All over Mexico, early in November, families father to welcome the souls of the dead on their annual visit home. One of Mexico's most important festivals since prehispanic times, the Day of the Dead is an occasion for celebrating and feasting, cleaning and decorating graves, dan…
In a society that has seen epochal change over a few generations, what remains to hold people together and offer them a sense of continuity and meaning? In Songs for Dead Parents, Erik Mueggler shows how in contemporary China death and the practices surrounding it have become ce…
Material religion and Islamic reform in northern Nigeria -- Islamic dress, textile production, and trade in the time of the Sokoto Caliphate -- Muslim identity, Islamic scholarship, and cloth connections in Ilorin -- The Sardauna's turbans -- Veiling, gender, and fashion -- Perf…
"Celebrated as an aquatic form of divinity for thousands of years, the Yamuna is one of India's most sacred rivers. A prominent feature of north Indian culture, the Yamuna is conceptualized as a goddess flowing with liquid love -- yet today it is severely polluted, the victim of…
"Celebrated as an aquatic form of divinity for thousands of years, the Yamuna is one of India's most sacred rivers. A prominent feature of north Indian culture, the Yamuna is conceptualized as a goddess flowing with liquid love -- yet today it is severely polluted, the victim of…
"The sheer number of surviving badges and the diverse and wide-ranging contexts both religious and secular that they evoke suggest that badges were ubiquitous, woven tightly into the fabric of ordinary, late medieval life. Who made badges and out of what materials? Who bought, g…
