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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Rappaport, Roy (1926-97), Brian A. Hoey Jul 2018

Rappaport, Roy (1926-97), Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.

A brief personal and intellectual biography of the late anthropologist, Roy Rappaport.


Always After: Desiring Queerness, Desiring Anthropology, Margot Weiss Dec 2015

Always After: Desiring Queerness, Desiring Anthropology, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Queer, from its start, was meant to point beyond or beside identity—specifically gay and lesbian—and instead signify transgression of, resistance to, or exclusion from normativity, especially but not exclusively heteronormativity. But for all this, queer has never quite moved beyond identity. And queer has not quite been the site of resistance we had hoped, as the story of queer studies’ academic institutionalization might portend. Still, I am not writing a eulogy for queer. Instead, in this Retrospectives essay, I resist finding—if only to lose—a new proper object of queer anthropology and suggest, rather, that it is the frustration of …


Displaying Human Remains In Italy, Why It Matters To Italian Museums: Research, Ethics, And Repatriation, Vincent Barraza Apr 2014

Displaying Human Remains In Italy, Why It Matters To Italian Museums: Research, Ethics, And Repatriation, Vincent Barraza

Vincent Barraza

Looking critically at museum collections in Italy exhibiting human remains, this paper examines current display practices and techniques, cultural views on displaying the dead, and explores the controversial topic of “Human Remains vs. Historical Object.” This paper compares the scientific benefits of collecting, analyzing, displaying human remains, in concert with a cultural and physical anthropological analysis, including cultural identity and viewer interpretation.  It argues the ethical and moral issues associated with the exposition of human remains for their historical, scientific or entertainment value. Finally, it explores the principles behind repatriation, including a discussion on ownership and assessing claims to human …


Everyday Violence, Quotidian Griefs: Kidnapping In The Pankisi Gorge, Rebecca Gould Dec 2013

Everyday Violence, Quotidian Griefs: Kidnapping In The Pankisi Gorge, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.


Husserl’S Concept Of The ‘Transcendental Person’: Another Look At The Husserl–Heidegger Relationship, Sebastian Luft Oct 2013

Husserl’S Concept Of The ‘Transcendental Person’: Another Look At The Husserl–Heidegger Relationship, Sebastian Luft

Sebastian Luft

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in …


November Uri Community Diversity Project 2010, Joseph A. Santiago Mr, Riley Davis Ms, Richard V. Travisano Mr Apr 2013

November Uri Community Diversity Project 2010, Joseph A. Santiago Mr, Riley Davis Ms, Richard V. Travisano Mr

Richard Travisano

November is National Novel Writing Month. For the first time at the University of Rhode Island November was a month for the URI community to share their stories, poems, art, and photos with the world. The Writing to Model Diversity project intends to connect individuals across cultural boundaries and borders by sharing the stories and experiences that challenge our everyday experiences and the dreams of the future. Built on the efforts of the World Voice series, URI presents a book that shares the stories and culture of the students, faculty, staff, and community members who embrace the idea of becoming …


Arab Society, Richard A. Lobban Jr. Apr 2012

Arab Society, Richard A. Lobban Jr.

Richard A Lobban

Having studied the Arab world for three decades, I have noted the contemporary gridlock on many pressing regional, social, economic, and religious issues. This has often generated a parallel intellectual paralysis. So, I picked up the edited work by Hopkins and Ibrahim with some hesitation. How could there be any fresh insights? For a reviewer this sense of cynicism was not good.


Repetition And The Symbolic In Contemporary Japanese Ancestor Memorial Ritual, Jason A. Danely Dec 2011

Repetition And The Symbolic In Contemporary Japanese Ancestor Memorial Ritual, Jason A. Danely

Jason Danely

Ancestor memorial rituals, including mortuary ceremonies for the dead, periodic grave visits, practices at home altars, and the like, constitute the most popular form of religious participation in contemporary Japan, encompassing an increasingly diverse number of ritual forms. This article examines a common theoretical framework used to describe this diversity by categorizing rituals in terms of continuity vs. change or tradition vs. invention. This article proposes an alternate framework for understanding processes leading to the transformation of rituals like ancestor memorial. This framework is centered around the process of repetition and its role in the production of the symbolic. Drawing …


The Shanti Sena “Peace Center” And The Non-Policing Of An Anarchist Temporary Autonomous Zone: Rainbow Family Peacekeeping Strategies, Michael I. Niman Ph.D. Feb 2011

The Shanti Sena “Peace Center” And The Non-Policing Of An Anarchist Temporary Autonomous Zone: Rainbow Family Peacekeeping Strategies, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

This article utilizes ethnographic methods and government documents to examine the self-policing and peacekeeping strategies of the Rainbow Family, a nonviolent acephalous intentional community that holds massive weeklong gatherings around the globe. It is a case study that examines the efficacy of these methods, comparing them to those traditional police agencies employ under similar conditions. It contextualizes these strategies by examining other utopian and anarchist communities and movements such as Critical Mass bike rides. This study demonstrates how smiling, chanting, listening, social pressure, and social capital all play into forming a more effective and less violent approach toward peacekeeping.


Wellness, Health, And Salvation : About The Religious Dimension Of Contemporary Body-Mindedness, Christoffer H. Grundmann Dec 2010

Wellness, Health, And Salvation : About The Religious Dimension Of Contemporary Body-Mindedness, Christoffer H. Grundmann

Christoffer H. Grundmann

Alluding to the enormous investments in wellness, health, and anti-aging by affluent US society today the article focuses on the anthropological and religious implications of this phenomenon by stating that the pursuit of such caring for the body has superseded the quest for salvation. The first section provides a historical background analysis of how the contemporary semi-religious bodymindedness came about, while the second part analyses wellness, health, and salvation from a phenomenological point of view. It shows that any body image which does not address human frailty turns into something utterly inhumane while a religiously informed anthropology, in contrast, not …


Et Ego In Academia, Kirby Farrell Prof Dec 2008

Et Ego In Academia, Kirby Farrell Prof

kirby farrell

Denial of humankind's creaturely limits is characteristic of much literary criticism. Shakespeare consistently dramatizes the limits of language, seeking to evoke wonder or a tragic sense of madness and chaos through an overplus of meanings in paradox, irony, and wordplay that cannot be processed sequentially by imagination.


Weirdos Riot, Media Gets It Wrong, Michael I. Niman Ph.D. Jul 2008

Weirdos Riot, Media Gets It Wrong, Michael I. Niman Ph.D.

Michael I Niman Ph.D.

Michael I. Niman is concerned by media treatment of a hippie riot that never happened


Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman Dec 2007

Orang-Utans, Tribes, And Nations: Degeneracy, Primordialism, And The Chain Of Being, Gareth Knapman

Gareth Knapman

This article explores how early anthropological writing (1830s and 1840s) on the nation faced the question: How natural was the nation? In exploring development of the nation from the tribe, colonial ethnological writers in Southeast Asia also explored the limits of primordialism. Debates on the humanity of the orang-utan represented the search for these limits. The theme of degeneracy underpinned these connections. Degeneracy was a complex belief that connected the civilized nation to the savage tribe. Two methodologies underpinned this discourse: scientific rationality and imagination. Many contemporary studies focus on how scientific rationality created distance between the colonized and the …


Language Dreamers: Race And The Politics Of Etymology In The Caucasus, Rebecca Gould Dec 2006

Language Dreamers: Race And The Politics Of Etymology In The Caucasus, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

No abstract provided.