Anthropology, Museums and the Body: Lessons from an Experimental Teaching Environment

With increased interests in solving complex problems through interdisciplinary research—how best can museums use this approach to address critical social issues? In order to answer this question, an interdisciplinary group of curators, artists and students worked together at the Smithsonian Institution to create an experimental teaching environment to rethink the disciplinary boundaries around the study of the human body. Our aim was to use a range of anthropological, art and science collections and readings to undertake the issues of race, gender, genetics, and disability, and the historic inequities resulting from colonialism. We discuss this endeavor, including the public program we developed—the Face Cast Lab—as well as lessons learned about who affects change through this type of museum-based teaching.

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The sacredness of the self, of society and of the human body: the case of a Finnish transgender pastor Marja-Sisko Aalto

Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis ◽

10.30674/scripta.67378 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 ◽

pp. 13-27

Author(s):

Veikko Anttonen

Keyword(s):

Human Body ◽

Life Story ◽

The Body ◽

The Self ◽

Public Image ◽

Religious Traditions ◽

The Public ◽

Making Sense ◽

Folk Biology ◽

The Town

In 2008 the change of sex of a Finnish transgender pastor attracted media attention to Lutheran Christianity on a worldwide scale, which compared to other religious traditions seldom makes it to the world news. This article discusses the sex reassignment undergone by Marja-Sisko Aalto, a Lutheran pastor from the town of Imatra, in south eastern Finland, who in 2008, at the age of 54, was transformed into a woman. First some remarks on the relation between religion and the body are made and terminological issues are discussed briefly. The second part of the article presents Aalto's life story based on the author's interview with her in April 2010. In the last section the author discusses the Finnish cognitive scholar Ilkka Pyysiäinen’s reflection on folk biology as an explanation for making sense of the public image regarding a priest’s gender. The article concludes by looking at Marja-Sisko Aalto’s case from the perspective of marking boundaries between the categories of the self, the society and the human body.

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Leveraging Volunteered Geographic Information to Improve Disaster Resilience

Environmental Information Systems ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-7033-2.ch074 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1636-1662

Author(s):

João Porto de Albuquerque ◽

Flávio Eduardo Aoki Horita ◽

Livia Castro Degrossi ◽

Roberto dos Santos Rocha ◽

Sidgley Camargo de Andrade ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Interdisciplinary Research ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Disaster Resilience ◽

Weather Events ◽

The Face ◽

Source Of Information

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has emerged as an important additional source of information for improving the resilience of cities and communities in the face of natural hazards and extreme weather events. This chapter summarizes the existing research in this area and offers an interdisciplinary perspective of the challenges to be overcome, by presenting AGORA: A Geospatial Open collaboRative Architecture for building resilience against disasters and extreme events. AGORA structures the challenges of using VGI for disaster management into three layers: acquisition, integration and application. The chapter describes the research challenges involved in each of these layers, as well as reporting on the results achieved so far and the lessons learned in the context of flood risk management in Brazil. Furthermore, the chapter concludes by setting out an interdisciplinary research agenda for leveraging VGI to improve disaster resilience.

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Leveraging Volunteered Geographic Information to Improve Disaster Resilience

Advances in Geospatial Technologies - Volunteered Geographic Information and the Future of Geospatial Data ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-2446-5.ch009 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 158-184 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

João Porto de Albuquerque ◽

Flávio Eduardo Aoki Horita ◽

Livia Castro Degrossi ◽

Roberto dos Santos Rocha ◽

Sidgley Camargo de Andrade ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Interdisciplinary Research ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Disaster Resilience ◽

Weather Events ◽

The Face ◽

Source Of Information

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has emerged as an important additional source of information for improving the resilience of cities and communities in the face of natural hazards and extreme weather events. This chapter summarizes the existing research in this area and offers an interdisciplinary perspective of the challenges to be overcome, by presenting AGORA: A Geospatial Open collaboRative Architecture for building resilience against disasters and extreme events. AGORA structures the challenges of using VGI for disaster management into three layers: acquisition, integration and application. The chapter describes the research challenges involved in each of these layers, as well as reporting on the results achieved so far and the lessons learned in the context of flood risk management in Brazil. Furthermore, the chapter concludes by setting out an interdisciplinary research agenda for leveraging VGI to improve disaster resilience.

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Illness, Threat and Systems of Authority in Dunhuang

Inner Asia ◽

10.1163/146481705793647035 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 5-46

Author(s):

Lewis Mayo

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

The Body ◽

Late 20Th Century ◽

The Public ◽

Organisational Form ◽

Political Forces ◽

The Face ◽

Administrative Structures ◽

Modern Era ◽

Administrative Problem

AbstractThis paper analyses the relationships between illness and structures of authority in the oasis of Dunhuang in the late 20th century and during the time of the Guiyijun regime which ruled the area as an independent warlord state from the middle of the 9th to the beginning of the 11th century. Both the medieval and the modern systems for dealing with illness in Dunhuang are analysed here as part of a larger problem of threat as an inherent element in any order of authority. In this paper, illness is taken as a political and administrative problem, both in the sense that political forces are mobilised around it and in the sense that political and administrative structures give illness an organisational form. Guiyijun systems of storage and structures of governance in the political and familial realms are understood as the reference point for the strategies deployed in the face of illness ‘events’ and as explanatory frameworks closely linked to accounts of dysfunction in the internal order of the body. The late 20th century order of disease management in Dunhuang forms a counterpart to these medieval structures, despite the major differences in the forms for responding to and attacking illness in the oasis in the public health regimes of the modern era and in the medical and ceremonial practices used a millennium before.

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Maryja i współczesny problem ciała

Sympozjum ◽

10.4467/25443283sym.21.004.13717 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 25 (1 (40)) ◽

pp. 39-54

Author(s):

Janusz Królikowski

Keyword(s):

Human Body ◽

The Body ◽

Modern Culture ◽

Marian Devotion ◽

Moral Context ◽

The Face

Mary and the contemporary question of the body The question concerning human body certainly can be counted among the most urgent issues in the modern culture. Therefore theology as well has to include it among the fields of its research if it wants to participate in a most vital discussion for contemporary man. Theological tradition focuses upon the figure of Mary, and especially on Her virginity, emphasising that She has always ameliorated the profound understanding of the body and its destiny and concurrently its personal and moral context. In the face of contemporary, urgent need for the restoration of the dignity of the bodythe return to Marian devotion and following Her virtues is definitely required. Only in this perspective it is possible to grsap and properly cultivate the relation between the body and the soul and further between man and woman, and by the same token to influence the culture making it more friendly for people. Abstrakt Problematyka dotycząca ciała na pewno należy do najbardziej aktualnych we współczesnej kulturze, a tym samym także teologia musi ją uwzględniać w swoich poszukiwaniach, jeśli ma uczestniczyć w tym, co najbardziej zasadnicze dla człowieka. Tradycja teologiczna zwraca uwagę, że także postać Maryi, szczególnie Jej dziewictwo, zawsze wpływała na pogłębione rozumienie ciała i jego przeznaczenia, a tym samym na osobowe i moralne odniesienie do niego. Wobec współczesnej, pilnej potrzeby odbudowania godności ciała zachodzi między innymi wyraźna potrzeba powrotu do kultu maryjnego i do naśladowania cnót Maryi, ponieważ w tej perspektywie można uchwycić i właściwie kształtować relacje między duchem i ciałem, między mężczyzną i kobietą, a tym samym oddziaływać na kulturę, czyniąc ją bardziej przyjazną człowiekowi.

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Accountability, polarization, and federalism: Oversight during and after the COVID-19 pandemic*

Journal of Emergency Management ◽

10.5055/jem.0613 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (7) ◽

pp. 49-58

Author(s):

Nathan Myers, PhD ◽

Tonya E. Thornton, PhD, MPPA

Keyword(s):

National Level ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Resource Acquisition ◽

Testing System ◽

The Public ◽

Public Health Systems ◽

The Federalist ◽

Ideological Debate ◽

The Face ◽

Trump Administration

The decision by the Trump administration to leave many of the policy decisions regarding COVID-19 to United States governors has had significant consequences for the management of the pandemic. During the COVID-19 response, the federalist approach has created complications in areas including resource acquisition, crisis communication, testing, and social distancing. Such issues have been magnified the differences between centralized and decentralized state public health systems. Governors have found themselves at odds with the Trump administration in regard to competing for vital equipment, signaling to the public the severity of the virus, and defining an adequate testing system. Many governors took bold action and acted in bipartisan cooperation with the governors of other states, often in the face of strong criticism and protests. The lessons learned from COVID-19 regarding the need for coordination at the national level must be documented for history. Rather than relying on state-by-state after-action reports, which separately could be become fodder for ideological debate, this commentary recommends a bipartisan, joint after-action report signed by state governors as a mechanism to preserve state experiences.

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Leveraging Volunteered Geographic Information to Improve Disaster Resilience

Emergency and Disaster Management ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-6195-8.ch080 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1698-1723

Author(s):

João Porto de Albuquerque ◽

Flávio Eduardo Aoki Horita ◽

Livia Castro Degrossi ◽

Roberto dos Santos Rocha ◽

Sidgley Camargo de Andrade ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Interdisciplinary Research ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Volunteered Geographic Information ◽

Geographic Information ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Extreme Weather Events ◽

Disaster Resilience ◽

Weather Events ◽

The Face ◽

Source Of Information

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has emerged as an important additional source of information for improving the resilience of cities and communities in the face of natural hazards and extreme weather events. This chapter summarizes the existing research in this area and offers an interdisciplinary perspective of the challenges to be overcome, by presenting AGORA: A Geospatial Open collaboRative Architecture for building resilience against disasters and extreme events. AGORA structures the challenges of using VGI for disaster management into three layers: acquisition, integration and application. The chapter describes the research challenges involved in each of these layers, as well as reporting on the results achieved so far and the lessons learned in the context of flood risk management in Brazil. Furthermore, the chapter concludes by setting out an interdisciplinary research agenda for leveraging VGI to improve disaster resilience.

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The Body-Inversion Effect

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/1467-9280.14431 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 14 (4) ◽

pp. 302-308 ◽

Cited By ~ 233

Author(s):

Catherine L. Reed ◽

Valerie E. Stone ◽

Senia Bozova ◽

James Tanaka

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Human Body ◽

Forced Choice ◽

The Body ◽

Inversion Effect ◽

Body Postures ◽

Face Inversion Effect ◽

Face Inversion ◽

The Face ◽

Biomechanical Constraints

Researchers argue that faces are recognized via the configuration of their parts. An important behavioral finding supporting this claim is the face-inversion effect, in which inversion impairs recognition of faces more than nonface objects. Until recently, faces were the only class of objects producing the inversion effect for untrained individuals. This study investigated whether the inversion effect extends to human body positions, a class of objects whose exemplars are structurally similar to each other. Three experiments compared the recognition of upright and inverted faces, houses, and body positions using a forced-choice, same/different paradigm. For both reaction time and error data, the recognition of possible human body postures was more affected by inversion than the recognition of houses. Further, the recognition of possible human body postures and recognition of faces showed similar effects of inversion. The inversion effect was diminished for impossible body positions that violated the biomechanical constraints of human bodies. These data suggest that human body positions, like faces, may be processed configurally by untrained viewers.

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Algerian Women and the Invention of Literary Mourning

Decadent Orientalisms ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823286409.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 118-135

Author(s):

David Fieni

Keyword(s):

Postcolonial Theory ◽

Judith Butler ◽

The Body ◽

The Public ◽

Female Grotesque ◽

Institutional Expectations ◽

The Face ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Psychoanalytic Theories ◽

Mourning And Melancholia

This chapter revisits the gendering of loss in discourses of decadence through an exploration of four texts by Algerian authors. Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s Dhakirat al-Jasad (Memory of the Body), Yamina Méchakra’s La Grotte éclatée (The Blasted Cave), Assia Djebar’s Le Blanc de l’Algérie (Algerian White), and Hélène Cixous’s Si près (So Close) each produce spontaneous, singular forms of female solidarity in the face of institutional expectations relating to language, religion, and the state that overdetermine the value of women’s social work of remembering and forgetting. The chapter explores these four texts in light of psychoanalytic theories of mourning and melancholia and also a certain injunction of postcolonial theory that would impose permanent melancholia on postcolonial writing and thought. These texts experiment with inventive modes of literary mourning, from the “female grotesque” (Mary Russo) to a range of syntactic elaborations, which propose a different cure for postcolonial melancholia and open the possibility of a “melancholia of the public sphere” (Judith Butler).

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