Within popular culture, death is not the end, but instead a space where the dead can exert agency whilst entertaining the consumer. Popular culture enables the dead to be consumed by the living on a mass global scale, actively engaging them with issues of mortality. This book develops the sociological intersectionality between death, the dead and popular culture by examining the agency of the dead. Drawing upon the posthumous careers of the celebrity dead and organ transplantation mythology in popular culture the dead are shown to not be hampered by death but to benefit from the symbolic and economic value they can generate. Meanwhile the fictional dead - the Undead and the dead in crime drama - are conceptualised through morbid sensibility and morbid space to mobilise consumer consideration of mortality and even challenge the public wisdom that contemporary Western society is in death denial and that death is taboo. Death and the dead, within the parameters of popular culture, form a palatable and normative bridge between viewers and mortality, iterating the innate value and hidden depths of popular culture in the study of contemporary society. This book will be of interest to anybody who researches death, popular culture and questions of mortality.

In this book, David Bello offers a new and radical interpretation of how China's last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), relied on the interrelationship between ecology and ethnicity to incorporate the country's far-flung borderlands into the dynasty's expanding empire. The dynasty tried to manage the sustainable survival and compatibility of discrete borderland ethnic regimes in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan within a corporatist 'Han Chinese' imperial political order. This unprecedented imperial unification resulted in the great human and ecological diversity that exists today. Using natural science literature in conjunction with under-utilized and new sources in the Manchu language, Bello demonstrates how Qing expansion and consolidation of empire was dependent on a precise and intense manipulation of regional environmental relationships.

From Georgian England and Edith Wharton's New York to the contemporary International Debutante Ball, the presentation of young women into society has persisted. In this "sharply observed" (The New Yorker) exploration of the debutante ritual, Kristen Richardson uncovers its extensive cultural influence in Britain and the United States, how daughters in these countries have come to marry, and the ritual's spread around the world-reaching France, Russia and China. The Season gives voice to an array of complex feelings about being put on display, and about what these women's futures in society might be.

Education in Manliness explores the central educational ideal of the Victorian and Edwardian public school. The book traces the formulation of what Edward Thring, the most celebrated headmaster of the era, termed 'true manliness', noting the debt to the Platonic concept of the whole man and to Christian example, before examining the ideal's best holistic practice at Uppingham and other mid-Victorian schools. The central chapters follow the tilting of manliness to the physical by the muscular Christians in the 1860s, its distortion to Spartanism by the games masters and sporting dons from the 1870s, and its hijacking by the advocates of esprit de corps during the remainder of the century. The book lays bare the total perversion of the ideal by the military imperialists in the years up to the Great War, and traces the lifeline of holistic education through the progressive school movement from the 1880s to the 1970s. It then brings this up to date by comparing true manliness with the 'wholeness' ideal of schools of the new millennium. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in the fields of history of education and the theory and practice of teaching, as well as school and university teachers, teacher trainers and trainee teachers.

After spending a year in Tokyo, American teacher Alice Mabel Bacon (1858-1918) became the first author to usher Western readers into the graceful, paper-walled realm of the Japanese woman. An intimate friend of several Japanese ladies, Bacon was privy to a domestic world which remained closed to male visitors. This 1891 work begins with birth and childhood, including the colourful, kimono-like dress of infants, their ornate dolls, and their education in handwriting, flower painting and etiquette. Trained for a lifetime of service to her husband and his parents, the Japanese woman was praised for her loyalty and obedience. But new Western influences, especially on education, were challenging the old ways. Bacon evocatively depicts Japanese women unsettled by their modern education, yet saddled with traditional cultural expectations. With its insight into Japan's class system, cultural history and moral framework, this book remains an essential complement to any study of Japanese social history.

The present volume brings together a range of case studies of myth making and myth breaking in east Europe from the nineteenth century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on the complex process through which memories are transformed into myths. This problematic interplay between memory and myth-making is analyzed in conjunction with the role of myths in the political and social life of the region. The essays include cases of forging myths about national pre-history, about the endorsement of nation building by means of historiography, and above all, about communist and post-communist mythologies. The studies shed new light on the creation of local and national identities, as well as the legitimization of ideologies through myth-making. Together, the contributions show that myths were often instrumental in the vast projects of social and political mobilization during a period which has witnessed, among others, two world wars and the harsh oppression of the communist regimes.

Indigenous people in Colombia constitute a mere three percent of the national population. Colombian indigenous communities' success in gaining collective control of almost thirty percent of the national territory is nothing short of extraordinary. In Managing Multiculturalism, Jean E. Jackson examines the evolution of the Colombian indigenous movement over the course of her forty-plus years of research and fieldwork, offering unusually developed and nuanced insight into how indigenous communities and activists changed over time, as well as how she the ethnographer and scholar evolved in turn. The story of how indigenous organizing began, found its voice, established alliances, and won battles against the government and the Catholic Church has important implications for the indigenous cause internationally and for understanding all manner of rights organizing. Integrating case studies with commentaries on the movement's development, Jackson explores the politicization and deployment of multiculturalism, indigenous identity, and neoliberalism, as well as changing conceptions of cultural value and authenticity-including issues such as patrimony, heritage, and ethnic tourism. Both ethnography and recent history of the Latin American indigenous movement, this works traces the ideas motivating indigenous movements in regional and global relief, and with unprecedented breadth and depth.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights. Authors are international experts in their fields, and the book contains the most up-to-date information on the issue of genital cutting of infants and children from medical, legal, bioethical, and human rights perspectives.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Chapter One.

"All of the entries are well written and should intrigue a broad range of students because they run the gamut from the very academic to the more popularly written. . . . Overall this is an enjoyable collection that does a great deal to put to rest Emile Durkheimas assumption of a close, positive correlation between the occurrence of and participation in holidays and societal integration."
--"Choice"

"[P]rovides readers with a deeper insight into the ways in which holidays have been used and misused throughout American history. We learn of how Americans come together on their special days and how those days, sometimes, reveal social strains. A necessary volume for anyone who cares about how Americans reveal community and perform civic obligation."
--Gary Alan Fine, author of "Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial"

"Fascinating in what it says about the holidays as mechanisms of socialization, prisms through which identity can be refracted, even changed."
--"Chicago Tribune ""[A] new and welcome framework for understanding the meanings of holidays in our multi-cultural society. Any simple explanation of even the most familiar celebrations will be challenged in reading this wide-ranging collection."
--Penne L. Restad, author of "Christmas in America: A History"

"[O]ffers an effervescent mix of sociological and historical reflections on the state of holidays and rituals in American culture."
--Leigh E. Schmidt, author of "Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays"

How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday become a national holiday? Why do we exchangepresents on Christmas and Chanukah? What do bunnies have to do with Easter? How did Earth Day become a global holiday? These questions and more are answered in this fascinating exploration into the history and meaning of holidays and rituals. Edited by Amitai Etzioni, one of the most influential social and political thinkers of our time, this collection provides a compelling overview of the impact that holidays and rituals have on our family and communal life.

From community solidarity to ethnic relations to religious traditions, We Are What We Celebrate argues that holidays such as Halloween, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day play an important role in reinforcing, and sometimes redefining, our values as a society. The collection brings together classic and original essays that, for the first time, offer a comprehensive overview and analysis of the important role such celebrations play in maintaining a moral order as well as in cementing family bonds, building community relations and creating national identity. The essays cover such topics as the creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday; the importance of holidays for children; the mainstreaming of Kwanzaa; and the controversy over Columbus Day celebrations.

Compelling and often surprising, this look at holidays and rituals brings new meaning to not just the ways we celebrate but to what those celebrations tell us about ourselves and our communities.

Contributors: Theodore Caplow, Gary Cross, Matthew Dennis, Amitai Etzioni, John R. Gillis, Ellen M. Litwicki, Diana Muir, Francesca Polletta, Elizabeth H. Pleck, David E. Proctor, Mary F. Whiteside, and Anna Day Wilde.

View "Public Restrooms": A Photo Gallery in The Atlantic Monthly.

So much happens in the public toilet that we never talk about. Finding the right door, waiting in line, and using the facilities are often undertaken with trepidation. Don't touch anything. Try not to smell. Avoid eye contact. And for men, don't look down or let your eyes stray. Even washing one's hands are tied to anxieties of disgust and humiliation. And yet other things also happen in these spaces: babies are changed, conversations are had, make-up is applied, and notes are scrawled for posterity.

Beyond these private issues, there are also real public concerns: problems of public access, ecological waste, and--in many parts of the world--sanitation crises. At public events, why are women constantly waiting in long lines but not men? Where do the homeless go when cities decide to close public sites? Should bathrooms become standardized to accommodate the disabled? Is it possible to create a unisex bathroom for transgendered people?

In Toilet, noted sociologist Harvey Molotch and Laura Noren bring together twelve essays by urbanists, historians and cultural analysts (among others) to shed light on the public restroom. These noted scholars offer an assessment of our historical and contemporary practices, showing us the intricate mechanisms through which even the physical design of restrooms--the configurations of stalls, the number of urinals, the placement of sinks, and the continuing segregation of women's and men's bathrooms--reflect and sustain our cultural attitudes towards gender, class, and disability. Based on a broad range of conceptual, political, and down-to-earth viewpoints, the original essays in this volume show how the bathroom--as a practical matter--reveals competing visions of pollution, danger and distinction.

Although what happens in the toilet usually stays in the toilet, this brilliant, revelatory, and often funny book aims to bring it all out into the open, proving that profound and meaningful history can be made even in the can.

Contributors: Ruth Barcan, Irus Braverman, Mary Ann Case, Olga Gershenson, Clara Greed, Zena Kamash, Terry Kogan, Harvey Molotch, Laura Noren, Barbara Penner, Brian Reynolds, and David Serlin.

Contents:
1. Cultural Creativity on Stage 2. Rituals of Concheros Indians in Mexico 3. Christian Pilgrimages to Walsingham 4. Rituals in Shrines in Benin and Nigeria 5. Bullfighting in Cordoba 6. The Performance of the Welsh National Eisteddfod 7. Television in Bali and Ballet Performance

Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. A person suffers from an illness that cannot be cured, for example, and in order to be healed performs a ritual involving a prosecution and a defense, a judge and witnesses. Divine beings then speak through oracles, spirits possess the victim and are exorcized, and local gods intervene to provide healing and justice. Such practices seem to be the very antithesis of modernity, and many modern, secular states have systematically attempted to eliminate them. What is the relationship between healing, spirit possession, and the law, and why are they so often combined? Why are such rituals largely absent from modern societies, and what happens to them when the state attempts to expunge them from their health and justice systems, or even to criminalize them? Despite the prevalence of rituals involving some or all of these elements, this volume represents the first attempt to compare and analyze them systematically. The Law of Possession brings together historical and contemporary case studies from East Asia, South Asia, and Africa, and argues that despite consistent attempts by modern, secular states to discourage, eliminate, and criminalize them, these types of rituals persist and even thrive because they meet widespread human needs.

We tend to think of death as a basic and immutable fact of life. Yet death, too, has a history. Death in Berlin is the first study to trace the rituals, practices, perceptions, and sensibilities surrounding death in the context of Berlin's multiple transformations over the decades between Germany's defeat in World War I and the construction of the Berlin Wall. Evocatively illustrated and drawing on a rich collection of sources, Monica Black reveals the centrality of death to the evolving moral and social life of one metropolitan community. In doing so, she connects the intimacies of everyday life and death to events on the grand historical stage that changed the lives of millions all in a city that stood at the center of some of the twentieth century s most transformative events.

Public deliberation depends on how skillful communicators are in establishing their version of what is known to be publicly acceptable. This volume provides rhetorical analyses of institutional websites, political speeches, scientific presentations, journalistic accounts or visual entertainment. It shows the significance of rhetorical construction of knowledge in the public sphere. It addresses the issues of citizenship and social participation, media agendas, surveillance and verbal or visual manipulation. It offers rhetorical critiques of current trends in specialist communication and of devices used when contested interests or ideologies are presented.

The Poison in the Gift is a detailed ethnography of gift-giving in a North Indian village that powerfully demonstrates a new theoretical interpretation of caste. Introducing the concept of ritual centrality, Raheja shows that the position of the dominant landholding caste in the village is grounded in a central-peripheral configuration of castes rather than a hierarchical ordering. She advances a view of caste as semiotically constituted of contextually shifting sets of meanings, rather than one overarching ideological feature. This new understanding undermines the controversial interpretation advanced by Louis Dumont in his 1966 book, Homo Hierarchicus, in which he proposed a disjunction between the ideology of hierarchy based on the purity of the Brahman priest and the temporal power of the dominant caste or the king.

Trained as a doctor, John Crawfurd (1783 1868) went on to have a distinguished career in colonial administration with the East India Company. He held senior posts in Java from 1811 to 1816, including that of resident at the court of Yogyakarta. A talented linguist and ethnologist, Crawfurd acquired a sound knowledge of ancient Kawi and contemporary Javanese. Upon his return to Britain in 1817, he became a fellow of the Royal Society and published this three-volume work on the Indonesian islands, principally Java, to great acclaim. Following further service abroad, he published accounts of his various missions in south-east Asia and an encyclopaedic sequel to the present work (all of which are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). Volume 2 examines language, literature, religion, and history, and the impact of Islam, Christianity and European colonisation.

Ritual has long been a central concept in anthropological theories of religious transmission. Ritual, Performance and the Senses offers a new understanding of how ritual enables religious representations - ideas, beliefs, values - to be shared among participants.Focusing on the body and the experiential nature of ritual, the book brings together insights from three distinct areas of study: cognitive/neuroanthropology, performance studies and the anthropology of the senses. Eight chapters by scholars from each of these sub-disciplines investigate different aspects of embodied religious practice, ranging from philosophical discussions of belief to explorations of the biological processes taking place in the brain itself. Case studies range from miracles and visionary activity in Catholic Malta to meditative practices in theatrical performance and include three pilgrimage sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the festival of Ramlila in Ramnagar, India and the mountain shrine of the Lord of the Shiny Snow in Andean Peru. Understanding ritual allows us to understand processes at the very centre of human social life and humanity itself, making this an invaluable text for students and scholars in anthropology, cognitive science, performance studies and religious studies.

Published in two volumes in 1857, this was the most successful work of the linguist and politician Sir John Bowring (1792 1872). His varied career included work as an editor and translator, service as an M.P. in Britain and as a consul in China, and the controversial governorship of Hong Kong. His appointment to this last post in 1854 saw him aggressively assert British interests with little regard for Asian sensibilities. The following year he travelled to Siam (Thailand) to negotiate a treaty with that country which became a model for future agreements, giving the Siamese government an insight into Western diplomacy which would be invaluable. Volume 1 is an illustrated introduction to the country, following the structure of Bishop Pallegoix's earlier work, with chapters on Siam's geography and history; population; manners and customs; legislation; resources, industry and finances; culture and religion; and its capital, Bangkok.

Published in two volumes in 1857, this was the most successful work of the linguist and politician Sir John Bowring (1792 1872). His varied career included work as an editor and translator, service as an M.P. in Britain and as a consul in China, and the controversial governorship of Hong Kong. His appointment to this last post in 1854 saw him aggressively assert British interests with little regard for Asian sensibilities. The following year he travelled to Siam (Thailand) to negotiate a treaty with that country which became a model for future agreements, giving the Siamese government an insight into Western diplomacy which would be invaluable. Volume 2 covers the political make-up of the nation, containing chapters on its dependencies and diplomatic relations, including an account of the work done by Bowring and his party. Also featured are personal accounts from long-term foreign residents of Siam and writings by its king, Mongkut (1804 68).

Trained as a doctor, John Crawfurd (1783 1868) went on to have a distinguished career in colonial administration with the East India Company. He held senior posts in Java from 1811 to 1816, including that of resident at the court of Yogyakarta. A talented linguist and ethnologist, Crawfurd acquired a sound knowledge of ancient Kawi and contemporary Javanese. Upon his return to Britain in 1817, he became a fellow of the Royal Society and published this three-volume work on the Indonesian islands, principally Java, to great acclaim. Following further service abroad, he published accounts of his various missions in south-east Asia and an encyclopaedic sequel to the present work (all of which are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). Volume 1 examines the character and manners of the islanders as well as their arts, sciences, medicine, and agricultural techniques.

Trained as a doctor, John Crawfurd (1783 1868) went on to have a distinguished career in colonial administration with the East India Company. He held senior posts in Java from 1811 to 1816, including that of resident at the court of Yogyakarta. A talented linguist and ethnologist, Crawfurd acquired a sound knowledge of ancient Kawi and contemporary Javanese. Upon his return to Britain in 1817, he became a fellow of the Royal Society and published this three-volume work on the Indonesian islands, principally Java, to great acclaim. Following further service abroad, he published accounts of his various missions in south-east Asia and an encyclopaedic sequel to the present work (all of which are reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). Volume 3 examines political institutions and commerce, covering major exports and imports along with demographics, public revenue and laws.

Hate Narratives examines the limits of free speech and focuses on the role of language in creating images of reality, and on language's power to build social relationships based on hatred. The study provides an analysis of language used in totalitarian systems, along with a particular kind of narrative description, namely dogmatic hate narratives, which are used in democratic systems as well. It focuses on the notion that the media and other sources of information create "parallel realities", and that facts created by media are translated into social fact. Central to this line of thought are the determinants by which an individual chooses from among the various broadcasted images of reality.

Migration involves change of geographical place, social relations and cultural habits. This volume brings together contributions from an international group of scholars including studies of ritual change and social transformation in Singapore, Germany and the US. In situations of change, individuals as well as social groups mobilize rituals to reaffirm a sense of identity. Usually thinking of rituals as fixed sets of symbolic behaviour, handed down through generations, migration forces a fresh look at rituals: that they are open to change and adjustment as well as means of social transformation. The authors show the challenge of the transformation of symbolic behaviour for those who experience spatial and social change. They emphasise that ritual change is also common when cultures become intercultural.

During his 2009 inaugural speech, President Obama described the United States as a nation of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus-and nonbelievers." It was the first time an American president had acknowledged the existence of this rapidly growing segment of the population in such a public forum. And yet the reasons why more and more people are turning away from religion are still poorly understood. In Faith No More, Phil Zuckerman draws on in-depth interviews with people who have left religion to find out what's really behind the process of losing one's faith. According to a 2008 study, so many Americans claim no religion (15%, up from 8% in 1990) that this category now outranks every other religious group except Catholics and Baptists. Exploring the deeper stories within such survey data, Zuckerman shows that leaving one's faith is a highly personal, complex, and drawn-out process. And he finds that, rather than the cliche of the angry, nihilistic atheist, apostates are life-affirming, courageous, highly intelligent and inquisitive, and deeply moral. Zuckerman predicts that this trend toward nonbelief will likely continue and argues that the sooner we recognize that religion is frequently and freely rejected by all sorts of men and women, the sooner our understanding of the human condition will improve. The first book of its kind, Faith No More will appeal to anyone interested in the "New Atheism" and indeed to anyone wishing to more fully understand our changing relationship to religious faith.