Human Action Signs in Cultural Context: The Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance [Paperback]

Despite the tremendous multi-disciplinary upsurge of interest in the body of late, little or no attention has been given to themovingbody or rather, themoving person, a situation that is remedied by this book. For the first time, leading scholars in the anthropology of dance and human movement come together to provide a rich sample of their current work, introducing theories and methods that move well beyond the more familiar proxemic and kinesic approaches to body movement and space.

Part 1 consists of ethnographic studies as diverse as Hawaiian dance and poetry, Tai Chi Chuan, Ballet and the Roman Catholic Mass, Australian Aboriginal sign language, Plains Indians sign language, and African-American movement performance. Part 2 complements this ethnographic richness by providing an in-depth commentary, together with a critical examination of several fundamental philosophical and theoretical issues that have been raised.

Brenda Farnellis a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa. She also serves as a co-editor of theJournal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement(JASHM).This is the paperbound reprint of a 1995 work about which Book News wrote: A collection of essays by scholars of the anthropology of dance and human movement. The first part consists of ethnographic studies on topics including Hawaiian dance, spatial orientation and deixis in Plains Indian sign talk and Assiniboine (Nakota) culture; and African American movement and social commentary. The second part provides philosophical and theoretical discussions of the ethnographic studies. 2002,Reference and Research Book News