Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Customs & Traditions

Outside of Italy, the country s culture and its food appear to be essentially synonymous. And indeed, as "The Italian Way" makes clear, preparing, cooking, and eating food play a central role in the daily activities of Italians from all walks of life. In this beautifully illustrated book, Douglas Harper and Patrizia Faccioli present a fascinating and colorful look at the Italian table.

"The Italian Way" focuses on two dozen families in the city of Bologna, elegantly weaving together Harper s outsider perspective with Faccioli s intimate knowledge of the local customs. The authors...

For "modern" people, the very notion of ritual efficacy is suspicious because rituals are widely thought of as merely symbolic or expressive, so that - by definition - they cannot be efficacious. Nevertheless people in many cultures assume that rituals do indeed "work," and...

The vocabulary of Texas, and of the Southwest, has a character that sets it apart from all others. It is to some extent an amalgamation of words brought from other sections. A more important ingredient, however, has been a large group of words that initially grew into usage in Texas itself.

Utilizing a thorough knowledge of language and a remarkable insight into linguistics, the author, Professor of English at the University of Texas, has compiled a reference book for scholars, writers, and laymen whose interests involve the use of this vocabulary. It is a well-balanced book,...

Central to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. ''Ritual?'' asks Philippe Buc. In The Dangers of Ritual he boldly argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all. Modern-day scholars, gently seduced by twentieth-century theories of ritual, often misinterpret medieval documents that ostensibly describe such events, in part because they fail to appreciate the intentions behind...

Events and Festivals have an increasingly vital role in our leisure lifestyles. We recognise them as part of our lives. For some, of they are a very significant part of our lives.

The network of festivals and events that either adorn the world now, or are planned for the future, can both serve to motivate new visits as well as enhance the lives of the people who live in - or near - the host area. They are also dynamos of cultural development, of sport knowledge and excellence and sophisticated consumption. Such dynamic outputs require dynamic inputs. This book looks at different...

The period of prohibition, from 1919 to 1933, marks the fault line between the cultures of Victorian and modern America. In Domesticating Drink, Murdock argues that the debates surrounding alcohol also marked a divide along gender lines. For much of early American history, men generally did the drinking, and women and children were frequently the victims of alcohol-associated violence and abuse. As a result, women stood at the fore of the temperance and prohibition movements and, as Murdock explains, effectively used the fight against drunkenness as a route toward political...

For "modern" people, the very notion of ritual efficacy is suspicious because rituals are widely thought of as merely symbolic or expressive, so that - by definition - they cannot be efficacious. Nevertheless people in many cultures assume that rituals do indeed "work," and...

Drawing on the accounts of early European travelers, original Arabic sources on jurisprudence and etiquette, and treatises on coffee from the period, the author recounts the colorful early history of the spread of coffee and the influence of coffeehouses in the medieval Near East. Detailed descriptions of the design, atmosphere, management, and patrons of early coffeehouses make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of coffee and the unique institution of the coffeehouse in urban Muslim society

Ritual today can be encountered in the midst of catastrophic and transforming events. This collection reassesses and revises traditionally understood relationships between ritual and politics, ritual and everyday life, ritual and art making, and ritual and disaster.The methodologies as well as the subject matter are interdisciplinary: they range from the anthropological to the art and dance historical, from the theatrical and literary to the linguistic, philosophical, and psychoanalytic. It will be a valuable tool for scholars of Theater and Performance Studies, as well as Anthropology,...

The foods Kentuckians love to eat today -- biscuits and gravy, country ham and eggs, soup beans and cornbread, fried chicken and shucky beans, and fried apple pie and boiled custard -- all were staples on the Kentucky family farms in the early twentieth century. Each of these dishes has evolved as part of the farming lifestyle of a particular time and place, utilizing available ingredients and complementing busy daily schedules. Though the way of life associated with these farms in the first half of the twentieth century has mostly disappeared, the foodways have become a key part of...

For some time now the body has been a central topic across a range of social science disciplines. Similarly, there has been a growing interest in the cultural meaning of clothing. But curiously, even though people are nearly always clothed, the relationship between dress and the body has been relatively unexplored until now.

Dress is a crucial aspect of embodiment, shaping the self physically and psychologically. From dressing up to dressing down, this book exposes the complex ways that fashions and costumes render the body presentable in a vast range of social situations. It...

The goal of this book is to investigate why there are two distinct notions of liability in the legal and ethical systems of different societies; the relationship between two sets of criteria of liability and the individual's evolution from childhood adolescence. The specific ways in which different societies cope with the transition from childhood to adolescence are important because a sense of responsibility, consonant with the goals of the society and survival of family and culture, is implanted in the growing child.

The ways in which incest taboos are taught constitute one of the...

The topic of taboos has rarely been discussed in any comprehensive way in recent years, as though the word itself has become taboo in our efforts to dispel the myth of the irrationality of supposedly 'primitive' cultures. The "Encyclopedia of Taboos" is a mine of unusual information from around the world, including a comprehensive analysis of individual taboos from the ancient world to the present day, covering both well- and lesser-known examples.

The A-Z articles cover the topics naturally associated with the concept of taboo--incest, cannibalism, pollution, food, art, dress, sex, and...