Birth as an American Rite of Passage

Birth as an American Rite of Passage

Author: Robbie E. Davis-Floyd

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-03-15

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 0520927214

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Why do so many American women allow themselves to become enmeshed in the standardized routines of technocratic childbirth--routines that can be insensitive, unnecessary, and even unhealthy? Anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd first addressed these questions in the 1992 edition. Her new preface to this 2003 edition of a book that has been read, applauded, and loved by women all over the world, makes it clear that the issues surrounding childbirth remain as controversial as ever.


Rites of Retaliation

Rites of Retaliation

Author: Lorien Foote

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2021-10-07

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 146966528X

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During the Civil War, Union and Confederate politicians, military commanders, everyday soldiers, and civilians claimed their approach to the conflict was civilized, in keeping with centuries of military tradition meant to restrain violence and preserve national honor. One hallmark of civilized warfare was a highly ritualized approach to retaliation. This ritual provided a forum to accuse the enemy of excessive behavior, to negotiate redress according to the laws of war, and to appeal to the judgment of other civilized nations. As the war progressed, Northerners and Southerners feared they were losing their essential identity as civilized, and the attention to retaliation grew more intense. When Black soldiers joined the Union army in campaigns in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, raiding plantations and liberating enslaved people, Confederates argued the war had become a servile insurrection. And when Confederates massacred Black troops after battle, killed white Union foragers after capture, and used prisoners of war as human shields, Federals thought their enemy raised the black flag and embraced savagery. Blending military and cultural history, Lorien Foote's rich and insightful book sheds light on how Americans fought over what it meant to be civilized and who should be extended the protections of a civilized world.


Birth as an American Rite of Passage

Birth as an American Rite of Passage

Author: Robbie Davis-Floyd

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-05-05

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1000574288

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This classic book, first published in 1992 and again in 2003, has inspired three generations of childbearing people, birth activists and researchers, and birth practitioners—midwives, doulas, nurses, and obstetricians—to take a fresh look at the "standard procedures" that are routinely used to "manage" American childbirth. It was the first book to identify these non-evidence-based obstetric interventions as rituals that enact and transmit the core values of the American technocracy, thereby answering the pressing question of why these interventions continue to be performed despite all evidence to the contrary. This third edition brings together Davis-Floyd's insights into the intense ritualization of labor and birth and the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic models of birth with new data collected in recent years.


Property Rites

Property Rites

Author: Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2009-04-30

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0807894176

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In 1925 Leonard Rhinelander, the youngest son of a wealthy New York society family, sued to end his marriage to Alice Jones, a former domestic servant and the daughter of a "colored" cabman. After being married only one month, Rhinelander pressed for the dissolution of his marriage on the grounds that his wife had lied to him about her racial background. The subsequent marital annulment trial became a massive public spectacle, not only in New York but across the nation--despite the fact that the state had never outlawed interracial marriage. Elizabeth Smith-Pryor makes extensive use of trial transcripts, in addition to contemporary newspaper coverage and archival sources, to explore why Leonard Rhinelander was allowed his day in court. She moves fluidly between legal history, a day-by-day narrative of the trial itself, and analyses of the trial's place in the culture of the 1920s North to show how notions of race, property, and the law were--and are--inextricably intertwined.


Chinese American Death Rituals

Chinese American Death Rituals

Author: Sue Fawn Chung

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2005-09-15

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0759114625

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Death is a topic that has fascinated people for centuries. In the English-speaking world, eulogies in poetic form could be traced back to the 1640s, but gained prominence with the 'graveyard school' of poets in the eighteenth century often stressing the finality of death. Chinese American Death Rituals examines Chinese American funerary rituals and cemeteries from the late nineteenth century until the present in order to understand the importance of Chinese funerary rites and their transformation through time. The authors in this volume discuss the meaning of funerary rituals and their normative dimension and the social practices that have been influenced by tradition. Shaped by individual beliefs, customs, religion, and environment, Chinese Americans have resolved the tensions between assimilation into the mainstream culture and their strong Chinese heritage in a variety of ways. This volume expertly describes and analyzes Chinese American cultural retention and transformation in rituals after death.


Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America

Beliefs and Rituals in Archaic Eastern North America

Author: Cheryl Claassen

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2015-06-15

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 0817318542

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Claassen’s work focuses on the American Archaic period (marked by the end of the Ice Age approximately 11,000 years ago) and a geographic area bounded by the edge of the Great Plains, Newfoundland, and southern Florida. This period and region share specific beliefs and practices such as human sacrifice, dirt mound burial, and oyster shell middens. This interpretive guide serves as a platform for new interpretations and theories on this period. For example, Claassen connects rituals to topographic features and posits the Pleistocene-Holocene transition as a major stimulus to Archaic beliefs. She also expands the interpretation of existing data previously understood in economic or environmental terms to include how this same data may also reveal spiritual and symbolic practices. Similarly, Claassen interprets Archaic culture in terms of human agency and social constraint, bringing ritual acts into focus as drivers of social transformation and ethnogenesis.


America's Religions

America's Religions

Author: Peter W. Williams

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 9780252066825

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A survey of religious traditions practiced in the United States as of 2002, covering the religious histories of Africans, American Indians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Spanish-speakers, and Asians. Includes definitions and pronunciations of religious terms.


The Almanac of American Employers: The Only Guide to America's Hottest, Fastest-Growing Major Corporations

The Almanac of American Employers: The Only Guide to America's Hottest, Fastest-Growing Major Corporations

Author: Jack W. Plunkett

Publisher: Plunkett Research, Ltd.

Published: 2008-10

Total Pages: 729

ISBN-13: 1593921438

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Market research guide to American employers. Includes hard-to-find information such as benefit plans, stock plans, salaries, hiring and recruiting plans, training and corporate culture, growth plans. Several indexes and tables, as well as a job market trends analysis and 7 Keys For Research for job openings. This massive reference book features our proprietary profiles of the 500 best, largest, and fastest-growing corporate employers in America--includes addresses, phone numbers, and Internet addresses.