Life After Death - Robert Frost And Emily Dickinson Essays

Life After Death - Robert Frost And Emily Dickinson Life After Death Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are two Modern American Poets who consistently wrote about the theme of death. While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost's poem, ?Home Burial,? and Emily Dickinson's poems, ?I felt a Funeral in my Brain,? and ?I died for Beauty,? are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and their poems. The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death. Both poets, in these works and many others, display a fascination with the death of themselves as well as the death of peers, and loved ones. Both Frost and Dickinson experienced a great deal of death throughout each of their lives. Frost's greatest loss was the death of his son, which is greatly depicted in his poem ?Home Burial.? Dickinson suffered the loss of many friends and family. She spent a lot of her time in her room looking out upon the headstones of these people. The only strong comparison between the poets, in terms of structure and technique, is that the meaning of their poems run much deeper then the specific words on a page. Even this can come as a contrast when looking at these three poems. ?Home Burial,? by Frost is a fairly straightforward poem, written in dialogue, with the writer working as the narrator. The poem is about a married couple dealing with the recent death of their son, who the husband had to bury in their own backyard. It is a considerably long poem, which doesn't require one to read between the lines. Where as ?I felt a Funeral in my Brain,? and ?I died for Beauty,? by Dickinson are considerably short poems, in which she seals as much as she reveals. Emily Dickinson's poetry was not that of any traditional style. She was criticized for capitalizing words in the middle of sentences, using inexact rhymes and only giving a partial understanding. She loved to use ellipses, in order to let the reader finish a thought. Many of these were actually eliminated in many of her first publications, which were never published until after her death. In the two poems, ?I felt a Funeral in my Brain,? and ?I died for Beauty? all of these characteristics are present, including her usual four line stanzas in the meter of traditional hymns. Written in first person, ?I felt a Funeral in my Brain? is about the thought of her own funeral. Imagining what is would be like in the coffin, where only the sense of sound is present. The last word of the poem is then-?, a classic example of an ellipse, where the reader is left to finish the poem on their own. ?I died for Beauty also ends with an ellipse. The poem is about two dead people, herself and another ma n, resting side by side, buried underground. Like ?Home Burial,? by Frost, this was written in dialogue with the writer as the narrator. One died for Beauty and one for truth. Although it seemed as though they died for an important cause, with time their names will be forgotten. Unlike Dickinson, Robert Frost wrote in a traditional style. ?Home Burial,? like many of his poems, was written in iambic pentameter, giving five beats per line. Using iambic pentameter gives the poem a monotone, rhythmic feel. Because the poem reads very rhythmically, the seriousness of the poem is exaggerated. This dramatically differs from the two poems by Dickinson. Emily Dickinson's poems, though just as serious, come across quite a bit lighter then ?Home Burial.? The structure of her poems gives a riddle-like effect. The difference in length between the poems changes the mood as well. In Frost's poem the thought of death is drawn out simply by the length of the poem, where as the abruptness of Dickinson's poems give a much lighter feel. Another difference between Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson's poems is the perspective taken by the poet. In ?Home Burial? there is mourning over the loss of a son.

Atomic Bomb Design essays

Atomic Bomb Design essays By 1939 nuclear scientists had begun to delve seriously into the fission of uranium atoms causing a chain reaction, particularly in the U235 isotope. As a result, vast progress was made in the fields of neutron bombardment, the comparative efforts of slow neutrons versus fast neutrons in sustaining chain reactions, and the possible methods of separating U235 from U238 in natural uranium. Moreover, the possibility of an immense atomic explosion was becoming common knowledge, and calculations for a "critical mass" were just around the corner. As early as the spring of 1942, scientists and leaders across the United States were being exposed to plutonium, courtesy of Glen Seaborgs neutron bombardment of U238. With two unique isotopes of fissionable material at the disposal of the countrys greatest minds, it was fitting that two unique atomic weapon designs emerged. The gun bomb focused around driving together two sub-critical masses, and the implosion bomb relied on a uniform shockwave t o compress a plutonium center. Although both designs created the desired bang, they contained very unique features and lent themselves to plutonium and uranium in different ways. The primary research and design center for the bombs was the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. The designing of the bombs stemmed from a nuclear chain-reaction that is normally started by an initiator. The initiator injects a burst of neutrons into the fissile core at an appropriate moment (Elbert). The timing of the initiation of the chain reaction is important and must be carefully designed for the weapon to have a predictable yield. A neutron generator emits a burst of neutrons to initiate the chain reaction at the proper moment: near the point of maximum compression in an implosion design or at the complete assembly point in the gun design. A tamper is placed around the given nuclear material and acts a...

Project Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Project - Essay Example The training will therefore emphasize on professional interviewing procedures for effective evaluation of prospective candidates. The second section of the training will be performance management. This will emphasize the essence of having company goals and objectives that are articulating and achievable. For these to be achieved, they have to be well planned by the management, executed, monitored, analyzed and evaluated after a period of time. Thirdly, the training will discuss the role of legal compliance in company management. This is essential in observing operational regulations and nurturing a good public image. It will be brought to the attention of all trainees that government directives have to be adhered to by the company, a process that starts with the management before junior employees are involved. Fourthly, the training will cover employee motivation, a concept that entails rewards and good remuneration of employees based on their successes and achievements. This can be done through talent recognition and performance evaluation (Mathis and Jackson 111). Lastly, the training will cover financial management as a management section. This segment is key in monitoring the financial base and performance of accompany. Through this, it is possible to tell the viability and future of company. These sections however form a skeleton of the demanding task of

Will special programs for reconvicts reduce recidivism Essay

Will special programs for reconvicts reduce recidivism - Essay Example The study will focus on the area covered by the Metropolitan Police force and the State of Colorado in the U. S. A. it will compare and contrast the statistics relevant to the study. The convicts who have been reconvicted and those who have not been will also be compared and contrasted to study whether there is a class of persons more likely to reoffend than others. The histories of both the classes of convicts will be studied to determine the necessary steps to be taken for the prevention of recidivism. The results of this study will be utilized to identify the most representative of reconvicts will be formed. Experimental groups of the classes will be identified. The experimental groups will be given correctional lectures, incentives for good behavior including the shortening of the period of notification and a role in social aid for police forces (volunteering for traffic police duties etc.) apart from psychotherapy and counseling. Persons in each group will be selected randomly. The study will be done with the aid of secondary data in the form of the records maintained in the form of Violent and Sexual Crimes Register, Offenders Index and the National Police Register in the United Kingdom and the similar records in the U. S. A.

"United States of Secrets" Or "Long distance Essay

"United States of Secrets" Or "Long distance revolutionary" - Essay Example The public views Mumia Abu-Jamal as a political prisoner as well as a victim of the unethical and unjust American judicial system. The African-American community affirms their long-held belief of Mumia’s innocence in his case associated with the murder of a police officer through the film. Therefore, the film received positive reception from the public, as they believe that the protagonist was a revolutionary who stood for the rights of individuals in the American society. He is thus considered a role model for the society as citizens see him as an incarcerated journalist who represents an international symbol of the product of injustice and nature of capital punishment. The documentary delivers a compelling case of innocence of the murder crime that Abu-Jamal is accused of. Therefore, the story represents the struggles that typify individuals, especially the African-American community, on issues apparent in the judicial system such as lack of substantial evidence to incarcera te a person, evidence tampering, and the withhold of exculpatory facts. I believe that the film Long Distance Revolutionary is an influential political documentary and indictment of the hypocrisy and injustice apparent in the American society. The documentary focuses on controversial issues of injustice and institutional racism that is apparent in numerous institutions such as the judicial system. The documentary focuses on a former Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists’ president and National Public Radio Reporter, who is widely recognized for his unwavering ability to compose publications such as books and articles within the confines of a prison. However, despite his international reputation, many people do not have the understanding about Mumia’s personality, his struggles, and his evolving worldviews. Therefore, the documentary offers an

Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography

Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Introduction During the 25 years since the publication of Writing Culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography, a great deal of discussion has accompanied it. In this essay I place this book in the context of the literary turn in anthropology, and concern with the postcolonial encounter as well. Throughout the analysis of the main themes in the book, attention is paid to the construction of ethnographic authority and two relationships of ethnographer/reader and ethnographer/informant centered in Writing Culture. The essay also provides a perspective of the influential power of the book by presenting some ethnographies conducted by Chinese anthropologists. Finally, I will argue the risks of the textualism trend and different patterns in Writing Culture approach. Background of the Book: In and Beyond Anthropology More than ten years after the publication of Writing Culture, in a review article, George Marcus (1998:5) quoted Schneiders words referring to the book: I dont think Jim Clifford is famous for his monograph on Leenhardt. I dont think that George Marcus has achieved some notoriety because he worked on Tonga. Indeed, I dont know anybody whos read the ethnography he wrote. In fact, Ive often talked to people and asked them, Hay, have you read George Marcuss ethnography? No!-but I read that other damn book. It is a very typical and interesting comment. As an anthropologist, George Marcus is best remembered for editing the collection of essays rather than his own ethnographic work; and similarly, James Clifford, a historian, is frequently regarded as an anthropologist by force of being the editor of the same book. The comment also reveals that the book is controversial, and it has witnessed harshly criticism after its appearance. However, there is no denying that Writing Culture is one of the most important books throughout the history of anthropology-the milestone of the post-modern era and the cornerstone of the experimental ethnography (Gao 2007, Scholte 1987). 1. The literary turn There is nothing outside the text. (Derrida) The book, with eleven essays in it (including the introduction and afterword), is based on a series of seminars at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the United States of America in April 1984(Clifford and Marcus 1985). By taking the making of ethnographic text (Clifford and Marcus 1986:vii) as the focal point of their seminars, the participants not only viewed WRITING as a elementary method, but also the central issue of social cultural anthropology. Ethnographic writing is then critically examined in aspects of social context, the use of rhetoric devises, the limitations of disciplinary traditions, the definition of its genre, the political engagement, and historical transformations.[1] Why is writing becoming a principle thing in anthropology? In order to answer this question, inevitably, we take into consideration the literary turn, or say textualism trend in anthropology in the 1980s. The literary turn, just as its name implies, by taking text, writing and literary devices as key concepts and employing textual and literary analyses, is a radical shift which provides strikingly different epistemological and methodological approaches in the discipline of anthropology (Scholte 1987). Although it is difficult to figure out whether Writing Culture is more a cause or a result of the literary turn, the book is definitely a key ingredient of it. I would further suggest that Levi-Strauss, Geertz and Writing Culture should be considered as a sequence in the context of the literary turn. What the Writing Culture authors claim, such as the diversity of representations, possibilities of interpretations, at a glance, are totally different from Levi-Strausss pure unity, reduced models and deep culture grammar. At the same time, Levi-Strausss strong sense of symbol and meaning within a symbolic language system and his linguistic analogy approach (Barrett 1996) are valuable legacies to Geertz and Writing Culture. Furthermore, his research on mythology threw fresh light on the interdisciplinary studies across anthropology and literature. Then, Geertz, who is profoundly influenced by Levi-Strauss and Weber, has a more important and complex influence on Writing Culture. Firstly, his concern of anthropological interpretations and thick descriptions, fieldwork and post fieldwork, (Geertz 19751983) provided the basis for Writing Culture explorations. Secondly, Geertzs local knowledge, natives point of view (Geertz 19751983) and assertion of an amiable and intelligible style insp ired Writing Culture authors to portray fieldwork as a dialogical approach, and consequently take the interactions of ethnographers/the indigenous people (Barrett 1996) and ethnographers/readers in to account. Thirdly, Geertzs ethnographies became important materials of Writing Culture 2. Postcolonial encounter and Cultural Representation I used to rule the world Seas would rise when I gave the word Now in the morning I sweep alone Sweep the streets I used to own One minute I held the key Next the walls were closed on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand Lyrics of Viva la Vida (Coldplay 2009) The birth of this book is not narrowly concerned with the inheritance and development of theory and methodology within the discipline, but rather deeply rooted in the historical background and the reconstruction among the entire academic community. As an academic discipline, anthropology is developed in the context of imperialism and colonialism. The long-time contact between European conquerors and the colonists shaped forms of power and knowledge, and anthropologists at that time entered into non-European aboriginal communities as observers and describers (Asad 2002). Anthropology narrated power relations; at the same time it was also potentially counter-hegemonic (Clifford 1986:9). In 1980s, which was the postcolonial and postwar era without the umbrella of the colonial power, anthropology started to face a more complex nexus of power relations. The postcolonial situation affected the main interests of anthropology and challenged the authority of ethnography. Moreover, anthropology from then on, was not only carried out by Europeans and Americans, but also by those from the so-called Third World who were studying their own cultures; and neither Western culture nor the non-Western cultures remained the same in the ever-changi ng world (Clifford 1986, Layton 1997). In Writing Culture, the analyses of ethnographic discourses- asking who speaks? who writes? when and where? with or to whom? under what institutional and historical constrains?(Clifford 1986)-is a repercussion of the postcolonial encounter. Another important feature of the 1980s is the increasing flow of so-called postmodernism in academia-grand narrative was abandoned and details of everyday life took their place. Accordingly, singular culture was replaced by the plural one, and cultures were understood as representations and knowledge; and man with a small m took place of Man with variability. More importantly, the process of rethinking cultural representation again called into question the authenticity of representation itself and Writing Culture elegantly captured the main themes in this discussion. Three Main Themes of the Book In general, Writing Culture is an introspection, which attempts to examine anthropology traditions (especially the traditional ethnography) as well as anthropologists themselves. I will explore three main themes in the reflections. 1. Partial truth Knowledge is power,and that one must never reveal all of what one knows. Saramaka folktale, in Price (1983:14) cited in Clifford (1986:7) The most essential and fundamental point in Writing Culture is the questioning of ethnographic authenticity. In the 1920s, ethnography was defined and established not only as a genre of cultural description depending on intensive participant observation (Clifford 1983), but also a main research method internalised as a academic criterion in the field of anthropology (Gao 2006). This new style of ethnography-scientific ethnography, built by Malinowski, investigated the totality of culture with a holistic view and documented different layers of ethnographic reality(Kuper 1996). About 50 years later, the theorizing of ethnographic realism sprung up. In 1977, Paul Rabinow, who is a contributor of Writing Culture, published his book Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. His provocative descriptions of the fieldwork itself and his own feelings in the field reveal that fieldwork is a process of intersubjective construction of liminal modes of communication (1977:155) which constantly involve s valuation, and the ethnographer is not a objective observer but a real person with self-consciousness and certain cultural background who makes and remakes facts. Unlike the revelations of Malinowskis fieldwork dairy and the Mead-Freeman controversy, anthropologists started to look at themselves consciously and pondered-what is the ethnographic truth. This issue has been argued throughout the book. Take for example Vincent Crapanzanos Hermess Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description (1986); he analyses three ethnographic texts by George Catlin, Wolfgang von Goethe and Clifford Geertz to probe how does the ethnographer make his/her work convincing. The three authors use distinctive figures, namely hypotyposis, external theatrical narrativity and interpretive virtuosity, to convince the readers of the descriptions in their texts. He argues that, as a matter of fact, their rhetoric tools make the described events devoiced from the original settings, and finally, it is the ethnographers authority which covers the subversion up. However, the ethnographers authority-his/her presence, perceptual ability, disinterested perspective, objectivity and sincerity (1986:53), is questionable. Does being there mean witnessing everything? Is the perceptual ability trained in a certain culture adequate and reliable? Is disinter ested perspective or objectivity even possible? If not, how can one reach the whole truth by selected fragmentary information? The underlying institutional system and power relations work through all these issues and enmesh in the anthropological knowledge, not to mention the cultural filtering, the information is not completed at the source. Crapanzanos essay reminds us that the ethnographer, like Hermes who decodes and interprets messages, promised to tell no lies but did not promise to tell the whole truth (1986:76). From this perspective, ethnographic truth no longer pursues the true view of the whole world, as Clifford and Rabinow point out in the book, ethnographic truths are partial, committed and incomplete (Clifford 1986:7) and in bondage to cultural settings. 2. Literary devices All constructed truths are made possible by powerful lies of exclusion and rhetoric. As I have mentioned before, Writing Culture is related to the literary turn of anthropology with the foundation of seeing ethnographies as texts. It is easy to point out that another major theme of the book is the literary devices employed in ethnographies, and in which the rhetoric issue has been mostly discussed. For instance, Renato Rosaldos From the Door of His Tent: The Fieldworker and the Inquisitor (1986), by comparing The Nure written by Evens Pritchard with Montaillou written by French social historian Ladurie, demonstrates how ethnographic rhetoric could assist in building authority and objectivity. Needless to repeat, The Nure is a ethnographic masterpiece, and for Montaillou, it is famous for providing an ethnographic analysis of a French community in fourteenth century by using inquisition record. Rosaldo states that, in the first place, in the introductory section, by frankly acknowledging the inequality between the inquisitor / his subjects, the fieldworker/ the Nuer, the authors both indicate the calm presence of mind(1986:89); then, they style themselves as honest men through complaining about the difficulties in gaining information in uneasy tensions between investigators and informants. After that, they claim their information is gradually collected in particles in order to construct the reliability; meanwhile, distanced normalizing mode of discourse, rhetorical absences[2], correspondences[3], etc. are used to enhance the sense of objectivity. In sum, the rhetorical work in introductory parts of the two books by means of separating the context of colonial domination from the production of ethnographic knowledge (1986:93)establish the authors innocence and the ethnographic authority as well. Furthermore, in both authors, the pastoral mode is invoked. The literary mode of pastoral is, firstly a symbol of the spiritual liberty, secondly a mobile position of speaking, and thirdly a label of courtesy and respect. Rosaldos essay interestingly illustrates that, although the power and knowledge relations have not been completely kicked off, to a great extent, they are concealed by the rhetoric tools. Ethnographic rhetoric has a strong impact on the understandings of the ethnographic texts (Scholte 1987). 3. Writing of Self Continued from the preceding paragraph, the mobility in ethnographers positions is demonstrated cumulatively in other chapters of Writing Culture as well. Fieldwork in Common Places by Mary Louis Pratt (1986) provides an illustration. Her essay focuses on the significant history of the relationship between personal narrative and impersonal description (1986:27) in ethnographies and travel writings. Pratt starts with a controversy that anthropology graduate Florinda Donners work Shabobo: A True Adventure in the Remote and Magical Heart of the South American Jungle is facing accusations of plagiarism, because there are some events in her book which are the same as others. Here, Pratt asks a very inspiring question: as ethnography demands accurate descriptions, for describing the same events at the same place, how could Donners work not resemble others? Pratt argues that the authority of ethnography, in some sense, is based on the unique and original personal experience in the field not the factual accuracy (1986:29) of a certain ethnography. From this perspective, personal narratives cannot be eliminated from ethnography, and it also explains why the subgenre of formal ethnography, such as Malinowskis diaries, has not been killed by science (1986:31), but turned into a prolonged tradition of anthropology. Even in formal ethnographies, personal narrative is an integral part. It marks the relationship among the fieldworker, indigenous people, and the audience. It also serves as a regulator, reconciling the inconsistency between the subjective engagement in fieldwork, and the detachment; the self-effacement in formal ethnographic writing. Moreover, her analysis shows that, even in the time of so-called scientific ethnography, ethnographers were writing from multiple, constantly shifting positions, and self is never a scientist-observer (1986:39). To consider further from this point, we could identity a difference between classical ethnography and experimental ethnography. For Malinowski, and his students Firth and Evens-Prichard, the writing of self is a strategy serving for building the authority of scientific ethnography; however, for Rabinow and his contemporary anthropologists, the consciously self-realization in ethnographic writing successfully opens up a dimension for reflective thinking. The self, thus, is public, and mediates in different cultures. The appearance of the new kind of self writing is very provocative: epistemologically, in view of the production and explanation of the knowledge,it penetrates into the relationship between knowledge of self and knowledge of the Other and how knowledge is hermeneutically represented(Rapport, and Overing 2000); methodologically, it seeks for the diversity of ethnographic writing, more specifically, the expression of the subjectivity, the utilization of rhetoric, or, I would say, the writing style. 4. A summary of the three themes: one centre and two basic relationships Throughout all three themes-ethnographic truth, rhetoric in ethnography, and the writing of self, there is a central point-the construction of ethnographic authority, which cannot be comprehended without reference to the power relations. The power relations derive from the Foucaultian intertwining of knowledge and power in the academic discipline as well as the fluctuant historical and political affiliation. Here, I will not repeat these issues which I have argued in the first part, rather, I would suggest two relationships existing in the main themes of Writing Culture: a) ethnographers and the natives they studied, and b) anthropologists and their readers. Having inherited the tradition of Geertzs interpretive anthropology, Writing Culture highlights the reconstruction of the ethnographer/informant relations (Wang Gao). Indigenous people and their culture are no longer viewed as silent and uniform objects. Ethnographic knowledge, as suggested by Rabinow (1977), is built on a bilateral understanding in certain cultural contexts. At the same time, more importantly, the book pays close attention to the relationship between anthropologists and the readers. Same as the literary outputs, ethnographies shape the relations with the audiences through texts (Xu 2001). Both the completed texts and reading activities are certainly influenced by the literary processes (Clifford 1986). By scanning how ethnographies communicate with their readers, the reflexive essays[4] portray ethnography as a kind of dialogue, and the conversational readership allows, or I could say, encourages the readers to take part in the investigation of ethnographic writing. In addition, the discussions regarding the ethnographers distinguished positions in describing others and expressing Self, permit the readers to obtain the different perspectives which the ethnographers have themselves. As Spencer indicated (1989), the correspondence to multiple positions provided by a master hand is a feature of a good ethnography. Why is it important to tak e the readership of ethnography into consideration? I think it depends largely on the unique and versatile character of this readership. Marcus and Cushman (1982) present six categories of readerships of ethnography. The categories differ in purpose, positions, and some of them may merge with another (the first and second one in particular) or others: (1) the specialist readership, (2) the general anthropological readership, (3) readerships from the other social sciences (4) the student readership, (5) the action oriented readership,(6)the popular readership(1982:51-52). Ethnography, firstly, as a genre and a method as well, interposes itself between humanities (relating to category 1 and 2) and social sciences (relating to category 3); secondly, serves as a puberty rite for professional anthropologists (relating to category 4); thirdly, emerges into social and political decision-making for certain historical and institutional reasons (relating to category 5); and finally, attracts common readers thanks to its literary feature and exotic nature (relating to category 6). It is obvious that the readerships of ethnography are extremely complicated and should be carefully identified. Both ethnographers and readers must be self-conscious (Rapport 2000). Hence, the ethnographer/reader relation issue raised by Writing Culture writers, from this angle, is stimulating from the 1980s till today. The ethnographer/reader relation, together with the ethnographer/informant relation, is located in the power discourse and knowledge discourse. Once again, the two relationships echo the central idea of Writing Culture-the authority and power. In a word, although the three themes I proposed are not a very complete summary of the book, the one centre and two basic relationships they conveyed, in my opinion, have demonstrated the most insight and innovation of Writing Culture. Writing Culture: the Chinese Experience In the preliminary report of the Writing Culture seminar and papers, Clifford and Marcus state that Writing Culture is lacking the feminist point of view as well as Third World or non-European approach (Clifford and Marcus 1985). For the former omission, I agree with Schotle (1987) that, some feminist perspectives is inconspicuously harbored in Pratts essay. However, for sure, there is not a so-called Third World standpoint in Writing Culture, which I think is a significant irony for its analysis of power play in the post-colonial time. In Third World countries, anthropology is in a very different context. Their people and cultures have for a long time been discovered, observed, described, and represented by Westerners. Non-Western anthropologists and their ethnographic works are the symbols of the reconfiguration within the discipline, and most of them naturally locate their fieldwork sites in their own cultures to study their own people. Generally speaking, anthropology[5] of the Third World witnesses a fruitful period in the postwar era, which is also the golden age of experimental ethnography, and to some extent, it could be taken as anthropology at home which employs the self-reflexive approach mentioned in Writing Culture. I will then, taking China as an example, look at some ethnographic cases conducted by Chinese anthropologists relating to Writing Culture. I assume it a good perspective to explore the influential power of Writing Culture and its echoes. The first case is Huang Shumins ethnography The Spiral Road:Change In A Chinese Village Through The Eyes Of A Communist Party Leader(1998). Depending on his one-year fieldwork (first ten chapters) and a revisit (chapter 1112) in a village in Fujian province, China, Huang provides a picture of the huge political and economic change and development in a Chinese village from the founding of Peoples Republic of China to the 1990s as well as the impact on the personal and pubic life of a peasant, who is the a political leader in the community. The political struggles, the hardship of raising a family, and the peasants life wisdom are vividly described through a first-person narrative life history approach. Although his novel-like ethnography is first published in English, Huang is regarded as one of the best Chinese anthropologists for his proficient writing skills and great success in narrating the complexity of historical events in rural China in a lighter tone. The second case is drawn from Li Chunxias PhD dissertation Television and the Life of Yi People in China (2005)[6]. As a Yi[7] anthropologist, her ethnography explores how television profoundly incorporated into the fabric (2005: 5) of local peoples daily life. In the text, Lis fieldwork notes collected during her three-year fieldwork at her own village give expression to her close emotional ties with native people, and deliver her concerns and worries of the ethnic minorities living circumstances in contemporary China. Meanwhile, as a scholar, she keenly captures the metaphorical meaning of modernization, development and prosperity by television. Her analysis penetrates into the relations of Yi people/Han people, and pre-modern/modern. The reflexivity about the periphery/centre relations is a main steam in contemporary anthropology of China. The third case is Zhuang Kongshaos ethnographic research on a hot topic in Chinese culture and society: the family education (Zhuang and Feng 2006). He describes the communications and conflicts between a mother and her seven years old daughter and the relations among school education, family education and social education. Zhuang is a pioneer in anthropology of China, not only because he introduces a new approach called educational anthropology, most importantly, the final production of Zhuangs fieldwork is an ethnographic film named My Wife, My Daughter. It is actually beyond the scope of Writing Culture, because it is no longer about the writing and the text. I adopt this case here, trying to argue that, Writing Culture highlights the diversity of ethnography, and now, facing the radical form of ethnography, can the arguments in Writing Culture on ethnographic texts fit in ethnographic films? What is the same and the difference between the grammars of ethnographic writing and seei ng? Are pictures more worthy than words in constructing ethnographic authority? Can texts and films be combined in ethnographic enterprise? Why and how? The book it self is an open ended text, and constantly simulates new questions for anthropologists in the post Writing Culture era, and that also explains why Writing Culture, after more than twenty years, is still being quoted and debated all over the world. It is true, as Schotle harshly points out (1987), that lots of questions in this book remains unclear and unsettled. However, I appreciate the original questions it raised and the appeal to dialogue. Rethinking Writing Culture Following the reflexive direction, I have three points to make on rethinking the book. Before that, I present a brief schema of the three-stage ethnographic research as follows. There is nothing new, however, my questions are based on it. First, with the text-orientation, has the importance of writing been stressed over that of doing ethnography in the book? The potential risk in the textualism emphasized in Writing Culture is that fieldwork retires from the leading position, it has provided a context for substituting the empirical research. As we can see from the schema, fieldwork is the centre of ethnographic research in time and space, and it is also the foundation of anthropology. In this experimental moment, we should not only look at the outcome of fieldwork, but also reflect upon the limitations and new characteristics in fieldwork processes in this Writing Culture or post Writing Culture era. Second, going back to the very first stage, I would argue, different backgrounds of Western and non-Western ethnographers shape two distinguished patterns of reflexive thinking. First, the Western pattern could be called coming home, after studying the Other, from outside in, anthropologists return to the Self, their reflexive thinking is about their own tradition in their own cultural institutions. Second, the non-Western pattern could be named as being home, they do not have a return perspective, their reflexive thinking is still deeply in relation to the West. I fear, in reflexive anthropology, which is greatly established by Writing Culture, anthropologists in the Third World would be more marginalized through their resistance in this centre-periphery discourse. My final thought is on rhetoric issue, which is still an incomprehensible question to me. If rhetoric is an integral component of ethnographic writing, as Rosaldo (1986) argued, there are using and abusing of descriptive rhetoric, then, the next obvious question is: what is the boundary between use and abuse of rhetoric? It seems to me that, use, is a kind of abuse in itself, if so, how can one control it? Epilogue In the final part of my essay, I would like to do an experiment. I will write about my reading experience instead of the conclusion of the whole passage. I originally read this book in Chinese in my junior year at college. As a literature student, I found the book interesting and inspiring, and it positively influenced me in the choosing of anthropology for graduate study. Later, I reread the book both in English and Chinese, and accessed some related articles written by Writing Culture writers. Surprisingly, I found several articles written in collaboration with Clifford and Marcus. Other than this landmark book, Marcus, together with Cushman, wrote Ethnographies as Texts (1982), which is a harbinger of Writing Culture; and he, later, with Fischer, produced the companion volume of Writing Culture-Anthropology as Cultural Critique (1986). Behind these collaborations, I can imagine the interactions of sparkling thoughts as well as understandings and communications. They are spirits of academic research, and also the anthropological endeavor. References Archetti, E.P. (ed.) (1994) Exploring the written: anthropology and the multiplicity of writing. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. Asad, T. (1986) The concept of cultural translation in British social anthropology, in Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds.) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Asad, T. (2002) From the history of colonial anthropology to the anthropology of Western hegemony, in Vincent, J. (ed.) InThe Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique, Oxford: Blackwell. Barrett, S.R. (1996) Anthropology: a students guide to theory and method. Toronto. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Clifford, J. (1983) On ethnographic authority, Representations, 2, pp. 118-146. JSTOR[Online]. Available at:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928386 (Accessed: 13 March 2010) Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (1985) The making of ethnographic texts: a preliminary report, Current Anthropology, 26(2), pp. 267-271. JSTOR[Online].Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743141 (Accessed: 13 March 2010) Clifford, J. (1986) Introduction: partial truth, in Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds.) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clifford, J. and Marcus (1986) Preface, in Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds.) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Crapanzano, V. (1986) Hermess Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description, in Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds.) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fabian, J. (1990) Presence and representation: the Other and anthropological writing, Critical Inquiry, 16(4), pp. 753-772, SAGE[Online].Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343766 (Accessed: 13 December 2009) Gao, BZ. (2006) The three periods in the development of ethnography-translators preface to Writing Culture, Journal of Guangxi University for Nationalities (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 28(3), pp 58-63. CNKI[Online]. DOI: cnki:ISSN:1002-3887.0.2006-03-012 (Accessed: 10 November 2009) Gao, BZ. et al.(2007) On Writing Culture, Reading, 2007(4), CNKI[Online]. DOI: CNKI:ISSN:0257-0270.0.2007-04-026 (Accessed: 10 November 2009) Geertz, G. (1975) The interpretation of cultures. London: Hutchinson. Geertz, G. (1983) Local knowledge: further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, G. (1988) Worksandlives: the anthropologist as author. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Harrell, S. (2001) The anthropology of reform and the reform of anthropology: anthropological narratives of recovery and progress in China, Annual Review of Anthropology, 30, pp. 139-161. JSTOR[Online]. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3069212 (Accessed: 03 March 2010) Huang, JB. (2004) The contending of Writing Culture-Post-modern discourse in anthropology and the change in the sudies, Thinking, 30 (4), pp. 39-43. CNKI[Online]. Available at: cnki:ISSN:1001-778X.0.2004-04-009 (Accessed: 10 November 2009) Huang, SM. (1998) The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village Through theEyes of a Communist Party Leader. 2nd edn. Boulder: Westview Press. James, A. Hockey, J. and Dawson, A. (eds.) (1997) After writing culture: epistemology and praxis in contemporary anthropolog

Dr. Seuss The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins Essay -- Dr. Seuss The

Narrative Style and Structure of Dr. Seuss'The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, told in folktale style, was written by Dr. Seuss in 1938. According to Charity Belle Mays, â€Å"Folktales deal with adventures both plausible and implausible wrapped in the forms of human or animal abilities. They are the simple tales that have truly evil people or animals, and truly good people or animals, and the good always wins out in the end in these stories, giving way to the child's version of fairness.† This story recounts young Bartholomew Cubbin’s misadventures while going to market in town. Bartholomew, a paragon of politeness and obedience, unwittingly finds trouble when he is unable to keep a hat off his head and offends King Derwin. The folktale begins with introductions to Bartholomew and King Derwin, the potential â€Å"hero† and â€Å"villain.† The first several pages emphasize the great contrasts between their lives; Bartholomew is poor and feels insignificant versus the King’s wealth and mighty self-image. With such opposite lifestyles, Seuss must create a...