Metamorphosis in the Culture Market of Niger

The banner of authenticity is falling in the contemporary market for non-Western culture. Taking Tuareg artisanry in Niger as a case study, I show that the neocolonial Western habit of collecting "exotic" art objects is giving way to a more collaborative proclivity toward Western objects produced in "traditional" Tuareg style. While Tuareg artisans—adjusting to social and cultural upheavals attending the urbanization of their practice and the recent Tuareg separatist rebellion—are producing such hybrid "modern" objects, some Tuareg nobles, impoverished by those same changes, have begun painting representational images of a more "authentic" Tuareg culture. The nature of the competition between Tuareg artisans and nobles, as well as the complex cross-identification between Tuaregs and their Western expatriate customers, illuminate a general perplexity about modernity in the contemporary Third World and indicate a transformation in the terms of its encounter with the West. [Tuaregs, art and artisanry, authenticity, expatriates, and modernity and tradition]     

Positively Diverse: Jewish Difference in Western Culture and the Academy

Thinking in Jewish. Jonathan Boyarin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 218 pp.
People of the Book: Thirty Scholars Reflect on Their Jewish Identity. Jeffrey Rubin-Dorsky and Shelley Fisher Fishkin. eds. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. 507 pp.     

The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture.

The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture. Stephen Gudeman. Williston, VT: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.189 pp.     

The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City

The Meanings of Macho: Being. Man in Mexico City. Matthew C. Gutmann. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. 330 pp.     

Images of Savages: Ancient Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture

Images of Savages: Ancient Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture. Gustav Jahoda. New York: Routledge, 1999. 298 pp.     

The Multiple Meanings of Jewish Genes

This article addresses contemporary social challenges created by new genetic research on Jews and by Jews, and its implications for the meanings of Jewish identity, on both the individual and the collective levels. The article begins with a brief overview of selective genetic studies of Jewish populations and the controversies they have generated. It continues with an examination of the emerging field of Jewish genetic demography, which employs genetic tests to identify lineages, claim kin, and support Jewish historical and political claims. Here the article explores how Jewish genetic demographers interpret genetic studies to reinforce oral tradition and Biblical prophecy about the origins of the Jews and their experience in the Diaspora. This research is then juxtaposed with debates that emerge from contemporary rabbinic deliberations over the appropriate uses of new reproductive technologies, debates that, contrary to the assertions of Jewish genetic demographers, suggest genes are believed to possess limited ability to confer or create Jewishness in the traditional rabbinic imagination. In the final section of this article, a debate is staged about contemporary biomedical practices that allow for the exchange and transfer of body parts and bodily substances, as a strategy for challenging genetic notions of Jewish identity.     

Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease, and the Body in Western Societies

Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease, and the Body in Western Societies . D. Lupton. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003. 202 pp.     

The Fastest Western in Town: A Contemporary Twist on the Classic Western Blot Analysis

The Western blot techniques that were originally established in the late 1970s are still actively utilized today. However, this traditional method of Western blotting has several drawbacks that include low quality resolution, spurious bands, decreased sensitivity, and poor protein integrity. Recent advances have drastically improved numerous aspects of the standard Western blot protocol to produce higher qualitative and quantitative data. The Bis-Tris gel system, an alternative to the conventional Laemmli system, generates better protein separation and resolution, maintains protein integrity, and reduces electrophoresis to a 35 min run time. Moreover, the iBlot dry blotting system, dramatically improves the efficacy and speed of protein transfer to the membrane in 7 min, which is in contrast to the traditional protein transfer methods that are often more inefficient with lengthy transfer times. In combination with these highly innovative modifications, protein detection using infrared fluorescent imaging results in higher-quality, more accurate and consistent data compared to the standard Western blotting technique of chemiluminescence. This technology can simultaneously detect two different antigens on the same membrane by utilizing two-color near-infrared dyes that are visualized in different fluorescent channels. Furthermore, the linearity and broad dynamic range of fluorescent imaging allows for the precise quantification of both strong and weak protein bands. Thus, this protocol describes the key improvements to the classic Western blotting method, in which these advancements significantly increase the quality of data while greatly reducing the performance time of this experiment.     

The Kuhls of Kangra: Community-Managed Irrigation in the Western Himalaya

The Kuhls of Kangra: Community-Managed Irrigation in the Western Himalaya. . J. Mark Baker. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. 272 pp.     

Collapse of The System of Word Meanings In Aphasia

1. Data obtained from an investigation of the speech of aphasics confirm the view of linguists that the meaning of a word represents a definite system. Thus, in a word of multiple meanings we distinguish the "nucleus," which comprises free, nominative meanings that are coextensive with the objective reference of the word, and the "periphery," comprising the contextual, associative meanings.