Expressive Genres and Historical Change

Dr Pamela J. Stewart and Professor Andrew Strathern are collaborators who are based in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and they are, respectively, Visiting Research Fellow and Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Durham, England. They have been Visiting Research Fellows at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan during 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. They have published many books and articles on their research in the Pacific, Asia, and Europe.

• Contents: Introduction, Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart; Chanted tales in the New Guinea Highlands of today: a comparative study, Alan Rumsey; Duna Pikono: a popular contemporary genre in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern; ’Our Heart Always Remembers, We Think of the Words as Long as We Live’: sacred songs and the revitalization of Indigenous religion among the Indonesian Ngaju, Anne Schiller; Calling on the ancestors to stop crime: ritual performance in an age of intermittent violence, Janet Hoskins; The camera is working: Paiwan aesthetics and performances in Taiwan, Tai-li Hu; The aesthetics of politics: transforming genres and meanings in Melanesia, Lisette Josephides; Melpa songs and ballads: junctures of sympathy and desire in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart; Emphatic speech, expressive genres, and the dancing-songs of the Eipo and Yalenang (Eastern Mountains of West Papua), Volker Heeschen; Index.

’This collection of essays is a welcome addition to the literature on expressive arts in the Indo-Pacific region. The topics of dance, music and poetry have been relatively little explored here by anthropologists, and this book, edited by two well known researchers, fills a significant gap. All of those with interests in these expressive genres, and Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Taiwan generally, will find it a most valuable collection.’ Professor Paul Sillitoe, University of Durham, UK ’The contributors...eloquently demonstrate how transformations in the political or religious landscape are reflected and enacted in reformulations of local cultural heritage and expressive styles...Through richly described and illustrated transformations of expressive forms, this book acquaints us with the flexibility and dynamics of aesthetic and narrative genres, and with the dilemmas, emotions and strategies of people in transitional situations.’ Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde