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In Anthropology and Social Theory the award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and

In Anthropology and Social Theory the award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and

The Sherpas were dead, two more victims of an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Members of a French climbing expedition, sensitive perhaps about leaving the bodies where they could not be recovered, rolle

Pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner is renowned for her work on the Sherpas of Nepal. Now she turns her attention homeward to examine how social class is lived in the United States and, specif

An eminent anthropologist examines the foundings of the first celibate Buddhist monasteries among the Sherpas of Nepal in the early twentieth century--a religious development that was a major departur

This 1996 collection of essays deals with the ways in which sex and gender are socially organized and conceptually construed in various cultures. Its scope is not limited to a series of cross-cultural issues of sex roles and sexual status but rather encompasses a wide range of sex-related practices and beliefs. Ceremonial virginity in Polynesian ritual androgynism in New Guinea, the valorization of young African bachelors, and fantasies of male self-sufficiency in South American myth are among the subjects discussed. Taken in their totality, these essays demonstrate that cultural notions sexuality and gender are seldom straightforward extrapolations of biological facts but are the outcome of social and cultural processes. The book is not only a compendium of symbolic approaches to gender but is also an important statement of the theoretical directions in anthropological research in this field.

The pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner combines her trademark ethnographic expertise with critical film interpretation to explore the independent film scene in New York and Los Angeles since t

The pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner combines her trademark ethnographic expertise with critical film interpretation to explore the independent film scene in New York and Los Angeles since t

Pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner is renowned for her work on the Sherpas of Nepal. Now she turns her attention homeward to examine how social class is lived in the United States and, specifi

A major reconsideration of culture and gender by a founder of feminist anthropology. "[An] engaging book. . . . A fine example of the way anthropology helps us to think about ourselves." —Tanya Luh

The Sherpas of the Himalayas practice Tibetan Buddhism, a variety of Mahayana Buddhism. This is a general interpretation of Sherpa culture through examining the relationship between the Sherpas' Buddhism and other aspects of their society, and a theoretical contribution to the study of ritual and religious symbolism. In analysing the symbols of Sherpa rituals, professor Ortner leads us toward the discovery of conflict, contradiction, and stress in the wider social and cultural world. Following a general ethnographic sketch, each chapter opens with a brief description of a ritual. The ritual is then dissected, and its symbolic elements are used as guides in the exploration of problematic structures, relationships, and ideas of the culture. The author uses these rituals to illuminate the interconnections between religious ideology, social structure and experience. Professor Ortner analysis of the rituals reveals both the Buddhist pull toward exaggerating the isolation of individuals, and