The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance
Title | The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance PDF eBook |
Author | Grant Evans |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Total Pages | 244 |
Release | 1998-01-01 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 9780824820541 |
Communist revolutions in this century have suppressed existing ritual and symbolic structures and invented new ones. Armed with new flags, new national celebrations, or new school textbooks, they have attempted to reconstruct social memory. This fascinating work of political anthropology examines the case of Laos from the heady days of the 1975 revolution to the more sober "post-socialist" present. Grant Evans traces the attempt at ritual and symbolic change in Laos, and the recent reemergence of older and deeper cultural structures, while identifying what has perhaps been irretrievably lost. In this challenging study of the cultural consequences of failed total revolution, Evans reaches some striking conclusions concerning the nature of social memory, cultural possibilities foregone, and the need for cultural continuity.
Ritual and Remembrance
Title | Ritual and Remembrance PDF eBook |
Author | Jon Davies |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 284 |
Release | 2006-04-01 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9780756798659 |
Since the end of the last Ice Age ten thousand or so years ago, over the period that we know as Ôhistory', about 100 billion people have died. Death is, on the one hand, an ordinary, inevitable, mundane event, which must be budgeted for & dealt with pragmatically. On the other hand, human beings have always endowed death & its mystery with enormous cultural significance, & have sought to transcend it through rituals & memorials of all kinds. This fascinating collection of essays provides a range of perspectives on death, encompassing literature, archaeology, law, medical ethics, music & art. The essays are arranged by topic: the politics of ancestry; death in war; disposing of the dead; & matters of life & death.
Ritual and Remembrance in the Ecuadorian Andes
Title | Ritual and Remembrance in the Ecuadorian Andes PDF eBook |
Author | Rachel Corr |
Publisher | University of Arizona Press |
Total Pages | 201 |
Release | 2010-03-15 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 0816501114 |
Not every world culture that has battled colonization has suffered or died. In the Ecuadorian Andean parish of Salasaca, the indigenous culture has stayed true to itself and its surroundings for centuries while adapting to each new situation. Today, indigenous Salascans continue to devote a large part of their lives to their distinctive practices—both community rituals and individual behaviors—while living side by side with white-mestizo culture. In this book Rachel Corr provides a knowledgeable account of the Salasacan religion and rituals and their respective histories. Based on eighteen years of fieldwork in Salasaca, as well as extensive research in Church archives—including never-before-published documents—Corr’s book illuminates how Salasacan culture adapted to Catholic traditions and recentered, reinterpreted, and even reshaped them to serve similarly motivated Salasacan practices, demonstrating the link between formal and folk Catholicism and pre-Columbian beliefs and practices. Corr also explores the intense connection between the local Salasacan rituals and the mountain landscapes around them, from peak to valley. Ritual and Remembrance in the Ecuadorian Andes is, in its portrayal of Salasacan religious culture, both thorough and all-encompassing. Sections of the book cover everything from the performance of death rituals to stories about Amazonia as Salasacans interacted with outsiders—conquistadors and camera-toting tourists alike. Corr also investigates the role of shamanism in modern Salasacan culture, including shamanic powers and mountain spirits, and the use of reshaped, Andeanized Catholicism to sustain collective memory. Through its unique insider’s perspective of Salasacan spirituality, Ritual and Remembrance in the Ecuadorian Andes is a valuable anthropological work that honestly represents this people’s great ability to adapt.
Communities of Imagination
Title | Communities of Imagination PDF eBook |
Author | Catherine Diamond |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Total Pages | 406 |
Release | 2016-11-30 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 082486767X |
Asian theatre is usually studied from the perspective of the major traditions of China, Japan, India, and Indonesia. Now, in this wide-ranging look at the contemporary theatre scene in Southeast Asia, Catherine Diamond shows that performance in some of the lesser known theatre traditions offers a vivid and fascinating picture of the rapidly changing societies in the region. Diamond examines how traditional, modern, and contemporary dramatic works, with their interconnected styles, stories, and ideas, are being presented for local audiences. She not only places performances in their historical and cultural contexts but also connects them to the social, political, linguistic, and religious movements of the last two decades. Each chapter addresses theatre in a different country and highlights performances exhibiting the unique conditions and concerns of a particular place and time. Most performances revolve in some manner around “contemporary modernity,” questioning what it means—for good or ill—to be a part of the globalized world. Chapters are grouped by three general and overlapping themes. The first, which includes Thailand, Vietnam, and Bali, is characterized by the increased participation of women in the performing arts—not only as performers but also as playwrights and directors. Cambodia, Singapore, and Myanmar are linked by a shared concern with the effects of censorship on theatre production. A third group, the Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia, is distinguished by a focus on nationalism: theatres are either contributing to official versions of historical and political events or creating alternative narratives that challenge those interpretations. Communities of Imagination shows the many influences of the past and how the past continues to affect cultural perceptions. It addresses major trends, suggesting why they have developed and why they are popular with the public. It also underscores how theatre continues to attract new practitioners and reflect the changing aspirations and anxieties of societies in immediate and provocative ways even as it is being marginalized by television, film, and the internet. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance, Asian literature, Southeast Asian studies, cultural studies, and gender studies. Travelers wishing to attend local performances as part of their experience abroad will find it an essential reference to theatres of the region.
Re-enchanting Nationalisms
Title | Re-enchanting Nationalisms PDF eBook |
Author | Brad West |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 170 |
Release | 2015-04-13 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 149392513X |
This book provides original insight into the way we now engage and remember national history. Drawing on fieldwork and analysis of international case studies on state commemoration, memorialization, recreational and tourism and times of disaster and crisis, the author demonstrates that not only does the nation frequently retain a strong cultural relevance in our global world but that the emergence of new forms of ritual and remembrance means that in many instances we are seeing the re-enchantment of nationalism. Drawing upon and developing an empirically informed cultural sociology, the author charts the distinctive qualities of these new national rites and how they feed into and advance particular cosmopolitan and orthodox national politics. Because social science has so often wrongly assumed the end of nationalism, the insights of this of the book about the possibilities and limitations of contemporary nationalism demand serious consideration by academics and also by policy makers and the general public.
The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia
Title | The Politics of War Commemoration in the UK and Russia PDF eBook |
Author | Nataliya Danilova |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 245 |
Release | 2016-01-13 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1137395710 |
This book analyses contemporary war commemoration in Britain and Russia. Focusing on the political aspects of remembrance, it explores the instrumentalisation of memory for managing civil-military relations and garnering public support for conflicts. It explains the nexus between remembrance, militarisation and nationalism in modern societies.
War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century
Title | War and Remembrance in the Twentieth Century PDF eBook |
Author | Jay Winter |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | 276 |
Release | 2000-08-27 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 9780521794367 |
How war has been remembered collectively is the central question in this volume. War in the twentieth century is a vivid and traumatic phenomenon which left behind it survivors who engage time and time again in acts of remembrance. This volume, containing essays by outstanding scholars of twentieth-century history, focuses on the issues raised by the shadow of war in this century. The behaviour, not of whole societies or of ruling groups alone, but of the individuals who do the work of remembrance, is discussed by examining the traumatic collective memory resulting from the horrors of the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, and the Algerian War. By studying public forms of remembrance, such as museums and exhibitions, literature and film, the editors have succeeded in bringing together a volume which demonstrates that a popular kind of collective memory is still very much alive.