This groundbreaking study explores the notions of person, and the foundations of bodily and moral experience among the Uduk-speaking people of the Sudan-Ethiopian border. James focuses particularly on enduring elements of personal knowledge in the context of a hunter's world-view, how alien religious discourse has affected the Uduk in the course of the region's political history, and the rise of a new diviners' movement based upon the oracular consultation of the burning ebony wood.

The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion, and Power Among the Uduk of Sudan

Politics & Social Sciences

James, Wendy

Anthropology

Oxford University Press

This groundbreaking study explores the notions of person, and the foundations of bodily and moral experience among the Uduk-speaking people of the Sudan-Ethiopian border. James focuses particularly on enduring elements of personal knowledge in the context of a hunter's world-view, how alien religious discourse has affected the Uduk in the course of the region's political history, and the rise of a new diviners' movement based upon the oracular consultation of the burning ebony wood.

The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion, and Power among the Uduk of Sudan

Social Sciences

Adapting Wittgenstein's concept of the human species as 'a ceremonial animal', Wendy James writes vividly and readably. Her new overview advocates a clear line of argument: that the concept of social form is a primary key to anthropology and the human sciences as a whole. Weaving memorable ethnographic examples into her text, James brings together carefully selected historical sources as well as references to current ideas in neighbouring disciplines such as archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, art and material culture, ethnomusicology, urban and development studies, politics, economics, psychology, and religious studies. She shows the relevance of anthropology to pressing world issues such as migration, humanitarian politics, the new reproductive technologies, and religious fundamentalism. Wendy James's engaging style will appeal to specialist and non-specialist alike. The Foreword is written by Michael J. Lambek, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

The Ceremonial Animal: A New Portrait of Anthropology

Adapting Wittgenstein's concept of the human species as 'a ceremonial animal', Wendy James writes vividly and readably. Her new overview advocates a clear line of argument: that the concept of social form is a primary key to anthropology and the human sciences as a whole. Weaving memorable ethnographic examples into her text, James brings together carefully selected historical sources as well as references to current ideas in neighbouring disciplines such as archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, art and material culture, ethnomusicology, urban and development studies, politics, economics, psychology, and religious studies. She shows the relevance of anthropology to pressing world issues such as migration, humanitarian politics, the new reproductive technologies, and religious fundamentalism. Wendy James's engaging style will appeal to specialist and non-specialist alike. The Foreword is written by Michael J. Lambek, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

This book completes a trilogy by the anthropologist Wendy James. It is a case study of how the Uduk-speaking people, originally from the Blue Nile region between the 'north' and the 'south' of Sudan, have been caught up in and displaced by a generation of civil war. Some have responded by defending their nation, others by joining the armed resistance of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and yet others eventually finding security as international refugees in Ethiopia, and even further afield in countries such as the USA. Sudan's peace agreement of 2005 leaves much uncertainty for the future of the whole country, as conflict still rages in Darfur. The Uduk case shows how people who once lived together now try to maintain links across borders and even continents through modern communications, and where possible recreate their 'traditional' forms of story-telling, music, and song.

War and Survival in Sudan's Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue Nile

History

Africa

This international collection of essays offers a unique approach to the understanding of imperial Ethiopia, out of which the present state was created by the 1974 revolution. After the 1880s, Abyssinia, under Menilek II, expanded its ancient heartland to incorporate vast new territories to the south. Here, for the first time, these regions are treated as an integral part of the empire. The book opens with an interpretation of nineteenth-century Abyssinia as an African political economy, rather than as a variant on European feudalism, and with an account of the north's impact on peoples of the new south. Case studies from the southern regions follow four by historians and four by anthropologists, each examining aspects of the relationship between imperial rule and local society. In revealing the region's diversity and the relationship of the periphery to the centre, the volume illuminates some of the problems faced by post-revolutionary Ethiopia.

The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia: Essays in History and Social Anthropology (African Studies, Series Number 51)

Donham, Donald

Cambridge University Press

The Lost Girls

Literature & Fiction

Bolinda Audio

From the bestselling author of The Mistake comes a hauntingly powerful story about families and secrets and the dark shadows cast by the past. Curl Curl, Sydney, January 1978. Angie's a looker. Or she's going to be. She's only fourteen, but already, heads turn wherever she goes. Male heads, mainly . . . Jane worships her older cousin Angie. She spends her summer vying for Angie's attention. Then Angie is murdered. Jane and her family are shattered. They withdraw into themselves, casting a veil of silence over Angie's death. Thirty years later, a journalist arrives with questions about the tragic event. Jane is relieved to finally talk about her adored cousin. And so is her family. But whose version of Angie's story - whose version of Angie herself - is the real one? And can past wrongs ever be made right? The shocking truth of Angie's last days will force Jane to question everything she once believed. Because nothing - not the past or even the present - is as she once imagined.

Winner of the Best First Australian Crime Novel, Ned Kelly Crime Awards 2006 I hold Jacky close, fix my eyes on the door and walk as fast as I can. 'Oh, please, don't run away. Think of your child, if you cannot think of yourself.' 'What we are suggesting is nothing,' the man mutters darkly, as I pass through the door and into the brightly lit hall. 'Nothing. Far worse can happen.' Far worse. I have a baby, two shillings, no reputation and nowhere to go, but even so I cannot imagine what far worse might be. Out of the Silence is a stunning debut novel about three women from very different worlds: Maggie Heffernan, a spirited working-class country girl; Elizabeth Hamilton, whose own disappointment in love has served only to strengthen her humanity; and the remarkable Vida Goldstein, the suffragist who was to become the first woman to stand for Parliament. When Maggie's life descends into darkness after a terrible betrayal, the three women's lives collide. Around this tragedy Wendy James has constructed a masterfully drawn and gripping fiction. Based on a true story, it unfolds at the dawn of the twentieth century against the compelling backdrop of the women's suffrage movement and a world on the brink of enormous change. The novel powerfully evokes the plight of women in the early 1900s - not least their limited options, whatever their class and education. However, at its heart this is a story of love - of love gone wrong; of its compromises and disappointments; but ultimately of its extraordinary transformative power. "This is a work of intelligence and talent informed by a deeply humane sensitivity." --Sydney Morning Herald

Out of the Silence

Genre Fiction

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by James, Wendy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by James, Wendy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by James, Wendy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion, and Power Among the Uduk of Sudan

The Listening Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion, and Power among the Uduk of Sudan

The Ceremonial Animal: A New Portrait of Anthropology

The Ceremonial Animal: A New Portrait of Anthropology

War and Survival in Sudan's Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue Nile

War and Survival in Sudan's Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue Nile

The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia: Essays in History and Social Anthropology (African Studies, Series Number 51)

The Lost Girls

The Lost Girls

Out of the Silence