The Anthropology of the Body

Description

This ASA conference was concerned with the development of social and cultural forms, focusing on the human body as the link between the nature and the culture present in all human activities. This collection of papers explores the use of the body as a nonverbal medium of expression (in, for instance, dance, gesture, posture and games) and the interplay between biological and social factors in changing body movements and facial expressions, where the dualities of constraint and inspiration, cultural and nature, can be seen to be at work. ** Towards an anthropology of the body / John Blacking -- The body and the play within the play / Francis Huxley -- Biological and cultural contributions to body and facial movement / Paul Ekman -- The body as an indicator of health and disease / Ivan Polunin -- Why is shame on the skin? / Andrew Strathern -- Fear of sorcery and the problem of death by suggestion / Gilbert Lewis -- Bodily madness and the spread of the blush / Vieda Skultans -- On body products / J.B. Loudon -- The introduction of poses to a Peruvian brothel and changing images of male and female / Katherine Arnold -- The definition of female sexuality and the status of women among the Gujerati-speaking Indians of Johannesburg / Leora N. Rosenthal -- To dance is human / Judith Lynne Hanna -- Music and possession trance / Gilbert Rouget -- Some notes on the anthropology of dance / Roderyk Lange -- Patterns of body movement in the music of boys' initiation in south-east Angola / Gerhard Kubik -- Movement patterns in playing the Herati dutār / John Baily -- The Benesh movement notation / Rudolf and Joan Benesh ; with a comment by Brian Street -- Anatomical classification and the semiotics of the body / Roy F. Ellen -- The body as a social symbol among the Rom / Anne Sutherland -- Symbols and somatic structures / Lorna McDougall.