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 Anthropology, Castaneda's Healing Fiction, and Neo‐shamanism Print Culture

Andrei A. Znamenski

in The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination

Carlos Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, and two subsequent texts were described as anthropological accounts, which gave them credibility. Coming straight from the Sonoran Desert, ... More

Carlos Castaneda's first book, The Teachings of Don Juan, and two subsequent texts were described as anthropological accounts, which gave them credibility. Coming straight from the Sonoran Desert, Castaneda's ethnographic accounts could easily appear to readers to be authentic anthropology. The fact that Castaneda refused to specify the identity of his characters brought an intrigue to his plots. Readers of his books were left free to exercise their imaginations or to look around for cultural and individual parallels with Castaneda's characters and settings. Castaneda and Don Juan became attractive cultural and intellectual models, which inspired at least some spiritual seekers to replicate their experiences.Less

 “The Glory of God Is Intelligence”: Mormons and the Life of the Mind

Terryl C. Givens

in People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early ... More

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early leaders like Orson Pratt and Parley Pratt laid the foundations for an intellectual tradition. Early Mormon intellectual culture was capacious enough to accommodate Darwin and evolution, though that would change.Less

Network

Caroline Levine

in Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network

This chapter begins with an investigation of encounters between unified wholes and networked connections, a set of relations that has been absolutely fundamental to cultural studies, from early ... More

This chapter begins with an investigation of encounters between unified wholes and networked connections, a set of relations that has been absolutely fundamental to cultural studies, from early twentieth-century anthropology to recent scholarship on global flows. It then turns to the overlapping of multiple networks, which is a far more ordinary fact of social life—and a more unsettled and unsettling one—than literary and cultural studies has recognized. It develops an understanding of networked form through two readings. The first Trish Loughran's study of print culture in early America, The Republic in Print, which makes the case that multiple, overlapping networks—mail, print, money, and roads—interrupted each other and frustrated the work of consolidating a new nation. The second is Charles Dickens's Bleak House, a novel that casts social relations as a complex heaping of networks that not only stretch across space but also unfold over time.Less

Reading

Lauren Shohet

in Reading Masques: The English Masque and Public Culture in the Seventeenth Century

In seventeenth‐century England, masques inhabited two media, their dramatic occasions consistently delivered into a public culture of reading. This chapter details masques' material circulation in ... More

In seventeenth‐century England, masques inhabited two media, their dramatic occasions consistently delivered into a public culture of reading. This chapter details masques' material circulation in print culture: print and scribal reproduction, provenance, annotations, rights and reprints, marketing as sheet music. While bibliographic attention is crucial, it offers a starting point rather than a terminus for exploring masques' (or any texts') position in their culture. The chapter explores ways that scriptors address readers in the prefaces and margins, drawing examples from masques of Jonson, Campion, Daniel, Chapman, Shirley, William Browne, Thomas Jordan, Middleton/Rowley, and Heywood. It analyzes the hermeneutics of reading in two seventeenth‐century accounts: legal documents surrounding the prosecution of William Prynne, and an essay on the book trade by Newcastle bookseller William London, testing Habermas's theories of the public sphere against these early modern accounts.Less

Introduction: The Oral and the Literate

Adam Fox

in Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500–1700

The interaction between the different media, oral, scribal, and printed, and key aspects of the oral culture in 16th- and 17th-century England is the theme of this book. The book also focuses on the ... More

The interaction between the different media, oral, scribal, and printed, and key aspects of the oral culture in 16th- and 17th-century England is the theme of this book. The book also focuses on the way in which an increasingly literate and print-based culture influenced the means and the content of communication throughout society least familiar with the written word. The significance of the medias of speech, script, and print infused and interacted with each other, is emphasized through an extensive citation of the ballad of Chevy Chase, England's favourite national song. The written word helped in instructing people ways to sing, and to express themselves, and in the later Middle Ages, it extended further into almost every aspect of economic, social, and cultural life.Less

Introduction Approaches to Thomas Edwards's Gangraena

Ann Hughes

in Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution

This chapter explores the ways in which historians have used Gangraena as a source, and explains how new approaches to the history of print culture, the history of the book, and of reading will be ... More

This chapter explores the ways in which historians have used Gangraena as a source, and explains how new approaches to the history of print culture, the history of the book, and of reading will be used to explore Gangraena as a text. The discussion of Edwards’s training at Cambridge and his experience within the Laudian church in London and Hertford are followed by an account of divisions amongst English Puritans over church government in the early 1640s. The publication of Edwards’s Antapologia in 1644 marked a crucial stage in the emergence of profound religious divisions amongst Parliamentarians.Less

The Fate of Rīti Literature in Colonial India

Allison Busch

in Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India

This chapter examines the fate of rīti literature under the new political and epistemological regimes of colonialism and nationalism. Radical upheavals were spurred by new nineteenth-century ... More

This chapter examines the fate of rīti literature under the new political and epistemological regimes of colonialism and nationalism. Radical upheavals were spurred by new nineteenth-century developments in print culture and the textbook industry stewarded by colonial officials, along with reforms in language and literary tastes. Hindi modernity meant that new genres such as the essay and the novel began to supplant the older Brajbhasha verse forms. By the early twentieth century, many Hindi intellectuals, such as Mahavir Prasad Dvivedi, were publicly distancing themselves from traditional Indian poetics and repudiating Brajbhasha, Hindi’s preeminent literary dialect, in favor of Khari Boli. Also considered here is the nationalist vision of Hindi literary history epitomized by the writings of Ramchandra Shukla. Under the new historiography dictated by the discourse of Hindi modernity, bhakti literature became the language’s salvageable past and Hindi’s once thriving courtly traditions would now carry the taint of medieval decadence.Less

Dickinson’s Sheets

Alexandra Socarides

in Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics

This chapter describes Dickinson’s practice of making her fascicles and situates this act within conventions of nineteenth-century verse-copying and homemade book-making practices. It does so in ... More

This chapter describes Dickinson’s practice of making her fascicles and situates this act within conventions of nineteenth-century verse-copying and homemade book-making practices. It does so in order to question current critical readings of the fascicles and to suggest that attending to the objects themselves can help us rethink the generic expectations we bring to Dickinson’s poetry. I argue that the material differences between Dickinson’s fascicles and other types of books—commonplace books, autograph albums, scrapbooks, diaries, and collections of sermons—reveal how, in making the fascicles, Dickinson’s primary unit of composition was the individual folded fascicle sheet, a material object that highlights both her desire for formal play between clusters of poems and her fascination with and resistance to print.Less

Heroes and Paupers

Margot Minardi

in Making Slavery History: Abolitionism and the Politics of Memory in Massachusetts

With a focus on early representations of the Boston Massacre and the Battle of Bunker Hill, this chapter argues that the individuals publicly honored as heroes of the Revolutionary War in the period ... More

With a focus on early representations of the Boston Massacre and the Battle of Bunker Hill, this chapter argues that the individuals publicly honored as heroes of the Revolutionary War in the period up to the War of 1812 were primarily those with recognized political, social, and cultural authority: elite white men. Early accounts of these pivotal Revolutionary events noted the presence, but not generally the political agency, of people of color. This chapter develops this argument by exploring the commemoration (or lack thereof) of the Revolutionary contributions of Crispus Attucks and black military veterans, including Primus Hall, Peter Salem, Salem Poor, and Edom London. The sources include both visual culture and print culture, including an analysis of John Trumbull's painting of Bunker Hill.Less

Conclusion: ‘The Antidote to these Women's Poison’?

Paula McDowell

in The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics, and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678-1730

Offering a new synthetic model for the study of the literary marketplace, this book has uncovered a legacy of female religio-political activity that existed long before the better-known political ... More

Offering a new synthetic model for the study of the literary marketplace, this book has uncovered a legacy of female religio-political activity that existed long before the better-known political activity of women in the 1790s. For the women printworkers and propagandists studied here, access to the press was a vehicle of significant if limited power. Their involvement in political culture, while little known today, was considered dangerous enough in their own time to necessitate their arrest. To understand the lives of persons across a broad class and ideological spectrum, this book has argued, we need to take greater risks to develop new methodologies. We get a different view of the chief concerns and voices of the age when we consider all aspects of textual producation and dissemination and include forms like broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers than when we concentrate exclusively on authorship and on relatively decorous forms like the novel.Less

Cultivation and Books

Richard G. Wang

in The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite

Chapter 4 explores the interaction between Ming princes’ self-cultivation and their making and consumption of Daoist books as material culture in the context of Ming print culture. Some princes ... More

Chapter 4 explores the interaction between Ming princes’ self-cultivation and their making and consumption of Daoist books as material culture in the context of Ming print culture. Some princes practiced Daoist self-cultivation techniques. Like self-cultivation, writing books on Daoism was an inherent element of the princes’ Daoist identity and cultivation. Through cultivation as well as production and consumption of books, many Ming princes became very closely involved in Daoist cultural life. The examples include the Ning Principality and Zhu Zaiwei’s compiling activities. Furthermore, the princely holding of Daozang was significant in that it indicates the extent of the circulation of Daozang in Ming society. In terms of readership, the Daoist books the Ming princes produced were aimed at the emperor, their imperial relatives, and literati friends. Sometimes they gave these books to Daoist institutions due to their faith. Occasionally, some princely establishments printed Daoist books for charities.Less

Introduction

in Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture

This introductory chapter discusses the radical political activity and print culture that arose in Britain in the late nineteenth century. It defines the term slow print as print that actively ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the radical political activity and print culture that arose in Britain in the late nineteenth century. It defines the term slow print as print that actively opposed literary and journalistic mass production; it was often explicitly political in objective, as socialist, anarchist, and other radical groups came to believe that large-scale mass-oriented print was no way to bring about revolutionary social changes. By focusing on the literary culture of the radical press, the book suggests that literature was a crucial means by which the turn-of-the-century radical counterpublic defined itself against capitalist mass print culture. An overview of the subsequent chapter is also presented.Less

An Overview of Methodist Discourse Culture, 1738–1791

Andrew O. Winckles

in Eighteenth-Century Women's Writing and the Methodist Media Revolution: 'Consider the Lord as Ever Present Reader'

This chapter introduces and provides and overview of the unique discourse structures, like the class meeting, that Methodism pioneered. Specifically, it traces the development of Methodist discourse ... More

This chapter introduces and provides and overview of the unique discourse structures, like the class meeting, that Methodism pioneered. Specifically, it traces the development of Methodist discourse from the wild and raucous beginning of the movement in 1738 until the death of John Wesley in 1791, after which the fundamental character of Methodism and its discourse structures changed. The emphasis in this chapter is especially on how early Methodists combined oral, manuscript, and print mediation practices to create a diverse, diffuse, and fundamentally unstable and uncontrollable discourse culture which had impacts on literary developments like the rise of the novel and the literature of sensibility. In particular it argues that early Methodism should be read in terms of what William Warner calls a “media event,” which made possible new means and protocols of mediation within a space of contestation and debate over what Methodism was and how dangerous its effects could be.Less

Conclusion

Heather A. Haveman

in Magazines and the Making of America: Modernization, Community, and Print Culture, 1741-1860

This concluding chapter summarizes that the book has documented the evolution of American magazines from a few, fragile, questionable undertakings to more than a thousand robust, highly legitimate ... More

This concluding chapter summarizes that the book has documented the evolution of American magazines from a few, fragile, questionable undertakings to more than a thousand robust, highly legitimate elements of print culture. Between 1741 and 1860, magazines underwent a profound transformation that were made possible by a series of changes in American society, including population growth and urbanization, advances in publishing technologies, the gradual development of copyright law, the modernization of social reform movements, and the rise of protoscientific agriculture. The chapter discusses the implications of the book's findings for understanding modernity and community, for other aspects of American society such as the establishment of various medical schools, and for those who study media in the contemporary era. It concludes by reiterating the important role played by magazines in fostering the pluralistic integration that distinguished American society from European ones in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Less

Introduction

in Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation

This introductory chapter gives a brief overview of the print culture during the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, as European culture can most fully be described as a “print culture” in these two ... More

This introductory chapter gives a brief overview of the print culture during the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries, as European culture can most fully be described as a “print culture” in these two centuries. From the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 that freed English printers from government control to the technological innovations of 1897 that allowed photographs to be printed in newspapers, this period saw print in all its forms move to the center of cultural life without eliminating other communications media. Innovations included new technologies of printing, new methods for reproducing images, new distribution infrastructures, and new understandings of intellectual property, which crystallized into new copyright laws. In conflict, competition, or synergy with other communications media, print created new spaces for people to gather, newly diversified industries, and new genres of writing. This is also the period of extensive reading, both in the sense that more people were reading and that there was more for them to read.Less

No News is Good News: William Morris's Utopian Print

in Slow Print: Literary Radicalism and Late Victorian Print Culture

This chapter discusses William Morris' two major ventures into radical print: the Commonweal socialist newspaper, which he edited from 1885 to 1890; and the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. ... More

This chapter discusses William Morris' two major ventures into radical print: the Commonweal socialist newspaper, which he edited from 1885 to 1890; and the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. Pointedly removed from the general flow of mainstream print, these two print enterprises construct themselves as utopian spaces outside the “march of progress” narrative (predicting endless expansion) that had accrued to print and to capitalism. The chapter compares versions of Morris' novels A Dream of John Ball and News from Nowhere, both of which were initially published serially in the Commonweal and later in Kelmscott editions, to show how Morris exploited aspects of each print medium to critique the political effects of mass print culture. His career in radical print demonstrates his perception of the failure of liberal notions of print as an agent of progress and his effort to reinvent print as an ideal practice at the level of production.Less