From the Cataloger's Desk - On the list: The Way of Warriors
by Iris Lee on
The way of warriors : annotated narratives of the Mebengokre (Kayapo) in Brazil
by Gustaaf Verswijver with a preface by Cesar Gordon
2023
In The Way of Warriors: Annotated Narratives of the Mebengokre (Kayapo) in Brazil, we find a rich collection of narratives and life stories, the product of memory and experience of 24 indigenous narrators, recorded over many years of fieldwork, and carefully translated by the author with the dedicated and qualified help of two indigenous research assistants. Part of this rich material was the basis of the meticulous work of historical reconstruction work undertaken by Verswijver and now comes to light to foster new research and new studies that complement any gaps and give rise to new interpretations of Mebengokre history. The set of more than 80 narratives, organized by Verswijver, permits a comprehensive view of Mebengokre history, as remembered, understood, and told by the Indians themselves. The Mebengokre history and mental universe appear here, not as analytical artifacts of the anthropologist, but concretely embodied in the testimony of the indigenous people. More than that, if the indigenous narratives speak a lot about the past, of periods of crisis, violence, and death, they also reflect the strength of the present and point to the longings for the future of a brave people, morally solid, but open to the new and endowed with remarkable intellectual flexibility. For this reason, it is no exaggeration to say that this book is one of the most important attempts at systematic historical reconstruction in the field of anthropology of Amazonian indigenous peoples.
A faunal review of Aleocharine beetles in the rapidly changing Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae)
by Jan Klimaszewski, Adam Brunke, Derek S. Sikes, Mikko Pentinsaari, Benoit Godin, Reginald P. Webster, Anthony Davies, Caroline Bourdon, Alfred F. Newton
2021
A total of 231 species placed in 54 genera and 12 tribes of Aleocharinae are reported from Subarctic and Arctic North America, and an additional seven species are reported as occurring in transitional areas between the softwood shield (5.1) and taiga shield (3.4, subarctic) forests of Labrador. This assemblage represents about 37% of the total aleocharine fauna of Canada and Alaska. Forty-four species are known only from the Subarctic and Arctic in North America, though many of these are Holarctic. The fauna is composed mainly of species in the Athetini, Oxypodini and Tachyusini. Overall, the Arctic (103 species, 30 genera) is much less diverse than the Subarctic (166 species, 40 genera). Diversity of aleocharine species, genera and tribes declines steadily with increasing latitude. Most of the 40 Holarctic aleocharines are wetland species or generalists, though a few are halophilic intertidal species. With only 3% of the fauna confirmed as adventive, the unfavorable climate of the Taiga and, to a lesser extent, the Boreal Cordillera may be a deterrent to the establishment of these species. We could not confirm that adventive species have become established on the North American tundra and future taxonomic research is needed. Much of the North American Arctic and Subarctic remains to be sampled for Aleocharinae and 14 species have not been collected outside of the type material, including seven that have not been collected since at least 1984.
Being Scioto Hopewell : ritual drama and personhood in cross-cultural perspective
by Christopher Carr
2021
This book, in two volumes, breathes fresh air empirically, methodologically, and theoretically into understanding the rich ceremonial lives, the philosophical-religious knowledge, and the impressive material feats and labor organization that distinguish Hopewell Indians of central Ohio and neighboring regions during the first centuries CE. The first volume defines cross-culturally, for the first time, the "ritual drama" as a genre of social performance. It reconstructs and compares parts of 14 such dramas that Hopewellian and other Woodland-period peoples performed in their ceremonial centers to help the soul-like essences of their deceased make the journey to an afterlife. The second volume builds and critiques ten formal cross-cultural models of "personhood" and the "self" and infers the nature of Scioto Hopewell peoples ontology. Two facets of their ontology are found to have been instrumental in their creating the intercommunity alliances and cooperation and gathering the labor required to construct their huge, multicommunity ceremonial centers: a relational, collective concept of the self defined by the ethical quality of the relationships one has with other beings, and a concept of multiple soul-like essences that compose a human being and can be harnessed strategically to create familial-like ethical bonds of cooperation among individuals and communities. The archaeological reconstructions of Hopewellian ritual dramas and concepts of personhood and the self, and of Hopewell peoples strategic uses of these, are informed by three large surveys of historic Woodland and Plains Indians narratives, ideas, and rites about journeys to afterlives, the creatures who inhabit the cosmos, and the nature and functions of soul-like essences, coupled with rich contextual archaeological and bioarchaeological-taphonomic analyses. The bioarchaeological-taphonomic method of l'anthropologie de terrain, new to North American archaeology, is introduced and applied. In all, the research in this book vitalizes a vision of an anthropology committed to native logic and motivation and skeptical of the imposition of Western world views and categories onto native peoples.
Bird talk : an exploration of avian communication
by Barbara Ballentine and Jeremy Hyman
2021
This book describes basic theory about how bird communication works: 1) how signals should evolve to be optimally functional in the environment, 2) how senders use signals to transmit information, 3) how receivers perceive the information content of a signal, and 4) why we should expect signals to evolve to give honest, reliable information to receivers about senders. It describes channels of communication (plumage & sounds), how signals are produced and perceived by birds, and their topics of communication.
Book of birds : introduction to ornithology
by John Faaborg with illustrations by Claire Faaborg
2020
In this beautifully illustrated volume, Faaborg's approachable writing style will engage students and birders alike while introducing them to the study of the evolution, taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, diversity, and behavior of birds. With its unique focus on ecology, the text emphasizes birds' relationships with the environment and other species while showing the amazing diversity of avian life.
Complaining as a sociocultural activity : examining how and why in Korean interaction
by Kyung-Eun Yoon
2021
This book examines the role of complaining in conversation and online interaction in Korean, analyzing linguistic characteristics for complaining, organizational features of complaining including the responses, and socio-cultural norms and identities constructed in the course of complaining.
Conservation of plaster casts
by edited by Jakub Doubal et. al.
2023
This book, which includes a wide range of illustrations, focuses on the issues associated with the conservation, storage and display of plaster casts, reflecting on the past and reporting on the present. It examines the role that plaster itself plays in the process of making a sculpture, outlines the history of plaster casts and deals with the techniques of conservation including cleaning, consolidation, gluing, reintegration and preventive conservation and conservation surveys. The authors refer to the available published knowledge on the subject and add their new findings based on many years of experience and the evaluation of laboratory tests.
Creating the Creation Museum : how fundamentalist beliefs come to life
by Kathleen C. Oberlin
2020
Creating the Creation Museum explores how fundamentalist beliefs come to life.
Health and welfare of captive reptiles
edited by Clifford Warwick, Phillip C. Arena, and Gordon M. Burghardt
2023
Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles is a new edition with nine extra contributions. Provides an unparalleled overview on animal welfare and work with reptiles in captivity. Essential for all involved in reptile care, including herpetologists, zoo staff, vet and laboratory animal scientists
Lagoa Santa Karst : Brazil's iconic karst region
edited by Augusto S. Auler and Paulo Pessoa
2020
This book discusses the Lagoa Santa Karst, which has been internationally known since the pioneering studies of the Danish naturalist Peter Lund in the early 1800s. It covers the speleogenesis, geology, vegetation, fauna, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and anthropogenic use of the Lagoa Santa Karst and is the first English-language book on this major karst area. The area, which has been at the heart of the debate on the origin and age of human colonization in the Americas, is characterized by a classical and scenic karst landscape with limestone cliffs, karst lakes and karst plains, in addition to numerous solution dolines. More than 1,000 caves have been documented in the area, many with significant archeological and paleontological value. Despite its great importance, the Lagoa Santa Karst faces severe environmental threats due to limestone mining and the expansion of the metropolis of Belo Horizonte and its surrounding towns. The growing recognition of the area’s remarkable significance has led to increasing concern, and a number of protected areas have now been established, improving the conservation status of this landmark karst area.
The lives of objects : material culture, experience, and the real in the history of early Christianity
by Maia Kotrosits
2020
Judaism and Christianity as condensed illustrations of how people across time struggle with the materiality of life and death. Speaking across many fields, including classics, history, anthropology, literary, gender, and queer studies, the book journeys through the ancient Mediterranean world by way of the myriad physical artifacts that punctuate the transnational history of early Christianity. By bringing a psychoanalytically inflected approach to bear upon her materialist studies of religious history, Kotrosits makes a contribution not only to our understanding of Judaism and early Christianity, but also our sense of how different disciplines construe historical knowledge, and how we as people and thinkers understand our own relation to our material and affective past.
Manual of Afrotropical diptera
edited by Ashley H. Kirk-Spriggs and Bradley J. Sinclair
2017
The Manual of Afrotropical Diptera provides an up-to-date, well-illustrated, interpretable means for identifying families and genera of two-winged flies of the continental Afrotropical Region, its associated oceanic islands and the southernmost Arabian Peninsula. The manual is also designed to be a basic reference work to a wide spectrum of biosystematic information on Diptera for professional biologists, teachers, university students and informed amateurs.
New fossil giant panda relatives (Ailuropodinae, Ursidae) : a basal lineage of gigantic Mio-Pliocene cursorial carnivores
by Qigao Jiangzuo, John J. Flynn, Shiqi Wang, Sukuan Hou, and Tao Deng
2023
Among the fossil members of the giant panda subfamily of ursid carnivorans, Ailuropodinae, one group of species is of giant size, those of Indarctos. Indarctos species have some dental resemblances to and may be closely related to Agriotherium, although there are other clear differences between these taxa, and no known species has definitive shared derived traits that could link these two genera. Here we describe a rich suite of fossil material from both North America and eastern Asia, all belonging to a new genus, Huracan, which possesses characters shared with both Agriotherium and Indarctos but also has diagnostic autapomorphies. The new taxon was distributed widely in the Holarctic during the latest Miocene, including at least four species: the type species Huracan schneideri (previously Agriotherium schneideri) from the latest Hemphillian (Hh4) and possibly early Blancan North American Land Mammal “Ages” (NALMAs), North America; H. coffeyi from the early Late Hemphillian (Hh3) NALMA, North America; H. qiui, sp. nov., from the Baodean Asian Land Mammal “Age” (ALMA), northern China; and H. roblesi from the MN13 zone (latest Miocene–earliest Pliocene) of Spain. Huracan is the nearest sister taxon to Agriotherium, the latter herein considered to be an ailuropodine (in the tribe Agriotheriini) rather than a hemicyonid, and the common ancestor of both genera evolved from Indarctos (with resultant paraphyly of that taxon) or another Indarctos-like ailuropodine bear, likely in eastern Asia. The dentitions of Huracan and Agriotherium both are more specialised for carnivory than most Indarctos species, indicating a radiation of diverse ecological carnivores earlier in the history of the later-diverging, highly specialized herbivores in the giant panda lineage. Their postcranial morphology suggests that species in both genera (Huracan and Agriotherium) were more cursorial than species assigned to Indarctos, and thus well adapted to more open habitats. These derived traits may explain the worldwide replacement of Indarctos species by Huracan and Agriotherium species during the latest Miocene, in response to significant global cooling and expansion of C4 grasslands that occurred at that time.
North Korean defectors in diaspora : identities, mobilities, and resettlements
edited by HaeRan Shin
2022
This edited collection investigates the mobilities, resettlement practices, and identities of North Korean defectors who have relocated to the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
Religious tourism in northern Thailand : encounters with Buddhist monks
by Brooke Schedneck
2021
Temples are everywhere in Chiang Mai, filled with tourists as well as saffron-robed monks of all ages. The monks participate in daily urban life here as elsewhere in Thailand, where Buddhism is promoted, protected, and valued as a tourist attraction. Yet this mountain city offers more than a fleeting, commodified tourist experience, as the encounters between foreign visitors and Buddhist monks can have long-lasting effects on both parties. These religious contacts take place where economic motives, missionary zeal, and opportunities for cultural exchange coincide. Brooke Schedneck incorporates fieldwork and interviews with student monks and tourists to examine the innovative ways that Thai Buddhist temples offer foreign visitors spaces for religious instruction and popular in-person Monk Chat sessions in which tourists ask questions about Buddhism. Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand also considers how Thai monks perceive other religions and cultures and how they represent their own religion when interacting with tourists, resulting in a revealing study of how religious traditions adapt to an era of globalization.
Transforming patriarchy : Chinese families in the twenty-first century
edited by Gonçalo Santos and Stevan Harrell
2017
Each successive wave of revolution to hit modern China--political, cultural, and economic--has radically reshaped Chinese society. Whereas patriarchy defined the familial social structure for thousands of years, changing realities in the last hundred years have altered and even reversed long-held expectations. Transforming Patriarchy explores the private and public dimensions of these changes in present-day China. Patriarchy is not dead, but it is no longer the default arrangement for Chinese families ... Drawing on a multitude of sources and perspectives, this volume turns to the intimate territory of the family to challenge prevailing scholarly assumptions about gender and generational hierarchies in Chinese society. Case studies examine factors such as social class, geography, and globalization as they relate to patriarchal practice and resistance to it.
A visual dictionary of decorative and domestic arts
by Nancy Odegaard and Gerry Wagner Crouse
2023
This full-color visual dictionary contains an unambiguous vocabulary for the parts of handcrafted decorative, domestic, and artistic items. Terminology for a broad array of object types is accompanied by original color illustrations.
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This entry was written by Iris Lee, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian.