Suchergebnisse

This book on Slavic matriarchy is the result of the studies and researches that Evel Gasparini carried out over the span of his lifetime. Intrigued by the possibility of a close link between the collective ownership of the land and the ancient agricultural-matriarchal substrate of Slav culture, Gasparini launched on the titanic enterprise of analysing the archaeological and historical sources of early Slavic civilisation. Basing himself on a concept of culture elaborated in the ethnological field, he brought to light certain contradictions in the application of the Indo-European paradigm to Slavic culture and identified a series of elements illustrating the matriarchal substrate. Exploiting an uncommon knowledge of cultural anthropology and profound linguistic competencies, in this book Gasparini maps out a complex panorama ranging from the economy to the social structure and from the religious traditions to music and dance. Out of print for some time, the book is now proposed in a new, more convenient form, complete with an appendix on Finns and Slavs – which was originally intended as another chapter in the book but was then left out – a detailed preface by Gasparini's disciple Remo Faccani, and a bibliography of the scholar's oeuvre edited by Donatella Possamai.

Based on both original accounts and published documents, this work describes the musical tradition still flourishing in the Four Provinces Apennines, the mountain region between Genua and Oltrepò. Among its peculiar features are the piffero, a folk oboe constructed and played on the ground, the musa, a bagpipe that accompanied it in the past, and the accordion, that replaced the musa in the first half of the 20th Century. The origins of instruments and customs have to be related to materials used by rural culture and to commercial contacts conveyed by mule caravans, which traversed these mountains and connected them, especially since the Late Middle Ages, to Genua harbour and the Orient on one side and to French and Flemish fairs on the other side. For the last centuries we know about a school of piffero masters who have trasmitted their art orally until contemporary players. They still lead the village feasts in the high valleys, which express a sound sociality as well as the traditional practice of old songs - bujascas, stranots... - and dances - piana, alessandrina, monferrina, giga a due, giga a quattro, povera donna, perigordino, skipping polka, mazurka, waltz... The unexpected richness of such cultural and human heritage leads both to carry it out and to wonder about its roles in our globalized world looking for new identities.

This volume is dedicated to the Anthropological and Ethnological section of the Natural History Museum. First the historical journey of the collections is traced from the antique nucleus of the Medici to the foundation of the National Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, when Florence was the capitol of Italy, and the discipline of anthropology was born. The second part illustrates the multivariate collections from all over the globe. They are a precious record of the past and present biological and cultural diversity of our species opening wide horizons that rigorously connect science to the many faces of human culture, including art. The third section is dedicated to current research and opens new prospectives on the significance of ethnological and anthropological collections due to new technology and in light of a new appreciation of the museum as a living "zone of contact".

The book presents a selection of the works presented during various encounters held in sites connected with the life of Paolo Mantegazza, aimed at retrieving and valorising his cultural legacy. An eclectic figure - scientist, novelist, anthropologist and politician - Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910) played a leading role in Italian society and the cultural scene of the late nineteenth century. The contributions of academics from different disciplines enable us to reconstruct both the great variety of the man's interests and curiosities, and the strict methodological rigour that guided his entire scientific production and is today the most evident sign of his contemporary relevance. - Il libro raccoglie una selezione dei lavori presentati in vari incontri tenuti nei luoghi legati alla vicenda biografica di Paolo Mantegazza e che miravano a recuperare e valorizzare la sua eredità culturale. Figura eclettica di scienziato, romanziere, divulgatore, politico, Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910) ha avuto un ruolo di primo piano nella cultura e nella società italiana della fine del XIX secolo; i contributi di studiosi di diverse discipline consentono di ricostruire sia la grande varietà degli interessi e delle curiosità dell'uomo, sia il profondo rigore metodologico che guida la sua intera produzione scientifica e che rappresenta il segno più forte della sua attualità.

In theory, republican orthodoxy does not acknowledge the political dignity of any intermediary body between free and equal individuals, stripped of all particularism, and the sovereign nation. This is why, right up to the present, the French public debate has been marked by an entrenched suspicion towards all forms of «communitarism», and by the proscription of the very concept of multicultural politics. But have the policies actually pursued by republican France been consistent with the proclaimed principles? Is it genuinely possible to claim that cultural identities have never been publicly «recognised»? This multidisciplinary investigation proposes to address the ambiguous relations between theory and practice in the Republican management of cultural pluralism