Background
Crapanzano, Vincent was born on April 15, 1939 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States. Son of Domenico and Florence Crapanzano.
(The book was published 40 years ago. "The Hamadsha, memb...)
The book was published 40 years ago. "The Hamadsha, members of a Moroccan religious brotherhood that traces its spiritual ancestry back to two Muslim saints of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, have achieved a certain notoriety for their head -slashing and other acts of self-mutilation while in entranced states. Appealing largely to the illiterate Arab masses, the Hamadsha brotherhood has been regarded by scholars as a degenerate offshoot of the Islamic mystical tradition. Its beliefs and practices have been viewed as an unstructured amalgam of beliefs and practices of the ancient Mediterranean and of sub-Saharan Africa with others of Islam. The author, Mr. Crapanzano sees Hamadsha beliefs and practices as forming a structured symbolic set interpretive of their experiential world. Unlike many other North African religious brotherhoods, the Hamadsha are concerned less with mystical union with Allah than with curing the demon-struck and demon-possessed. Saints, demons, and a mana-like quality called "baraka", "chartered" by hagiographic legends and intergrated with the socio-economic organization of the brotherhood, explain reactions that the Western observer would often classify as hysterical, depressive, or even schizophrenic." (Inside front flap)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520022416/?tag=2022091-20
( Tuhami is an illiterate Moroccan tilemaker who believes...)
Tuhami is an illiterate Moroccan tilemaker who believes himself married to a camel-footed she-demon. A master of magic and a superb story-teller, Tuhami lives in a dank, windowless hovel near the kiln where he works. Nightly he suffers visitations from the demons and saints who haunt his life, and he seeks, with crippling ambivalence, liberation from 'A'isha Qandisha, the she-demon. In a sensitive and bold experiment in interpretive ethnography, Crapanzano presents Tuhami's bizarre account of himself and his world. In so doing, Crapanzano draws on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and symbolism to reflect upon the nature of reality and truth and to probe the limits of anthropology itself. Tuhami has become one of the most important and widely cited representatives of a new understanding of the whole discipline of anthropology.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226118711/?tag=2022091-20
( Brilliantly observed and persuasively argued, Serving t...)
Brilliantly observed and persuasively argued, Serving the Word, now in paperback, is an unprecedented look at the prevalence of literalism and the unexpected forms it takes in modern America’s religious and secular life. Hailed as “thoughtful and suggestive” (The New York Review of Books), Serving the Word treats literalism as a modern belief system, analyzing its place in two seemingly contrasting fields: Christianity and the law. Moving from wealthy Angelenos who embrace starkly literal readings of the Bible to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s insisting on the narrowest interpretation of legal texts, leading anthropologist Vincent Crapanzano makes a persuasive claim that the attraction to literal certainty that we associate with fringe fanaticism is in fact deeply embedded in American culture. This “disturbing but important” book (The Washington Post Book World) examines our society’s very conception of the truth, and poses basic questions about the state of America’s mind and soul.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565846737/?tag=2022091-20
anthropologist educator liberary critic
Crapanzano, Vincent was born on April 15, 1939 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States. Son of Domenico and Florence Crapanzano.
AB, Harvard University, 1960; Doctor of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1970.
Assistant professor Princeton (New Jersey) University, 1970-1974. Associate professor Queens (New York ) College, 1974-1976, professor, 1977-1979. Distinguished professor Graduate Center City University of New York, New York City, since 1990.
Visiting professor Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978, University Chicago, 1979, University Cape Town, South Africa, 1981, University Brasilia, Brazil, 1986, University Paris, Nanterre, 1987. Professor associè Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, 1987, 87, 95. Member film board National Endowment of the Humanities, 1985, 87.
Board directors Center for Psychological Studies, Chicago, 1985-1993, Center for Transcultural Studies, Chicago, since 1993.
( Brilliantly observed and persuasively argued, Serving t...)
( Tuhami is an illiterate Moroccan tilemaker who believes...)
(The book was published 40 years ago. "The Hamadsha, memb...)
(First Edition. Full Number Line. Same day shipping. Vince...)
With United States Army, 1961-1964. Fellow New York City Institute for Humanities, Royal Anthropol. Society, American Anthropol.
Association;member American Comparative Literature Association, Society for Psychological Anthropology (president 1991-1993),., Modern Language Association, American Ethnological Society, Harvard Club of New York.
Married Lisbeth Jane Kramer, April 30, 1967. 1 child, Aleksandra Dominique.