Search Results

Criticisms of Speciesism

Paul Waldau

in The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals

Criticisms of “speciesism” by various philosophers are engaged to provide a test for assessing limitations of the notion generally. Analogies of speciesism to racism and sexism are evaluated. The ... More

Criticisms of “speciesism” by various philosophers are engaged to provide a test for assessing limitations of the notion generally. Analogies of speciesism to racism and sexism are evaluated. The notion of “persons” is discussed in terms of Immanuel Kant's division of persons and things. Duty of inquiry as an obligation of ethics, and the notion of “species loyalty” or “species bond” is analyzed as a cultural artifact or conventionalism.Less

Grammar as a Complex Adaptive System

Namhee Lee, Lisa Mikesell, Anna Dina L. Joaquin, Andrea W. Mates, and John H. Schumann

in The Interactional Instinct: The Evolution and Acquisition of Language

This chapter presents the theory of complex adaptive systems (CASs) as a basis for the evolution of grammar. From this perspective, grammatical structure and language in general exist as an invisible ... More

This chapter presents the theory of complex adaptive systems (CASs) as a basis for the evolution of grammar. From this perspective, grammatical structure and language in general exist as an invisible nonmaterial cultural artifact or technology. Language structure emerges from the interaction of speakers using sounds and words to communicate meanings. This emergent structure obviates the need to postulate an innate universal grammar to establish structure or to guarantee the ubiquity of language acquisition by children.Less

Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology (1984)

Robert C. Solomon

in Not Passion's Slave: Emotions and Choice

Anthropologists sometimes adopt a “Jamesian” view of emotions, following William James in taking emotions to be feelings based on unlearned physiological reactions. I argue, more in line with ... More

Anthropologists sometimes adopt a “Jamesian” view of emotions, following William James in taking emotions to be feelings based on unlearned physiological reactions. I argue, more in line with anthropologist Clifford Geertz, that emotions are cultural artifacts.Less

Trafficking in Cultural PropertyWhere Cultural Heritage Law and the International Fight Against Transnational Organized Crime Coincide

Janet Blake

in Intersections in International Cultural Heritage Law

The loss of their cultural treasures through illicit excavation, illegal export, and trafficking and the associated harm to national identity and the rights of their citizens presents a major ... More

The loss of their cultural treasures through illicit excavation, illegal export, and trafficking and the associated harm to national identity and the rights of their citizens presents a major challenge to many countries around the world. The source countries tend, on the whole, to be poorer developing States while the importing market countries are rich States such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. This chapter first provides a critical analysis of the international cultural heritage law governing this question, in particular the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on the Return of Stolen and Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. Following this discussion, and as a contrast to the purely cultural heritage-based approach, it focuses on two complementary efforts to combat cultural property trafficking as an international or transnational crime: the 2000 ‘Palermo’ UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the 2017 ‘Nicosia’ Convention on Offences Relating to Cultural Property.Less

Getting the Word Around

Alejandro L. Madrid

in Nor-tec Rifa!: Electronic Dance Music from Tijuana to the World

This chapter explores the different distribution strategies adopted by members of the Nortec Collective. It shows the development of a Nor-tec scene which did not necessarily take place in specific ... More

This chapter explores the different distribution strategies adopted by members of the Nortec Collective. It shows the development of a Nor-tec scene which did not necessarily take place in specific places or sites, but rather through the unlocalized consumption of cultural artifacts, products, and ideas by exploring the translocal and virtual characteristics of these distribution strategies and their articulation of underground as well as mainstream networks. It also discusses the use of Nor-tec in the marketing strategies of transnational companies that illustrates the complex ways in which regulation and distribution intersect with issues of race and ethnicity among Latinos in the United States.Less

Prospects for a Global Networked Cultural Heritage: Law versus Technology?

Stanley N. Katz

in The Global Flow of Information: Legal, Social, and Cultural Perspectives

This chapter addresses the preservation of and access to digital cultural artifacts, including the many contradictions that emerge with it. For one, the new copyright and IP battles between rights ... More

This chapter addresses the preservation of and access to digital cultural artifacts, including the many contradictions that emerge with it. For one, the new copyright and IP battles between rights holders and consumers make one wonder whether technology shapes the law, or whether the law shapes technology. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has ordered a committee to draft a statement on “the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions.” The committee, however, issued preambles that confuse, rather than clarify, the issue of how to use digital technology to enhance the global reach of cultural artifacts.Less

Epilogue: Trading Places

in On Uneven Ground: Miyazawa Kenji and the Making of Place in Modern Japan

This chapter explores how Miyazawa Kenji remained integral to the production of locality in the literary sector in Japan even as the conditions of this production have changed radically. It describes ... More

This chapter explores how Miyazawa Kenji remained integral to the production of locality in the literary sector in Japan even as the conditions of this production have changed radically. It describes the early episode in his posthumous reception which signaled a transitional moment in the way that he and his works have historically circulated in the market for cultural objects, focusing on the publication of the first zenshū. It also traces a genealogy of the fundamental ways his value in the market for cultural artifacts has intersected with his value in the market for places.Less

Race Formation and Morally Configured Black Identities

Charles Price

in Becoming Rasta: Origins of Rastafari Identity in Jamaica

This chapter discusses how Blackness and its various permutations—especially the morally configured ones—develop in Jamaica and persist to the present. It looks at the lineage of Rastafari rhetoric ... More

This chapter discusses how Blackness and its various permutations—especially the morally configured ones—develop in Jamaica and persist to the present. It looks at the lineage of Rastafari rhetoric and practice, the varied routes they traveled in becoming who they are, and how on the eve of the twenty-first century, a people who only four decades earlier were feared and despised, had become cultural exemplars of Blackness. In Jamaica, morally configured Black identities like Rastafari draw deeply upon the cultural resources of racialized moral economies. These are cultural artifacts created and reinforced through Black people's experience of uprisings, reprisals, dashed hopes, marginalization, and a strong desire for better and for building genuine communitas.Less

Recruiting Race: The Commodification of Mexicana/o Bodies from the U.S.-Mexico Border

Michael J. Montoya

in Making the Mexican Diabetic: Race, Science, and the Genetics of Inequality

This chapter reviews the ways in which racialized DNA samples operate as value-generating cultural artifacts, and also explores the diabetes enterprise through three phases: (1) production (2) ... More

This chapter reviews the ways in which racialized DNA samples operate as value-generating cultural artifacts, and also explores the diabetes enterprise through three phases: (1) production (2) circulation, and (3) consumption of knowledge generally and race and ethnicity in particular. Then, it investigates the consequences of a scientific enterprise that fits the pattern of Anglo-Mexican relations in the U.S. Southwest over the past century and a half. Moreover, the chapter evaluates the ways that blood samples taken from racially marked populations operate within a regime of value production and are transformed into commodities. The standardization of the biovalues of DNA samples as occurs in the exchanges for an array of professional wealth shows how exchange is the source of the value of a sample. It is believed that the context of DNA sampling does help explain the process of creating value.Less

Places of Shared Stories

Michael Nitsche

in Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds

Video games have become widespread cultural artifacts. As a result, video game spaces increasingly become places of cultural practice and cultural significance. How do they incorporate this quality? ... More

Video games have become widespread cultural artifacts. As a result, video game spaces increasingly become places of cultural practice and cultural significance. How do they incorporate this quality? This chapter follows the development of story maps as they enter a shared cultural sphere.Less

The origins of cultural diversity

Janusz K. Kozłowski

in Origins of the Human Brain

As this chapter attempts to draw an outline on the origins of cultural diversity in prehistoric man, it aims to present hypotheses concerning the significance of the differentiation of various types ... More

As this chapter attempts to draw an outline on the origins of cultural diversity in prehistoric man, it aims to present hypotheses concerning the significance of the differentiation of various types of archaeological records and their interpretation in terms of the processes taking place in the anthropological sphere, which is the ‘living’ culture of prehistoric man. In particular, the chapter focuses on the reasons for the diversity of cultural artifacts both of those independent of humans as well as of man-dependent diversities which may have an arbitrary or symbolic character. The identification of the latter may indicate a relationship between the diversity of archaelogical remains and the emergence of ethnic groups, cultural groups, or socio-political groups.Less

Introduction

Richard D. Sawyer and Joe Norris

in Duoethnography

This introductory chapter provides an overview of duoethnography. It explains that a dialogic context in duoethnography is not only a conversation between people, but between people and their ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of duoethnography. It explains that a dialogic context in duoethnography is not only a conversation between people, but between people and their insights of cultural artifacts that generate new meanings. Duoethnographers work in tandem to dialogically analyze and question the meanings duoethnography gives to social issues and epistemological constructs, selecting social themes to investigate and engage in data analysis. Duoethnography first appeared as a research methodology in 2004, when Joe Norris and Richard D. Sawyer wrote a dialogic autoethnography and selected the name “duoethnography” because of its plural applications. They began working with duoethnography to present their stories and expose the culturally related nature of sexual orientation in a heteronormatively framed world.Less

Terrains of Settler Nationhood

in Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society

Discrete material-cultural artifacts, ornamentations, and styles of architecture were interpreted as exemplars of Jewish artistic forms and achievements. They were invoked as emblems of continuity, ... More

Discrete material-cultural artifacts, ornamentations, and styles of architecture were interpreted as exemplars of Jewish artistic forms and achievements. They were invoked as emblems of continuity, signifiers of the lasting presence of Jewish communities, after the fall of the Second Temple, the final episode in what was considered to have been ancient Jewish national existence and sovereignty in their homeland. This effort of (arti)fact collecting configured a distinctive form of settler-colonial space. This chapter analyzes this work of Jewish archaeology by considering the relationship between the collection of “discrete particulars”—material-cultural and linguistic facts dispersed across the terrain—and the instantiation of a “spatial biography,” through which a cohesive, historical narrative for the land was given empirical and factual form. Fact collecting was essential to “colonizing the land at the level of meaning,” which prepared the ground for the enactment of colonial practices of a very particular sort.Less

Scenes and Scenarios: Reading Aright

Koritha Mitchell

in Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, 1890-1930

This chapter argues that blacks living during lynching's height accurately read the discourses and practices of their historical moment, and their cultural artifacts reflect their insights. Namely, ... More

This chapter argues that blacks living during lynching's height accurately read the discourses and practices of their historical moment, and their cultural artifacts reflect their insights. Namely, the plays by black dramatists contain specific characterizations of the nature of lynching, and they inspire black community practices that enable African Americans to continue to interpret their surroundings accurately. In an environment where their extermination was said to make the nation safe, African Americans perceived the truth behind the façade—that lynching was really master/piece theater, designed to reinforce racial hierarchy. African American artists therefore offered scripts that encouraged their communities to continue to rehearse an understanding of themselves as full citizens.Less

Setting Limits

Richard Taruskin

in The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays

This chapter is a conclusion to the entire study, contending on a variety of topics. All works of art are subject to social mediation, which renders works of art intelligible, and this is what gives ... More

This chapter is a conclusion to the entire study, contending on a variety of topics. All works of art are subject to social mediation, which renders works of art intelligible, and this is what gives them continuing relevance. And social mediation inevitably changes whatever it mediates. The critical faculty can only be exercised after the fact, and there must always be the possibility that the performance will change the critic's mind. The boredom of endlessly reproducing fetishized texts is what invites mindless commitment to textuality, and the dull sameness it enforces. It is the only area of classical musical performance today in which executant creativity is not stifled. The few classical musicians who have lately tried to reintroduce creative performing practices are as yet confined to the ghetto of the avant-garde.Less