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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Anthropology

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Selected Works

2015

Articles

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mahogany Intertwined: Enviromateriality Between Mexico, Fiji, And The Gibson Les Paul, Jose E. Martinez-Reyes Sep 2015

Mahogany Intertwined: Enviromateriality Between Mexico, Fiji, And The Gibson Les Paul, Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

This article builds a theory of enviromateriality through a global ethnography that engages both the material culture and materiality of a tree species, Honduran mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), and the global political ecology of forest conservation. The author seeks to understand what Adorno calls the ‘constellation’ between people and mahogany by tracing human–nature relations through the global commodity chain focusing on one particular artefact, the Gibson Les Paul, an iconic solid wood electric guitar made primarily of mahogany grown in Mexico and Fiji. Enviromateriality considers three phases in which to examine the material and materiality in a variety of processes that …


Political And Theoretical Feminisms In American Folkloristics: Definition Debates, Publication Histories, And The Folklore Feminists Communication, Jeana Jorgensen Jul 2015

Political And Theoretical Feminisms In American Folkloristics: Definition Debates, Publication Histories, And The Folklore Feminists Communication, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

What role does feminist theory play in American folkloristics, and which versions of feminism have become mainstreamed in the nearly forty years since folklorists first became attuned to the promises and premises of feminism? By attending to these issues, I hope to at least partially answer the question Alan Dundes asked in his 2004 Invited Presidential Plenary Address to the American Folklore Society: "What precisely is the 'theory' in feminist theory?" (2005, 388). In lamenting the lack of grand theory in folkloristics, Dundes remarks, ''Despite the existence of books and articles with 'feminist theory' in their titles, one looks in …


The Black And The White Bride: Dualism, Gender, And Bodies In European Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen Jul 2015

The Black And The White Bride: Dualism, Gender, And Bodies In European Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

Fairy tales are one of the most important folklore genres in Western culture, spanning literary and oral cultures, folk and elite cultures, and print and mass media forms. As Jack Zipes observes: ‘The cultural evolution of the fairy tale is closely bound historically to all kinds of storytelling and different civilizing processes that have undergirded the formation of nation-states.’143 Studying fairy tales thus opens a window onto European history and cultures, ideologies, and aesthetics.


Sorting Out Donkey Skin (Atu 510b): Toward An Integrative Literal-Symbolic Analysis Of Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen Jul 2015

Sorting Out Donkey Skin (Atu 510b): Toward An Integrative Literal-Symbolic Analysis Of Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

This article debates the merits of fairy tale interpretive frameworks that privilege the psychological and symbolic, versus those that utilize a literal and feminist orientation. Using ATU 510B as a test case, for its intriguing blend of real-world elements and the fantastic, the author suggests that a synthesis of literal and symbolic theories allows for the fullest understanding of the polyvalent meanings of tale, which is particularly problematic due to its depictions of incest. Drawing examples from canonical as well as contemporary versions of ATU 510B, various psychoanalytic and feminist interpretations of the tale type are put to the test, …


Dancing The Numinous: Sacred And Spiritual Techniques Of Contemporary American Belly Dancers, Jeana Jorgensen Jul 2015

Dancing The Numinous: Sacred And Spiritual Techniques Of Contemporary American Belly Dancers, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

In this paper, I explore how contemporary American practitioners of belly dance (as Middle Eastern dance and its many varieties are often called in the English-speaking world) conceptualize not only the spiritual dimensions of their dance, but also how the very notion of performance affects sacred and spiritual dance practices. Drawing on interviews with this community, I describe the techniques of sacred and spiritual belly dancers, how these dancers theorize performance, and how the conflicts inherent to patriarchal mind-body dualism are resolved in these practices. My purpose here is twofold: to document an emergent dance tradition and to analyze its …