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Approaching the Issue of Sacrifice

Maria‐Zoe Petropoulou

in Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200

This chapter deals with the main anthropological theories on sacrifice in general, and on Jewish and Greek sacrifice in particular. The few historical approaches to the issue of sacrifice are also ... More

This chapter deals with the main anthropological theories on sacrifice in general, and on Jewish and Greek sacrifice in particular. The few historical approaches to the issue of sacrifice are also presented, with emphasis on Nilsson's approach. A way of understanding the mechanism of animal sacrifice, based on the intersection of two axes, the one vertical (linking humans to the deity), the other horizontal (that of reality), is presented. It is explained that the book mainly deals with the horizontal axis, which consists of many sections, each one representing a particular realm of reality. The code of language moves along the whole of each axis, and communicates the meanings carried through the axis. This scheme will prove very important in the study of sacrificial metaphors, in which the terms normally applied to one section of the horizontal axis move towards other sections of it.Less

The Matriarchal Explosion: Anthropology Finds Mother Right (and Itself )

Eller Cynthia

in Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory, 1861-1900

This chapter takes a look at the sudden interest of anthropologists in matriarchy. It reviews several anthropological theories of matriarchy from the late nineteenth century, including Henry Sumner ... More

This chapter takes a look at the sudden interest of anthropologists in matriarchy. It reviews several anthropological theories of matriarchy from the late nineteenth century, including Henry Sumner Maine's patriarchal theory and Sir John Lubbock's matriarchal myth. The chapter shows that matriarchal myth reigned as dogma within British anthropology, and slowly spread out to the cultural mainstream.Less

Perfectible Apes in Decadent Cultures: Rousseau’s Anthropology Revisited¹

Robert Wokler and Christopher Brooke

Bryan Garsten (ed.)

in Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacies

The diffusion of Rousseau's influence over the past two centuries has been so wide and so substantial that hardly a subject or movement appears to have escaped his clutches. Rousseau perceived a ... More

The diffusion of Rousseau's influence over the past two centuries has been so wide and so substantial that hardly a subject or movement appears to have escaped his clutches. Rousseau perceived a historical connection between the animal and cultural features of humanity, and between our physical evolution and social development, which led him to construct a comprehensive anthropological theory remarkably original in his own day and remains worthy of critical investigation now. This chapter sketches the leading features of that theory in the intellectual context, which at once most clearly establishes their meaning and elucidates their significance as well. For Rousseau, our physical evolution is based on a set of conjectures to the effect that the human race may have descended from apes.Less

Theophrastus on Jewish Sacrificial Practices and the Jews as a Community of Philosophers

Bezalel Bar-Kochva

in The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period

This chapter studies Theoprastus, the first of four Greek authors during the early Hellenistic period to write about the Jews, and is concerned with his views on Jewish sacrificial practices and the ... More

This chapter studies Theoprastus, the first of four Greek authors during the early Hellenistic period to write about the Jews, and is concerned with his views on Jewish sacrificial practices and the Jewish philosopher community. Theoprastus's thoughts on these two topics are featured in a passage in his work, the Peri eusebeias. The chapter also studies his anthropological theory and his reference to the Jews during his explanation of the development of human dietary and sacrificial habits.Less

Introduction: Prisms of Belonging and Alternative Modernities

Valentina Napolitano

in Migration, Mujercitas, and Medicine Men: Living in Urban Mexico

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the relationship between migration, religion, medicine, gender identity, the dynamics of belonging, and everyday life in ... More

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the relationship between migration, religion, medicine, gender identity, the dynamics of belonging, and everyday life in urban Mexico. It aims to convey an emerging anthropological particularity through an ordinary urban place rather than assume its particularity prior to the ethnographic engagement. It proposes an anthropological theory that questions what is ordinary and explores the relation between the ordinary and the exotic.Less

The City in Late Antiquity: Where Have All the Demons Gone?

Dayna S. Kalleres

in City of Demons

This chapter presents the book’s framework as: (1) a new form of cultural history (animistic history of demons in the city or ecclesiastical authority); and (2) historiographical critique (why have ... More

This chapter presents the book’s framework as: (1) a new form of cultural history (animistic history of demons in the city or ecclesiastical authority); and (2) historiographical critique (why have demonologies of late antique cities been neglected in scholarship?). To that end, I present the thesis, my methodology (intertwining material analyses—i.e., archaeology—and literary analyses), and theoretical approaches (anthropology, ritual theory). I discuss the wider, historiographical background (Gibbon’s narrative of fall and decline replaced by late antiquity’s dynamic of continuity and transformation), which shaped my alternative view of the relationship between a perceived historical progression and imagined enchanted environment (Robert Orsi's abundant history, animistic history)—a relationship animated through ritual practice. Finally, I present the centrality of diabolization in my thesis. Ecclesiastical leadership in cities employed demonological discourse and exorcistic practice—that is, diabolization—to a maintain congregations and Christianize the city. Diabolization is comprised of two parts: first, a rhetorical/discursive amplification of the demonic, the intensification of the demonic threat, drawing it closer and closing the distance that demonization creates; second, a ritual strategy aimed toward defeating or managing the demonic. This ritual process redefined the topographical urban map, shifted the urban worldview and concepts of embodied charismatic power.Less

Whence and Whither Sociocultural Anthropology

Harvey Whitehouse

in Creating Consilience: Integrating the Sciences and the Humanities

This chapter argues that there is a much more formidable obstacle to vertical integration of the humanities and sciences than is generally appreciated: It is not that we have an intuitive ... More

This chapter argues that there is a much more formidable obstacle to vertical integration of the humanities and sciences than is generally appreciated: It is not that we have an intuitive predisposition to adopt erroneous (e.g., Cartesian) construals of the sociocultural realm, but that we have no stable and reliable intuitions about that realm and appeal to a wide range of inferential strategies to make sense of it. As part of their evolutionary endowment, humans have dedicated cognitive machinery for reasoning about physical properties (such as solidity, gravity), biological properties (such as essentialized differences between natural kinds), and psychological properties (such as the capacity to entertain false beliefs). Our intuitive physics, intuitive biology, and intuitive psychology may be challenged by scientific physics/biology/psychology but for the most part our intuitions provide a stable and robust foundation for preserving the integrity of these domains of enquiry and exploring possibilities for integration at the boundaries between them. Unfortunately, however, we lack a set of domain-specific competences for reasoning about sociocultural phenomena: we have no intuitive sociology. The chapter presents detailed evidence of this deficit in intuitive thinking, showing how our various strategies for reasoning about the sociocultural are driven by not one but many domain-specific inferential engines. That is why the integration of the humanities and sciences is so fraught with conceptual difficulties—but it is also why only science can provide solutions.Less

Introduction: Serious Issues, Serious Traumas, Emotional Depth

Tom Shippey

in Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction

The relationship of science fiction to anthropological theory is further exemplified, in this chapter, by the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, herself the daughter of two famous anthropologists, Alfred and ... More

The relationship of science fiction to anthropological theory is further exemplified, in this chapter, by the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, herself the daughter of two famous anthropologists, Alfred and Theodora Kroeber. The first three volumes of Le Guin’s “Earthsea” trilogy once again place magic within the framework of her parents’ discipline. Her work moreover considers the relationship of magic to ancient myth, and also (as in Frazer’s Golden Bough) to religious belief and ritual, all of these considered with a mixture of criticism and sympathy. Le Guin manages the difficult feat of being at once iconoclastic and mythopoeic.Less

How social value works

Bill Jordan

in Welfare and well-being: Social value in public policy

This chapter examines some of the analyses of the dynamics of social value that have appeared in the economic literature. It also shows what is missing from them, and what can be derived from social ... More

This chapter examines some of the analyses of the dynamics of social value that have appeared in the economic literature. It also shows what is missing from them, and what can be derived from social and anthropological theory to fill these gaps. Topics discussed in this chapter are: social sources of well-being; the ritual nature of social value; and the contribution of social theory.Less

Introduction: Elements of Living Politics

Kerry Ryan Chance

in Living Politics in South Africa's Urban Shacklands

The Introduction defines and maps the contours of living politics by explicating the book’s overall ethnographic setting, methodology, and concerns within anthropological theory. As the chapter ... More

The Introduction defines and maps the contours of living politics by explicating the book’s overall ethnographic setting, methodology, and concerns within anthropological theory. As the chapter explores, poor residents refer to street protests and everyday practices of community building such as occupying land, constructing shacks, and illicitly connecting to water and energy infrastructure as living politics or ipolitiki ephilayo in isiZulu. Living politics is premised upon a collective self-identification of “the poor” that cuts across historically ‘African,’ ‘Indian,’ and so-called ‘Coloured’ (or mixed-race) communities. The chapter argues that, as governance increasingly is managed by a globalized private sector, living politics borrows practices of the liberation struggle, as well as from the powers invested in emerging technologies and the recently desegregated courts.Less

Theology Revealing the Hājibs of Anthropology

Khaled Furani

in Theologically Engaged Anthropology

This chapter proposes ways in which theology could promote a critique of idolatries in modern anthropology. It culls resources by scouring Nietzsche’s arguments against modernity. Nietzsche enables a ... More

This chapter proposes ways in which theology could promote a critique of idolatries in modern anthropology. It culls resources by scouring Nietzsche’s arguments against modernity. Nietzsche enables a vision of modern anthropology as symptomatic of God’s death in the West, thus inducing questions about the ways its adoration of idols may inhibit a truer inquiry. The chapter finds examples to this effect in anthropology’s engagement with the nation state, humanism, and the constitutive concept of culture. It then speculates as to how a theological repudiation of anthropology’s idols could support a conceptual and institutional renewal going far beyond enhancing its study of religion. For instance, anthropology awakened by theistic rationality could adequately engage with the concept of tradition. It could also forge a new grammar of connectivity within the discipline as well as within the disciplinary arrangements of the modern university.Less

Doing Fieldwork in the Andamans: Transformations with and within the Field

Philipp Zehmisch

in Mini-India: The Politics of Migration and Subalternity in the Andaman Islands

Chapter 2 contextualizes the Andaman Islands as a fieldwork location. It has two major objectives: First, it serves to introduce the reader to the Andamans as a geographical, ecological, and ... More

Chapter 2 contextualizes the Andaman Islands as a fieldwork location. It has two major objectives: First, it serves to introduce the reader to the Andamans as a geographical, ecological, and political space and as a site of imagination. This representation of the islands concentrates on the interplay of discourses and policies which have shaped their global, national, and local perception as well as the everyday life of the Andaman population. Second, the chapter underlines the conflation of anthropological theory, fieldwork, and biographical transformations. It demonstrates how recent theoretical trends and paradigm shifts in global and academic discourse have become enmeshed with the author’s experiences in and perceptions of the field. Elaborating on these intricate personal and professional ‘spectacles’ of the fieldworker, the author thus contextualizes the subjective conditions inherent in the production of ethnography as a type of literature.Less