Looking Back through Anthropology

Although nostalgia seems to permeate much of modern (especially Western) society, there are few detailed anthropological accounts of this longing for the past. Editors Olivia Angé and David Berliner seek to fill this gap and explore this phenomenon in their newly published volume, Anthropology and Nostalgia. Following, the editors look back on the creation of their volume and look forward to its reception within the social science community.

 

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What drew you to the study of nostalgia, especially as it relates to the social sciences?

 

Well, nostalgia is a central notion that permeates present-day discourses and practices. In many parts of the world, there seems to be a current overdose of nostalgia, a reaction to the modern acceleration deployed in universes as diverse as nationalism, heritage policies, vintage consumerism, the tourism industry, and religious and ecological movements.

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Prose and Economic Development in an African Village

Paul Clough spent many years studying the economic situation of the Marmara village, in Hausaland, northern Nigeria. His work there began in 1977-1979, then was followed by stints in 1985, 1996, and 1998. In Morality and Economic Growth in Rural West Africa: Indigenous Accumulation in Hausaland, his book based on that fieldwork, the author explores the economic growth and accumulation of this non-capitalistic, polygynous society through boom and bust periods. Following is the author’s reflection on his book, fieldwork, and forged relationships.

 

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What drew you to the field of African studies? Specifically, what drew you to Hausaland in Nigeria?

 

 

All of this happened by accident when I was very young. I wanted to be a volunteer, to work in the field of development. Since the Peace Corps in early 1970 would not send me to Latin America (perhaps because I had no Spanish), I managed through other channels to find a teaching post in northern Nigeria. I arrived at Kano Airport in late 1970, when I was only twenty-two, knowing next to nothing about Africa or Hausaland.

 

But I fell in love immediately.

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Dilemma after Dark: Balancing Sleep and Breastfeeding

In her newly published book, author Cecília Tomori explores a major challenge for new parents, the nighttime balance of sleep and breastfeeding. Nighttime Breastfeeding: An American Cultural Dilemma, published in October, is the result of her long-term ethnographic study alongside new parents and how they cope with the pressures of parenthood. Following, the author gives insight into this in-depth study which eventually became her book.

 


 

As an anthropologist seeking to learn about breastfeeding, I had the privilege of visiting new parents who had just returned home from the hospital after the birth of their first child. During these visits, the joy of becoming parents was visible in the way parents gazed upon one another and held their newborns in their arms. Their joy, however, was often complicated by exhaustion and uncertainty over some fundamental concerns: breastfeeding and sleeping at night.

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Reflecting on ‘Post-Cosmopolitan’ Odessa

Recently published in paperback, Post-Cosmopolitan Cities: Explorations of Urban Coexistence offers readers an in-depth view into the lives of urban dwellers in six cities, from Venice to Warsaw and Odessa to Thessalonica. Below, volume editors Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja reflect on the content of their volume and how the study sites and subjects may have changed in the two years since its original publication.

 

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Our book Post-Cosmopolitan Cities: Explorations of Urban Coexistence contains three chapters about Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea, but they were written before the recent events in Ukraine. We argued that cities famed for their cosmopolitanism, including the ‘merry’, ‘worldly’ Odessa, deserve deeper investigation of what lies beneath the surface and the uncertain effects of the past on the present.

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Religion, TV Drama, and Life in Africa

 

Television dramas set in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, offer viewers interesting commentaries on life in the African city, according to Katrien Pype. The connection between real-life and filmic melodrama, conversion narratives, Christian songs and testimonies are described in her book, The Making of the Pentecostal Melodrama: Religion, Media and Gender in Kinshasa, now available in paperback. Following, the author gives a synopsis of two popular TV shows in Kinshasa, Kalaonga and The Heritage of Death. These descriptions are followed by clips from each serial.

 


 

 

Kalaonga

(produced between March 2004 and November 2005)

 

The serial opens in the Dark World. Baaba, the Devil, accompanied by two demons, is listening to his daughter, the siren Kalaonga.

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Hearing History of the 19th and 20th Centuries

In a newly published collection, editor Daniel Morat and his contributors approach historical analysis in an uncommon way — by using their sense of hearing. The authors examine the way modern history sounds in Sounds of Modern History: Auditory Cultures in 19th- and 20th-Century Europe. Following, the editor gives a brief introduction and shares an excerpt from his chapter. The excerpt is accompanied by a recording from 1914 Germany.

 

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When Europe went to war in the summer of 1914, scenes of vociferous war enthusiasm have been reported from many European cities. Historiographic research of the last twenty years has shown that these scenes were not representative of the general mood in the warring nations. Still, they have long dominated our perception of the outbreak of World War I.

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If Monuments Could Talk

War memorials are more than a simple, objective way to commemorate the past; they can also, as a visual message, guide the memory of a society in certain political and ideological directions. Author Elisabetta Viggiani looks at and into war memorials in Northern Ireland — and what these say about the broader culture — in her just-published Talking Stones: The Politics of Memorialization in Post-Conflict Northern IrelandBelow, the author gives an introduction to her work, followed by an excerpt from the volume.

 

 

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If memory was simply about the past, why would governments and public authorities be prepared to put their ever-shrinking budgets at its service? The answer is because memory is seldom about the past, rather it is about the present moment; as Pierre Nora puts it, ‘through the past, we venerate above all ourselves’. Talking Stones investigates how collective memory and material culture are used to support present political and ideological needs in contemporary society.

 

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Origins, ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’

A look through history at gender roles in Ottoman cities from Sofia to Istanbul, Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective on Ottoman Urban History will be published later this month. Editor Nazan Maksudyan has a deep-seated interest in the topic, which is connected to her relationship with her grandmother. Below is an excerpt from the book about life in Turkey and the women’s relationship. The text is followed by a photo collection of the editor’s family, namely, her grandmother Maryam Maksudyan.

 


 

While working on putting together this volume, my intent was to have a range of essays that covered a wide array of subjects, and the final product proudly bears witness to this initial hope. Yet, when trying to prepare the introductory section and reflecting on the two keywords in the title of the book, “women” and “city,” I could not help but remember Edward Hopper’s famous painting, Chop Suey from 1929.

 

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Cinematic Gazing ‘Beyond the Looking Glass’

Ana Salzberg’s newly published monograph, Beyond the Looking Glass: Narcissism and Female Stardom in Studio-Era Hollywood, takes a closer look into the private and public personas of classic Hollywood’s female stars. Following, the authors shares more about her subject and offers a fresh glimpse of the “narcissism” of the female star.

 

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What drew you to the study of the female star in classic cinema? And what inspired you to research and write on this topic?

 

One of the remarkable things about golden-age stars is that you meet them virtually everywhere these days: Turner Classic Movies, DVD box-sets, biographies, bio-pics – not to mention their digitally animated counterparts in commercials. On a very immediate level that we all – not just researchers – experience, old Hollywood has new life.

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A Swiss Interpretation of the American Park

The Swiss National Park is a re-figuring of the American National Park, but with an emphasis on science. This idea of a scientific park is the focus of Patrick Kupper’s Creating Wilderness: A Transnational History of the Swiss National Park, published this month. Below, read an excerpt from the author’s Turku Book Prize-winning book.

 

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Today’s national parks differ vastly around the globe, not only in appearance but also in purpose: they shall protect biodiversity, landscape, or wilderness and serve for tourism, edification, or research. The term “national park” provides a common denominator for all this diversity, yet the denominator itself is indistinct. How shall one cope with this irritating complexity?

 

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