Regina Bendix

Authenticity is a notion much debated, among discussants as diverse as cultural theorists and art dealers, music critics and tour operators. The desire to find and somehow capture or protect the “authentic” narrative, art object, or ceremonial dance is hardly new. In this masterful examination of German and American folklore studies from the eighteenth century to the present, Regina Bendix demonstrates that the longing for authenticity remains deeply implicated in scholarly approaches to cultural analysis. Searches for authenticity, Bendix contends, have been a constant companion to the feelings of loss inherent in modernization, forever upholding a belief in a pristine yet endangered cultural essence and fueling cultural nationalism worldwide. Beginning with precursors of Herder and Emerson and the “discovery” of the authentic in expressive culture and literature, she traces the different, albeit intertwined, histories of German Volkskunde and American folklore studies. A Swiss native educated in American folklore programs, Bendix moves effortlessly between the two traditions, demonstrating how the notion of authenticity was used not only to foster national causes, but also to lay the foundations for categories of documentation and analysis within the nascent field of folklore studies. Bendix shows that, in an increasingly transcultural world, where Zulu singers back up Paul Simon and where indigenous artists seek copyright for their traditional crafts, the politics of authenticity mingles with the forces of the market. Arguing against the dichotomies implied in the very idea of authenticity, she underscores the emptiness of efforts to distinguish between folklore and fakelore, between echt and ersatz.

The Formation of Folklore Studies

In Search of Authenticity

Progress and Nostalgia: Silvesterklausen in Urnäsch, Switzerland. - Berkeley, (Cal.) [usw.]: Univ. of California Press (1985). 1 Taf., XII, 128 S., S. 129-136 Abb. 4°

Kilian Bizer

Dorothy Noyes

At once a slogan and a vision for future scholarship, interdisciplinarity promises to break through barriers to address today's complex challenges. Yet even high-stakes projects often falter, undone by poor communication, strong feelings, bureaucratic frameworks, and contradictory incentives. This new book shows newcomers and veteran researchers how to craft associations that will lead to rich mutual learning under inevitably tricky conditions. Strikingly candid and always grounded, the authors draw a wealth of profound, practical lessons from an in-depth case study of a multiyear funded project on cultural property. Examining the social dynamics of collaboration, they show readers how to anticipate sources of conflict, nurture trust, and jump-start thinking across disciplines. Researchers and institutions alike will learn to plan for each phase of a project life cycle, capturing insights and shepherding involvement along the way.

A Guide for the Academy

Sustaining Interdisciplinary Collaboration

1. This book is the first collection of essays by noted folklorist, Regina F. Bendix, that explore how cultures create, give, and maintain value for cultural elements and artifacts. 2. Bendix's work seeks to transcend specialized perspectives on cultural heritage and integrate this booming research area into general folklore and anthropology research. 3. Includes new content including an introduction to the book, introductions to each of the three sections in the book, and two articles that have been translated into English from the original German for the first time.

Tourism, Heritage, and Property

Culture and Value

Herman Roodenburg

Perspectives from Folklore Studies, History and Anthropology

Managing Ethnicity

Donald Brenneis

The essays in this volume present deeply contextualized cases of sensory experience.They link senses to each other and to event, sentiment, emplacement, identity, and the ongoing shaping of social life. In doing so, they make a strong joint case for the importance of taking the senses seriously, not in isolation but as integral elements of culture and interaction. (Donald Brenneis) Regina Bendix is a researcher at the University of Goettingen (Germany). Donald Brenneis is a researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Senses

John Bendix

The symposium "Sleepers, Moles, and Martyrs: Secret Identifications, Societal Integration, and the Differing Meanings of Freedom" held in Reinhausen, 2002, formed the basis of this publication. Occasioned by the social, political and mass media discourses after the bombings of New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, an interdisciplinary group of scholars came together to explore the connotations and implications of the term "sleeper". The biographies of terrorist perpetrators are but one of many permutations of sleeper-like phenomena in late modern polities. Clandestine operatives of the state are sleepers, and both willing and unwilling victims of terrorism are discursively transformed from sleepers into martyrs. Starting with analyses of the discourses about sleepers in Part I-their historical antecedents, narrative employment, and semantic differentiation-Part II turns to the hidden or unspoken of aspects of the state, the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism to the modern political project and the tensions between neighbourly discourse, public display and the state. Part III juxtaposes changing depictions of Shiite martyrdom with the violence done to the term "martyr" within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Part IV, cultural secrets encoded in memorials and public silences in academic discourse are addressed. The different cases assembled offer comparative materials and perspectives from the USA, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Spain, Iran, Israel, Istria and Sweden.

Secret Identifications, Societal Integration and the Differing Meanings of Freedom

Sleepers, Moles and Martyrs

Nicolas Adell-Gombert

Chiara Bortolotto

Markus Tauschek

Community and participation have become central concepts in the nomination processes surrounding heritage, intersecting time and again with questions of territory. In this volume, anthropologists and legal scholars from France, Germany, Italy and the USA take up questions arising from these intertwined concerns from diverse perspectives: How and by whom were these concepts interpreted and re-interpreted, and what effects did they bring forth in their implementation? What impact was wielded by these terms, and what kinds of discursive formations did they bring forth? How do actors from local to national levels interpret these new components of the heritage regime, and how do actors within heritage-granting national and international bodies work it into their cultural and political agency? What is the role of experts and expertise, and when is scholarly knowledge expertise and when is it partisan? How do bureaucratic institutions translate the imperative of participation into concrete practices? Case studies from within and without the UNESCO matrix combine with essays probing larger concerns generated by the valuation and valorization of culture.

Regina Bendix

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