Cosmologies In The Making

Download or read book Cosmologies in the Making written by Fredrik Barth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All culture, particularly that of non-literate traditions, is constantly being recreated, and in the process also undergoes changes. In this book, Fredrik Barth examines the changes that have taken place in the secret cosmological lore transmitted in male initiation ceremonies among the Mountain Ok of Inner New Guinea, and offers a new way of explaining how cultural change occurs. Professor Barth focuses in particular on accounting for the local variations in cosmological traditions that exist among the Ok people, who otherwise share similar material and ecological conditions, and similar languages. Rejecting existing anthropological theory as inadequate for explaining this, Professor Barth constructs a new model of the mechanisms of change, based on his close empirical observation of the processes of cultural transmission. This model emphasises the role of individual creativity in cultural reproduction and change, and maintains that cosmologies can be adequately understood only if they are regarded as knowledge in the process of communication, embedded in social organization, rather than as fixed bodies of belief. From the model he derives various theoretically grounded hypotheses regarding the probable courses of change that would be generated by such mechanisms. He then goes on to show that these hypotheses fit the actual patterns of variation that are found among the Ok.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age written by Anthony Harding and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-06-27 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by expert specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterize the period, and of the specific developments that took place in the various countries of Europe. After an introduction and a discussion of chronology, successive chapters deal with settlement studies, burial analysis, hoards and hoarding, monumentality, rock art, cosmology, gender, and trade, as well as a series of articles on specific technologies and crafts (such as transport, metals, glass, salt, textiles, and weighing). The second half of the book covers each country in turn. From Ireland to Russia, Scandinavia to Sicily, every area is considered, and up to date information on important recent finds is discussed in detail. The book is the first to consider the whole of the European Bronze Age in both geographical and thematic terms, and will be the standard book on the subject for the foreseeable future.

Download or read book The Social Life of Dreams written by Adriënne Heijnen and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2013 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how dreams, remembered upon awakening, are turned into social action in a European society. Supported by ethnographic research of modern Iceland and examples from the historical literature, the book argues that the social meaning ascribed to the Icelandic dream has been a continuous part of Icelandic everyday life for a thousand years and is still being adapted today. (Series: European Studies in Culture and Policy - Vol. 12)

Download or read book Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture written by John Richard Bowen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-10-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debating the problem of comparison in politics and culture, this work takes up a variety of topics from nationalist violence and labour strikes to ritual forms and religious practices. The contributors criticise conventional forms of comparative method, and introduce new comparative strategies.

Download or read book The Qualities of Time written by Wendy James and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-19 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relevance of classical ideas in the anthropology of time tothe way we understand history, participate in the events around us, and experienceour lives. Time is not just an abstract principle we live by or a local cultural construct: it is shaped, punctuated, organized, and suffered in complex ways by real people negotiating their lives and relations with others. Space may be opened up for politics, violence or revolutionary change within the framework of ceremonial markers of social time: holy days, festivals and carnivals. People create and recreate patterns in the way they imagine the past, present and future at such moments, through material objects, language, symbolic action and bodily experience. The rhythms of social life, including periodic episodes of sacred or special time, interact with 'historical events' in strange ways. They are fundamental not only to the human condition but to the making andremembering of history, as well as to what we recognize as the unexpected or abnormal. The Qualities of Time brings anthropologists and archaeologists together in a new conversation about the 'patterns' of our understanding and experience of time. The authors reflect on how we should interpret evidence about the distant past, andhow far the structuring of social time is a human universal. They also consider whether anthropology itself has been so oriented to the present it has still to develop ways of dealing with temporality. The interactions of time-structures, ceremonials, and specific historical events, including violence inspired by the millennium, are interrogated. The experience of individuals who feel the times are for them 'out of joint' is also examined. By combining socio-cultural, philosophical and historical approaches, thisthought-provoking book moves anthropological debates about time's qualities wellbeyond existing studies.This book explores the relevance of classical ideas in the anthropology of time toth

Download or read book Conversations about Calling written by Valerie L. Myers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations about Calling explores management perspectives of the calling construct. Using Max Weber’s seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, as a starting point, Myers seeks to enrich management perspectives of calling by integrating the contributions of other disciplines to the literature on calling. While the word 'calling' is casually used as shorthand for 'my ideal job', the calling concept has provoked deeper and varied interest among the secular and spiritual circles of both scholars and practitioners. Structured around the idea of four conversations, the book aims to promote a holistic examination of calling. Each conversation has a different focus, elucidating important dimensions of calling, and together they provide a truly comprehensive view. Part I of the book examines existing conversations in management, while part II explores calling across disciplines and eras, from the 1500s to the present. Finally, part III unifies all conversations in a comprehensive theory, then discusses its application and implications for practitioners and organizations. With a strong theoretical grounding, the book also incorporates practical applications supported by case studies. Anyone interested in ethics or management and spirituality will benefit from reading this book. Please visit www.conversationsaboutcalling.com to rate the book and write a review.

Download or read book Uncertainty and Its Discontents written by Peter J. Katzenstein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Worldviews are the unexamined, pre-theoretical foundations of the approaches with which we understand and navigate the world, and this volume provides the first major study of worldviews in international relations. Advances in twentieth century physics and cosmology questioning anthropocentrism have fostered the articulation of alternative worldviews, rivalling conventional Newtonian humanism and its assumption that the world is constituted by controllable risks. This matters for accepting uncertainties that are an indelible part of many spheres of life including public health, the environment, finance, security and politics – uncertainties that are concealed by the conventional presumption that the world is governed only by risk. The confluence of risk and uncertainty requires an awareness of alternative worldviews, alerts us to possible intersections between humanist Newtonianism and hyper-humanist Post-Newtonianism, and reminds us of the relevance of science, religion and moral values in world politics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.