[Anthropgrad] book discussion

[Alan Rumsey]

Dear All,

On Monday, Nov. 5 at 4:00 in Coombs Seminar Room E there will be a 
discussion of an interesting new book by Michael W. Scott entitled 'The 
Severed Snake: Matrilineages, Making Place, and a Melanesian
Christianity in Southeast Solomon Islands' (Durham: Carolina Academic 
Press, 2007). The discussion is being held as part of the Melanesia 
Symposium series, but the book is of general interest and all are 
welcome to attend.

The discussion will be led by Debra McDougall, a visiting UWA-based ARC
Postdoctoral fellow who is herself currently studying Melanesian
Christianity in the Solomons. The assigned readings for the discussion
are the Introduction and Chapter 8. Copies of these chapters are
available in the Anthropology Library (Coombs 7209).

The Introduction is also available as a free download from the publisher
at http://www.cap-press.com/books/1515

Chapter 8 is available from the RSPAS Anthropology site at
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/anthropology/seminars.php For this you must use
the username 'melanesia' and the password 'symp0sium' Note that the
these words are case sensitive and that the fifth character 'symp0sium'
is a zero (0), not an 'O'

You are encouraged to read the whole book. It is available on 2-hour
reserve from Chifley Library. For further inquiries contact Alan Rumsey in
Coombs room 7223, or at 6125-2365, email alan.rumsey at anu.edu.au
<mailto:alan.rumsey at anu.edu.au>

Here is a précis and reviewers’ comments on the book:

Examining the secretive dynamics of competing land claims among the
Arosi of the island of Makira (Solomon Islands), Michael W. Scott
demonstrates the explanatory power of ethnographic attention to the
nexus between practice and indigenous theories of being. His focus on
the ways in which Arosi understand their matrilineages to be the bearers
of discrete categorical essences exclusively emplaced in ancestral
territories forms the basis for a timely and accessible rethink of
current anthropological representations of Melanesian sociality and
opens up new lines of inquiry into the transformative relationships
among gendered metaphors of descent, processes of place making, and the
indigenization of Christianity. Informed by original historical research
and newly documented variants of regionally important mythic traditions,
The Severed Snake is a work of multidisciplinary scope that proposes
critical and methodological shifts relevant to historians, development
professionals, folklorists, and scholars of religion as well as
anthropologists.

“Michael Scott’s empirically rich study of the ontological foundations
of social action combines the best aspects of classic ethnography and
contemporary social theory. His attention to detail registers a keen
sensitivity to local concerns and their historical specificity at the
same time that his conceptual sophistication places those concerns in a
broad comparative perspective. This book is a vindication of careful
fieldwork’s unparalleled ability to illuminate the great moral and
metaphysical questions.”
—Webb Keane, Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

“I know of no other book on a Melanesian culture that probes as deeply
into the question of land and identity. Michael Scott's book is
thoroughly researched, historically aware, sensitive on religion, and
always convincing.”
—Garry Trompf, Professor of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney