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This volume, Rhizomes, is a challenging path into a very multidisciplinary set of papers. Papers range across cultural studies and film, to applied linguistics to sociolinguistics; and as gathered in this one volume - the result of postgraduate student research of a very high order - they'force'readers to think critically of disciplines, their assumed boundaries and most importantly, the usefulness of assuming the enduring value of such boundaries. This is not to say that ‘anything goes', but the diversity of areas under scrutiny means that sharper re-thinking of one's own comfort zones is necessarily one key outcome when confronted with a volume like this. This is one advantage of the selected papers – besides the obvious one of having at your finger tips a simple way of delving into a challenging diversity.Brian Ridge, Campion College, SydneyThis is a wonderful collection of papers, which demonstrates the power and vitality of contemporary literary and cultural research. The scope of the papers, the diversity of the subject matter, and the willingness of their authors to work across disciplinary boundaries work together to create an exemplary collection of research for the twenty-first century – multidisciplinary, multigeneric, and multimodal, like 21st century texts and media.Greg Hainge's opening paper sets the stage for the diverse and engaging papers that follow. With his own examples of rhizomatics drawn from music, Greg immediately has the reader acknowledging the multidisciplinary – and multimodality – of contemporary texts – and so the need for research that can address the richness and complexity of these texts.In Part 1 we have two papers that address the issue of the limitations of conventional research methodology in their own fields (language acquisition, film studies) – and propose alternative and more productive methodologies. The exciting thing about this section is that these are fields normally considered very different and without much to say to one another – and yet the combination works to create a dialogue that extends across these and many other fields of research. Most importantly, both challenge the dichotomising of research and analytical methods that has worked to impoverish their fields and the research on which it is based. Part 2 presents papers on a range of marginalised social positionings and experiences – and in the process demonstrates both the power of research to uncover what has been ignored or elided in contemporary histories (how many westerners know of the long history of Chinese women in film? Or of an Aboriginal Taiwanese literature?) as well as the power of new perspectives, new ways of thinking the research subject, to open up areas of study such as dating manuals and country music, both conventionally dismissed as inherently trivial and/or sexist.In Part 3 the papers all play brilliantly with the notion of connectivity, demonstrating for readers the inextricability of texts and meaning systems (verbal, visual and other) with the cultural contexts in which they operate – and so the diverse ways they may be deployed. These papers banish forever any reliance on a formalist reading or methodology for the analysis of text and meaning! And, again, the range of subject-matter is breath-taking and argues the need for cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research practice.Part 4 takes the reader into the realm of transformations, challenging the ways in which textual and systemic changes articulate profound cultural changes in the societies that produce them. So we learn about grammatical interventions in the Chinese language as feminine and neuter pronouns are added to the gender-free Chinese language – and consider the major cultural change that both caused this change and is subsequently produced by it. We consider the ways in which cinema has evolved as an art-form, under the influence of its material and verbal technologies.

Over their long and colorful history, the Chinese people have produced a variety of fascinating and useful cultural artifacts and performance inventions--from the compass and paper money to tea ceremonies and wedding parties--that have won the admiration of people around the world. They have improved living conditions for many who remain unaware of the Chinese origins of these innovations. This book's forty concise chapters serve as windows into a wide range of Chinese cultural traditions and practices. Some aspects of culture featured here include Chinese gardens, homes, and temples; calligraphy, chess, and clothing; paper cutting, seals, and musical instruments; martial arts and Peking Opera; and feng shui (auspicious design). Amply illustrated, with idiomatic phrases parsed throughout, the authors offer a road map to guide both the novice and'old hand'alike through the essential elements of Chinese culture.

Can cultural exchange be understood as a mutual act of translation? Or are elements of a country's cultural identity inevitably lost in the act of exchange? Brazil and Great Britain, although unlikely collaborators, have shared an artistic dialogue that can be traced back some 500 years. This publication, arising from the namesake research project funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council, seeks to understand and raise awareness of the present practices of cultural exchange between Brazil and Great Britain in relation to their historical legacy. Presenting five case studies and eight position papers, this research-based project investigates how artists interpret, transmit and circulate ideas, ideologies and forms of knowledge with specific reference to the production of new ‘translations'produced from and, where possible, between peripheral territories. Written in accessible language, the case studies describe the experience of artists, managers and cultural leaders dealing with important challenges in the creative sector regarding the translation of creative and learning arts methodologies. Projects investigated are at the forefront of social arts collaborative practice, representing internationally influential initiatives that have had a demonstrable impact not only in urban centres and peripheries but also in isolated areas of central Brazil and the north of England. The position papers commissioned by the research from Brazilian and British academics and cultural leaders provide a remarkable variety of social, political, anthropological, historic and artistic perspectives of cultural exchange projects offering valuable experiences for those working in research, policy and for creative practitioners.

This book is composed of a selection of papers presented at a conference in Cambridge in December 2005. Cultural history is a relatively new sub-discipline. Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly apparent that a new generation of historians has emerged. These scholars have become concerned with research, sources and questions traditionally beyond the scope of the discipline of history. Indeed, recent monographs in history have demonstrated a growing awareness of the cultural imagination in analyses of patterns of change and continuity in the past. Such a movement has also encouraged the development of new networks between different disciplines in the Arts and Social Sciences.The authors of these chapters come from a wide range of academic backgrounds. While all are concerned with crucial issues of the past, they represent a substantial variety of disciplines. In addition to the historians are those trained and working in literary studies, art history, design, music and science. As early-career scholars, the research they present is cutting edge: these contributions represent the very latest trends in cultural studies and demonstrate the attempts of new researchers to answer the most current and challenging questions that are being proposed in this field.

This volume brings together selected papers covering topics related to the contemporary cultural heritage research framework within the field of Digital Humanities (DH). Intended for scholars, students and practitioners, the book provides the reader with insights into the description and access, and digitization of cultural heritage. It also explores Croatian Glagolitic and Latin written heritage as a source for historiographic and linguistic research.It is organized into seven topics, each questioning one of the research areas within the DH framework, namely DH as a contemporary cultural heritage research framework; the description of, and access to, cultural heritage; the digitization of cultural heritage; written heritage as a source for historiographic and linguistic research; literary studies; research and communication of cultural heritage; and education in the field of DH.

This collection of papers explores the sacred and magical aspects of ethno-medicine. The subject area is marked out by the points of connection between religious anthropology, ethno-medicine and medical anthropology, focusing on topics such as magical and religious concepts of health and disease, causes of disease, religious and magical averting and healing rites, healing gods, saints and, last but not least, the role that these play in the society, religion, mentality and everyday life of a community, as well as their various representations in folklore, literature or art. This volume includes, without restrictions of a methodological, temporal or geographical nature, works from the fields of folklore studies, anthropology, cultural history, comparative historical and textual philology, as well as research findings using the latest methods of analysis in textual folklore or based on archival research or fieldwork in or outside of Europe. This book will appeal to researchers and students of religion, folklore, and medical anthropology, as well as general readers interested in the humanities and cultural history.

The historical upheavals in Southeast Europe since the early 20th century brought about deep transformations of people's everyday lives and their life courses. The concept of ‘life course'enables the understanding of human lives within their socio-cultural and political contexts, stressing agency and people's everyday experience. Balkan contexts invite for analyses that bridge political and social changes and their influence on individual life courses. The papers discuss problems such as family life and parenthood, ages and ageing, life-cycle rituals and the artistic expressions devoted to them. The authors present manifestations of the social differentiation and cultural multiplicity under post-socialist or post-colonial conditions – from developing contemporary global life styles among the emerging urban middle class to the ghettoization of some social or age groups. This volume focusses on developing family cultures, on experiencing socialization and age, on ‘old'and ‘new'life cycle rituals and their artistic representations in contemporary Southeast Europe.

The numerous and varied indicators of environmental risks point toward the likelihood of a systemic and catastrophic ecological failure at some point during this century. Political inaction and cultural resistance, meanwhile, are even preventing the implementation of already available technical solutions, which has led many experts to conclude that averting a global environmental catastrophe is, foremost, a socio-political, rather than a technical, challenge. The World Science Union (ICSU) has recognized that knowledge of the social sciences is indispensable for facilitating the major socio-cultural transformations now required, and, together with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), called for a mainstreaming of environmental research in the social sciences at the Rio+20 Earth Summit. The two major international organizations in anthropology, IUAES and WCAA, responded to this call by co-sponsoring a symposium on environmental change at the Manchester World Anthropology Congress, and by creating a scientific Commission for Anthropology and Environment, which then hosted a second symposium in Chiba City, Tokyo, in May 2014. This volume is a selection of the many papers presented by a truly international group of experts at the two symposia. It identifies and provides case study examples in six major research areas where anthropology and local and indigenous people's knowledge can make a significant contribution: Environmental Vulnerability and Risk Perceptions; Sustainable Urban Environments; Sustainable Rural Environments and Food Security; Indigenous People and Nature Conservation; Environmental Justice and Corporate Social Responsibility; and Sustainable Resource Management. Contributors represent nine different national anthropologies across all continents. The volume thus also enacts a new ‘world anthropologies'paradigm, first proposed by the World Anthropologies Network (WAN), which aspires to unify and globalize the discipline in a spirit of equality and mutual respect among scholars across all national traditions and language barriers. Furthermore, the volume will also support teaching and promote further research in the anthropology of the environment.

The Postcard's Radical Openness offers a groundbreaking exploration of what this multifaceted, double-sided open card entails and how it has affected our being in the world. With a holistic approach, it focuses on studying the postcard's specific way of being and performing, a particular ontology that opens up what is constitutively implicated in such an apparently trivial artifact. The book, organized into four parts, meticulously unveils the postcard's political, technological, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions, ending with a coda correlating the postcard's radical openness to G. Klimt's painting, Nuda Veritas (1899) in reference to the scope of truth. By examining the postcard's complex worldwide history, its socio-cultural significance, and its global effect, the book reveals hidden stories shedding light on its impact on photography, printing, marketing, trade, and business practices and exposes the aesthetic, communicative, and ethical qualities that lie behind the enormous success of postcards at the turn of the 20th century. This comprehensive study is positioned as a thought-provoking invitation to scholars and students interested in material culture, media studies, and human interactions, as well as to history enthusiasts, art lovers, and postcard collectors. Offering a distinctive contribution, the book not only fills a void in the literature but also encourages readers to question and reflect on the transformative power inherent in the postcard's'radical openness,'presenting a novel and unparalleled analysis of this seemingly trivial yet culturally significant object.

Hokkaido Dairy Farm offers a historical and ethnographic examination of the rapid industrialization of the dairy industry in Tokachi, Hokkaido. It begins with a history of dairy farming and consumption in Hokkaido from a macro perspective, mapping the transition from survival to subsistence and then from mixed family farms to monoculture and'mega'industrial operations. It then narrows the focus to examine concrete changes in a Tokachi-area dairying community that has undergone rapid sociocultural upheaval over the last three decades, with shifts in human relationships alongside changes in human and cow connections through new technologies. In the final chapters, the scope is further narrowed to a detailed history and ethnography of a single industrializing dairy farm and the morphing cast of individuals attached to it, centering on their idiosyncratic searches for economic, social, and even ontological security in what is popularly considered a peripheral region and industry. The culmination of over fifteen years of ethnographic, policy, and historical research, Hokkaido Dairy Farm argues that the dairy industry in Japan has always been entwined with notions of Otherness and security seeking, notably in terms of frontiers.

This volume showcases new research on popular academic topics in Ghana. Its wide range of focus across disciplines includes topics such as pidgin, performing apologies and politeness, music, the argument for adopting geographical indications (GI) policies for Ghana's unique agricultural products, and the poetics of names, among many others. It will appeal particularly to students pursuing degrees in Africana and Ghanaian studies.

The book is a study of the emergence of market economy with modern economic institutions in the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt from the third and early second millennium B.C.E. The study covers the Sumerian, Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods. The economic analysis is based on Institutional Economics theory, and the data on the Old Assyrian period is based on the work of many scholars that transliterated, translated and studied many of the 23,000 documents of the Old Assyrian traders found in old Kanesh in Central Turkey.The book includes chapters on the institutions of: property rights; the markets and means of exchange; the organization and finance of trade; and enforcement institutions from the judicial, social and political systems. In addition, it gives a detailed analysis of: the early means of exchange (money) like the use of volume measure of barely and weight measure of copper and silver in Sumer; various instruments establishing property rights such as Kuduru border stones, seals and inserted cones in walls; detailed analysis of the communication system and its components; and the description of the modern financial instruments used to include, for example, limited partnerships.

This book takes a journey into the fascinating world of numerical systems in South Asian languages, offering a unique exploration of the intricate patterns, cultural nuances, and historical significance embedded within the numerical frameworks of the given languages. It blends the discovery of new facts with the reinterpretation of existing ones, while developing a methodology for investigating number systems that can be applied to languages around the world.It is a groundbreaking study that unveils the complex linguistic patterns and socio-cultural significance of numerical systems in South Asian languages, offering valuable insights for researchers, linguists, anthropologists, and language enthusiasts alike. By bridging the gap between linguistics, anthropology, cultural studies, and mathematics, this book encourages interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration by examining numeral systems from multiple angles.

En el año 1492, después de que Boabdil entregara las llaves de Granada, un embajador de los Reyes Católicos en Roma, Bernardino López de Carvajal, pronunciaba ante la curia unas sonoras palabras: «Toda la virtud y la gloria de Hispania se han restaurado». La antigua provincia establecida por los romanos en la península ibérica, cuna de hombres ilustres y fuente de riquezas, retornaba a su esplendor gracias a las obras de Fernando e Isabel, quienes continuaban con su proyecto de unificar los reinos ibéricos. Se trataba, fundamentalmente, de recuperar el vínculo histórico entre Roma y España, para ensalzar no solo el prestigio y liderazgo de los reyes frente a los demás monarcas europeos, sino su complejo programa político. Siguiendo la metodología de la recepción de la Antigüedad clásica, esta obra estudia cómo a finales del siglo xv se produjo una importante transferencia cultural entre Italia y España que permitió la introducción del humanismo monárquico en Castilla y Aragón. A través de la historiografía y de la literatura política, se produjo un nuevo interés por el pasado clásico que derivó en dos grandes fenómenos, interrelacionados: el inicio de la cultura anticuaria, origen de la futura ciencia arqueológica, y la utilización de la cultura clásica en el ámbito político. Así, un nutrido grupo de intelectuales al servicio de los reyes elaboró, a las puertas del Renacimiento español, dos argumentos cruciales que se mantuvieron inherentes al discurso de la monarquía hispánica en los siglos posteriores: la unidad ibérica y la ideología imperial. Los Reyes Católicos, como hijos de Hércules y césares de un nuevo Imperio, favorecieron el desarrollo del relato histórico de la península ibérica, lo que llevaría a Antonio de Nebrija a escribir en su crónica sobre el reinado aquella rotunda expresión: «Hispania tota sibi Restituta est».

This volume brings together a range of views and arguments that healthily contribute to global conversations on media, culture and conflict in Africa. It explores how cultural practices, media practices, social movements, and the possibilities of emerging technologies could be ventilated and directed towards remediating the perilous state of affairs in political, social, and economic spaces in contemporary Africa. As the intersection of culture and conflict is relatively underexplored or under-researched in African media studies, this book makes an important contribution to the field.

Musical vernaculars are a rare and challenging object of study. Their sound can include everything—from local folk and popular songs to random foreign hits and fragments of classic repertoire. It is an everchanging element—eclectic, whimsical, and resistant to regularity.Based on the author's multicultural experience, proficiency in Russian and Jewish music history, and interest in anthropology, this book explores the essential features of vernaculars. They can have varying degrees of changeability; some are quite stable, and exist in closed rural or immigrant communities (phylo-vernacular), while others are dynamic, like those of an urbanized population (onto-vernacular). These types of vernacular can turn into one another when communities migrate—that is, agricultural people move to cities, and the townspeople settle on the land. Understanding the changes in the vernacular repertoires as something natural, this book defends the value of urbanized folk music, disputing the traditional view of art-music composers of rural folk songs as only “authentic” and suitable for expressing nationalistic sentiments. The book also examines unexpected interconnections between Russian and Jewish music, both in their vernacular manifestations and the creative work of Sergei Slonimsky and Dmitry Shostakovich.

This comprehensive study of digital visualization brings together insights from the fields of anthropology and music analysis and explores their import for critical pedagogy and digital education. Anchored on an array of ethnographically informed examples of visualization, it discusses the cultural, educational and cognitive repercussions of our engagement with visually-centered research and teaching. The book offers a hands-on approach to experimental pedagogies attuned to the needs of researchers, educators and artists in the digital humanities who seek to open passageways between theory and praxis.

This book is a theological reflection of Sheen's contribution to humanity and society. It analyzes the modern person from the Catholic doctrinal perspective, explores Fulton Sheen's perception of the contemporary individual, and demonstrates that global economic, religious, and political crises cannot be resolved by focusing only on the mundane. It further underscores some contemporary anthropological challenges and proposes a philosophy and theology of life that can enable contemporary humans to know themselves better and make life worth living. The authors argue that advancements in science and technology have failed to prolong happiness; people are still frustrated, disillusioned, cynical, bored, and suicidal.This book enters the landscape of Sheen's controversial pause before he was sanctified and provides a lengthy, liturgical extrapolation of Sheen's Christian anthropology, wrestling with other thinkers and general concerns surrounding human angst in modern society.