By Judith Farquhar (NHC Fellow, 2007–08; 2015–16) Ten Thousand Things explores the many forms of life, or, in ancient Chinese parlance “the ten thousand things” that life is and is becoming, in contemporary Beijing and beyond. Coauthored by an American anthropologist and a Chinese philosopher, the book examines the myriad ways contemporary residents of Beijing understand … Continued
Edited by Charles Stewart (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) Social scientists have used the term "Creolization" to evoke cultural fusion and the emergence of new cultures across the globe. However, the term has been under-theorized and tends to be used as a simple synonym for "mixture" or "hybridity." In this volume, by contrast, renowned scholars give the … Continued
By Anupama Rao (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial … Continued
By Deborah Lyons (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) Inspired by anthropological writing on reciprocity and kinship, this book applies the idea of gendered wealth to ancient Greek myth for the first time, and also highlights the importance of the sister-brother bond in the Classical world.
By Helen E. Ullrich (NHC Fellow, 1987–88)
By Charles Stewart (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) Charles Stewart tells the story of the inhabitants of Kóronos, on the Greek island of Naxos, who, in the 1830s, began experiencing dreams in which the Virgin Mary instructed them to search for buried Christian icons nearby and build a church to house the ones they found. Miraculously, they … Continued
By John L. Jackson, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem are often dismissed as a fringe cult for their beliefs that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites and that veganism leads to immortality. But John L. Jackson questions what “fringe” means in a world where cultural practices of every stripe circulate … Continued
By Louise Meintjes (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) In Dust of the Zulu Louise Meintjes traces the political and aesthetic significance of ngoma, a competitive form of dance and music that emerged out of the legacies of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Contextualizing ngoma within South Africa's history of violence, migrant labor, the HIV epidemic, and the world … Continued
By Steven C. Caton (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) In 1979, Steven C. Caton went to a remote area of Yemen to do fieldwork on the famous oral poetry of its tribes. The recent hostage crisis in Iran made life perilous for a young American in the Middle East; worse, he was soon embroiled in a dangerous … Continued
By Jennifer Cole (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) While doing fieldwork in a village in east Madagascar that had suffered both heavy settler colonialism and a bloody anticolonial rebellion, Jennifer Cole found herself confronted by a puzzle. People in the area had lived through almost a century of intrusive French colonial rule, but they appeared to have … Continued