Digital Commons Network^™

Cock: Essays And Illustrations On Attention, Accessibility, And Deep Play, Buck Holbrook Buettner

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Clifford Geertz's theory of "deep play"--most thoroughly explored in his 1973 essay "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"--states that acts of recreation and sport carry within them the greater values, traumas, and taboos of the individual cultures which practice them.

An illustrated anthology, Cock: Essays and Illustrations on Attention, Accessibility, and Deep Play elaborates upon Geertz's pre-established definition of deep play by applying its terminology to cultural practices beyond the Balinese cockfight, analyzing brief parentheticals and asides in Geertz's text, and exploring methods of making the greater anthropological field more accessible via multimodal anthropological publication. Also, it is filled …

Nature And The Spirit: Tri Hita Karana, Sacred Artistic Practices, And Musical Ecology In Bali, Hao Huang, Joti Rockwell

EnviroLab Asia

Bali is notable for the degree to which music, dance, and visual art permeate everyday life--a result of historically rooted and continuously evolving religious philosophies and rituals. With this context in mind, we wondered what role the arts play, and can play, in addressing environmental concerns.

Nature And The Spirit: Ritual, Environment, And The Subak In Bali, Hao Huang

EnviroLab Asia

No abstract provided.

Self, Soul Loss, And Motorbikes In Modern Bali, Lucia Alexandrin

Award Winning Anthropology Papers

In this paper I argue that modernity has paradoxically led to a reinforcement of traditional Balinese ritual practices instead of its demise. Modernity in Bali has resulted in increased numbers of motorbikes on the roads and other factors which create dangerous driving conditions. Motorbike accidents, which can cause soul loss, are thus more likely to occur, causing Balinese people to more frequently seek out traditional practices as a way to remedy soul loss. Traditional rituals are also used to prevent motorbike accidents. Therefore, certain consequences of modernity reinforce traditional ritual and solidify Balinese conceptions of self.

War Of The Worlds: Music And Cosmological Battles In The Balinese Cremation Procession, Michael B. Bakan

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Abstract

This article explores processional action as a form of cosmological intervention in Hindu-Balinese cremation processions, focusing on the multiple and intersecting functions of a particular type of Balinese instrumental music ensemble: the gamelan beleganjur. It explores the alternately “enlivening and protective aspects” (DeVale 1990, 62) that underlie the use of beleganjur music in the ngaben, or cremation ritual, showing how beleganjur’s sonic power and rhythmic drive serve to combat malevolent spirit beings, strengthen and inspire processional participants in their efforts to meet challenging ritual obligations, and grant courage to the souls of deceased individuals embarking on their …

"It's Getting Gangsa Up In Here": Balinese Gamelan In The Western Academy, Ruadhan Davis Ward

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Constructing Indigenousness In The Late Modern World, Robert Cribb, Li Narangoa

Robert Cribb

Examines changing meanings of the term 'indigenous" in relation to other ideas that have been valued in various (mainly Western) philosophical system, such as priority, attachment to the land, and technical knowledge.

Ambiguous Bleeding: Purity And Sacrifice In Bali, Lene Pedersen

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

Menstrual beliefs and practices in Bali defy simple classification. Menstruation may be relegated to the dump, as when a woman had to undergo a rite on a street midden when her monthly period coincided with the ritual time for a purification ceremony. But menstruation is also viewed as conferring raja status, and women do exhibit agency in this supposedly passive process. Experiences of menstruation, furthermore, may vary according to caste status.