Being-in-christ And Putting Death in Its Place An Anthropologists Account of Christian Performance in Spanish America And the American South by Miles Richardson

Louisiana State Univ Pr. Paperback. New. Paperback. 414 pages. Dimensions: 8.8in. x 5.5in. x 1.3in.In this bracingly original anthropological study, Miles Richardson draws on forty years of empirical research to explore the paradox that while humans must die like all evolving life forms, they have adapted a unique symbolic communication that makes them aware of their naturally occurring fate; and through word and artifact, they dwell upon that discovery. Using the concepts of culture and place, he illuminates how two groups, Catholics in Spanish America and Baptists in the American South, create being-in-Christ and thereby put death in its place. The book combines biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology; a rigorous evolutionary framework; and a postmodern dialogic stance to view humanity as inescapably a product of nature without sacrificing the interpretative social constructions that turn a primate into a poem. Hard-won ethnographic detail and moving religious insight make this an enthralling work. AUTHOR BIO: Miles Richardson, Doris Z. Stone Professor in Latin American Studies at Louisiana State University, is the author or editor of several previous books, including Cry Lonesome and Other Accounts of the Anthropologists Project and The Burden of Being Civilized. A native of Palestine, Texas, he was a high school dropout when he realized his calling to be an anthropologist. He has taught at LSU since 1965 and has no plans to retire. This item ships from multiple locations. Your book may arrive from Roseburg,OR, La Vergne,TN.