In the current Italian election campaign, Mario Monti's slogan has been "L'Italia che sale": Although Google Translate thinks that this means "Italy and salt", in fact it means "The Italy that moves up" or "The Italy that rises", or something along those lines. (The verb is salire, which can mean "rise", "come/go up", "increase", "grow", "advance", "progress", etc.) However, a bit of translingual intervention changes the meaning into something less inspirational: [h/t Andrea Mazzucchi]

Call for Participation Due Date February 1, 2013 Joint annual meetings of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS), the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Society for Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN) … Continue reading →

The American religious landscape is being altered by what Mark Noll calls “a more pluralistic evangelicalism than has ever existed before.” First, in the movement Marcia Pally describes, evangelicalism is no longer synonymous with white evangelicals. Conservative black churches have long held a pro-life, pro-marriage ethic in balance with energetic social activism. Immigrant churches, the fastest-growing segment of Christianity, tend to be conservative theologically while progressive on issues like poverty and immigration. The increasingly influential Hispanic community naturally aligns with this movement. As Samuel Rodriguez puts it: “Where Billy Graham meets Dr. King, that’s where you will see the Hispanic Christian community emerge.” Second, this movement represents a dynamically different process of connecting faith and social engagement. Instead of a checklist of correct stands on selected issues, many evangelicals seek a consistent ethical framework rooted in core beliefs. Conservative blogger Eric Teetsel comments, “Rather than valuing other issues alongside life, Millennial emphasis on life explains their interest in other social issues. Caring for the poor is born from a foundational valuation of life.” Indeed, while young evangelicals remain solidly against abortion, two-thirds (63 percent) agree that poverty, disease and torture are also pro-life issues. Third, evangelicalism is revising its strategies of social influence. New evangelicals tend to hold progressive opinions on some issues and promote (private-sector) social justice initiatives while maintaining a conservative political identity and voting GOP. Their activism deemphasizes top-down political strategies in favor of incarnational engagement on the local level. This makes the political and cultural influence of evangelicals less centralized, less coordinated, and more unpredictable. Whether it is ultimately more effective remains to be seen. While a significant change is undeniably underway, it should not be overestimated or overgeneralized. New evangelicals are not on a journey toward becoming liberals; they are not likely to swell the ranks of Democratic voters; they have not abandoned abortion as a core issue. As sociologist John Schmalzbauer cautions: “While dreaming of what evangelicals might become, we must take a hard look at who they are.” What is clear is that “who they are” can no longer be captured by old labels and simple polarizations.

As a PhD candidate in anthropology, it can be a real challenge to do fieldwork, teach classes, write your dissertation while keeping food in your stomach and a roof over your head. Anyone who’s in that exciting but occasionally nerve-wracking time probably agrees that a little extra funding can really help the process along. The [...]

Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Wits Art Museum

We're reading the Scottish play. We have to.  For school And Mr. Ledingham said, "do research." And Lenea said, "he means, like, England." And I said, "that's not Scotland." She said, "same difference." We googled "Macbeth" and "ghosts," because you know, [shiver], right?  And this came up. Shakespeare's Ghosts F. W. Moorman The Modern Language Review Vol. 1, No. 3 (Apr., 1906), pp. 192-201 But we could only read the first page because of something called Jstor. Then we found: On Elizabethan "Credulity": With Some Questions Concerning the Use of the Marvelous in Literature Madeleine Doran Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 1, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 151-176 But we got another Jstor. That's how it went most of the day and now it's a joke. When Mr. Ledingham confiscates something, someone says "Jstor!" Someone shuts you down in the cafeteria?  Jstor! Our Ti-cats shut down the most potent running game in the south, the crowd roars "Jstor!"   xxxxxxx Just at the moment when we should celebrate the technology that makes knowledge freely available to curious 15 year olds in Mobile, Alabama, we are asked instead to endure the unjust and unreasonable tax on knowledge called Jstor. xxxxxxx Here's a piece I posted on this blog in 2008.   Has this ever happened to you? You are hot on the trail of exactly the article you need to complete a thought, a post, perhaps a book, and, oh no!, you hit the red light from JSTOR. Chances are you have. As of June 2007, the JSTORE database contained 729 journal titlesand over 165,000 individual journal issues, totaling over 23 million pages of text Wikipedia says, JSTOR (short for Journal Storage) is a United States-based online system for archiving academic journals, founded in 1995. It provides full-text searches of digitized back issues of several hundred well-known journals, dating back to 1665 in the case of the Philosophical Transactions. JSTOR was originally funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, but is now an independent, self-sustaining, not-for-profit organization with offices in New York City and Ann Arbor, Michigan. But I say, this stuff is bought and paid for. It is time to release it into the public domain. Surely, there is a university server somewhere that would assume the costs. Google, I am quite sure, would be willing to shoulder the burden. The fact of the matter is JSTOR is holding precious resources captive to sustain itself…and its ability to hold precious resources captive. This content was created by academics funded by not-for-profit institutions. JSTOR is not reinvesting revenue in academic production. It is, as I say, now self sustaining in the worst sense of the term. JSTOR is taxing public knowledge in order to sustain its ability to block access to public knowledge. Time to let go. xxxxxx Post script: This post is dedicated to the memory of Aaron Swartz. We should do something to keep Aaron's fight going.  Please drop me a line, if you know of anything.    

If you wanted to watch the inauguration in Washington, D.C., on Monday, some of the best places to be were near the swearing-in area, along Pennsylvania Avenue where the president and Michelle Obama might have decided to step out of their limousine and walk for a while, at home on your couch (with preferred snacks and beverages), or at the Embassy of Canada at 501 Penn. A pair of mittens handed out at the Canadian Embassy during the 2013 U.S. Presidential Inauguration. Photo by Barbara Miller I have never trekked downtown to watch the inauguration and parade in person before — in my 20 years of residence in the nation’s capital. But this year, a friend and colleague at GW received an invitation to attend the “tailgate party” at the Embassy of Canada, and he was allowed to bring a friend. Bob Maguire, a professor in the Elliott School, is the friend. I got a double shot of culture: Canadian and American, all in one day. Getting there was a short story in itself. Bob and I each live north of downtown, in different directions. Our original plan was to take the Metro, meet at Judiciary Square, and then walk to the embassy from there. Wisely, Bob suggested a change of plans: We would meet in my neighborhood in northwest D.C. and take public transportation to the Judiciary Square Metro stop. It turns out, that was a great idea; otherwise, we might never have met up. The bus trip went well as did the subway segment. Who knew: friendly people on the red line! Conversations! The usual daily commute felt more like being part of a competitive sport. During the commute, I asked Bob, who got his Ph.D. at McGill University and therefore has some direct Canadian experience, what we might expect at the tailgate party in terms of typical Canadian food and snacks. “Maybe bison,” he said, although he explained that bison might be reserved for a fancier occasion. He went on to explain that we could likely encounter Beaver Tails, poutine, and Mae Wests. Beaver Tails are akin to what Americans might encounter at a state fair as fried dough, but it turns out that Beaver Tails are several gourmet steps up from most fried dough I have had. And there is a variety called the Obama Beaver Tail. Poutine is french fries with a kind of clotted cheese (like feta only blander) and hot brown gravy. It was served in Dixie cups, and people snacked on it throughout the day. The main course on offer was either a hamburger (likely not a bison burger) or a hot dog on bun. There were no Mae Wests — apparently kind of like a double Twinkie consumed with a Pepsi on the side. Back to the arrival: In getting into the secured area, we made a couple of strategic errors, standing in a line or two that we didn’t need to be in (see slideshow below). But eventually we found our way to the security line leading to the embassy, and we whizzed through with no problem to find that we were being gifted with a pair of really warm mittens. What a welcome! Around 11 a.m., when — with warm hands and a happy feeling to be at such a nice party — we lined up for the competition to win a new Blackberry device. But you had to successfully complete a quiz about Canada. Lucky for us, the kind Canadians provided a tutorial in advance. Do you know how many checkpoints there are between Canada and the U.S.? My colleague, Bob, is full of information. He quickly passed his test with an 80 percent. Thanks to my tailgating style (help from a friend), I did even better, but don’t ask me to take the test again, because the sports questions especially will bring me down. The ceremony started at 11:30 and was displayed on big screens. We were outdoors — others were inside watching from lounge chairs. Tailgaters lined up for hot drinks (spiked and unspiked) and Canadian beer (and it’s called that: Canadian), or my favorite, the white wine called Guilty Men (as they all should be), and other more serious beverages such as Bloody Caesars and maple-flavored whiskey that is served after being run through an ice sculpture to chill it (only the very brave were asking for the whiskey that early). Then: President Obama’s speech which we watched on the big screen. Then Gary Doer, the ambassador from Canada to the U.S., appeared and commented on the importance of Canada-U.S. relations. He was followed by John Baird (see slideshow), who gave further encouraging words about Canada-U.S. relations. Inauguration events then took a pause until the procession started somewhat after 3:30 p.m. At the tailgate party, it was a time to explore the Beaver Tails, lunch buffet, and open bar. According to my observations, the line for the Beaver Tails was consistently the longest line throughout the afternoon until the party shut down around 6 p.m. I cannot think of a sweet food item for which Americans would stand in line for so long at a public event. The procession: The high point for most of the attendees on the mall and at the tailgate party was the pass-by of the presidential limo. Those who had a view snapped a picture from their fancy camera or iPhone. People started streaming away from Pennsylvania Avenue near the embassy by the hundreds, as soon as the president had moved on. What did they see? The President’s limousine appears early in the procession. He needs to get to the reviewing area, at the end of the line, so that he can review the other participants as they come through. I have to say that I didn’t see the president, but a freelance photographer next to me with a powerful telephoto lens did. What I saw was, first, a lot of media vehicles and then a lot more vehicles, all black and large, some with flags. They moved through. If you knew what you were looking for, you would know which large black vehicle carried President Obama and Michelle Obama. Then they were gone, followed by a lot more large black vehicles in phalanx, including, at some point, an ambulance. A lot of large black SUV-type vehicles. More like a funeral than a celebration. That’s the securitization of parades, I guess. After that, the view from the edge of the embassy was much less affected by people jockeying for position, since so many people had left. On came all the marching bands and military units. I wondered how they had managed to stay warm while waiting their turn. I mused on the order of the participants — as I recall, Wyoming was given a lead position in the parade. Good idea to start with a red state. The parade was an impressive amalgam of social inclusiveness, likely far more widely inclusive than any inaugural procession before in U.S. history, with groups representing African Americans, American Indians, Latinos, wives, gays and lesbians, and more. One marching band had a player who was in a wheel chair. I believe, however, that the only animals represented were horses, so perhaps there is something to think about in this area in the future. I would support participation of working animals, especially dogs, and especially dogs who work in national security and who help people who are sight-impaired. But don’t try cats. Some animals just can’t be represented in parades. Reflection: Conversations with people watching the parade revealed that many come to the mall to watch the parade, because they care deeply about their roots and heritage. They want to be there to watch a support a particular group and what it represents, and to cheer them on. At one point, next to me, a man commented that he specifically came at this time in the later afternoon to watch the Dobyns-Bennett High School Band. He had been a member of that band when he was in high school. He had a lot of reason to be proud. It was an amazing band. I have no expertise on parades, processions, and the culture of performance. Many cultural anthropologists, sociologists, and historians do. It’s an important area of study — understanding public statements of identity and purpose. This was my first in-person U.S. presidential inauguration. It was great to be there, and I am grateful to the Embassy of Canada for allowing me to watch this event at close hand. I have attended other parades, in my small home town in Geneva, New York, where as a child I thrilled to the big bass drums and was otherwise kind of bored. I have attended the massive Independence Day event in New Delhi, India, where folk dancers are interspersed with tanks and floats depicting military glory. Not to mention the flyovers. This parade in January 2013 was punctuated by no flyovers. I saw no floats celebrating military might. The NASA float was a tribute to the importance of science and technology. But it was immediately followed by the awesome Dobyns-Bennett High School Band from Tennessee. The various branches of the U.S. military are a continuing motif throughout the parade, though. And the marching bands clearly conform to a military precision. One reflection about parades, marching bands, and militarism, what are the chances of transforming that marching band glory, discipline, and energy into community volunteering and organizing? In other words, marching for a different drummer? Here’s the slideshow (to enlarge, first click on the arrow, and then click on the logo in the bottom right corner; to view captions, click on the images):

Via The Economist, this is why the only “pro-life” position is to be pro-choice, that blue line below: Also note that the abortion trend was upward before Roe (I wonder if the graph includes back-alley abortions, if not, then the pre-Roe level of abortion would be higher, invalidating somewhat the claim that Roe increased abortion rates. Roe might have instead increased legal abortion rates), went higher after Roe for about a decade, then plateaued in the early 80s, followed by a slow but steady decline. Let anti-choice advocates argue against the blue line.

January 22, 2013Dear Jay Kosmicki (Vice President and Region Manager) and TCF executives,We hope that you will take the time to read this letter, as our intention is not to generate ill will, but rather to urge better practices that befit an institution that works with and benefits from a diverse university community.First, we must express our deep disappointment in TCF-Minneapolis Bank’s unilateral closing of the bank accounts of at least 22 UMN Iranian students citing possible violations of U.S. trade sanctions. As the students have not engaged in any illegal banking transactions, this appeared to be a case of discrimination based on national origin and unfounded “preemptive” stereotypes. As university faculty who research social practices and ideas, we recognized that TCF’s actions, whether intentional or not, fit precisely within the definition of xenophobia.  In other words, allowing a person’s social and group category as the determining factor in assessing an individual without regard to his or her actual actions is textbook prejudice.Second, we are perhaps even more dismayed by how TCF has handled the process and the aftermath of its actions - the holiday timing of the letters, the lack of empathy and compassion, the misplaced justifications, the dearth of case-by-case review, to name a few. Beyond being “tone-deaf,” we are struck by how distant and anti-social its response has been. If we only imagine how a cursory frown or an misspoken phrase can easily ruin a person’s day, it takes little imagination to understand that the imposed closing of an important facet of one’s life can generate feelings of immense anxiety, betrayal, anger, injustice, dislocation, insult, and injury. In this light, we – part of a growing group of faculty and staff members at the University of Minnesota – will switch our direct deposit from TCF Bank into a different institution and/or will close our accounts. We no longer feel comfortable having TCF be the responsible institution for our deposits. This will occur the first week of Spring semester 2013. Some of us also have multiple accounts and mortgages with TCF, and we will begin to move and close these relationships should TCF continue with such anti-social tactics without apology and with impunity. We are in the process of establishing a network of concerned faculty who are gravely concerned about this matter. Having stated the above, we also believe that institutions can change; and that all individuals who work within institutions do not necessary agree with a particular course of action. We hope that you will share this letter with other decision-makers at TCF and attempt to reform some of the culture that led to these unfortunate acts.  Many members of the University of Minnesota, for example, are beginning to think that because of TCF’s market strength (some might say monopoly with the Ucard) at the U, they are taking advantage of its power, instead of realizing that the beauty and creativity of a university lies in its embracing of differences and its recognition of an ample humanity. Sincerely,Concerned Faculty and Staff at the University of Minnesota(which include but are not limited by the undersigned)William Beeman, AnthropologyDavid Chang, HistoryVichet Chhuon, College of Education and Human DevelopmentSiobhan Craig, EnglishTracey Deutsch, HistoryMichael Goldman, Sociology and Global StudiesKaren Ho, AnthropologyBeth Mercer-Taylor, Institute on the EnvironmentPeter Mercer-Taylor, MusicLeslie Morris, German, Scandinavian, and DutchPaula Rabinowitz, EnglishRachel Schurman, Sociology and Global StudiesHoon Song, AnthropologyDara Strolovitch, Political Science

“Rebuilding Hope after Pakistan’s Floods” a United Nations Development Program exposition of photos by Satomi Kato, will be on display at The National Press Club from February 4th to 15th. A former television anchor and radio broadcaster in Japan, Satomi Kato documented UNDP’s work throughout Pakistan’s hardest hit areas by flooding in 2010-2011. These images were previously exhibited in New York, Milan, and Tokyo. Kato has also traveled to remote areas of Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghan border, to photograph Afghan refugee children in 2005. Photo courtesy of Satomi Kato, Pakistan There will be a reception on Tuesday, February 12th, from 5:30-7:30 p.m at 529 14th Street NW on the 13th Floor Lobby with remarks by: Ajay Chhibber, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General & Director, UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia & the Pacific J Alexander Thier, Assistant to the Administrator for the Office of Afghanistan & Pakistan Affairs, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Sherry Rehman, Ambassador of Pakistan in the United States (invited) Koji Tomita, Minister Plenipotentiary & Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Japan in the United States For more information, contact sarah.jackson-han@undp.org or RSVP here.

The Master in Cultural Heritage Management is a multidisciplinary postgraduate program designed for students and professionals who are interested in heritage conservation, site management, museum studies, tourism, creative industries, architectural heritage, historical towns, and cultural landscapes. CHM is a one-year program with a particular attention on complementing the theoretical approach with a practical experience gained on field visits of monuments and sites. The general goal of the program is to enhance the knowledge of professionals and graduates in the field of heritage protection, management and dissemination of the values of the diverse Egyptian cultural heritage. Eyes of Horus from the Neues Museum, Berlin. Flickr/Marek Isalski The CHM would broaden exchanges with the neighboring countries through partnerships established in particular with the IREST department, Paris 1Panthéon-Sorbonne, and other Euromediterranean institutions. For your reference please find here following additional information on the course. The program is co-directed by Professor Fekri Hassan, Université Française d’Egypte, emeritus Petrie Professor of Archaeology, University College London, and Professor Maria Gravari-Barbas, Director of the Institut de Recherche et d’Etudes Supérieures du Tourisme (IREST), UNESCO Chair in Cultural Tourism, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Courses are taught by a team of Egyptian and French academics and professionals with experience in cultural heritage management, tourism and development. The program addresses three core areas: Cultural Tourism is a course that introduces the history and development of heritage tourism, the role of geography, environment, historical cities, and neighborhoods in collective memory, perceptions, and construction of heritage, role of different stakeholders and covers different aspects of the management and marketing of cultural sites, organization, finance, audience, urban tourism, pricing, communication, branding, and internationalization. Architectural and Urban Heritage includes an introduction to the urban and architectural heritage, definition and genesis, international conventions, architectural and urban heritage in Egypt, social construction — from monuments to the historical city, urban and architectural heritage in Egypt, morphology and typology diversity. Museum Studies includes the study of the museum in a changing world, museum management tools and practices, governance, human resources, security, logistics, collection management, acquisition and disposal, documentation, security, protection and conversation, storage and curation, registration and loans, access interpretation and communication, planning, exhibition project management, use of multimedia, museum architecture, lighting, logistics, design, and art appreciation. For  application  and  more  information  please  contact  Tiziana  Destino,  administrative coordinator and student liaison at heritagemaster(at)ufe.edu.eg.

This week the website Academia.edu wrote an article about my research on Uzbekistan and my thoughts on academic publishing. I have been using Academia.edu to post pdfs of my articles for years, so I was happy to talk to them. … Continue reading →

Ruth Benedict scores a blockbuster publishing international bestseller with Patterns of Culture. Inevitably Ruth Benedict’s extremely popular work will be compared to Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? Early reviews give the edge to Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture, for its conceptual framework; for elaborating the ethnographic record without romanticizing or resorting to politically-correct euphemisms; for clarity of writing and accessibility; and for attention to impact in today’s society. Even more amazingly, Ruth Benedict accomplishes all this with a book published in 1934! The 1934 review in the New York Times testifies to the enormous interdisciplinary accomplishment: The sciences no longer work alone, each behind its own walls. They have pooled their front yards and from their windows as they labor they look up and down the row and see what the others are doing. And also they have developed a great common garden where all the sciences and the arts meet and walk about hand in hand while they discuss and compare and combine the results of their specialties. Out of such a combination has grown this book by Ruth Benedict, of the faculty of Columbia University. By training, vocation and chief interest she is an anthropologist, but a quartet of sciences, anthropology, sociology, psychology and philosophy, is responsible for the volume, which is expertly conceived and brilliantly developed. Ruth Benedict on Race, Environment, and the Concept of Culture The primary message of Patterns of Culture is the paramount importance of learned behavior in human existence. In contrast to prevalent notions of racial or biological determinism, or of human life as determined by the surrounding physical environment, or of humans confined by their place on an evolutionary hierarchy, Benedict posits that culture provides the patterning. Benedict’s first chapter, “The Science of Custom” is beautifully written and crystal clear: No man ever looks at the world with pristine eyes. He sees it edited by a definite set of customs and institutions and ways of thinking. Even in his philosophical probings he cannot go behind these stereotypes; his very concepts of the true and the false will still have reference to his particular traditional customs. John Dewey has said in all seriousness that the part played by custom in shaping the behavior of the individual as over against any way in which he can affect traditional custom, is as the proportion of the total vocabulary of his mother tongue over against those words of his own baby talk that are taken up into the vernacular of his family. (1934:2) On the issue of race, or ideas of biological determinism, Benedict is succinct: “Not one item of his tribal social organization, of his language, of his local religion, is carried in his germ-cell. . . . Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior. . . . Culture is not a biologically transmitted complex” (1934:12,14). Benedict also wrote, with Gene Weltfish, The Races of Mankind (Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 85): Teaching journals from the era reveal the tremendous popularity of The Races of Mankind in English, science and social studies classes across the nation. As publication approached one million copies, The Races of Mankind was released as an illustrated children’s book, an animated film, a set of 15 posters and a traveling exhibit. It remains the most popular text written by an anthropologist for teachers and young students to clear up the confusion of the race concept in simple, inexpensive and appealing formats. The Races of Mankind would play a major role in transforming the way American teachers spoke and taught about the race concept. Most importantly, this text assured teachers and students that culture, not race, was the key to understanding human diversity. (Zoë Burkholder, Franz Boas and Anti-Racist Education 2006:25) Ruth Benedict was also the first “great anthropologist” cited by Martin Luther King, Jr.: The idea of an inferior or superior race has been refuted by the best evidence of the science of anthropology. Great anthropologists, like Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Melville J. Herskovits agree that although there may be inferior and superior individuals within all races, there is no superior or inferior race. (Strength to Love, 37-38) On the question of how much human behavior was influenced or determined by the physical environment, Benedict is likewise brief but potent: “The institutions that human cultures build up upon the hints presented by the environment or by man’s physical necessities do not keep as close to the original impulse as we easily imagine. These hints are, in reality, mere rough sketches, a list of bare facts. They are pin-point potentialities, and the elaboration that takes place around them is dictated by many alien considerations” (1934:35). In short, Benedict endorses and popularizes what Michel-Rolph Trouillot terms the “Boasian conceptual kernel” of U.S. anthropology: Human behavior is patterned. There exist within historically specific populations recurrences in both thought and behavior that are not contingent but structurally conditioned and that are, in turn, structuring. Those patternes are learned. Recurrences cannot be tied to a natural world within or outside the human body, but rather to constant interaction within specific populations. Structuration occurs through social transmission and symbolic coding with some degree of human consciousness. (Adieu Culture: A New Duty Arises 2003:99) Compare to Jared Diamond. Diamond has of course acquired some fame for arguing against biological determinism, and his Race Without Color was once a staple for challenging simplistic tales of biological race. But by the 1990s, Diamond simply echoes perceived liberal wisdom. Benedict and Weltfish’s Races of Mankind was banned by the Army as Communist propaganda, and Weltfish faced persecution from McCarthyism (Micaela di Leonardo, Exotics at Home 1998:196,224). Boas and Benedict swam against the current of the time, when backlash could be brutal. In contrast, Diamond’s claims on race and IQ have mostly been anecdotal. They have never been taken seriously by those who call themselves “race realists” (see Jared Diamond won’t beat Mitt Romney). Diamond has never responded scientifically to the re-assertion of race from sources like “A Family Tree in Every Gene,” and he helped propagate a medical myth about racial differences in hypertension. And, of course, although Guns, Germs, and Steel has been falsely branded as environmental or geographical determinism, there is no doubt that Diamond leans heavily on agriculture and geography as explanatory causes for differential success. Ruth Benedict: What Can We Learn from Primitive Societies? From the beginning, Benedict begs us to break out of the prism of white culture and parochial thinking: The psychological consequences of this spread of white culture have been out of all proportion to the materialistic. This world-wide cultural diffusion has protected us as man had never been protected before from having to take seriously the civilizations of other peoples; it has given our culture a massive universality that we have long ceased to account for historically, and which we read off rather as necessary and inevitable. We interpret our dependence, in our civilization, upon economic competition, as proof that this is the prime motivation that human nature can rely upon, or we read off the behaviour of small children as it is moulded in our civilization and recorded in child clinics, as child psychology or the way in which the young human animal is bound to behave. It is the same whether it is a question of our ethics or of our family organization. It is the inevitability of each familiar motivation that we defend, attempting always to identify our own local ways of behaving with Behaviour, or our own socialized habits with Human Nature. (1934:6-7) In 1934, Benedict had already pinpointed the problem of only analyzing what everyone is now calling the WEIRD, Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic. Greg Downey’s We agree it’s WEIRD, but is it WEIRD enough? remains the best analysis. As Downey puts it, “I worry that some of our cultural ideology and self deception may be smuggled in under the terms themselves, especially ‘Western,’ ‘industrialized’ and ‘democratic’” (see also Race, Monogamy & Other Lies They Told You–Agustin Fuentes as Anthropology 101). As seen above, Benedict also has little use for gender neutral pronouns or politically-correct euphemisms. Benedict explicitly considers primitive cultures as a kind of laboratory: With the vast network of historical contact which has spread the great civilizations over tremendous areas, primitive cultures are now the one source to which we can turn. They are a laboratory in which we may study the diversity of human institutions. With their comparative isolation, many primitive regions have had centuries in which to elaborate the cultural themes they have made their own. They provide ready to our hand the necessary information concerning the possible great variations in human adjustments, and a critical examination of them is essential for any understanding of cultural processes. It is the only laboratory of social forms that we have or shall have. (1934:17) Moreover, Benedict has no use for romanticizing Noble Savages. Her chapter on Dobu zips the Dobuans with so many wonderful barbs it’s difficult to choose the best zinger. Benedict begins by noting the Dobuan reputation as the “feared and distrusted savages of the islands surrounding them” and then proceeds to confirm “the Dobuans amply deserve the character they are given by their neighbours. They are lawless and treacherous. Every man’s hand is against every other man. . . . The social forms which obtain in Dobu put a premium upon ill-will and treachery and make of them the recognized virtues of their society” (1934:131). The fun continues: “As Dr. Fortune says, ‘The Dobuans prefer to be infernally nasty or else not nasty at all’” (1934:171). And perhaps the last lines are the best: The Dobuan lives out without repression man’s worst nightmares of the ill-will of the universe, and according to his view of life virtue consists in selecting a victim upon whom he can vent the malignancy he attributes alike to human society and to the powers of nature. All existence appears to him as a cutthroat struggle in which deadly antagonists are pitted against one another in a contest for each one of the goods of life. Suspicion and cruelty are his trusted weapons in the strife and he gives no mercy, as he asks none. (1934:172) That’s not WEIRD the acronym, that’s just weird! [And please see below for alternative explanations] Benedict similarly skewers the Kwakiutl for their “megalomaniac paranoid” tendencies: The sulking and the suicides on the Northwest Coast are the natural complement of their major preoccupations. The gamut of the emotions which they recognized, from triumph to shame, was magnified to its utmost proportions. Triumph was an uninhibited indulgence in delusions of grandeur, and shame a cause of death. Knowing but the one gamut, they used it for every occasion, even the most unlikely. (1934:220) Compare again Jared Diamond. Diamond has accused anthropologists of falsely romanticizing others, but by subtitling his book What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies, Diamond engages in more than just politically-correct euphemism. When most people think of a “traditional society,” they are thinking of agrarian peasant societies or artisan handicrafts. Diamond, however, is referring mainly to what we might term tribal societies, or hunters and gatherers with some horticulture. Curiously, for Diamond the dividing line between the yesterday of traditional and the today of the presumably modern was somewhere around 5,000-6,000 years ago (see The Colbert Report). As John McCreery points out: Why, I must ask, is the category “traditional societies” limited to groups like Inuit, Amazonian Indians, San people and Melanesians, when the brute fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people who have lived in “traditional” societies have been peasants living in traditional agricultural civilizations over the past several thousand years since the first cities appeared in places like the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Ganges, the Yellow River, etc.? Talk about a big blind spot. Benedict draws on the work of others, like Reo Fortune in Dobu and Franz Boas with the Kwakiutl. Her own ethnographic experience was limited. But unlike Diamond, Benedict was working through the best ethnographic work available. Diamond, in contrast, splays us with a story from Allan Holmberg, which then gets into the New York Times, courtesy of David Brooks. Compare bestselling author Charles Mann on “Holmberg’s Mistake” (the first chapter of his 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus): The wandering people Holmberg traveled with in the forest had been hiding from their abusers. At some risk to himself, Holmberg tried to help them, but he never fully grasped that the people he saw as remnants from the Paleolithic Age were actually the persecuted survivors of a recently shattered culture. It was as if he had come across refugees from a Nazi concentration camp, and concluded that they belonged to a culture that had always been barefoot and starving. (Mann 2005:10) As for Diamond’s approach to comparing different groups: “Despite claims that Diamond’s book demonstrates incredible erudition what we see in this prologue is a profound lack of thought about what it would mean to study human diversity and how to make sense of cultural phenomenon” (Alex Golub, How can we explain human variation?). Ruth Benedict: Amazing Writer, Accessible, and Fourteen Languages Before entering anthropology, Benedict was an English major and a poet. Her prose is crisp and direct, unencumbered by footnotes and academic citation garb. Before publishing Patterns of Culture, Benedict “debated with friends and her editor the merits and demerits of over fifty titles for the book, worried about the colour of its cover, rewrote its blurb several times, insisted that its price be as low as possible, and got [Margaret] Mead to publicize it in conversations and reviews” (MacClancy, Popularizing Anthropology, 1996:32). Alex Golub at Savage Minds sees Benedict’s writing as guidance for contemporary anthropology blogs: Another thing that has fallen of our radar is concision and elegance in prose. When I read this Benedict piece, I feel like blogging is in our disciplinary DNA. Benedict’s prose is clean, forthright, argument driven, and easy to understand — just like a blogger’s is (or should be). True, this was a speech written to be read, but anyone familiar with her work knows Benedict wrote like this for all occasions. And she is not the only one–Mead and Linton also produced prose like this. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get back to this sort of style? (Commentary on Ruth Benedict – Anthropology and the Humanities) Patterns of Culture also features an extremely accessible price–new paperbacks are available for $6 on Amazon, with used copies available for around $2. It is already on the shelves of many local and public libraries. Many of Ruth Benedict’s writings are freely available Open Access–see the recently discussed Anthropology and the Humanities. Compare that with Diamond’s $20 e-Book! Moreover, Patterns of Culture has been translated into at least fourteen languages, although fewer than the 25 languages claimed by Guns, Germs and Steel. Indeed, Jared Diamond has been praised for his writing, for making science popular and palatable. Others have been less convinced. As David Brooks reviews: Diamond’s knowledge and insights are still awesome, but alas, that vividness rarely comes across on the page. . . . Diamond’s writing is curiously impersonal. We rarely get to hear the people in traditional societies speak for themselves. We don’t get to meet any in depth. We don’t get to know what their stories are, what the contents of their religions are, how they conceive of individual selfhood or what they think of us. In this book, geographic and environmental features play a much more important role in shaping life than anything an individual person thinks or feels. The people Diamond describes seem immersed in the collective. We generally don’t see them exercising much individual agency. (Tribal Lessons; of course, Brooks may be smarting from reviews that called his book The Dumbest Story Ever Told) Ruth Benedict: Contribution and Impact Benedict’s final points outline the idea of cultural relativism. Benedict believed this new understanding could make a difference: The recognition of cultural relativity carries with it its own values . . . It challenges customary opinions and causes those who have been bred to them acute discomfort. . . . As soon as the new opinion is embraced as customary belief, it will be another trusted bulwark of the good life. We shall arrive then at a more realistic social faith, accepting as grounds of hope and as new bases for tolerance the coexisting and equally valid patterns of life which mankind has created for itself from the raw materials of existence. (1934:278) As Patterns of Culture was re-printed and re-issued, it was almost always promoted as a gateway to tolerance. From a 1974 New York Times review: “Patterns of Culture is a signpost on the road to a freer and more tolerant life, liberating in its implicit assumption that American middle-class culture is merely one of many possible ways in which people may organize their social relationships–a way no better than any other” (Jean Zorn). In many ways, Ruth Benedict does exactly what Wade Davis wanted Jared Diamond to do–rather than providing a how-to manual of “tips we can learn,” to really investigate the existence of other possibilities: The voices of traditional societies ultimately matter because they can still remind us that there are indeed alternatives, other ways of orienting human beings in social, spiritual and ecological space. This is not to suggest naively that we abandon everything and attempt to mimic the ways of non-industrial societies, or that any culture be asked to forfeit its right to benefit from the genius of technology. It is rather to draw inspiration and comfort from the fact that the path we have taken is not the only one available, that our destiny therefore is not indelibly written in a set of choices that demonstrably and scientifically have proven not to be wise. By their very existence the diverse cultures of the world bear witness to the folly of those who say that we cannot change, as we all know we must, the fundamental manner in which we inhabit this planet. (Wade Davis review of Jared Diamond) Ruth Benedict and Jared Diamond: What Should Anthropology Do? Benedict’s words from 1934 remain as fresh and important as ever, perhaps becoming even more relevant in the past decade: Modern existence has thrown many civilizations into close contact, and at the moment the overwhelming response to this situation is nationalism and racial snobbery. There has never been a time when civilization stood more in need of individuals who are genuinely culture-conscious, who can see objectively the socially conditioned behaviour of other peoples without fear and recrimination. (1934:10-11) With that in mind, what should anthropology say about Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? Should anthropology simply declare allegiance–as many anthropologists already have–on the grounds of cultural relativism, tolerance, appreciating diversity, and fighting ethnocentrism? Should anthropology ride Jared Diamond’s fame as a good-enough Ruth Benedict, or as a substitute for Margaret Mead? My answer is no. It’s not simply because Ruth Benedict did it better three-quarters of a century ago, although Patterns of Culture should not be overlooked. It’s because of all anthropology has learned since Benedict portrayed the peoples of the world as relatively isolated laboratories. Benedict does not go quite as far as Holmberg’s Mistake, but she fails to present the full picture of historical encounter and the ethnographic situation. Benedict knows better than to spin possibly libelous tales as fodder for human nature, but she misses the historical depth and positioning of the ethnographer (see also James Mullooly’s Does Jared Diamond do Ethnography?). In short, as Benedict moves from the general concept of culture in the first pages to the notion of specific cultures in her accounts, the peoples become isolates, shorn from history: “Anthropologists such as Ruth Benedict and Ralph Linton emphasized the ‘wholeness’ of distinct cultures, a theme later revived by the work of Clifford Geertz” (Trouillot, Adieu Culture 2003:103). Although ideas of cultural relativism and tolerance do not need to depend on a cultural wholeness, that’s what happens in Benedict and a lot of later anthropology. About her three case studies, Benedict writes “they are travelling along different roads in pursuit of different ends, and these ends and these means in one society cannot be judged in terms of those of another society, because essentially they are incommensurable” (1934:223). This history reveals the major theme missing from both Benedict and Diamond–an anthropology of interconnection. That as Eric Wolf described in Europe and the People Without History peoples once called primitive–now perhaps more politely termed tribal or traditional–were part of a co-production with Western colonialism. This connection and co-production had already been in process long before anthropologists arrived on the scene. Put differently, could the Dobuan reputation for being infernally nasty savages have anything to do with the white recruiters of indentured labour, which Benedict mentions (1934:130) but then ignores? Could the revving up of the Kwakiutl potlatch and megalomaniac gamuts have anything to do with the fur trade? It would take many years before an ethnography challenging the Fortune-Benedict story of Dobu became available, and Dobu: Ethics of Exchange on a Massim Island by Susanne Kuehling is still hardly read in comparison to Patterns of Culture. As Wolf announced in the first sentences of Europe and the People Without History: The central assertion of this book is that the world of humankind constitutes a manifold, a totality of interconnected processes, and inquiries that disassemble this totality into bits and then fail to reassemble it falsify reality. Concepts like “nation,” society,” and “culture” name bits and threaten to turn names into things. Only by understanding these names as bundles of relationships, and by placing them back into the field from which they were abstracted, can we hope to avoid misleading inferences and increase our share of understanding. (1982:3) In follow-up posts, I’ll attempt to outline how we can avoid the misleading inferences and increase rather than decrease our share of understanding. I agree with Alex Golub about taking care with hyperbole and strident rhetoric. But we still need a take-the-fight-to-the-streets moment for that better understanding of humanity. BREAKING! Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture, International Superstar! Living Anthropologically

The form and content of Barack Obama's Second Inaugural have stimulated even more than the usual amount of commentary, including some analyses of linguistic interest. For today, I'll limit myself to noting that one aspect of the president's performance gave Bryan Garner a case of the vapors: Listening to the Inaugural Address now. Oh dear. President Obama said "tenants of our faith" this morning instead of "tenets." — Bryan A. Garner (@BryanAGarner) January 21, 2013 Mr. Garner was right about the pronunciation: And as Ben Zimmer pointed out, the president has used this pronunciation before: @bryanagarner Wouldn't be the first time: languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2902#co… — Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) January 21, 2013 It's clear from the frequency of misspellings on the web that this is a fairly common pronunciation. It's also easy to find explicit discussion of the question, as in these comments at the Merriam-Webster site: Or this plaintive appeal to Yahoo Answers: And there are many other cases where the pronunciation-influenced misspelling is questioned only by being mixed in with the standard spelling: < There are several reasons why people might get confused — -ent and -ant are common word-endings, derived from Latin present participles; relatively few Latin words inflected for person have been borrowed into English (fiat, caveat, credo, ignoramus, …); the earlier /n/ may tend to perseverate in perception (and thus later in production), as in the case of pundit / pundant; and so on. Anyhow, it's interesting to see President Obama getting a little bit of the excessive linguistic scrutiny that used to be directed at George W. Bush, at least in some other area than alleged over-use of first person singular pronouns. But I'm happy to say that so far, "He mispronounced tenets!" doesn't seem to have the popular resonance of Jacob Weisberg's "He said 'Grecians'!", or George Will's "If you struck from Barack Obama’s vocabulary the first-person singular pronoun, he would fall silent".

courtesy Stronghold Sound, this:Khat Thaleth by Stronghold Sound"Advance promo release of Khat Thaleth 23 tracks compilation of politically conscious Arab hip-hop. CD and vinyl release coming up on Stronghold Sound." Includes tracks from Touffar (Lebanon),  Narcicyst (Iraq/Canada), LaTlateh (Syria), and others with whom I was not previously familiar. Be sure to listen.

Reader ESM sent in a link to David Weigel, "Democrats Say They Have the Votes for Filibuster Reform, and for the 'Nuclear Option'", Slate 1/22/2013: …even if you're a reformer, do you think there's ANY filibuster reform that wouldn't be interpeted by the Rand Paul-Mike Lee-Tim Scott-Ron Johnson quartet as the hi sign to "blow up the Senate"? and asked I'm curious about the use of "hi sign." I've heard the phrase spoken, but always understood it as "high sign." A quick search online didn't turn up any meaningful commentary, even of the speculative or anecdotal variety. Merriam-Webster spells it "high sign" with the gloss: "a gesture used as a signal (as of approval or warning) — usually used in the phrase give the high sign". The OED gives the gloss "n. colloq. a surreptitious sign indicating that all is well or that the coast is clear". The AHD gives "A prearranged signal intended to warn or inform". Presumably Mr. Weigel's spelling an eggcorn, rather than a conscious pun as in this usage by Anne Dingus, "Texas Primer: The Hi Sign", Texas Monthly June 1985: Texas’ motto is “Friendship,” and Texas’ highways cover more miles than any other state’s, and the intersection of these two facts is the hi sign, the laconic one-finger wave shared by rural travelers. In the days of the open range, when pioneers saw another wagon of lonely wayfarers on the trackless plains, they could always rein up and chat awhile. But we modern Texans travel 55 miles an hour—at the very least—and can barely slow down for a pit stop. Thus the hi sign was born. By using it, we convey our goodwill to our fellow drivers and reaffirm our reliance on each other during long trips across isolated country. The hi sign is strictly a highway courtesy, an automotive gesture developed for the modern age. A person on horse or on foot raises his whole hand, but the demands of travel on wheels dictate a specialized wave. If Mr. Weigel has eggcorned high sign, he's not the first to take that step — here's a paragraph from Nellie Altamirano-Bustillos, The Gardens, 2005:

As both Marcia Pally and David Gushee note, there is no historical reason why evangelicalism should identify with a single political orientation. There is also no global reason. Research on evangelicals in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is uncovering startling political diversity. Paul Freston, one of the most informed scholars on the subject, dismisses “facile equations of evangelicalism with conservative stances.” Historical and contemporary conditions, he writes, demonstrate “the distance of these actors—indeed, total independence of these actors—from the American evangelical right.” Increasingly, many of these non-American evangelicals have begun to speak back to the United States, revealing American conditions not only as anomalous but also as subject to influence from abroad. Scholars are recognizing that despite the imperial nature of the “American Century,” influence flows in both directions. People of the two-thirds world have, in fact, shaped American evangelical missionaries and Cold Warriors. This global reflex often takes progressive shape. Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism, my history of the small, but energetic, American evangelical left of the 1970s and 1980s, chronicles the activism of just one of many international sources of non-rightist politics. Figures within Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL) are obscure outside evangelical circles, but they have voiced trenchant critiques of American consumerism and social injustices. As Samuel Escobar, a native of Peru and FTL’s first president, told thousands of delegates at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974, “Christians in the Third World…expect from their brethren a word of identification with demands for justice.” Institutions such as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the World Evangelical Fellowship, Christianity Today, Wheaton College, and World Vision have listened to a surprising degree. For example, under pressure from international evangelicals, World Vision de-Americanized in the 1970s, a move that resulted in adding economic development to the organization’s agenda of disaster relief and personal evangelism. Escobar and World Vision represent the leading edge of what will almost certainly become a larger and stronger global reflex. To be sure, the reflex seems uneven in the context of current North American political orthodoxies. African critiques of libertine sexuality, Asian critiques of American techniques of evangelization, and Latin American critiques of North American consumerism combine in ways that defy the imaginations of most Americans. Indeed, the exotic melody from abroad is rich and complex, and international voices likely will swell to a chorus in the next century as the Global South demographically overwhelms northern and western centers. In a world where 60 percent of all Christians now live outside the North Atlantic region, and in a nation increasingly opened to nonwhite immigrants since the Immigration Act of 1965, global influence will only intensify. As that happens, contemporary manifestations of right-wing evangelicalism may seem even more anomalous.

Have you checked out AAA’s Cafe Press shop yet? – ShopAAA Head on over to the shop to check out all the new merchandise available for purchase. In the shop you’ll find all the essential gear you need proudly donning the AAA logo, Anthropology News and new 2013 Annual Meeting logo – from messenger bags [...]

Towards a New Cultural Cartography: A panel discussion about Sharjah Biennial 11 Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium Saturday 26 January 2013, 14.00 – 17.00 In the lead-up to the 11th Sharjah Biennial, Tate Modern hosts a preview panel discussion including Yuko Hasegawa, this year’s curator, and Hoor Al-Qasimi, President of the Sharjah Art Foundation. For this year’s [...]

Hamzah Moin has a fascinating Youtube video with excerpts of some of the worst and mangled Muslim prayers in Hollywood cinema. Check it out at [www.youtube.com]