life in text and stereo sound
my work transgresses conventional disciplinary and topical boundaries. interested in the relationships among revisionist histories, ethics, and popular culture, i examine intersections in which seeming separate fields evoke or are coordinated with each other
often when taking cabs in taiwan, the drivers begin to discuss politics or my language ability; the former can become as tiresome as the latter, but at least it’s often good for research. so it was a relief that the driver made no comment on my speaking taiwanese to him when giving directions. as we began to reach the community, however, he said,
“are you sure you are going to the right place? everyone who lives up there is a huan-ah“
on taiwan, a definition of the street as a place for vehicular traffic has not displaced other possibilities, in which the street serves as a medium of display, leisure, performance, or commerce. while taiwanese religious processions express these possibilities of street life most flamboyantly, more humble conveyances of street life give to the street its quotidian values. Continue Reading →
music–particularly discourses about good versus bad musics–feature in many discussions of urban planning; perhaps this sonic connection to urban planning is more evident in the developing (or in the case Continue Reading →
marc augé has said that the discipline of anthropology actually studies “other anthropologies,” that is, the various ways that other groups of people have talked about what it is to Continue Reading →
pangangan (naming) easter sunday in a’tolan showed me that sometimes geertz (and before that, benedict) was right about reoccurring cultural structures. much like other rituals around a’tolan, the easter sunday Continue Reading →
