This week, ending in October 01 2015:
Today's thread is for open discussion of:
History in the academy
Historiographical disputes, debates and rivalries
Implications of historical theory both abstractly and in application
Philosophy of history
And so on
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters like those above, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
In researching for a recent thread about slavery, I came across the story of Imbangala raiders in Angola. Specifically, how they would raid villages and enslave those they captured, with the intent of integrating those captives as either warriors or wives in Imbangala society.
However, there was also the blood-chilling detail of ritual cannibalism, where a handful of slaves would be slain before a raid, and their flesh consumed by those who are to be initiated into Imbangala society.
The explanation that Paul Lovejoy gives for this behavior is twofold: first to intimidate captives and present them a choice between being sacrificed or becoming integrated into Imbangala society. Second, by forcing them to engage in cannibalism, the initiate breaks powerful social taboo, thus enforcing social death and alienation from their former society, leaving an initiate with no lingering loyalties except to Imbangala.
All of this is to ask, can anyone recommend essential reading on the phenomenon of ritualized transgression of social taboos, and/or ritualized cannibalism specifically?
I've got an open-ended historiographical question for y'all today, answer if you please.
What do understand "transnational history" to mean? What are its goals and how do they affect methodology? Most interesting to me is how transnational history has or will (or should!) affect your field in particular?
For example, in the realm of Habsburg history, and indeed Central European history in general, I understand transnational history's primary goal as the removal of the nation-state as a political certainty and re-examining the development and breakdown of institutions within this new light.
Sorry for a potentially huge question, but I'm reading Alison Frank's Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia at the moment and was wondering what impact the transnational approach has had on other fields.
It's #AskAnArchivist day! I am happy to take archives questions every day of the year but especially today because I get to hang out on social media at work and not do my new acquisitions processing.