Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review Of Festkultur Und Gedächtnis: Die Konstruktion Einer Deutschamerikanischen Ethnizität 1848-1914, By Heike Bungert, Carol A. Leibiger

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Defining Choices Redefined: Heroic Life Narratives Of Taiwanese Buddhist Monastics, Hillary Crane

Faculty Publications

The Taiwanese Buddhist monastics in this study confront negative stereotypes that dominate within their wider societal context, and they challenge these stereotypes by positing counter-narratives. After exploring the monastics’ interest in proselytizing both to me and to a wider audience as a context that influences the interview encounter, this chapter focuses on the monastics’ response to negative stereotypes and their endeavors to craft a new, positive image of monastics. I argue that they employ the heroic trope of the da zhangfu (大丈夫, ‘great man’) to reconceive as heroic the life choices they have made that wider Taiwanese society characterizes as …

Animism Among Western Buddhists, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Myriad instances of animist phenomena abound in the Buddhist world, but due to the outdated concepts of thinkers such as Edward Tylor, James George Frazer, and Melford Spiro, commonly scholars perceive this animism merely as the work of local religions, not as deriving from Buddhism itself. However, when one follows a number of contemporary scholars and employs a new, relational concept of animism that is based on respectful recognition of nonhuman personhoods, a different picture emerges. The works of Western Buddhists such as Stephanie Kaza, Philip Kapleau Roshi, and Gary Snyder express powerful senses of relational animism that arise specifically …

Writing About Aj Pop B'Atz': Bruce Grindal And The Transformation Of Ethnographic Writing, Sarah Ashley Kistler

Faculty Publications

The works of Bruce Grindal teach us many things about anthropology’s humanistic tradition. With examples such as Redneck Girl and “Postmodernism as Seen by the Boys at Downhome Auto Repair,” Bruce Grindal demonstrated how we can creatively engage our ethnographic writing to reflect lived experiences. In this article, I examine Bruce’s influence on my ethnographic writing and collaborative research in the Maya community of San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala. Since 2006, I have worked collectively with a group of Chamelqueños to investigate the story of their local hero, Aj Pop B’atz’. In the sixteenth century, Aj Pop B’atz’ welcomed Spanish invaders …

Flirting With Conversion: Negotiating Researcher Non-Belief With Missionaries, Hillary K. Crane

Faculty Publications

This article discusses Crane’s research in a Taiwanese Buddhist monastery. Crane came to the field as a former Catholic, which provided a particular lens through which to perceive the phenomena she researched. Beyond the difficulties of having one's research interests misinterpreted by the community one is researching and the ambiguities that result from remaining open to conversion when studying religious communities, Crane examines the further difficulty confronted when researching religious personnel who have an interest in representing their religious ideals both to and through the researcher. The article examines Crane’s time in the Buddhist monastery and explores her personal ambivalence …

Resistance Through Transformation? The Meanings Of Gender Reversals In A Taiwanese Buddhist Monastery, Hillary Crane

Faculty Publications

This chapter demonstrates that Taiwanese Buddhist nuns resist the limitations of traditional Han gender ideologies by drawing on opportunities offered within those traditional gender constructions—opportunities that allow them to define themselves in opposition to the limited female gender characteristics and roles they reject. Crane argues that we should not interpret these nuns' masculine identification simply as resisting dominant Han gender ideologies. Instead, the nuns embrace the traditional, sexist Han ideologies, even to the point of exaggeration—portraying women not only as dangerous to the spiritual cultivation of others, but also of limited spiritual ability. They define the negative characteristics of women …

Deep East Texas Grave Markers: Types, Styles, And Motifs, Nancy Adgent, Perky Beisel, George Avery

Faculty Publications

Grave markers are often the only physical evidence of a person’s existence and offer opportunities for even ordinary people to ‘speak’ from the grave. Sometimes the deceased selects the marker or leaves instructions for its composition.

In modern times, the grieving family typically chooses the type, style, motif, and inscription according to commercial availability, aesthetic appeal, and budgetary constraints. A cemetery visitor will likely have no idea of the actual circumstances that caused a particular marker to have its shape, design, and decorative elements.

Like other possessions, markers are subject to fashion trends and since the advent of mass production …

Deep East Texas Grave Markers: Types, Styles, And Motifs, Nancy Adgent, Perky Beisel, George Avery

Faculty Publications

Grave markers are often the only physical evidence of a person’s existence and offer opportunities for even ordinary people to ‘speak’ from the grave. Sometimes the deceased selects the marker or leaves instructions for its composition.

In modern times, the grieving family typically chooses the type, style, motif, and inscription according to commercial availability, aesthetic appeal, and budgetary constraints. A cemetery visitor will likely have no idea of the actual circumstances that caused a particular marker to have its shape, design, and decorative elements.

Like other possessions, markers are subject to fashion trends and since the advent of mass production …

The House In The Market: How Q’Eqchi’ Market Women Convert Money And Commodities Into Persons And Personhood, Sarah Ashley Kistler

Faculty Publications

Recent research argues that globalization in Latin America sometimes results in the homogenization of culture and loss of indigenous identity. This paper, however, explores how Q’eqchi’-Maya market women in San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, generate Q’eqchi’ personhood by embracing the conflicts of value introduced by the confrontation of globalization with longstanding Q’eqchi’ values. I argue that in Chamelco, market women are mediators of value who participate in global capitalism to reinforce the categories that structure indigenous life. Q’eqchi’ women engage in marketing activities not only to accrue capital resources, but also to maintain local values, centered on the junkab’al or “house,” …

Becoming A Nun, Becoming A Man: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns’ Gender Transformation, Hillary Crane

Faculty Publications

This paper explores apparent contradictions in the gender identifications of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. Because the texts and teachings of their tradition provide conflicting messages about women's spiritual abilities, the nuns create a complex gender cosmology as a means to accommodate textual contradictions without rejecting any textual statements. This strategy allows the nuns to assert that they have spiritual abilities equal to those of men without rejecting or contradicting textual statements that they do not. Without denying that they are women (and that they are therefore threatening to men) the nuns primarily identify with the male gender. Compartmentalizing and contextualizing gender …

Great And Little Traditions: A Framework For Studying Cultural Interaction Through The Ages In Jordan, Oystein S. Labianca

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sacred Flutes, Fertility, And Growth In The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence E. Hays

Faculty Publications

Since Read's (1952) classic study of the nama cult of the Goroka area, ethnographers in the Papue New Guinea Highlands haved focused considerable attention on what I shall refere to as a "sacred flute complex" around which men's cults are organized. The flutes have been seen as acore symbol of male hegemony, and their associated riges and dogma as key factors in the perpetuation of "antagonistic" relations between the sexes, for which that region has long been known. In specific cases ethnographers have provided ingenious and persuasive analyses of the symbolic aspects of sacred flutes (e.g., Herdt 1981, 1982; Gillison …

Folktales From Habi'ina, Katnantu District, Eastern Highlands Province, Terence E. Hays

Faculty Publications

The people of Habi'ina village live on the northern slopes of Mount Piora in the Dogara Census Division of the Kainantu District, Eastern Highlands Province. Like other Papua New Guineans, they possess a rich oral literature and tell each other stories for a wide variety of reasons. All stories are called huri, but several different types can be distinguished.

Adam And Adapa : Two Anthropological Characters, Niels-Erik Andreasen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.