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This book explores the importance of ritual and ritual theory to discourses of authenticity and originality, thereby deepening our insight into concepts of cultural heritage, identity and nation in a globalised world. The volume is the first interdisciplinary attempt to understand the significance of rituals and related performative traditions in the creation of grounded cultural identities, ‘home’ and heritage as geographically experienceable locations. It assembles perspectives from social and cultural anthropology, performance studies, education and arts that can deal with the politics of revitalisation and preservation of ritualised traditions. While some chapters in this book emphas...
This book is one of the first ethnographic studies to examine the complexities of lifestyles of the the upwardly mobile middle classes in India in the new millennium. It reveals an original theory on cosmopolitan Indianness and urbanisation in the age of globalisation.
Aby Warburg (1866-1929), founder of the Warburg Institute, was one of the most influential cultural historians of the twentieth century. Focusing on the period 1896-1918, this is the first in-depth, book-length study of his response to German political, social and cultural modernism. It analyses Warburg's response to the effects of these phenomena through a study of his involvement with the creation of some of the most important public artworks in Germany. Using a wide array of archival sources, including many of his unpublished working papers and much of his correspondence, the author demonstrates that Warburg's thinking on contemporary art was the product of two important influences: his engagement with Hamburg's civic affairs and his affinity with influential reform movements seeking a greater role for the middle classes in the political, social and cultural leadership of the nation. Thus a lively picture of Hamburg's cultural life emerges as it responded to artistic modernism, animated by private initiative and public discourse, and charged with debate.
Transcultural Insights into Contemporary Irish Literature and Society examines the transcultural patterns that have been enriching Irish literature since the twentieth century and engages with the ongoing dialogue between contemporary Irish literature and society. Driven by the growing interest in transcultural studies in the humanities, this volume provides an insightful analysis of how Irish literature handles the delicate balance between authenticity and folklore, and uniformisation and diversity in an increasingly globalised world. Following a diachronic approach, the volume includes critical readings of canonical Irish literature as an uncharted exchange of intercultural dialogues. The ...
The volume presents a comparative perspective on victors and vanquished according to the categories of remembering victory and defeat, practices of celebrating victory and triumphs as well as the culture of dealing with the vanquished. Specifically, the representation of victory and defeat in Byzantine literature of the 10th–12th centuries is contrasted with commemorative practices in early Russia, and the reflection of military events in courtly music of the 15th century is examined. In addition, the practices of celebrating victories in England in the High and Late Middle Ages are explored, as is the treatment of the defeated and the subjugated in the Frankish Empire of the 9th century, in Norman southern Italy and in Byzantium.
The South Asian Christian diaspora is largely invisible in the literature about religion and migration. This is the first comprehensive study of South Asian Christians living in Europe and North America, presenting the main features of these diasporas, their community histories and their religious practices. The South Asian Christian diaspora is pluralistic both in terms of religious adherence, cultural tradition and geographical areas of origin. This book gives justice to such pluralism and presents a multiplicity of cultures and traditions typical of the South Asian Christian diaspora. Issues such as the institutionalization of the religious traditions in new countries, identity, the paradox of belonging both to a minority immigrant group and a majority religion, the social functions of rituals, attitudes to language, generational transfer, and marriage and family life, are all discussed.
First Published in 2003. This volume explores various aspects of human mobility-both spatial and social-in Muslim societies from the earliest Islamic period to the present times. In general, a high mobility among Muslims has been observed throughout their history, to say nothing of the fact that the pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five religious duties, or that many Muslim travelers such as Ibn Battuta moved over vast areas. However, the social and political impact of their movement, voluntary or forced, has rarely been analyzed in terms of a multi-disciplinary approach. Researchers specializing in history, anthropology, sociology, psychology and politics from eight countries have contributed their insights on both Muslim and non-Muslim mobility in this multi-faceted volume, which will shed new light on the meaning of mobility and the movement of human beings in the even more globalized world of today.
"To which extent is ritual involved in the formation of collective and personal identities? What are the mechanisms that are responsible for the (mostly pre-reflexive) constitution of identity in ritual; and - equally important - what are the strategies employed by social actors to actively influence and enhance these constitutive processes? In order to find answers to these essential questions, authors refer to case studies from their respective areas of field research such as Japan, Morocco, Taiwan, Korea, India, and the Azores. Kpping is professor of anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology at Heidelberg University and also guest-professor at Goldsmith College London. His research focusses on popular and folk-religious practices in Japan through the lens of performance theories. Leistle is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Ethnology at Heidelberg University. In his research focussing on Moroocan trance rituals he concentrates on theories of the phenomenology of perception.
This is an investigation of arts and aesthetics in their widest senses and experiences, presenting a variety of perspectives which range from the metaphysical to the political. Moving beyond art as an expression of the inner mind and invention of the individual self, the volume bridges the gap between changing perceptions of contemporary art and aesthetics, and maps globalizing currents in a number of contexts and regions.The volume includes an impressive variety of case studies offered by established leaders in the field and original and emerging scholarly talent covering areas in India, Nepal, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, and Germany, as well as providing transnational or diasporic perspectives. From the contradictory demands made on successful artists from the south in the global art world such as Anish Kapoor, to images of war and puppetry created by female political prisoners, the volume compels creative and political interpretations of the ever-changing and globalizing terrain of arts and aesthetics.