The Religious Imagination in New Guinea - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813514584 ISBN 13: 9780813514581

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Explores various expressions of religious fervour such as shamanism, trances, possession, witchcraft and cult activity. Using cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis as a base, the contributors ask how religious imagination connects concepts of the self to ideas of the sacred.

About this title

About the Author:

Biography
Herdt is a gay activist who has taught at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Washington. In 2000, Herdt cofounded the Institute on Sexuality, Social Inequality and Health that studies all forms of sexuality and discrimination that affect community building, sexual culture and sexual health.

He specializes in sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. His studies of the 'Sambia' people — a pseudonym he created — of Papua New Guinea analyzes how culture and society create sexual meanings and practices. The Sambia are unique in that in the past they require males to undergo three specific sexual phases in their lives. Boys must provide sexual service to young men, adolescents must then receive oral sex from boys, and males enter adulthood by becoming heterosexual.[2]

In the United States, Herdt has also studied adolescents and their families, the emergence of HIV and gay culture, and the role that social policy plays in sexual health.

He has written and edited some 30 books, and more than 100 scientific papers. He is also the general editor of Worlds of Desire, and an associate editor of Journal of Culture, Sexuality, and Health, Journal of Men and Masculinities, and Transaction: Journal of Social Science and Modern Society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0813514584
• ISBN 13: 9780813514581
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 265
• Editor: Herdt Gilbert