These concepts of Anderson’s also seem valid today within the readings, and easily ‘borrowable’ in service of fundamentalism as well as nationalism. It is this very definition of time, in fact, that allows the use of politicized religion to bolster a nation’s beliefs and confirm its collective hegemonies, to claim a consistent religious or social…
In his book Imagined Communities, Anderson discusses the imagining and rise of nationalism. He lists several ideological changes that allowed the creation of this concept. First is the loss of the ‘sacred silent languages,’ which held together religious communities that spanned continents. These languages were believed to consist of meaningful symbols of essential truths, and…
It is fascinating to note the very same women who courageously and tirelessly worked side by side with men to bring their nation into existence are the ones who are now being, in a very real sense, colonized by the system now in power. In this particular case a fundamentalist perspective seems to be conflated…
One can also see how little effort it takes within the holy texts to generalize these recurrent motifs, and define as sacred the hypostatised cultural norm: ‘Man.’ This religious symbol of Man allows the male-defined community to create and worship itself, and justifies a collective effervescence that seems to always exclude women. Women may contribute…
Fundamentalism Why is there a growing fundamentalist movement in a wide variety of disparate cultures today? Why are women almost invariably the mediums on which this fundamentalism is expressed? It is not surprising to discover a reductionist and/or essentialist attitude towards women within cultures and societies wherein fundamentalist beliefs are gaining hold. In many, if…
Originally written in… late 1999, I think? -for an anthropology class of the same name. This is an experiment to see how well (or not) old college papers transfer to this format. Enjoy! ;) Links to associated book reviews I’ve written, and Amazon associate links, are in the Bibliography at the end of the paper….
Winter Solstice occurs when the earth’s axial tilt is farthest away from the sun. It is often also referred to as Midwinter, since that is the shortest day and longest night of the year. From this point on until Summer’s Solstice, the nights will be getting shorter, and the days will be getting longer. Traditionally…
Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock I find myself wondering, as I read, what was Murdock’s solution to her loss of faith within the Roman Catholic Church — is it applicable to my situation as well? I am faintly amused at the thought: clearly her efforts to appeal to a universal human…
Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock Murdock muses that she writes in an effort to disentangle her voice from the grip of her mother’s anger. I wonder as I read: would that be how her mother saw the relationship? My reflections are an effort to disentangle myself from the grip of the…
Unreliable Truth: On Memoir & Memory by Maureen Murdock I believe there are as many different truths as there are people to hold them, and likely even more than that, considering how we all grow and change over the years. Mine is in the process of being re-crafted, in fact — the master’s program in…