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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 a...
A history of the evolving field of African art. This book examines the invention and development of African art as an art historical category. It starts with a simple question: What do we mean when we talk about African art? By confronting the historically shifting answers to this question, Peter Probst identifies “African art” as a conceptual vessel that manifests wider societal transformations. What Is African Art? covers three key stages in the field’s history. Starting with the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, the book first discusses the colonial formation of the field by focusing on the role of museums, collectors, and photography in disseminating visual cultures as relations of power. It then explores the remaking of the field at the dawn of African independence with the shift toward contemporary art and the rise of Black Atlantic studies in the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, it examines the post- and decolonial reconfiguration of the field driven by questions of representation, repair, and restitution.
This book boldly unsettles the idea of globalization as a recent phenomenon—and one driven solely by Western interests—by offering a compelling new perspective on global interconnectivity in the nineteenth century. Jeremy Prestholdt examines East African consumers' changing desires for material goods from around the world in an era of sweeping social and economic change. Exploring complex webs of local consumer demands that affected patterns of exchange and production as far away as India and the United States, the book challenges presumptions that Africa's global relationships have always been dictated by outsiders. Full of rich and often-surprising vignettes that outline forgotten trajectories of global trade and consumption, it powerfully demonstrates how contemporary globalization is foreshadowed in deep histories of intersecting and reciprocal relationships across vast distances.
The dual mission of the USAF Institute for National Security Studies is to promote national security research for the Department of Defense within the military academic community and to support the Air Force national security education program. INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various disciplines and across services to develop new ideas for USAF and DOD policy making. Located within the staff of the Dean of the Faculty at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, INSS is an independent research center supported by various DOD organizations. In addition to the USAF Academy Dean, the primary INSS sponsor is the National Security Policy Division, Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate, Headquarters US Air Force (AF/XONP). The Institute helps to develop research topics, select researchers, administer sponsored research, and host conferences and workshops that facilitate the dissemination of information to a wide range of private and government organizations. Its research centers on arms control, proliferation, regional security, environmental security, information operations, Air Force policy, and space policy.
This book is an unusually exploration of the ethnobotanical study, through interdisciplinary approach, that combines linguistics, botany and anthropological aspects. It gives an in-depth account of the practical life of the Digo in their day-to-day knowledge and conception of the plant world. The Digo were involved in the study as a representative of the African ethnic groups, which provides for a scholastic challenge to prove other wise. The subject matter is drawn from the general botanical topics, viz plant description, naming, identification, and classification. The coverage, however, is incomplete without considering the fields of plant knowledge application such as agriculture and healing. The book provides for evidence to recognise that, although unwritten, the African Traditional Plant knowledge is not muddled, as first impressions might suggest.
Facing Terror is an interdisciplinary effort to examine the sociopolitical roots and consequences of radical right extremism and domestic terrorism in the United States. This work is an analytical treatment of contemporary domestic terrorism and the groups and leaders associated with such extremism. Presented and organized in textbook form, complete with instructional aids, authors Jim Rodgers and Tim Kullman incorporate the social science model of system's based, policy analysis in the study of American policy responses to domestic terrorism from 1970 to the present. Rodgers and Kullman present a tremendous amount of historical and contemporary research on domestic extremism in responses presented in the text. They provide the student with a complete but concise examination of domestic terrorism with an eye toward the future, through the presentation of concrete options and suggestions for change in how domestic terrorism issues are dealt with.
Metropolises often evoke images of flashy high-rise buildings, permanent background noise, backed-up cars and people moving quickly in all directions in their masses. New York, Tokyo, London, Sao Paulo. But what about Cairo?
Why has the home of a Yoruba river goddess become a UNESCO World Heritage site and a global attraction? Every year, tens of thousands of people from around the world visit the sacred grove of Osun, Osogbo's guardian deity, to attend her festival. Peter Probst takes readers on a riveting journey to Osogbo. He explores the history of the Osogbo School, which helped introduce one style of African modern art to the West, and investigates its intimate connection with Osun, the role of art and religion in the changing world of Osogbo, and its prominence in the global arena.
Looking at cultural appropriation from around the world, this volume uses the field of cultural studies--heavily influenced by both economics and sociology--as a lens through which to view the paradigm of transcultural consumption. The editors present a variety of consumptive phenomena including: the introduction of Chinese foods to the United States, Ford cars in Germany, and American schoolbooks in the Philippines. Rejecting the idea that these interactions were simply forms of "Americanization," Travelling Goods, Travelling Moods fills a gap in consumer studies and enriches the debate about cultural transfer.
In its conventional meaning, masquerade refers to a festive gathering of people wearing masks and elegant costumes. But traditional forms of masquerade have evolved over the past century to include the representation of alternate identities in the media and venues of popular culture, including television, film, the internet, theater, museums, sports arenas, popular magazines and a range of community celebrations, reenactments and conventions. This collection of fresh essays examines the art and function of masquerade from a broad range of perspectives. From African slave masquerade in New World iconography, to the familiar Guy Fawkes masks of the Occupy Wall Street movement, to the branded identities created by celebrities like Madonna, Beyonce and Lady Gaga, the essays show how masquerade permeates modern life.