instance on the relationship between slavery and gaming inancient indigenous North American societies.In addition to the intrinsic value of pursuing the time depth of these games, some of which remain popular and culturally important today among Native Americans or within the broader society, the book is important for demonstrating a wide variety of research methods and for problematizing a heretofore overlooked research topic. Issues that emerge include the apparently ubiquitous but difficult to detect presence of gambling, the entanglement ofindigenous games and the social logic of the societies in which they are embedded, the characteristics of women’s versus men’s games or those of in-group and out-group gaming, and the close correspondence between gaming and religion. The book’s coverage is broad and balanced in terms of geography, level of socio-cultural organization and gender.Trade Review“This is not a trivial subject. The book is focused on an important and often neglected aspect of human culture. It will stand out for its seriousness and its readability.” —Dean R. Snow, professor emeritus of anthropology, Penn State University “Games are, and were, very important in human societies. Even though understanding them in prehistoric North America is a daunting task, it is an important one that the authors of this volume are seeking to achieve.” —American Archaeology “The archaeological data throughout the work are very detailed…. this book should provide readers with a great deal of information about the differences and similarities of the aboriginal peoples of Native America through their games and their commonalities with contemporary societies.” —American Journal of Play “An enhanced understanding of the dynamics of prehistoric games will inform broader anthropological and archaeological questions about status, division of labor, economy, and community in prehistory. Prehistoric Games of North American Indians makes a significant advance in this direction, and is sure to have great influence on future archaeological interpretations of prehistoric games in North America and elsewhere in the ancient world.” —Journal of California and Great Basin Archaeology “Contributors to this volume capably weave archaeological, historical, and anthropological insights into convincing arguments that interpret the importance of games throughout the Americas. Archaeologists and others interested in these aspects of daily and ritual life have much to learn from this book.” —American Antiquity “A remarkable book: I’d wager that once you open it, you’ll want to have it in your collection.” —Western Folklore

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Book SynopsisAt once a traveler’s tale, a memoir, and a mouthwatering cookbook, Biting through the Skin offers a first-generation immigrant’s perspective on growing up in America’s heartland. Author Nina Mukerjee Furstenau’s parents brought her from Bengal in northern India to the small town of Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1964, decades before you could find long-grain rice or plain yogurt in American grocery stores. Embracing American culture, the Mukerjee family ate hamburgers and softserve ice cream, took a visiting guru out on the lake in their motorboat, and joined the Shriners. Her parents transferred the cultural, spiritual, and family values they had brought with them to their children only behind the closed doors of their home, through the rituals of cooking, serving, and eating Bengali food and making a proper cup of tea.As a girl and a young woman, Nina traveled to her ancestral India as well as to college and to Peace Corps service in Tunisia. Through her journeys and her marriage to an American man whose grandparents hailed from Germany and Sweden, she learned that her family was not alone in being a small pocket of culture sheltered from the larger world. Biting through the Skin shows how we maintain our differences as well as how we come together through what and how we cook and eat. In mourning the partial loss of her heritage, the author finds that, ultimately, heritage always finds other ways of coming to meet us. In effect, it can be reduced to a 4 x 6-inch recipe card, something that can fit into a shirt pocket. It’s on just such tiny details of life that belonging rests.In this book, the author shares her shirt-pocket recipes and a great deal more, inviting readers to join her on her journey toward herself and toward a vital sense of food as culture and the mortar of community.

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Book SynopsisThe story of misunderstood immigrants and their struggle to gain recognition and acceptance in the rural SouthDespite its reputation as a melting pot of ethnicities and races, the United States has a well-documented history of immigrants who have struggled through isolation, segregation, discrimination, oppression, and assimilation. South Carolina is home to one such group— known historically and derisively as “the Turks”—which can trace its oral history back to Joseph Benenhaley, an Ottoman refugee from Old World conflict. According to its traditional narrative, Benenhaley served with Gen. Thomas Sumter in the Revolutionary War. His dark-hued descendants lived insular lives in rural Sumter County for the next two centuries, and only in recent decades have they enjoyed the full blessings of the American experience.Early scholars ignored the Turkish tale and labeled these people “tri-racial isolates” and later writers disparaged them as “so-called Turks.” But members of the group have persisted in claiming Turkish descent and living reclusively for generations. Now, in South Carolina’s Turkish People, Terri Ann Ognibene and Glen Browder confirm the group’s traditional narrative through exhaustive original research and oral interviews.In search of definitive documentation, Browder combed through a long list of primary sources, including historical reports, public records, and private papers. He also devised new evidence, such as a reconstruction of Turkish lineage of the 1800s through genealogical analysis and genetic testing. Ognibene, a descendant of the state’s Turkish population, conducted personal interviews with her relatives who had been in the community since the 1900s. They talked at length and passionately about their cultural identity, their struggle for equal rights, and the mixed benefits of assimilation. Ognibene and Browder’s findings are clear. South Carolina’s Turkish people finally know and can celebrate their heritage.

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Book SynopsisPaul Radin, famed ethnographer of the Winnebago, joined Fisk University in the late 1920s. During his three-year appointment, he and graduate student Andrew Polk-Watson collected autobiographies and religious conversion narratives from elderly African Americans. Their texts represent the first systematic record of slavery as told by former slaves.That innovative, subject-centred research complemented like-minded scholarship by African American historians reacting against the disparaging portrayals of black people by white historians. Radin’s manuscript focusing on this research was never published. Utilizing the Fisk archives, the unpublished manuscript, and other archival and published sources, this book revisits the Radin-Watson collection and allied research at Fisk. Radin regarded each narrative as the unimpeachable self-representation of a unique, thoughtful individual, precisely the perspective marking his earlier Winnebago work.As a radical humanist within Boasian anthropology, Radin was an outspoken critic of racial explanations of human affairs then pervading not only popular thinking but also historical and sociological scholarship. His research among African Americans and Native Americans thus places him in the vanguard of the anti-racist scholarship marking American anthropology.Anthropology and Radical Humanism sets Paul Radin’s findings within the broader context of his discipline, African American culture, and his career-defining work among the Winnebago.

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Book SynopsisTraditional cultural practices involving animals are being seriously questioned, heavily regulated, and, in some cases, even abolished in Spain. This essential and timely text brings together prominent scholars working in the ever-expanding field of animal studies in Spain, drawing from a variety of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences to provide an interdisciplinary look at the animal question.In choosing an angle to approach the study of ethical, aesthetic considerations, and cultural representations of animals, this collection moves away from the ideology of human exceptionalism that is still predominant but progressively losing force in the field of animal ethics in Spain. It instead includes contributions by scholars who have chosen to look at animals, to a lesser or greater degree, through an antispeciesist lens, displaying the committed attention to and respect for animal life that characterizes critical animal studies.

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Book SynopsisThe protagonist of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time observes with wonder the comings and goings of the crows that roost in the belfry of the village church in Combray, his childhood home. For RenÉ Girard, one of Proust’s great interpreters, their mysterious flight, first departing from and then returning to the vertical axis of the steeple, suggests the movement of modern history—the crisis of aristocratic models, the growing servitude of individuals possessed by mimetic desire, and the final irruption of authentic transcendence. In this rich exploration of Girard’s insights, his French editor and longtime collaborator BenoÎt Chantre brings Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans into dialogue with both Proust and Girard in order to push to its logical endpoint the idea of a back-and-forth movement from chaos to order. History, Chantre argues, has been driven mad by the revelation of its sacrificial engine. The only way out lies in a transformation internal to the crisis itself—only that faith which is capable of hearing the One who speaks in the Law makes it possible to avoid the perpetual ups and downs of rivalry. Acting and revealing Himself at the heart of history, an intimate model “hidden since the foundation of the world” deals a fatal blow to the circle of sin. Authentic transcendence coincides with the eschaton, the moment when—according to Saint Paul—historical time implodes into eternity.

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Book SynopsisThe intersection of race and species has a long and problematic history. Western thinking specifically has demonstrated a societal need to try to conceive of race as a purely biological fact rather than a social construct. This book is an academic-activist challenge to that instinct, prioritizing anti-racism in its observation of the animal–race intersection. Too often, as BÉnÉdicte Boisseron has indicated, this intersection typically appears in the form of animal activists instrumentalizing racial discrimination as a vehicle to approach animal rights. But why does this intersection exist, and, perhaps more importantly, how can we challenge it moving forward? This volume examines those two critical questions, taking an interdisciplinary approach in moving across subjects including art history, film studies, American history, and digital media analysis. Our interpretation of animals has, for centuries, been fundamental in the development of Western race thinking. This collection of essays looks at how this perspective contributes to the construction of racial discrimination, prioritizing ways to read the animal in our culture as a means for working to dismantle this conception.

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Book SynopsisDogs and Cats in South Korea: Itinerant Commodities shows that though dogs and cats are consumed in the millions each year, they are recipients of both cruelty and care in a very unique way compared to other animal species in South Korean society. The anti-imperialist and postcolonial stances associated with the consumption of dogs and cats in South Korea are oversimplistic. Stereotypes by societies that do not eat these animals overshadow the various ways in which South Korean citizens interact with them, including companionship. In fact, many dogs and cats go from companion to livestock, and from livestock to companion, demonstrating that the relationships with these creatures are not only complex, but also fluid. The trajectories of the lives of dogs and cats are never linear. In that sense, individual dogs and cats in South Korea are itinerant animals navigating an exchange system based on culture, economics, and politics. With nuance and cultural understanding, Dugnoille tells the complicated stories of these animals in South Korea, as well as the humans who commoditize and singularize them.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Dead Commodities Walking: Itinerancies of Dogs and Cats at South Korea's Largest Meat Market 2. "New Women," "New Mothers": Gender Ideology in South Korean Animal Advocacy 3. Transspecies Nationalism: Inclusion of Nonhuman Animals in Ideologies of Korean Ethnic Nationalism 4. Postmortem Itinerancy: The Deaths of Dogs and Cats in Postcolonial Conditions Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDogs and Cats in South Korea: Itinerant Commodities shows that though dogs and cats are consumed in the millions each year, they are recipients of both cruelty and care in a very unique way compared to other animal species in South Korean society. The anti-imperialist and postcolonial stances associated with the consumption of dogs and cats in South Korea are oversimplistic. Stereotypes by societies that do not eat these animals overshadow the various ways in which South Korean citizens interact with them, including companionship. In fact, many dogs and cats go from companion to livestock, and from livestock to companion, demonstrating that the relationships with these creatures are not only complex, but also fluid. The trajectories of the lives of dogs and cats are never linear. In that sense, individual dogs and cats in South Korea are itinerant animals navigating an exchange system based on culture, economics, and politics. With nuance and cultural understanding, Dugnoille tells the complicated stories of these animals in South Korea, as well as the humans who commoditize and singularize them.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Dead Commodities Walking: Itinerancies of Dogs and Cats at South Korea's Largest Meat Market 2. "New Women," "New Mothers": Gender Ideology in South Korean Animal Advocacy 3. Transspecies Nationalism: Inclusion of Nonhuman Animals in Ideologies of Korean Ethnic Nationalism 4. Postmortem Itinerancy: The Deaths of Dogs and Cats in Postcolonial Conditions Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Story-Time of the British Empire, author Sadhana Naithani examines folklore collections compiled by British colonial administrators, military men, missionaries, and women in the British colonies of Africa, Asia, and Australia between 1860 and 1950. Much of this work was accomplished in the context of colonial relations and done by non-folklorists, yet these oral narratives and poetic expressions of non-Europeans were transcribed, translated, published, and discussed internationally. Naithani analyzes the role of folklore scholarship in the construction of colonial cultural politics as well as in the conception of international folklore studies.Since most folklore scholarship and cultural history focuses exclusively on specific nations, there is little study of cross-cultural phenomena about empire and/or postcoloniality. Naithani argues that connecting cultural histories, especially in relation to previously colonized countries, is essential to understanding those countries' folklore, as these folk traditions result from both internal and European influence. The author also makes clear the role folklore and its study played in shaping intercultural perceptions that continue to exist in the academic and popular realms today. The Story-Time of the British Empire is a bold argument for a twenty-first-century vision of folklore studies that is international in scope and that understands folklore as a transnational entity.

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Book SynopsisNew York and its folklore scholars hold an important place in the history of the discipline. In New York dialogue between folklore researchers in the academy and those working in the public arena has been highly productive. In this volume, the works of New York's academic and public folklorists are presented together.Unlike some folklore anthologies, New York State Folklife Reader does not follow an organizational plan based on regions or genres. Because the New York Folklore Society has always tried to ""give folklore back to the people,"" the editors decided to divide the edited volume into sections about life processes that all New York state residents share. The book begins with five essays on various aspects of folk cultural memory: personal, family, community, and historical processes of remembrance expressed through narrative, ritual, and other forms of folklore. Following these essays, subsequent sections explore aspects of life in New York through the lens of Play, Work, Resistance, and Food.Both the New York Folklore Society and its journal were, as society cofounder Louis Jones explained, ""intended to reach not just the professional folklorists but those of the general public who were interested in the oral traditions of the State."" Written in an accessible and readable style, this volume offers a glimpse into New York State's rich cultural diversity.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores trust in government from a variety of perspectives in the Asian region. The book is divided into three parts, and there are seven Asian countries that have been covered by ten chapters. The first part contains three chapters which focus on two East Asian governments – Hong Kong and Taiwan. The second part includes case studies from two Southeast Asian countries – Thailand and Philippines. The third part consists of four chapters dealing with two South Asian countries – India and Bangladesh. The last chapter analyses governance failure (i.e., the absence of trust) as uncertainty from a theoretical perspective.

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Book SynopsisFor decades historians and historical geographers have neglected the study of town life in the colonial South, simply portraying towns as the result of increasing population density. The Backcountry Towns of Colonial Virginia, the first comprehensive study of town development in the interior of the colonial South, marshals evidence that planned urban settlements were the essential agents in accelerating westward expansion.Through the analysis of twenty-five attempts to create towns in the Virginia backcountry, the work demonstrates there was a distinctly southern urban movement in the colonial period. It explores the factors that lead to the success or failure of a community and examines how each backcountry region operated as an economic unit uniquely suited to its development. Towns opened up land, attracting people to move into new areas or participate in new business opportunities. They furthered settlement, influenced immigration, created family and social networks, and fostered the development of trade and systems of credit.The actions of a few individuals and groups of people resulted in the rapid occupation, settlement, and development of the Virginia backcountry through the conscious creation of economic and social forces. The most complete study of southern towns since John Reps’s Tidewater Towns, The Backcountry Towns of Colonial Virginia offers a new understanding of property ownership, burgeoning trade, and immigration factors–the very elements of urban centers–in backcountry Virginia.

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Book SynopsisWhat can a cemetery tell us about the social and cultural dynamics of a place and time? Anthropologist Alison Bell suggests that cemeteries participate in the grassroots cultural work of crafting social connections, even as they test the transcendental durability of the deceased person and provide a measure of a culture's values. In The Vital Dead, Bell applies this framework to the communities of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and the cemeteries that have both claimed them and, paradoxically, sustained them.Bell surveys objects left on graves, images and epitaphs on grave markers, and other artifacts of material culture to suggest a landscape of symbols maintaining relationships across the threshold of death. She explores cemetery practice and its transformation over time and largely presents her interpretations as a struggle against alienation. Rich in evocative examples both contemporary and historical, Bell's analysis stems from fieldwork interviews, archival sources, and recent anthropological theory. The book's chapters range across cemetery types, focusing on African American burials, the grave sites of institutionalized individuals, and modern community memorials. Ultimately, The Vital Dead is an account of how lives, both famous and forgotten, become transformed and energized through the communities and things they leave behind to produce profound and unexpected narratives of mortality. Bell's deft storytelling coupled with skill for scholarly analysis make for a fascinating and emotionally moving read.Groundbreaking in its approach, The Vital Dead makes important contributions to cemetery and material culture studies, as well as the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history, geography, and folklore.

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Book SynopsisPerhaps the oldest modern human settlement in Europe, the archaeological site at DolnÍ Věstonice–Pavlov, located in the rolling, forested plains just north of the Danube River, has yielded a treasure trove of Ice Age artifacts since its first excavation in 1924. The earliest people who lived here some 26,000 years ago produced tools crafted from stone and bone and carved elaborate animal and human figurines fashioned of mammoth ivory and sculptures of fired clay, including the famous 'Venus of DolnÍ Věstonice,' one of the oldest known ceramic artifacts in the world. Interestingly, novelist Jean M. Auel took much of the inspiration for her popular novel, Clan of the Cave Bear, from the discoveries at DolnÍ Věstonice–Pavlov.Richly illustrated throughout, including beautiful color renderings of scenes from Paleolithic life suggested by Svoboda's research, this first English translation of DolnÍ Věstonice-Pavlov: Explaining Paleolithic Settlements in Central Europe is sure to provide not only vital information for scholars, researchers, and students but also insightful and thought-provoking background for interested general readers.Trade ReviewThis collection of sites is the richest complex known from the Paleolithic . . . It also boasts the world's oldest ceramics, evidence of textiles, and human fingerprints. . . . JiřÍ Svoboda has written a book that does justice to these crucially important sites." - Erik Trinkhaus, editor (most recently) of The People of Palomas

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Book SynopsisThe purposes of this book are rooted in the move from invisibility to visibility and silence to voice. This work uses auto ethnography as an enterprise to break down traditional barriers that support the invisibility of diverse epistemologies (Altheide & Johnson,2011). The reality of invisibility and silence has plagued scholars of colour in their attempt to make known the cultural significance found in the planning and execution of research. As a result, this book purposes to support the visibility and voice of scholars of colour who conduct auto ethnographic research from a racial, gendered, and critical theoretical framework. This work further supports the research community as it examines and re-examines culturally indigenous epistemologies as a viable vehicle for rigorous and authentic inquiry (Dillard, 2000).The significance of this book can be grafted from its attention to new ways of thinking about doing research. While much of the previous scholarship on auto ethnography highlights the importance of personal narrative and voice, this book includes the latter but also examines the concept of race and culture as undisputable factors in the doing of research. Burdell & Swadener (1999) contends that auto ethnography should interrogate the subjective nature and question master narratives and empirical assumptions. Spry (2011) emphasizes auto ethnography as a moral discourse that foster intimate experiences grounded in historical processes. Authoethnographic research then, has the potential to provide a lens by which researchers can delve into research with a greater sense of personal experiences and critical understanding of the inquiry context.

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Book SynopsisThe purposes of this book are rooted in the move from invisibility to visibility and silence to voice. This work uses auto ethnography as an enterprise to break down traditional barriers that support the invisibility of diverse epistemologies (Altheide & Johnson,2011). The reality of invisibility and silence has plagued scholars of colour in their attempt to make known the cultural significance found in the planning and execution of research. As a result, this book purposes to support the visibility and voice of scholars of colour who conduct auto ethnographic research from a racial, gendered, and critical theoretical framework. This work further supports the research community as it examines and re-examines culturally indigenous epistemologies as a viable vehicle for rigorous and authentic inquiry (Dillard, 2000).The significance of this book can be grafted from its attention to new ways of thinking about doing research. While much of the previous scholarship on auto ethnography highlights the importance of personal narrative and voice, this book includes the latter but also examines the concept of race and culture as undisputable factors in the doing of research. Burdell & Swadener (1999) contends that auto ethnography should interrogate the subjective nature and question master narratives and empirical assumptions. Spry (2011) emphasizes auto ethnography as a moral discourse that foster intimate experiences grounded in historical processes. Authoethnographic research then, has the potential to provide a lens by which researchers can delve into research with a greater sense of personal experiences and critical understanding of the inquiry context.

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Book SynopsisBotánicas is an exploration in text and photographs of spiritual shops found in Latino neighborhoods throughout the United States. Readers discover these marvelous spaces and their alternative spiritualities that help patrons cope with the grind and challenges of city life. Botánicas provide access to an array of invisible powers and sell the ingredients to construct symbolic solutions to their patrons' problems. The stores are bright and baroque, and the powers they invoke come from religious traditions in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the native Americas. In Botánicas, Joseph M. Murphy offers a cultural history of the devotions on display and a reflection on the efficacy of their powers to heal. Readers will come to see that the goods and devotions of botánicas give their patrons--mostly Latino, often immigrants--pathways for empowerment and transformation. The name botánicas comes from the ""botanicals"" for sale, herbs and plants with healing powers. The pharmacopeia of botánicas can be vast, and owners may know hundreds of remedies for treating problems of health, wealth, and love. Botánicas vend herbs for upset stomach, herbs for finding a job, and herbs for wooing back a wayward spouse. Supplementing these medicinal and magical plants, botánicas sell candles, holy statues, and tools for devotion to an array of spiritual powers--Catholic saints, African gods, indigenous spirits, and Asian divinities. Each spirit has its own ritual of petition, and botánica owners can discern the proper offerings and prayers to help the supplicant. Murphy explains the religions of the botánica with subtlety and sensitivity. He gives readers a deep sense of the contexts of the stores and a sophisticated analysis of the religious traditions that suffuse them. Visually fascinating, culturally rich, and religiously profound, Botánicas is a window into a world of beauty and power.

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Book SynopsisFrench traditions in America do not live solely in Louisiana. Franco-American Identity, Community, and La Guiannée travels to Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to mark the Franco-American traditions still practiced in both these Midwestern towns. This Franco-American cultural identity has continued for over 250 years, surviving language loss, extreme sociopolitical pressures, and the American Midwest's demands for conformity. Ethnic identity presents itself in many forms, including festivals and traditional celebrations, which take on an even more profound and visible role when language loss occurs. On New Year's Eve, the guionneurs, revelers who participate in the celebration, disguise themselves in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century costume and travel throughout their town, singing and wishing New Year's greetings to other members of the community. This celebration, like such others as Cajun Mardi Gras in Louisiana, Mumming in Ireland and Newfoundland, as well as the Carnaval de Binche, belongs to a category of begging quest festivals that have endured since the Medieval Age. These festivals may have also adapted or evolved from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Anna Servaes produces a historical context for both the development of French American culture as well as La Guiannée in order to understand contemporary identity. She analyzes the celebration, which affirms ethnic community, drawing upon theories by influential anthropologist Victor Turner. In addition, Servaes discusses cultural continuity and its relationship to language, revealing contemporary expressions of Franco-American identity.

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Book SynopsisIn Jazz Transatlantic, Volume I, renowned scholar Gerhard Kubik takes the reader across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas and then back in pursuit of the music we call jazz. This first volume explores the term itself and how jazz has been defined and redefined. It also celebrates the phenomena of jazz performance and uncovers hidden gems of jazz history. The volume offers insights gathered during Kubik’s extensive field work and based on in-depth interviews with jazz musicians around the Atlantic world. Languages, world views, beliefs, experiences, attitudes, and commodities all play a role. Kubik reveals what is most important—the expertise of individual musical innovators on both sides of the Atlantic, and hidden relationships in their thoughts.Besides the common African origins of much vocabulary and structure, all the expressions of jazz in Africa share transatlantic family relationships. Within that framework, musicians are creating and re-creating jazz in never-ending contacts and exchanges. The first of two volumes, Jazz Transatlantic, Volume I examines this transatlantic history, sociolinguistics, musicology, and the biographical study of personalities in jazz during the twentieth century. This volume traces the African and African American influences on the creation of the jazz sound and traces specific African traditions as they transform into American jazz. Kubik seeks to describe the constant mixing of sources and traditions, so he includes influences of European music in both volumes. These works will become essential and indelible parts of jazz history.

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Book SynopsisThe perfect book for every Mississippian who cares about the state, this is a mammoth collaboration in which thirty subject editors suggested topics, over seven hundred scholars wrote entries, and countless individuals made suggestions. The volume will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. The book will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present.The volume contains entries on every county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists. Each entry provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. The Mississippi Encyclopedia also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. This book also includes many surprises readers can only find by browsing.

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Book Synopsis This volume presents the latest research on the development and use of communal spaces and places across the Mogollon region in what is now the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. New data demonstrate that these spaces and places, though diverse in form and function, were essential to community development and cohesion, particularly during critical formative periods associated with increasing sedentism and farming, and during comparable periods of social change. The authors ask questions crucial to understanding past communities: What is a communal space or place? How did villagers across the Mogollon region use such places? And how do modern archaeologists investigate the past to learn how ancient people thought about themselves and the world around them? Contributors use innovative approaches to explore the development and properties of communal spaces and places, as well as how and why these places were incorporated into the daily lives of village residents. Buildings, alongside other types of communal spaces, are placed into broader cultural and social contexts, acknowledging the enduring importance of the kiva-type structure to many Native American societies of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Trade Review“A valuable addition to the literature. Many of the chapters describe important sites or structures or important processes such as the solstice or connections between sites and landscapes. It will be useful for decades to come.” —Michelle Hegmon, Arizona State UniversityTable of Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction. Rethinking Mogollon Communal Spaces and Places and Their Social Contexts: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective by Robert J. Stokes, Katherine A. Dungan, and Jakob W. Sedig 1. Early Communal Architecture: The Plaza at the Sanchez Cerro de Trincheras and Other Locations by Robert J. Hard, Gabriella Zaragosa, John R. Roney, A. C. MacWilliams, and Mary E. Whisenhunt 2. A Case Study of Early Mogollon Great Kivas from South Diamond Creek Pueblo by Fumiyasu Arakawa, Aimee Oliver-Bozeman, and Jorden Scott 3. Pipes, Palettes, and Projectile Points: Great Kiva Rituals and Ritual Paraphernalia at the Harris Site by Barbara J. Roth, Danielle Romero, and Ashley Lauzon 4. The Woodrow Site’s Central Ceremonial Precinct: What Three Oversized Communal Structures Reveal about Changing Communal Practices in the Upper Gila by Jakob W. Sedig 5. The Enduring Importance of Mimbres Great Kivas at the Swarts Site by Darrell Creel 6. A Mimbres Mogollon Sacred Landscape as Seen from an Early Classic Period Kiva Structure, Southwestern New Mexico by Robert J. Stokes and Joseph McConnell 7. New Perspectives on the Ritual and Communal Space Use at NAN Ranch, Grant County, New Mexico by Harry J. Shafer 8. The Creekside Village Great Kiva as a Celestial Observatory and the Role of Great Kivas within Mesilla Phase Irrigation Communities by David H. Greenwald and John Groh 9. Constructing Community: Intersite Variability of Communal Architecture at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo by Kristin Corl and Dylan Person 10. Beyond the Village Communal Structure: Social and Political Engagements with the Landscapes of the Southern Mogollon by Myles R. Miller 11. Changes in the Use of Communal Space in the Pine Lawn/Reserve Branch of the Mogollon 181 Tammy Stone 12. Marked Spaces, Marked Assemblages: The Interpretation of Patterns in Pueblo Period Great Kivas and Their Contents by Katherine A. Dungan 13. Animal Remains in Communal Spaces and Ritual Activities in the Reserve and Mimbres Mogollon Areas, AD200–1450 by Karen Gust Schollmeyer 14. A Regional Consideration of Mogollon Great Kivas by Roger Anyon References Contributors Index

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Book Synopsis This archaeological study of the interactions between Western Shoshone families and Euro-American ranchers in the late nineteenth century helps fill the gap between what is known regarding Late Prehistoric foragers of the American West and ethnohistoric understanding of Native American peoples of the Great Basin. Pottery Hill, an archaeological site located in Grass Valley, Nevada, northeast of the historic mining town of Austin, represents a small settlement of Native Americans who lived there in the late 1800s. The Grass Valley Shoshone, whose environment and traditional lifeways were disrupted by the arrival of miners and settlers in the 1860s, found work on the ranches and farms in the valley. Archaeological fieldwork conducted in the 1970s investigated house remains, hearths, and artifacts. A recent analysis of these data, enhanced by the use of archival documents and oral history, provides new insights into the dynamics of late nineteenth-century life in central Nevada. The Pottery Hill Site addresses a critical period in the history of the Grass Valley Shoshone, who adopted and modified Euro-American artifacts and materials while maintaining important aspects of their traditional culture. It gives readers a deeper understanding of the effects of Euro-American settlement on the Shoshone, the history of the western United States, and the reciprocal impacts of cultural contact. Trade Review “Wells and Seelinger have done a remarkable job in producing one of the most thorough and authoritative accounts of historical-period archaeology in the Great Basin.”—David Hurst Thomas, American Museum of Natural History Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments 1. Environmental, Ethnographic, and Historic Context 2. Investigating the Pottery Hill Site 3. Historic Period Houses in Grass Valley and the Great Basin 4. Investigation of Pottery Hill 2 Houses 5. Exterior Hearths 6. House and Hearth Clusters and Activity Areas 7. Classification and Description of Euro-American Artifacts from the Pottery Hill Grid 8. The Chronology of the Shoshone Occupation at Pottery Hill 9. Summary and Interpretations of Pottery Hill and the Grass Valley Historic Period Appendix A. Buttons from Pottery Hill, by T. Beth Snyder Appendix B. Fauna from Exterior Hearths at Pottery Hill, by Bryan Hockett References

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Book SynopsisIn this carefully researched and engaging book, Kenneth Scambray surveys the lives and contributions of Italian immigrants in thirteen western states. He covers a variety of topics, including the role of the Roman Catholic Church in attracting and facilitating Italian settlement; the economic, political, and cultural contributions made by Italians; and the efforts to preserve Italian culture and to restore connections to their ancestral identity.The lives of immigrants in the West differed greatly from those of their counterparts on the East Coast in many ways. The development of the West—with its cheap land and mining, forestry, and agriculture industries\--created a demand for labor that enabled newcomers to achieve stability and success. Moreover, female immigrants had many more opportunities to contribute materially to their family’s well-being, either by overseeing new revenue streams for their farms and small businesses, or as paid workers outside the home.Despite this success, Italian immigrants in the West could not escape the era’s xenophobia. Scambray also discusses the ways that Italians, perceived by many as non-White, interacted with other Euro-Americans, other immigrant groups, and Native Americans and African Americans.By placing the Italian immigrant experience within the context of other immigrant narratives, Italian Immigration in the American West provides rich insights into the lives and contributions of individuals and families who sought to build new lives in the West. This unique study reveals the impact of Italian immigration and the immense diversity of the immigrant experience outside the East’s urban centers.Trade Review“With its breadth of coverage and exhaustive reference to the most current literature, Italian Immigration in the American West is likely to become the standard work on Italian immigration to the West. It promises to become the reference work that no one who is interested in how Italians populated the West- or in Italian immigration in general- can afford to be without.”- Lawrence DiStasi, author of Branded: How Italian Immigrants Became ‘Enemies’ During World War II;""Kenneth Scambray’s Italian Immigration in the American West is a fine work of scholarship. . . . Anyone who enjoys history will find this book to be a major contribution to chipping away the block of ignorance about the Italians who chose to make America their homes. I predict that this book will be a standard sourcebook on Italians in the American West for years to come.”- Valentine J. Belfiglio, Cornaro Professor Emeritus, Texas Woman’s University.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. The Southwest Chapter 1. Texas Chapter 2. New Mexico Chapter 3. Arizona Part II. The Midsection of the West Chapter 4. Colorado Chapter 5. Utah Chapter 6. Wyoming Chapter 7. Idaho Part III. The North of the West Chapter 8. Montana Chapter 9. Alaska Chapter 10. Washington Part IV. The Far West Chapter 11. Oregon Chapter 12. Nevada Chapter 13. California Chapter 14. Social and Cultural Capital Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

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Book SynopsisMore than 13,000 people lost their lives and many others suffered in other ways during the Maoist-led armed conflict that lasted for ten years (1996-2006) in Nepal. Many people are still missing and many more have been displaced. The lives of women in particular have been affected, with a heightened prevalence of gender-based violence during the armed conflict and post-conflict transition period. The warring sides used gendered strategies of the war wage war against each other and this book deals about the implications of such tactics. The implications of the cantonment camps in which the Maoist combatants were placed illuminate unintended consequences of this temporary provision. By recording the implications and subjective experiences of some of the victims of this war, often regarded as a low-intensity conflict, this book portrays the agony of women who endured the conflict. It shows how the conflict exacerbated the prevailing gender inequality suffered by women. Narratives of victims themselves and their portrayal in some newspapers during the conflict period have been taken in account in developing this book. The book also highlights the agentive strategies women devised to cope with the unwanted situation appropriate in their social, cultural, and political contexts. This book presents the social history of certain segment of people, especially women and displaced people, whose traumatic experiences, agonies, or efforts to come out of that often gets shadowed in the portrayal of macro level picture of the society, polity or even a war.

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Book SynopsisCounterculture flourished nationwide in the 1960s and 1970s, and while the hippies of Haight–Ashbury occupied the public eye, further off the beaten path in the Arkansas Ozarks a faction of back to the landers were quietly creating their own counterculture haven. In Hipbillies, Jared Phillips collects oral histories and delves into archival resources to provide a fresh scholarly discussion of this group, which was defined by anticonsumerism and a desire for self-sufficiency outside of modern industry.While there were indeed clashes between long haired hippies and cantankerous locals, Phillips shows how the region has always been a refuge for those seeking a life off the beaten path, and as such, is perhaps one of the last bastions for the dream of self-sufficiency in American life. Hipbillies presents a region steeped in tradition coming to terms with the modern world.

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Book SynopsisThroughout life black Africans in the Bahamas worked, voluntarily or not, and possessed material items of various degrees of importance to them and within their culture. St. Matthews was a cemetery in Nassau at the water's edge--or sometimes slightly below. This project emerged from archaeological excavations at this site to identify and recover materials associated with the interred before the area was completely developed. The area has been -collected- for decades--both professionally and by interested citizens, and Dr. Turner, a native Bahamian, coupled the results of her research excavations with the collections and archival material, to provide insight into the lives and deaths of the interred.

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