The Magic in the Magic Pudding

This paper offers a narrative interpretation of Norman Lindsay's remarkable children's story, The Magic Pudding. Entering into the spirit of the tale, it seeks to evoke its magic as well as understand it, advocating an approach to the analysis of narrative that is as celebratory as it is critical. Making reference to James Clifford's discussion of ethnographic allegory, it draws on Michael Taussig's analysis of commodity and other forms of fetishism to argue that the pudding can be construed as a fetish object expressive of concerns and tensions haunting the Australian imaginary. The paper addresses such things as the interplay of class, race and sex in Lindsay's story, equality and exclusion, wealth without work, beards and hats and whatnot. In doing so, it responds to the humour and metaphorical play that is the source of the tale's popular appeal by offering the reader a little of its own—not a whole pudding's worth perhaps but at least enough to whet the appetite.     

Darkroom Magic

Abstract

S. D. Schindler (story by Phyllis Krasilovsky), THE FIRST TULIPS IN HOLLAND, Doubleday: New York, 1982, unpaged, $12.95 (boards)

Tomie de Paola, Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi, Holiday House: New York, 1982, unpaged, $14.95

Piero Ventura (story by Gian P. Ceserani), Marco Polo, Putnam: New York, 1982, unpaged, $9.95 (boards)

Demi, The Adventures of Marco Polo, Holt, Rinehart &; Winston: New York, 1982, unpaged, $6.95 (boards)

Bernice Loewenstein (text by Dan Beekman), Forest, Village, Town, City, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, 40 pages, $9.50

Huck Scarry, Life on a Barge, Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1982, 70 pages, $9.95, (boards)

Douglas Florian, The City, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, unpaged, $8.95

Byron Barton, Airport, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1982, unpaged, $9.95

Gail Gibbons, Trucks, Thomas Crowell: New York, 1981, unpaged, n.p. i

Robert Quackenbush, City Trucks, Albert Whitman: Chicago, 1981, unpaged, n.p.i. (boards)

John Lim, Merchants of the Mysterious East, Tundra: Plattsburgh, N.Y., 1981, 32 pages, $12.95

Sandra J. Russell, A Farmer's Dozen, Harper: New York, 1982, unpaged, $8.95

Mary Azarian, A Farmer's Alphabet, David Godine: Boston, Mass., 1981, 62 pages, $6.95

Victoria Chess, Alfred's Alphabet Walk, Greenwillow: New York, 1979, unpaged, $7.95

Jack Kent (“story” by M. Elting and M. Folson), Q IS FOR DUCK, Clarion Books: New York, 1980, unpaged, $8.95 ($3.95 paper)

Borje Svensson (paper engineering by James Diaz), BLOCK BOOKS (LETTERS, NUMBERS, COLORS, ANIMALS), Viking: New York, 1981, unpaged, $2.50 each     

Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia

Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia. Edward LiPuma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. 342 pp.     

Paleolimnology,William Morris and The Magic Flute

This is the text of an informal lecture given on the Saturday evening of the Ambleside conference, outside the formal programme. I submitted it for publication at the request of a number of participants. (PO'S).     

The Limits on Trypanosomatid Morphological Diversity

Cell shape is one, often overlooked, way in which protozoan parasites have adapted to a variety of host and vector environments and directional transmissions between these environments. Consequently, different parasite life cycle stages have characteristic morphologies. Trypanosomatid parasites are an excellent example of this in which large morphological variations between species and life cycle stage occur, despite sharing well-conserved cytoskeletal and membranous structures. Here, using previously published reports in the literature of the morphology of 248 isolates of trypanosomatid species from different hosts, we perform a meta-analysis of the occurrence and limits on morphological diversity of different classes of trypanosomatid morphology (trypomastigote, promastigote, etc.) in the vertebrate bloodstream and invertebrate gut environments. We identified several limits on cell body length, cell body width and flagellum length diversity which can be interpreted as biomechanical limits on the capacity of the cell to attain particular dimensions. These limits differed for morphologies with and without a laterally attached flagellum which we suggest represent two morphological superclasses, the ‘juxtaform’ and ‘liberform’ superclasses. Further limits were identified consistent with a selective pressure from the mechanical properties of the vertebrate bloodstream environment; trypanosomatid size showed limits relative to host erythrocyte dimensions. This is the first comprehensive analysis of the limits of morphological diversity in any protozoan parasite, revealing the morphogenetic constraints and extrinsic selection pressures associated with the full diversity of trypanosomatid morphology.     

The Limits of Authenticity in Vietnamese Consumer Markets

In this article, I address the saliency of the concept of "authenticity" in contexts of international law and anthropological inquiry. Using my research findings in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, I show that although Vietnamese shoppers distinguish between what they term real and fake goods, they do not share with foreign corporations and international trade organizations a preoccupation with product and brand authenticity. To make this point, I describe four types of goods—model goods, mimic goods, real goods, and fake goods—employed by shoppers in HCMC, and discuss why they have little in common with notions of "authenticity" and "ownership" inherent in international standards of intellectual property. I argue that these conceptual differences in the commercial sphere challenge claims about the universal applicability of intellectual property rights laws and also encourage anthropologists to ask whether authenticity is always a useful tool of cross-cultural understanding.