Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Syllabus: Intro to Sociology
Click here for the doc.
Video List: Appalachia
American Hollow
These are a series of videos (10 parts) that was originally put out by HBO about a rural family in Kentucky. It is a great introduction to the course. Please try and watch the videos prior to the start of class if possible.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Children of the Mountains
Another series of videos that we'll be using as examples and discussion-topics in class.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Appalachian Language
Here is a video on regional linguistic variations commonly found within Appalachia.
Click here.
Red Bird
A video series about the Red Bird Mission in Kentucky.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
These are a series of videos (10 parts) that was originally put out by HBO about a rural family in Kentucky. It is a great introduction to the course. Please try and watch the videos prior to the start of class if possible.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Children of the Mountains
Another series of videos that we'll be using as examples and discussion-topics in class.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Appalachian Language
Here is a video on regional linguistic variations commonly found within Appalachia.
Click here.
Red Bird
A video series about the Red Bird Mission in Kentucky.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Bell, Catherine - Author
While working on the rewrite of my thesis, I started to look at Ritual more seriously as an element of social / symbolic interaction and wanted to get a better handle on what others in the field have contributed.
So I did what every academic has done from time to time - hit Amazon.com and see who's published what in the field of late. Academic journal articles are usually too spot-on and specific for what I was wanting. I needed a broad overview of ritual within social interactions from a socio/cultural perspective.
And guess what I found?
A new favorite author.
Catherine Bell, who died in 2008, was one of the leading authors on ritual within society and published three books on the field before her death. I snatched up copies of the first two and started to tear into them as soon as they arrived in the mail.
The first one that I started to read was actually her second book; Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions.
From Amazon.com's site:
From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium. So, in keeping with my new system, I am publishing a link to all of the quotes that I found 'usable' within the text on my google docs site, here.
Most of the book's beginning was, essentially, a lit-review of all of the great authors who have published in the field of Ritual Studies. This must be the 'perspective' part of the title.
So I did what every academic has done from time to time - hit Amazon.com and see who's published what in the field of late. Academic journal articles are usually too spot-on and specific for what I was wanting. I needed a broad overview of ritual within social interactions from a socio/cultural perspective.
And guess what I found?
A new favorite author.
Catherine Bell, who died in 2008, was one of the leading authors on ritual within society and published three books on the field before her death. I snatched up copies of the first two and started to tear into them as soon as they arrived in the mail.
The first one that I started to read was actually her second book; Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions.
From Amazon.com's site:
From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium. So, in keeping with my new system, I am publishing a link to all of the quotes that I found 'usable' within the text on my google docs site, here.
Most of the book's beginning was, essentially, a lit-review of all of the great authors who have published in the field of Ritual Studies. This must be the 'perspective' part of the title.
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