The most penetrating study of the curse ever conducted, The Mummy's Curse uncovers forgotten nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, revolutionizes the study of mummy horror films, and reveals the prejudices embedded in children's toys. Examining original surveys and field observations of museum visitors demonstrate that media stereotypes - to which museums inadvertently contribute - promote vilification of mummies, which can invalidate demands for their removal from display. Jasmine Day shows that the curse's structure and meaning has changed over time, as public attitudes toward archaeology and the Middle East were transformed by events such as the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. The riddle of the 'curse of the pharaohs' is finally solved via a radical anthropological treatment of the legend as a cultural concept rather than a physical phenomenon. A must for anyone interested in this ancient and mystifying legend.

Daghestan is home to more than 30 distinct peoples. Each has their own language yet they share a surprisingly homogeneous culture that has both withstood and absorbed centuries of external influences. A fascinating account of change and adaptation in the villages of this area.

Drawing upon in-depth case studies of vacation habits and the observations of philosophers, writers, and sociologists such as Aristotle, Mark Twain and Thorstein Veblen, Al Gini argues why vacations are so venerated and why 'doing nothing' is a fundamental human necessity.

From shopping sprees and extreme sports to the ultimate vacation - retirement - The Importance of Being lazy demonstrates that without true leisure, we are diminished as individuals and as a society.

Coffee Culture: Local experiences, Global Connections explores coffee as (1) a major commodity that shapes the lives of millions of people; (2) a product with a dramatic history; (3) a beverage with multiple meanings and uses (energizer, comfort food, addiction, flavouring, and confection); (4) an inspiration for humor and cultural critique; (5) a crop that can help protect biodiversity yet also threaten the environment; (6) a health risk and a health food; and (7) a focus of alternative trade efforts. This book presents coffee as a commodity that ties the world together, from the coffee producers and pickers who tend the plantations in tropical nations, to the middlemen and processors, to the consumers who drink coffee without ever having to think about how the drink reached their hands.

The full history of St. Patrick's day is captured here for the first time in The Wearing of the Green.

Illustrated with photos, the book spans the medieval origins, steeped in folklore and myth, through its turbulent and troubled times when it acted as fuel for fierce political arguement, and tells the the fascinating story of how the celebration of 17th March was transformed from a stuffy dinner for Ireland's elite to one of the world's most public festivals.

Looking at more general Irish traditions and Irish communities throughout the world, Adair and Cronin follow the history of this widely celebrated event, examining how the day has been exploited both politically and commercially, and they explore the shared heritage of the Irish through the development of this unique patriotic holiday.

Highly informative for students of history, cultural studies and sociology, and an absolute delight for anyone interested in the fascinating and unique culture of Ireland.

The mass media make it possible for tame to be enhanced and transformed posthumously. What does it mean to fans when a celebrity dies, and how can death change the way that celebrities are perceived and celebrated? How do we mourn and remember? What can different forms of communication reveal about the role of media in our lives? Through a provocative look at the lives and legacy of popular musicians from Elvis to Tupac and from Louis Prima to John Lennon,

The spirit of chivalry entered into all aspects of the Middle Ages. The rules of chivalry are now very remote from our lives. Using contemporary writing, the author attributes the unity and universality of the movement. The work illustrates and shows us a society that was once Europe-wide and now gone.

It is the purpose of the author of this work to consider the principles of chivalry and to describe the chivalric feeling which has emanated from the Middle Ages and to trace its operations on the mind and actions of mankind. The manners and ideas explained here may appear odd to us now, but they were very real to the medieval people of the time they represent.

This volume, intended for the general reader, throws a flood of light on that very characteristic feature of the Middle Ages, the institution of Chivalry. The first chapter deals with the place of chivalry in history, showing its effects and influences. Subsequent chapters show its earliest beginnings and its nature in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc. Among other subjects dealt with are the Courtesy books and the romances of Chivalry and the idea of a gentleman in connection with Chivalry. The whole forms an introduction to students in a field that has been greatly neglected in recent years.

First published in 2005. This definitive work contains a collection of texts written at the time when Chivalry was a living tradition spread across the whole of Europe. In it are fascinating accounts of Chivalry's history and origins, the education of knights, chivalric love and the religious and military orders of knighthood. Nowhere else are the facts of Chivalry brough together so brilliantly.

First published in 2005. This definitive work contains a collection of texts written at the time when Chivalry was a living tradition spread across the whole of Europe. In it are fascinating accounts of Chivalry's history and origins, the education of knights, chivalric love and the religious and military orders of knighthood. Nowhere else are the facts of Chivalry brough together so brilliantly.

Until now, scholarly analysis of Elizabethan processions has always regarded them as having been successful in their function as propaganda, and has always found them to have effectively 'won over' the common people - that group of the population at whom they were chiefly aimed. Both her Royal entries and progresses were regarded as effective public relations exercises, the population gaining access to the Queen and thus being encouraged to remain loyal subjects. This book represents a new approach to this subject by investigating whether this was actually the case - that is, whether the common people were actually won over by these spectacular rituals. By examining original documents that have thus far been ignored, as well as re-examining others from the perspective of the common people, the book casts a new light on Elizabethan processions.

In "Intoxicated Identities, " Tim Mitchell provides a novel and well-grounded framework for understanding subjective drinking experiences from the Aztecs to the present day in areas as diverse as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Texas and California.
Power drinking plays a crucial role in Mexican religion, politics, fine arts and ritual spousal abuse. Mexico ranks number one in deaths from cirrhosis, and Mexican Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for drunken driving as blacks or whites. With methods and concepts derived from an extraordinary range of disciplines, Mitchell explains how Mexican culture reinforces heavy drinking. He analyzes supply (nationalistic marketing strategies) but emphasizes demand (psychocultural motivations unique to Mexico). He chronicles the joys and sorrows of a borrachera, or drinking binge, and explores this altered state of consciousness on its own terms, not from any temperance or anti-alcohol perspective.

In "Intoxicated Identities, " Tim Mitchell provides a novel and well-grounded framework for understanding subjective drinking experiences from the Aztecs to the present day in areas as diverse as Chiapas, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Texas and California.
Power drinking plays a crucial role in Mexican religion, politics, fine arts and ritual spousal abuse. Mexico ranks number one in deaths from cirrhosis, and Mexican Americans are twice as likely to be arrested for drunken driving as blacks or whites. With methods and concepts derived from an extraordinary range of disciplines, Mitchell explains how Mexican culture reinforces heavy drinking. He analyzes supply (nationalistic marketing strategies) but emphasizes demand (psychocultural motivations unique to Mexico). He chronicles the joys and sorrows of a borrachera, or drinking binge, and explores this altered state of consciousness on its own terms, not from any temperance or anti-alcohol perspective.

Through a cultural analysis of the symbols of death - flesh, blood, bones, souls, time numbers, food and money - Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore throws light upon the Chinese perception of death and how they cope with its eventuality. In the seeming mass of religious rituals and beliefs, it suggests that there is an underlying logic to the rituals. This in turn leads Kiong to examine the interrelationship between death and the socioeconomic value system of China as a whole.

How are migrants referred to in the media? What roles do they play and when are they quoted in news reports on immigration? Whose views are implicitly reinforced? Have these changed similarly in different European newspapers in recent years? Media and Migrants systematically addresses such questions by exploring the representation of immigration in two relatively new reception countries, Spain and Ireland, over the past decade. It focuses on the discourses (re)produced in four newspapers (El Pais, ABC, The Irish Times and the Irish Independent) in 1990, 1996 and 1999-2000. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are combined within a Critical Discourse Analysis framework, mainly bases on discourse-historical and socio-cognitive approaches. The analysis of descriptive and content categories is followed by the scrutiny of strategies of reference, predication, intertextuality and argumentation. The results illustrate an ongoing convergence of perceptions and discourses on ethnic alterity in Europe, as collective 'self' and 'other' are being redefined in the context of supranational integration and increasing migration worldwide.

Renowned food scholar Carole Counihan serves up a delicious narrative about family and food in twentieth-century Florence. By looking at how family, and especially gender relations, have changed in Florence since the ending of World War II and continuing to an examination of current food practices today, Around the Tuscan Table offers a portrait of the changing nature of modern life as exemplified through food. How food is produced, distributed, and consumed speaks volumes about a given culture, and this compelling and artfully narrated book aims to preserve, propagate, and interpret Florentines' world-renowned cuisine and culture. At the market, in the kitchen, and around the table, Counihan gives readers a taste of everyday life in this region of Italy: how eating together unites the family; how the production of food is gendered; how food is a key tool of socialization, and how culture forms aesthetic tastes.

Deliberately considering relevant theories put forward by earlier writers and examining them in the light of the research for this particular book, the author spent over 100 days attending funeral ceremonies and he attended 25 burial services. Chapters include: The Analysis of Ceremony and Rite The Day of Death Adjustment to Loss Income and Outlay The Causes of Death Property Inheritance Ancestors. First published in 1962.

First published in 1972. A revival of interest in primitive religion has been one of the most marked characteristics of British social anthropology of recent years. Inspired by the work of Audrey Richards, whose writing on ritual contains many of the insights that have been developed in later studies, this volume uses material drawn from all over Africa and Polynesia. The contributors include: Raymond Firth, Esther Goody, Aidan Southall, R.G. Abrahams, Edwin Ardener, J.S. La Fontaine, Monica Wilson, Elizabeth Bott, Edmund Leach and P.H. Gulliver.

The subject of the tea ceremony is well researched both in and outside Japan, but the women who practice it are hardly ever discussed. "The Tea Ceremony and Women's Empowerment in Modern Japan" rectifies this by discussing the meaning of the Japanese tea ceremony for women practitioners in Japan from World War II to the present day. It examines how lay tea ceremony practitioners have been transforming this cultural activity whilst being, in turn, transformed by it.
Drawing on Foucault's concept of discipline and focusing primarily on the body, this book illuminates how female ceremony practitioners have empowered themselves through the unique way of using their bodies. In particular the book examines:
* The relationship between the tea ceremony and the body
* Myths surrounding the body
* Body discipline
* Postwar effects on the tea ceremony
* Tea ceremony networks
* Meaning of the ceremony in the lives of women
By combining anthropological observation with historical examination of the tea ceremony, this book radically revises mainstream discourses surrounding women and the tea ceremony in Japan. It will prove of interest to scholars of Japanese Studies, Gender Studies and anthropology alike.

James Hogg's "Jacobite Relics"--originally commissioned by the Highland Society of London in 1817--is an important addition to "The Collected Works of James Hogg." It created a canon for the Jacobite song which had an enormous influence on subsequent collections, and was of great importance in defining the relationship between the Scottish song tradition and its Romantic editors and collectors. From the first publication of the Relics in 1819, there has been speculation about how many of them were authored or at least substantially altered by Hogg. Murray Pittock has conducted extensive research in this area since 1987, and has identified several previously unknown sources from which Hogg would have worked as he developed his collection. The introduction to volume one includes the crucial issue of Hogg's relationship to the Jacobite song tradition, and the place of the Relics within Hogg's career and personal context, facilitating further interpretations of Hogg's range of creative strategies. Both volumes one and two provide considerable annotation to accurately communicate the context of the songs and Hogg's relationship to the textuality of Jacobite culture. Volume one also includes a bibliography and glossary. The introduction to volume two deals with the genesis of the text and Hogg's relationship with the Highland Society.

Using the journals of W. Norman Rudolf (1835-1886), a Victorian merchant, Evangelical Balance Sheet: Character, Family, and Business in Mid-Victorian Nova Scotia explores the important role of character ideals and evangelicalism in mid-Victorian culture. Rudolf's diary, with its daily weather observations, its account of family matters, of social and business happenings, and of his own experiences, as well as occasional literary or naturalistic forays, attempts to follow a disciplined regime of writing, but also has elements of a Bildungsroman. The diary reveals an obvious and significant tension between his inner, spiritual search for meaning in his life (evangelical inwardness) and his outward stewardship duties. Rudolf's concept of character, then, involved a type of balance sheet of his evangelical service record, to his God, his family, his business, and his community. Needing God's help to transform his will and to interpret the world in a constructive, rational manner, the underlying intent of his daily journal writing was to keep his commitment to an ethic of benevolence and of the affirmation of the goodness of human beings. Wood elucidates the cultivation of civic-minded masculinity in the context of Victorian Maritime Canada, analyzing the multiple facets of the character ideal and emphasizing its important role in Victorians' understanding of their life experiences. In the process Wood reveals many underlying assumptions about social change and about civic discourse. The book also describes how the tremendous economic upheavals experienced by many entrepreneurs in the late 1860s to 1880s tempered their evangelical zeal and made it increasingly difficult for them to achieve a balanced and humane perspective on their own lives. Evangelical Balance Sheet will appeal to a broad audience interested in social history, imperial studies, gender studies (especially changing ideas of masculinity and manhood), Atlantic Canada studies, and local history of the Pictou region.

The great American fantasy is about leisure: wooded getaways, Caribbean cruises, white-water rafting, the lights of Las Vegas. Yet one in four Americans does not take a vacation at all. We know how to work hard but not how to play.
What we really need, argues Al Gini, is some time off. The Importance of Being Lazy takes us on family road trips, to Disneyland, on shopping sprees, on extreme sports adventures, and into the ultimate vacation - retirement - asking why we venerate vacations and why "doing nothing" is a fundamental human necessity.

James Hogg's Jacobite Relics - originally commissioned by the Highland Society of London in 1817 - is an important addition to The Collected Works of James Hogg. It created a canon for the Jacobite song which had an enormous influence on subsequent collections, and was of great importance in defining the relationship between the Scottish song tradition and its Romantic editors and collectors. From the first publication of the Relics in 1819 the majority of scholars have argued about how many of them were authored or at least substantially altered by Hogg. Professor Murray Pittock has conducted extensive research in this area since 1987, and has identified many previously neglected or unknown sources from which Hogg would have worked as he developed his collection. He has identified contemporary 17th- and 18th-century sources for the majority of the songs in the edition. This has implications not only for Hogg's integrity as a writer, but for our understanding of the history of the Scottish song as a whole. The introduction to volume one includes the crucial issue of Hogg's relationship to the Jacobite song tradition, and the place of the Relics within Hogg's career and personal context, facilitating further interpretations of Hogg's range of creative strategies. Considerable annotation accurately communicates the context of the songs and Hogg's relationship to the textuality of Jacobite culture. The introduction to volume two deals with the genesis of the text and Hogg's relationship with the Highland Society. This volume will be available from November 2002.

The Question of the Gift is the first collection of new interdisciplinary essays on the gift. Bringing together scholars from a variety of fields, including anthropology, literary criticism, economics, philosophy and classics, it provides new paradigms and poses new questions concerning the theory and practice of gift exchange.
In addressing these questions, contributors not only challenge the conventions of their fields, but also combine ideas and methods from both the social sciences and humanities to forge innovative ways of confronting this universal phenomenon.