“Swarming the Church”

Vision Narratives of Women in Prison. By Carol Burke. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1993. 192pp. Notes. Appendices. Glossary. Bibliography. ISBN 0 87049 727 8. $26.95. Reviewed by Gillian Bennett.

Navajo Folk Tales. By Franc Johnson Newcomb. 2nd edn. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990. 203pp. ISBN 0 8263 1231 4. Reviewed by Donald Tayler.

Sons of Scotia, Raise Your Voice: Early 19th Century Broadsides from a Collection in Edinburgh University Library. Selected and edited by Peter B. Freshwater. Edinburgh: Friends of Edinburgh University Library, 1991. 142pp. ISBN 0 905152 04 2. Reviewed by Steve Roud.

My Life with Punch. By Joe Beeby. Compiled and edited by G. Felix. London: G. Felix, 1993. 65pp. Illus. Obtainable from G. Felix, 111 Raglan Court, Empire Way, Wembley Park, Middlesex HA9 0RG. £6.49 inclusive of postage and packing. ISBN 0 9521371 0 0. Reviewed by Roy Judge.

Das Huhn mit dem Gipsbein: Neueste sagnhafte Geschichten von Heute. By Rolf Wilhelm Brednich. Beck'sche Reihe 1001. Munchen: Beck, 1993. 186pp. DM9.80. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

The Evil Eye: A Casebook. Edited by Alan Dundes. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. 318pp. ISBN 0 299 13334 6. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

Tarot the Complete Guide. By Cynthia Giles. London: Robert Hale, 1992. 234pp. Illus. £10.99. ISBN 0 7090 5095 X. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Chronicles of King Arthur. By Andrea Hopkins. London: Collins and Brown, 1993. £19.99. ISBN 1 85585 172 5. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

From Ritual to Romance. By Jessie L. Weston. MYTHOS: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0 691 02107 4. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Indexes Motifs Narratifs dans les Romans Arthurian Français en Vers (XIIe-XIIIe Siècles). By Anita Guerreau-Jalabert. Publications Romanes et Françaises, no. 202. Genève: Librairie Droz S.A., 1992. 501pp. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale. Edited by Rachel Bromwich and D. Simon Evans. University of Wales Press, 1992. ISBN 0 7083 1127 X. £25.00. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Aspects of British Calendar Customs. Edited by Theresa Buckland and Juliette Wood. The Folklore Society Mistletoe Series, no. 22. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. 108pp. Illus. ISBN 1 85075 243 5. £11.95. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Boundaries and Thresholds: Papers from a Colloquium of the Katharine Briggs Club. Edited by Hilda Ellis Davidson. Stroud, Glos.: The Thimble Press, 1993. 104pp. £12.00. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. By Lawrence Shick. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991. 448pp. ISBN 0 87975 693 5. £10.95. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Gothick Guides, Aylesbury, Bucks: Shire Publications Ltd, 1989, 1992. Gothick Cornwall. By Jennifer Westwood. 70pp. £3.95. Gothick Norfolk. By Jennifer Westwood. 48pp. £2.50. Gothick Hertfordshire. By Jennifer Westwood. 52pp. £3.95. Gothick Northamptonshire. By Jack Gould. 64pp. £3.95. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

Contemporary Legend: A Folklore Bibliography. Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1993. 340pp. ISBN 0 8240 6103 9. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

Telling Reality: Folklore Studies in Memory of Bengt Holbek. Edited by Michael Chesnutt. Copenhagen Folklore Studies 1/NIF Publications, no. 26. Copenhagen and Turku, 1993. 294 pp. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Proverbs are Never out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age. By Wolfgang Meider. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. xviii + 284pp. Bibliography. Index. Illus. £25.00 hb. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Vampire: The Encyclopedia. By Matthew Bunson. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993. 303pp. Index. Bibliography. Appendices. £9.95. ISBN 0 500 27748 6. Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

African Folktales in the New World. Edited by William Bascom. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.243pp. £28.50 hb, £12.99 p b (distributed in UK and Eire by the Open University Press). Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

The Red Swan: Myths and Tales of the American Indians. Edited by John Bierhorst. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. 386pp. Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

American Indian's Kitchen Table Stories. By Keith Cunningham. Little Rock, Arkansas: August House, 1992. 240pp. $25.95 US hb, $14.95 US pb. Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

Public Folklore. Edited by R. Baron and N. Spitzer. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. £34.95 hb, £14.95 pb. Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

Der Rattenhund: Sagen der Gegenwart. By Helmut Fischer. Beitrage zur rheinischen Volkskunde, no. 6. Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag, 1991. 184pp. Notes. Bibliography. List of key terms. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Old Oraibi: A Study of the Hopi Indians of Third Mesa. By Mischa Titiev. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992. 277pp. Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

Ácoma: Pueblo in the Sky. By Ward Alan Minge. 2nd edn. Published for Pueblo of Ácoma by University of New Mexico Press, 1991. 245pp. Reviewed by Teri Brewer.

The Ballad and Oral Literature. Edited by Joseph Harris. Harvard English Studies, no. 17. Cambridge (Mass.) and London: Harvard University Press, 1991. viii+317 pp. £25.95 hb, £11.95 pb. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

Contemporary Irish Traditional Narrative: The English Language Tradition. By Clodagh Brennan Harvey. University of California Publications: Folklore and Mythology Studies, no. 35. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992. viii+130 pp. Map. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Reviewed by W.F.H. Nicolaisen.

The Folklore of American Holidays: A Compilation of More Than 500 Beliefs, Legends, Superstitions, Proverbs, Riddles, Poems, Songs, Dances, Games, Plays, Pageants, Fairs, Foods, and Processions Associated with Over 120 American Calendar Customs and Festivals. 2nd edn. Edited by Henning Cohen and Tristam Potter Coffin. Detroit and London: Gale Research Inc., 1991. $85.00. ISBN 0 8103 7602 4. Reviewed by Philip Hiscock.

The Tsymbaly Maker and His Craft The Ukrainian Hammered Dulcimer in Alberta. By Mark Jaroslav Bandera. Canadian Series in Ukrainian Ethnology, no. 1. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1991. 62pp. 23 figs. 4 b/w photographs. Reviewed by George Monger.     

Walking to the Tsosisumkyi“Tribe”

Why do I refer to Tsosisumkyi village as a"tribe"?The simple reason is that this rural community did not go through any democratic reform while Tibet experienced its transition from a feudal serfdom to socialism.How is Tsosisumkyi today?Is there any kind of chieftain in control of this"tribe"?     

“Playing the away game”: AFRICOM in the Sahara-Sahel

This article presents evidence to revise hypotheses of how biopolitical strategies are deployed in contemporary global security regimes, and with what effects. It is based on research into the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM). Elaborating on two concepts that Michel Foucault hypothesized in his Security, Territory, Population lectures –the “people” and the “milieu” –I argue that AFRICOM's strategy is informed by biopolitical rationalities, but that this does not necessarily situate African populations as either part of a population to secure or as a threat to that population. Instead, I suggest that (unlike in the urban and national contexts that Foucault analyzed) biopolitical security strategies at the global scale are characterized by varying degrees of distance between the way(s) of life they aim to defend and what Foucault termed the “field of intervention” or “milieu” that they target. This hypothesis, and its elaboration through the case of AFRICOM, contributes to efforts to historicize and spatialize accounts of contemporary biopolitics. Specifically, it suggests that we can better understand the production of very uneven geographies of security and insecurity by attending to the relationships between the ways of life being secured and the (potentially distant) material contexts situated as relevant “fields of intervention”.     

“Neptune to the Common-wealth of England” (1652): the “Republican Britannia” and the continuity of interests

ABSTRACT

In the seventeenth century, John Kerrigan reminds us, “models of empire did not always turn on monarchy”. In this essay, I trace a vision of “Neptune’s empire” shared by royalists and republicans, binding English national interest to British overseas expansion. I take as my text a poem entitled “Neptune to the Common-wealth of England”, prefixed to Marchamont Nedham’s 1652 English translation of Mare Clausum (1635), John Selden’s response to Mare Liberum (1609) by Hugo Grotius. This minor work is read alongside some equally obscure and more familiar texts in order to point up the ways in which it speaks to persistent cultural and political interests. I trace the afterlife of this verse, its critical reception and its unique status as a fragment that exemplifies the crossover between colonial republic and imperial monarchy at a crucial moment in British history, a moment that, with Brexit, remains resonant.     

On the Content of the Concept “Geographical Environment” and the Influence of the Environment on Society

The author traces the evolution of the environmentalist concept through Marxist philosophy and analyzes the influence on the geographical environment on society. He adduces a number of examples to demonstrate the significance of the environmental factor in various historical contexts. For another discussion on the same subject, the reader is referred to Ian M. Matley, “The Marxist approach to the geographical environment,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 56, No. I, March 1966, pp. 97–111.     

Mary douglas and the “new anthropology”

Mary Douglas. Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975. xxi + 325 pp. Figures and index. $23.50.     

“But Do the Lord Care?”

Abstract

The slain rapper Tupac Shakur contributes indispensably to two contemporary theologies centered around the crucified people, the theological aesthetics of liberation presented by Roberto Goizueta and the theology of the lynching tree articulated by James Cone. Placing the pioneering work of Goizueta and Cone in conversation with existing scholarship on the theological importance of Shakur’s music, I argue that Tupac crafts a theological aesthetics of liberation aimed at illuminating the injustice and Christological implications of the hypersegregated ghetto and the black mass prison