Physical characteristics One other interesting observation: almost all the people there were White. I saw a small handful of Asians or Pacific Islanders, and maybe three black people all week — a Navy guy and his family. I didn’t notice any Hispanics at all, although Bob said he heard some Spanish. It was… a little…
Air conditioning! Remember I said the weather was unseasonably wonderful? I loved the warmth, but I felt really sorry for the island’s local folks when I found out most of the buildings on Whidbey (including all the Navy buildings — what were they thinking?!) have no air conditioning. There were interesting side effects of this…
Originally posted July 2004 Credits: For my extended family, who gave me cause to be there. It was a great reunion! I recently spent a week on Whidbey Island, in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington state. It was lovely, and I had a great time. It was also fascinating from an anthropological perspective,…
Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache The Apache feel that speech should be used with economy. Verbosity is not considered precocious, merely loud. Indeed, careless use of language can be perceived as both rude to the listener and disrespectful of the ancestors. It is considered better to listen, observe, and…
Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache A sense of history is given by the Apache location stories. The stories relate the past, but are usually told in the present tense. Quotations are frequently used, to invoke a sense of current presence, and the language is concise and avoids redundancy. The…
This is the first paper I handed in for my “Language and Culture” class. I found it an interesting window on what the professor expected. I was really worried about it, before handing it in, for several reasons. Firstly, I had no real idea of what the professor expected in a good paper. Secondly, it…
There’s a lot I’m learning in my classes on Women’s Spirituality that I feel somewhat perplexed by — sort of a “doesn’t everyone know this?!” kind of feeling. I don’t feel I’m that unusual, though, so I guess a lot of the other women must be feeling this too. Still odd, though.
I’m in a master’s program for Women’s Spirituality at ITP (www.itp.edu) in Palo Alto. A lot of fascinating questions are coming up for me as I take the courses, and I’ll try to put them up here on line for discussion as they occur to me. A particularly poignant question which hit me this weekend…
In her book Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature, Janice A. Radway explores the apparent fascination of romantic fiction to many women, and examines the needs this literary genre fulfills for its readers. Our required reading was the Introduction and the first four chapters. The Introduction contains a more up-to-date critique of the…
Naylor’s image of ‘Man’ is symbolized by all her developed male characters. Invariably, they are the doers and accomplishers in the story — and they always destroy what is around them. Thus for Mattie we have her father, the leader of the family, who also beats his daughter (almost to death, when she won’t tell…