Keith E. McNeal
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037363
- eISBN:
- 9780813042121
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037363.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Despite the contrasting political fates of the study's focal traditions examined above, social class and bourgeois sentiment nonetheless influence the politics of Indocentrists and Afrocentrists ...
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Despite the contrasting political fates of the study's focal traditions examined above, social class and bourgeois sentiment nonetheless influence the politics of Indocentrists and Afrocentrists across the ethnoracial spectrum. Indocentrists have generally embraced a gentrified form of “mainstream” Hinduism that looks down upon ecstatic religious practices such as spirit mediumship, firewalking, or animal sacrifice as “backward” or “premodern.” Afrocentrists, by contrast, and despite their political embrace of a subaltern tradition centered on trance ceremonialism, nonetheless tend to be less involved in the everyday activities of grassroots shrines and shy away from the theatrical dramaturgy of trance performance toward more middle-class-inflected forms of devotion, including their politics itself. An Epilogue considers the ways these materials substantiate the theory that religious charisma in the context of modernity may be understood as a dialectical counterpoint to the liberal bourgeois ethic of possessive individualism. The fate of trance in modernity is re-examined in contradistinction to conventional assumptions regarding secularization; the idea of spirits as sites of transculturation is elaborated; the politics of liberalism and religion clarified in relation to structural marginalization of trance and popular ecstasy; and the ludic themes in these materials understood as forms of “deep play.”Less
Despite the contrasting political fates of the study's focal traditions examined above, social class and bourgeois sentiment nonetheless influence the politics of Indocentrists and Afrocentrists across the ethnoracial spectrum. Indocentrists have generally embraced a gentrified form of “mainstream” Hinduism that looks down upon ecstatic religious practices such as spirit mediumship, firewalking, or animal sacrifice as “backward” or “premodern.” Afrocentrists, by contrast, and despite their political embrace of a subaltern tradition centered on trance ceremonialism, nonetheless tend to be less involved in the everyday activities of grassroots shrines and shy away from the theatrical dramaturgy of trance performance toward more middle-class-inflected forms of devotion, including their politics itself. An Epilogue considers the ways these materials substantiate the theory that religious charisma in the context of modernity may be understood as a dialectical counterpoint to the liberal bourgeois ethic of possessive individualism. The fate of trance in modernity is re-examined in contradistinction to conventional assumptions regarding secularization; the idea of spirits as sites of transculturation is elaborated; the politics of liberalism and religion clarified in relation to structural marginalization of trance and popular ecstasy; and the ludic themes in these materials understood as forms of “deep play.”
Jerrilyn McGregory
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781496834775
- eISBN:
- 9781496834751
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496834775.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter six engages the nocturnal orientation of the aforementioned seasonal festal productions. Throughout Africa and the African Diaspora, darkness is especially foreboding. While on the surface ...
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Chapter six engages the nocturnal orientation of the aforementioned seasonal festal productions. Throughout Africa and the African Diaspora, darkness is especially foreboding. While on the surface appearing universal, this chapter analyses the cultural specificity relative to darkness. The phrase, “in total darkness,” conveys both literally and figuratively this communal festive response. On the one hand, the night time is the right time casting out of the shadows of history the force of darkness, by inviting an endarkened, collective experience. On the other hand, total darkness also denotes Boxing Day’s basic obscurity. This chapter, then, traces the multiple cultural, historical, and political subtexts for such a trope.Less
Chapter six engages the nocturnal orientation of the aforementioned seasonal festal productions. Throughout Africa and the African Diaspora, darkness is especially foreboding. While on the surface appearing universal, this chapter analyses the cultural specificity relative to darkness. The phrase, “in total darkness,” conveys both literally and figuratively this communal festive response. On the one hand, the night time is the right time casting out of the shadows of history the force of darkness, by inviting an endarkened, collective experience. On the other hand, total darkness also denotes Boxing Day’s basic obscurity. This chapter, then, traces the multiple cultural, historical, and political subtexts for such a trope.
Michael M. J. Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520247925
- eISBN:
- 9780520939639
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520247925.003.0016
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Theory and Practice
This chapter discusses the returns of subjectivities and the exchanges, transductions, and implications of these returns, examining two “mute dreams” and views suffering as enfans. It then discusses ...
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This chapter discusses the returns of subjectivities and the exchanges, transductions, and implications of these returns, examining two “mute dreams” and views suffering as enfans. It then discusses Jean-François Lyotard's figure-form, age reversal, family therapy, and the three sites of deep play.Less
This chapter discusses the returns of subjectivities and the exchanges, transductions, and implications of these returns, examining two “mute dreams” and views suffering as enfans. It then discusses Jean-François Lyotard's figure-form, age reversal, family therapy, and the three sites of deep play.
Peter Hare
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780823264322
- eISBN:
- 9780823266777
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264322.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter explores an activity that fascinated William James—the so-called “deep conceptual play.” In cognitive linguistics there is what George Lakoff and Mark Johnson term “conceptual ...
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This chapter explores an activity that fascinated William James—the so-called “deep conceptual play.” In cognitive linguistics there is what George Lakoff and Mark Johnson term “conceptual metaphors,” and in brain science there is the striking finding that most of our thinking is unconscious. James is one of the philosophers strongly interested in poetry and literature in general. This chapter begins by considering the cultural matrix in which James and Charles Sanders Peirce developed their ideas in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s. It then comments on the interaction between the philosopher Paul Weiss and the poet Wallace Stevens and uses the Stevens–Weiss correspondence to develop “deep conceptual play.” It proposes a rethinking of philosophy as a way of structuring our experiences through the concepts we use and argues that this motivation is at the heart of James's philosophy.Less
This chapter explores an activity that fascinated William James—the so-called “deep conceptual play.” In cognitive linguistics there is what George Lakoff and Mark Johnson term “conceptual metaphors,” and in brain science there is the striking finding that most of our thinking is unconscious. James is one of the philosophers strongly interested in poetry and literature in general. This chapter begins by considering the cultural matrix in which James and Charles Sanders Peirce developed their ideas in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s. It then comments on the interaction between the philosopher Paul Weiss and the poet Wallace Stevens and uses the Stevens–Weiss correspondence to develop “deep conceptual play.” It proposes a rethinking of philosophy as a way of structuring our experiences through the concepts we use and argues that this motivation is at the heart of James's philosophy.
Douglas Hartmann
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226374840
- eISBN:
- 9780226375038
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226375038.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
Chapter 4 puts the early history of midnight basketball in a broader and more explicit political context. Specifically, it argues that these sport-based programs functioned in the media and were used ...
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Chapter 4 puts the early history of midnight basketball in a broader and more explicit political context. Specifically, it argues that these sport-based programs functioned in the media and were used by political leaders to promote a new, neoliberal approach to crime prevention and urban public policy to broad public audiences. These processes and politics are analyzed as examples of the symbolic or cultural politics of sport, highlighting especially sport's unique status as a "deep play" form. Racial coding is also addressed.Less
Chapter 4 puts the early history of midnight basketball in a broader and more explicit political context. Specifically, it argues that these sport-based programs functioned in the media and were used by political leaders to promote a new, neoliberal approach to crime prevention and urban public policy to broad public audiences. These processes and politics are analyzed as examples of the symbolic or cultural politics of sport, highlighting especially sport's unique status as a "deep play" form. Racial coding is also addressed.
Janet O'Shea
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190871536
- eISBN:
- 9780190871574
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190871536.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
This chapter investigates how combat sport establishes itself as play, rather than violence, through its relationship to designated spaces. Opening with competing definitions of magic in martial arts ...
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This chapter investigates how combat sport establishes itself as play, rather than violence, through its relationship to designated spaces. Opening with competing definitions of magic in martial arts versus in game theory, this section moves on to explore the importance of spaces of practice—boxing rings, cages, dojos, and academies—to martial arts and combat sport training. Spaces are transformed through practices that in turn rely on alterations of movement, time perception, and self-awareness. The chapter concludes with an exploration of edge play, acknowledging both that games often simulate situations that we would otherwise avoid and that the line between game and reality can, in the case of combat sport, be a thin one.Less
This chapter investigates how combat sport establishes itself as play, rather than violence, through its relationship to designated spaces. Opening with competing definitions of magic in martial arts versus in game theory, this section moves on to explore the importance of spaces of practice—boxing rings, cages, dojos, and academies—to martial arts and combat sport training. Spaces are transformed through practices that in turn rely on alterations of movement, time perception, and self-awareness. The chapter concludes with an exploration of edge play, acknowledging both that games often simulate situations that we would otherwise avoid and that the line between game and reality can, in the case of combat sport, be a thin one.
