Background
Kahn, Miriam was born on March 30, 1948 in New York City. Daughter of Ludwig Werner and Tatyana (Uffner) Kahn.
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book
Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society
(The Wamira people of Papua New Guinea display what outsid...)
The Wamira people of Papua New Guinea display what outsiders would describe as an obsession with food. Who owns how many pigs, how much taro grows in whose garden, and who contributes what food at a feast, are all questions uppermost in their thoughts. Wamirans account for this preoccupation by saying that they suffer from perpetual "famine." They explain this by means of an elaborate and colorful myth about Tamodukorokoro, a monster who would have brought them abundant food, but whom, in typical Wamiran style of fearing what they desire, they chased away. In this carefully crafted and beautifully evocative book, Dr. Kahn, who lived with the Wamira people for two and a half years, argues that Wamirans' "famine" has in fact little to do with the belly. For Wamirans, concepts of food and hunger are cultural constructs. By means of food, they objectify emotions, balance relations between men and women, communicate rivalries among men, and ultimately, control the ambivalent desires that they fear would otherwise control them. Effectively combining analyses of myths and symbols with analytical accounts of subsistence and ritual behavior, Dr. Kahn writes with a degree of nuance that takes the reader beyond academic analyses into the experience of the ethnographer and the daily lives of the people with whom she resided. Title of related interest also available from Waveland Press: Harris, Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture (ISBN 9781577660156).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0881337765/?tag=2022091-20
Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society by Miriam Kahn (1993-12-01)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F81V5VI/?tag=2022091-20
Miriam Kahn
Edit ProfileEducation
Bachelor, University of Wisconsin, 1970; Master of Arts, Bryn Mawr (Pennsylvania) College, 1974; Doctor of Philosophy, Bryn Mawr (Pennsylvania) College, 1980.
Career
Assistant to Margaret Mead, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 1970-1971; exhibit researcher and designer, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, 1973; assistant professor, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 1980-1981; assistant professor, The New School of Music, Philadelphia, 1985-1986; assistant professor, curator Asian and Pacific ethnology Burke Museum, U. Washington, Seattle, since 1986; associate professor, U. Washington, Seattle, since 1991. Consultant Seattle Art Museum, since 1988.
Achievements
Works
book
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Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society
(The Wamira people of Papua New Guinea display what outsid...)
- Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society by Miriam Kahn (1993-12-01)
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Always Hungry, Never Greedy: Food and the Expression of Gender in a Melanesian Society
Connections
Married Richard Lee Taylor, Oct.26, 1985. 1 child, Rachel Kahn Taylor.
