Oral History Commons^™

Religious Mega-Events And Their Assemblages In Devotional Pilgrimages: The Case Of Círio De Nazaré In Belém, Pará State, Brazil, José Rogério Lopes, André Luiz Da Silva

Journal of Global Catholicism

The article presents a typological categorization of contemporary mega-events and their characteristics, in order to interpret the assemblages mobilized by sectors of the Catholic Church in traditional devotional pilgrimages in the northern region of Brazil. It uses ethnographic accounts of the Círio de Nazaré feast, in Belém, Pará state, Brazil, considered the largest Catholic procession in the West, in order to analyze how the promotion of this event is organized through institutional and market logics that overlap with the religious phenomenon, evincing a contemporary trend. These assemblages open a field of possibilities for institutional religious reproduction and generate concentric flows …

Young Brazilian Catholics Reaffiliating: A Case Study In The City Of Campos, Rj, Brazil, Cecilia L. Mariz, Wânia Amélia Belchior Mesquita, Michelle Piraciaba Araújo

Journal of Global Catholicism

Through a case study in Campos, a northern city of Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, this article analyzes reports from young people who state that they have undergone a process of revival or reactivation of their Catholic faith. They all declared to have participated in the “St Andrew’s School of Evangelization.” They also mentioned having experienced an "encounter with God." Their narratives were similar to conversion accounts reported by practitioners of other religious traditions. The interviewees describe faith as a personal choice, and emphasize the need for religious study and the value of religious knowledge. To what extent these values …

Contemporary Brazilian Catholicism And Healing Practices: Notes On Environmentalism And Medicalization, Juliano F. Almeida

Journal of Global Catholicism

Anthropological studies on Brazilian Catholicism traditionally focused on popular variants of this religious practice and their relationship with the official Catholicism. Encouraged by recent anthropological perspectives, which highlight the relevance of devoting researches not only on the margins, but also on the center of social practices, this paper analyzes contemporary practices of Brazilian Catholic friars and priests on health promotion. The analysis of their publications (books that include practices and tips on health and that became best sellers etc.), as well as interviews, allows us to perceive a process of environmentalization on the contemporary Brazilian Catholicism. This process seems to …

Editor's Introduction, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

La Llorona, Picante Pero Sabroso: The Mexican Horror Legend As A Story Of Survival And A Reclamation Of The Monster, Camille Maria Acosta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For centuries, the relationship between Mexico and its infatuation with scary stories has been profoundly complex, but why? Perhaps it is the easiest way to communicate a Mexican culture, although proud and resilient, riddled with haunting narratives. For myself personally, the Mexican horror narrative La Llorona has served as a lens for conversation and communication that is unique and important.

In this thesis, I explore how Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike use the legend of La Llorona as a unique form of communication through personifying what truly haunts us. From using the narrative as a tool for entertainment, cautionary tales, …

Catholics & Cultures: A Panoramic View In Search Of Greater Understanding, Stephanie M. Wong

Journal of Global Catholicism

While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics & Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential …

The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell

Journal of Global Catholicism

Reflecting on my experience teaching Introduction to Global Christianity, this essay ponders questions at the heart of undergraduate teaching: How can we encourage students to utilize online sources? How can we empower them to seek out answers to their questions? It offers practical examples of how I have used the Catholics & Cultures website in my classroom at a large public university. In particular, I reflect on my experience working with students who are mostly of Catholic heritage, but from many cultural and social contexts.

Ritual Among The Scilohtac: Global Catholicism, The Nacirema, And Interfaith Studies, Anita Houck

Journal of Global Catholicism

More than six decades after its publication, Horace Miner’s 1956 article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” remains a reliable pedagogical tool, remarkably successful in helping students see their own ethnocentric biases. Catholics & Cultures has potential to do similar work. The site lacks some of what makes Miner’s text so effective, in particular its capacity to bring about a sudden shift in perception. The site also shares some of the article’s limitations, particularly in focusing on ritual to the relative exclusion of other aspects of religion. That said, the site can help students gain the religious literacy and develop the …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In introducing the Catholics & Cultures site and the articles in this special issue, this essay initially locates the overall Catholic & Cultures project within the traditions of ethnography and encyclopedia. Drawing extensively on the work of J. Z. Smith, this essay reflects upon the theoretical implications of emphasizing the diversity of Catholicism in and through a web-based platform that facilitates comparative study and pedagogy. This essay then more specifically considers the web-based aspects of Catholics & Cultures by identifying a nascent cyborgian aesthetic in the site and considering how the site might eventually engage post-modern themes and concerns.

Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Paper House: The Revolution, The Disappeared, And The Historicity Of Lebanon, Elsa Saade

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will be an attempt to reenact events in relation to the disappeared and the Lebanese civil war, with the help of newspaper cuts, oral history, theories on historical writing, memories, and books on Lebanon. As a prospective historian, the writer will be tapping into the internal event of thought processes and meaning of the past, as advised by R. G. Collingwood in The Idea of History. (Collingwood, 1946 ) That critical inquiry will only be at the service of understanding the present from the lens of a self-reflecting inquisitor that has faced many silences in a past …

The Interwoven Existences Of Official Catholicism And Magical Practice In The Lived Religiosity Of A Transylvanian Hungarian Village, Cecília Sándor

Journal of Global Catholicism

During the last five years I have been doing field research in a Transylvanian Hungarian village, Sânsimion (Hu: Csíkszentsimon). I present my research on this religiously homogenous, Catholic community’s worldview. Based on interviews conducted with members of the village’s various age groups, I map religious and magical knowledge passed down through the generations, using the theoretical frame of collective memory and religious transmission. Second, I highlight two different but coexisting “constructions of reality” in this rural community. By “constructions of reality,” I mean interpretations of reality expressed in narrative discourses and local magical practices that are closely and inextricably interwoven …

Ua37/44 Faculty Personal Papers Gordon Wilson, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Personal papers of Gordon Wilson.

Village-Temple Consciousness In Two Jaffna Tamil Villages In Post-War Sri Lanka, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This dissertation investigates how community rebuilding is occurring in a gravely damaged, post-conflict society. Specifically, it looks at how people in two villages in Tamil, Hindu, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, are using their ‘sense of place’ and ‘place-making practices’ or what I call here their ‘village-temple consciousness’ or village consciousness, to maintain and rebuild their communities after war to make them, once again, places in which they feel a comfortable sense of belonging. This is a comparative study because Inuvil and Naguleswaram were affected differently by the Sri Lankan civil war. That is, while Inuvil, was physically damaged and socially disrupted …

Handing Down The Heritage: Preserving Irish Diasporic Identities In The Festival City Of Montana, Margaret Mary Walsh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Butte, Montana is a tough, historic industrial town in western Montana known for its mining, its Irish, and strangely, its festivals. The city boasts countless parades and community events each year for a variety of holidays as well as for showcases of traditions and ethnic pride. Three celebrations in particular, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, and An Rí Rá, attract visitors from all over the country – and world – who seek to experience the enthusiasm and splendor of these celebrations. So, what can these popular celebrations in Montana’s Festival City, Butte, reveal about the Irish community living there? …

“Tell Me, Bambi Or Yogi Ever Hunt You Back?” The Windigo Myth: A Metaphor For Imperialism And Mental Illness, Christine Carlough

Senior Capstone Theses

The Canadian indigenous myth of the windigo, originating from Algonquian-speaking tribes of the subarctic Northeast like Ojibwe and Cree, is a manifestation for a multitude of fears. This myth originated hundreds of years ago in order to explain the horror and lack of understanding of a mental illness, which would later be known as Windigo Psychosis. Windigo Psychosis is a culture-bound syndrome for an insatiable desire to consume human flesh. A culture-bound syndrome is recognizable and unique only within a specific society or culture, so in other words, Windigo Psychosis is specific to this area in Canada due to a …

Queen Nanny, A Case Study For Cultural Heritage Tourism: The Archaeology Of Memory And Identity, Lacy Risner

Liberal Arts Capstones

This research project is intended to provide a foundation of knowledge of the Maroon culture in Jamaica, through the legends of one of their most prominent founders, Queen Nanny, as an aid for those who want to educate themselves before approaching community leaders about tourism development. Documentation of Queen Nanny’s life is contested and shrouded in mystery. Yet, that is part of what makes her memory so powerful. The various roles that Queen Nanny is associated with feature her adamant pursuit of an independent life for herself and her Maroons. Whether she is catching bullets or teaching the Maroons how …

Sex And Senesce: A Exploration Of Aging Women’S Sexual Selves, Cordray Mccann

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The sexual lives of women over the age of 50 are often forgotten from just about every medium. This research hopes to uncover how aging women interpret their current sexual selves, sexual histories, and changing bodies. In thinking about this, four women were interviewed about their life stories surrounded love, passion, and sex. Each of these women told brave accounts of their lives and through their narratives, we were able to draw theoretical conclusions about bodily shame, age performativity, and prescribed stereotypical roles. These four stories, told individually as to support each woman's personal narrative are vastly different yet intersect …

The Promises And Perils Of Radio As A Medium Of Faith In A Q’Eqchi’-Maya Catholic Community, Eric Hoenes Del Pinal

Journal of Global Catholicism

Because their parish is large, dispersed, and overwhelmingly rural, FM radio is one of the few reliable means through which the Q’eqchi’-Maya Catholics of San Felipe in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, can communicate with each other en masse. Yet, because it is a one-way medium, it is also impossible to gauge how its intended audience is responding, or if is even there to receive broadcasted messages. Drawing on ethnographic material collected in 2005 (on the use of radio broadcasting to call together ritual participants) and 2016 (on an ultimately failed attempt to launch a radio station to serve rural parishioners), …

Introduction: Mediating Catholicisms: Studies In Aesthetics, Authority, And Identity, Eric Hoenes Del Pinal, Marc Roscoe Loustau, Kristin Norget

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Overview & Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Becoming Legible: The Racial Making Of The Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole People In The Coahuila–Texas Borderland, Rocío Gil Martínez De Escobar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This historical ethnography analyzes the making of the Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole people as part of the production of the Coahuila-Texas borderland. In the quest to become legible to improve their living conditions and maintain a sense of dignity, Negros Mascogos/Black Seminoles use history and racialization as tools of negotiation between themselves and the two nation-states where they live: Mexico and the United States. I analyze the Negro Mascogo/Black Seminole people as a case of racialization that illustrates the ongoing mechanisms of settler colonialism (dispossession, exploitation, and elimination via genocide or assimilation), as they play out in specific socio-historical contexts.

The …

Written And Oral Histories Of The Chicano Movement At New Mexico Highlands University, 1968-1970, Julianna C. Wiggins

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This thesis presents spoken, written, and drawn histories produced before the Chicano Movement at New Mexico Highlands University in November 1970 and the discourses which have followed in the movement’s wake fifty years later. This qualitative study explores the campus climate at NMHU using the student newspaper Highlands Candle. Its contents from 1968 until 1971 are contrasted with the multiple voices of a generation which adopted the term Chicano as a racial identifier into the NMHU vernacular. Social factors including the formation of student-of-color groups and the return of veterans from the Vietnam War appear to change the student …

“El Territorio Como Protagonista”: Un Análisis De Los Recuerdos Territoriales Como Parte De La Memoria Colectiva Del Pueblo Mapuche / “Territory As A Protagonist”: An Analysis Of Territorial Memories That Form Part Of The Collective Memory Of The Pueblo Mapuche, Sabrina Bustamante

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El estado-nación de la Argentina se construyó por encima del territorio del pueblo originario mapuche (y de otros pueblos indígenas, también), que históricamente ha habitado en ambos lados de la cordillera andina, y que precede la formación de estados, fronteras, capitalismo y colonialismo. A partir del evento disruptivo de las campañas militares del ejército argentino que se realizaron a fines del siglo XIX, el territorio mapuche se convirtió en un sitio de conflicto. Además, las campañas militares y el proceso de formación del estado argentino inscribieron en las historias oficiales un ideario de una nación homogéneamente blanca, europea y criolla. …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Janja Majstorovic, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Nevenka Vazgec, Marija Maracic, Josipa Karaca

SICANJE

No abstract provided.

Heritage, Tradition, And Craft In Quiltmaking (Fa 1131), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1131. Collection contains Interviews, photographs, and informant data sheets relating to Sandy Staebell's project with quiltmakers in Allen County and Monroe County, Kentucky and Macon County, Tennessee for the 2017-2018 Osby Lee Hire and Lillian K. Garrison Hire Memorial Lecture Series.

Natura Sanat: On Ecological Aspects Of Healing Miracles In Kalwaria Pacławska, Poland, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska

Journal of Global Catholicism

The subject-matter of my article is a change affecting the discourse on miraculous healings in a Catholic Marian sanctuary – Kalwaria Pacławska – run by Franciscan friars in the South-Eastern Poland and a way in which those changes affect pilgrims’ bodies. In Kalwaria Pacławska there meet, intersect and compete various religious and secular discourses and they all influence emotions and bodily sensations accompanying pilgrimage to this sacred site. One of those discourses has been introduced to Kalwaria just recently. The central element of the sanctuary is the miraculous image of Virgin Mary which is the goal of numerous pilgrimages from …