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The Anthropology of Evil
Evil may be said to be shadowy, mysterious, covert, and associated with night, darkness, secrecy. It is a force acting to destroy the integrity, happiness and welfare of 'normal' society. It is at once the cause and the explanation of misfortune, of the wretchedness of human existence, and of our own individual wrongdoing. That, at any rate, is substantially the western Christianity (and pre-Christian) view. Yet the different societies have opted for very different sets of explanations, which have themselves evolved in radically contrasting ways. There are societies, for example, in which there is no concept of evil. The Anthropology of Evil discusses the problem in the context of different societies and religions- Christian , Confucian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim for example. It also provides unusual perspectives on questions such as the nature of innocence, the root of evil, the notion of individual malevolence and even whether God is evil. Much has bee written on evil, notably by historians, theologians and philosophers but very little by anthropologists: this book shows how distinctive and revealing their contribution can be.
The Baha'i Faith in Africa
In 1952, there were probably fewer than 200 Baha'is in all of Africa. Today the Baha'i community claims one million followers on the continent. Yet, the Baha'i presence in Africa has been all but ignored in academic studies up to now. This is the first monograph that addresses the establishment of this New Religious Movement in Africa. Discovering an African presence at the genesis of the religon in Iran, this study seeks to explain why the movement found an appeal in colonial Africa during the 1950s and early 1960. It also explores how the Baha'i faith was influenced and Africanized by its new converts. Finally, the book seeks to make sense of the diverse and contradictory American, Iranian, British, and African elements that established a new religion in Africa.
Gun Rights Activists and the US Culture War
Gun Rights Activists and the US Culture War is a political anthropology book which explores how firearms can become associated with processes of identity formation, as well as acting as symbols of national belonging and embodied safety. In the years following Donald Trump’s election an increasingly polarised population is taking up arms against each other more often than ever before. Based on 12 months of participant observation at gun ranges, activist meetings, handgun courses, and political events, as well as interviews with gun rights activists in San Diego County, this book argues that US conservative identity is saturated with concerns about ethics, gender, and who can wield violence ...
Metatheatrical Dramaturgies of Violence
This book examines a series of contemporary plays where writers put theatre itself on stage. The texts examined variously dramatize how theatre falls short in response to the demands of violence, expose its implication in structures of violence—including racism and gender-based violence—and illustrate how it might effectively resist violence through reconfiguring representation. Case studies, which include Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present and Fairview, Ella Hickson’s The Writer and Tim Crouch’s The Author, provide a range of practice-based perspectives on the question of whether theatre is capable of accounting for and expressing the complexities of structural and interpersonal violence as both lived in the body and borne out in society. The book will appeal to scholars and artists working in the areas of violence, theatre and ethics, witnessing, memory and trauma, spectatorship and contemporary dramaturgy, as well as to those interested in both the doubts and dreams we have about the role of theatre in the twenty-first century.
Obscene Pedagogies
In Obscene Pedagogies, Carissa M. Harris investigates the relationship between obscenity, gender, and pedagogy in Middle English and Middle Scots literary texts from 1300 to 1580 to show how sexually explicit and defiantly vulgar speech taught readers and listeners about sexual behavior and consent. Through innovative close readings of literary texts including erotic lyrics, single-woman's songs, debate poems between men and women, Scottish insult poetry battles, and The Canterbury Tales, Harris demonstrates how through its transgressive charge and galvanizing shock value, obscenity taught audiences about gender, sex, pleasure, and power in ways both positive and harmful. Harris's own voice, proudly witty and sharply polemical, inspires the reader to address these medieval texts with an eye on contemporary issues of gender, violence, and misogyny.
Making Identity on the Swahili Coast
A re-examination of the historical development of urban identity and community along the Swahili Coast.
The Edge of Islam
In this theoretically rich exploration of ethnic and religious tensions, Janet McIntosh demonstrates how the relationship between two ethnic groups in the bustling Kenyan town of Malindi is reflected in and shaped by the different ways the two groups relate to Islam. While Swahili and Giriama peoples are historically interdependent, today Giriama find themselves literally and metaphorically on the margins, peering in at a Swahili life of greater social and economic privilege. Giriama are frustrated to find their ethnic identity disparaged and their versions of Islam sometimes rejected by Swahili. The Edge of Islam explores themes as wide-ranging as spirit possession, divination, healing ritu...
Inside the Whirlwind
How would ordinary African Christians interpret the figure and book of Job--the quintessential biblical book on suffering--from contexts of extreme poverty, tropical disease, and rampant suffering? How do African Christians culturally understand issues of theodicy and the nature of evil? What role does the devil play in African Pentecostalism? How does the biblical lament empower faith and foster hope for people living with HIV/AIDS? In what way does a theology of (eschatological) hope inform the spirituality and prayers of ordinary African believers in the midst of suffering? Inside the Whirlwind offers insight on these fascinating questions. Based upon the perspectives of Fang Christians in Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea (Central Africa), the thematic and theological reflections on evil, suffering, and hope emerging from sermons and Bible studies on the book of Job offer a remarkable window to view the main theological issues shaping grassroots African Christianity in the twenty-first century.
Speaking through the Silence
Uncovering the structures and functions of conversational narratives uttered within natural social networks, Laine Berman shows how working-class Javanese women discursively construct identity and meaning within the rigid constraints of an hierarchical social order. She does this by identifying the silences, the "unsaid", and by revealing both the structure and function of silence in terms of its indexical reference to local meaning. It is here that the force of the Javanese language as used in everyday interaction shows itself to be an extremely potent philosophical entity as well as a means of social control. Thus, at least in regard to the urban poor, the book boldly questions the difference between traditional definitions of Javanese elegance and oppression. This study will contribute to our understanding of the social consequences of language use, to the linguistic knowledge of Indonesia and Java, and to such basic linguistic issues as narrative structure and function, speech levels and styles, and indexicality features.
