With a new foreword by Bruce Kapferer, Professor of Anthropology, James Cook University- A reprint of the seminal anthropological work of the 1960s. Originally published by Manchester University Press.Victor Turner will be remembered as the anthropologist who developed the concept of the ‘social drama', a method used extensively by anthropologists to describe and analyse the social life of a community. In essence, this technique involves analysing social crises within a community over a period of time in order to gain a better understanding of the key principles that govern the social life of the community.This book -- Turner's first ‘social drama' study -- focuses on the village life of the Ndembu of Zambia who were then under British rule. The social constraints, such as the matrilineally-inherited headmanship system, and the various releases from these constraints, provoked periodic crises which caused great disruption and pain. These crises made visible the contradictions between the principles governing social life and the conflicts experienced between individuals and groups when enforcing these principles. Seven social dramas are discussed - all from one family over a period of twenty years -- each substantiated by sociological and demographic research.

Continuities, first published in 1968, is a collection of reviews by Frank Kermode that appeared from 1962 to 1967. Kermode discusses a variety of novelists, poets, and critics, including T. S. Eliot, Northrop Frye, Wallace Stevens, Edmund Wilson, and Wallace Stevens. History and politics are two important aspects that are discussed in regards to these writers. This book is ideal for students of English literature.

The Christian axis has shifted dramatically southward to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, so much so that today there are more Christians living in these southern regions than among their northern counterparts. In the case of Africa, the African Initiated Churches-founded by Africans and primarily for Africans-has largely contributed to the exponential growth and proliferation of the Christian faith in the continent. Yet, even more profoundly, these churches espouse a brand of Christianity that is indigenized and thoroughly contextual. Further, the power and popularity of the AICs, beyond the unprecedented numbers joining these churches, are attributed to their relevance to the existential everyday needs and concerns of their adherents in the context of a postcolonial Africa. At the heart of Christian theology is Christology-the confessed uniqueness of Christ in history and among world religions. Yet this key feature of Christianity, as with other important elements of the Christian faith, may be variously understood and re-interpreted in these indigenous churches. The focus of this study is the amaNazaretha Church, an influential religious group founded by the African charismatic prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1911 in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The movement today claims a following of some two million adherents and has proliferated beyond the borders of South Africa to neighboring countries in Southern Africa. The book addresses the complex and at times ambivalent understanding of the person and work of Christ in the amaNazaretha Church, presenting the genesis, history, beliefs, and practices of this significant religious movement in South Africa, with broader implications for similar movements across the continent of Africa and beyond.

An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.