Don Handelman | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (original) (raw)

Papers by Don Handelman

Research paper thumbnail of II. Two Studies: State, Religion and Bureaucracy in Ancient China and Modern Greece Cultural Taxonomy and Bureaucracy in Ancient China: The Book of Lord Shang I

Research paper thumbnail of Liminality: Contemplating the Hypothetically Potent Conjunction of the Social and the Physical

Egalitarian Dynamics: Liminality, and Victor Turner's Contribution to the Understanding of Socio-historical Process, 2024

In a late, brief essay, Roy Wagner (2018: 85) refers to liminality as perhaps the most signifi ca... more In a late, brief essay, Roy Wagner (2018: 85) refers to liminality as perhaps the most signifi cant of Victor Turner's discoveries. Wagner compares liminality to energy, stating that, 'liminality and energy share the same description and can be used interchangeably for that reason. Both are invisible to the unpracticed eye and must be inferred from their eff ect on other things, like quantum singularities [are]'. Calling liminality a discovery is especially provocative, because in anthropology we usually reserve discovery for ethnographic facts that we uncover through the grounds of living of actual peoples. We discover the factual that we can substantiate, at least partially, through ethnography. We are rarely said to discover a concept or a theory, as these are most oft en given the status of meta-propositions and/or epistemologies emerging from research results that are highly conditional on a host of changing factors. By referring to liminality as a discovery, Wagner gives to liminality a factual status, even if, as he maintains, this can only be identifi ed aft er it is gone (like a spark of energy or a bolt of lightning). Nonetheless, by implying factuality to liminality, the inference is that liminality exists. Put more directly, liminality is a phenomenon without phenomenality, paradoxical through and through, existing through traces, like the shadows it casts or the light it projects. Yet if liminality may exist

Research paper thumbnail of Postlude: The Interior Sociality of Self-transformation

Research paper thumbnail of Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events

Man, Dec 1, 1993

First published in 1990 by Cambridge University Press Published in 1998 by Berghahn Books Editori... more First published in 1990 by Cambridge University Press Published in 1998 by Berghahn Books Editorial offices: 55 John Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10038, USA 3, NewTec Place, Magdalen Road, Oxford, OX 4 IRE, UK ©1990, 1998 Don Handelman All rights reserved. No part of ...

Research paper thumbnail of 7. Shaping Time: The Choice of the National Emblem of Israel

Stanford University Press eBooks, 1991

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: Reflexivity and Selfhood

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of 8. Self-Exploders, Self-Sacrifi ce, and the Rhizomic Organization of Terrorism

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Chapter Nine BUREAUCRATIC LOGIC, BUREAUCRATIC AESTHETICS The Opening Event of Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day in Israel

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Leadership, Solidarity and Conflict in West Indian Immigrant Associations

Human Organization, Sep 1, 1967

Research paper thumbnail of Chapter 3 THE EXTENDED CASE Interactional Foundations and Prospective Dimensions

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Myths of creation tend to be especially informative about the organ- ization of cosmology. Such accounts of emergence often bare cosmo- logical principles that, in other kinds of myth, are condensed or summarized. In this regard, Tamil Shaivite conceptions of the divine

acumen, the power of his intellectual grasp, and his willingness to take on and work through any ... more acumen, the power of his intellectual grasp, and his willingness to take on and work through any intellectual challenge. I value serendipity. And that which Jung called synchronicity. My best moments and relationships arrive that way, as unannounced, quiet presences that sometimes are life-changing. My anthropology then and now is to grab onto a strange line of flight and then to hold on for dear life. To wherever. We went and were fascinated. bruce took us through many byways of Sri Lanka and brought me to see, smell, touch, taste, a vibrant corner of South Asia. He had done me a wonderful turn. back in Jerusalem in 1980 a friend told me that I had to meet David Shulman, who had collected and studied Tamil temple myths for his doctorate at SOAS. David was amazing then as he is now, open to everything under the heavens (including the heavens themselves). I was amused to discover that he lived a five-minute walk from my home. David was always supportive, insightful, and encouraging as I slowly found my way through the unfamiliar writings on South Asia, keeping me on track when unwittingly my fantasies took me beyond the possible. David, a poet of the imaginary before he is anything else, is a treasury of knowledge, wisdom, and perception, a polymath by any other name, one who likely thinks that boundaries between academic disciplines are for those who like or need such barriers. Every tyro dreams of such an illuminating guide. The two books we wrote together were a pleasure to do. And every time I write 'then as now' I wonder anew at my good fortune in having friends like these. Reading on South Asia, doing fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, was a strange enjoyment. India fills the senses with imaginings, yet these are imaginings within imaginings, fractal imaginings that are borderless and, for me at least, that curve mind-work inward, involuting, yet involution that is emergent, always re-emerging elsewhere into another angle of an expanding cosmos to which I had not had access before. There follow now

Research paper thumbnail of Blazing the Trail: Way Marks in the Exploration of Symbols. VICTOR TURNER. EDITH TURNER, ed

American Ethnologist, Nov 1, 1996

Research paper thumbnail of Ritual in its own right : exploring the dynamics of transformation

Research paper thumbnail of Moebius Anthropology

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and... more All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Illustrations 3.1. Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. 11.1. Th e Calatrava pylon-parabola at the western entrance to Jerusalem. 273 11.2. Th e Yad Vashem memorial complex with the old Holocaust museum in the background and the new Holocaust museum in the foreground. 11.3. Th e Avenue of the Righteous passing through the new Holocaust museum. 11.4. Th e mall-wall from the Old City wall, looking toward West Jerusalem. 11.5. Th e security wall choppi ng through Palestinian Abu Dis. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Research paper thumbnail of The Manchester School : practice and ethnographic praxis in anthropology

Research paper thumbnail of Celebrations of Bureaucratic Logic: Birthday Parties in Israeli Kindergartens

Research paper thumbnail of Opening Holocaust Remembrance Day: The Bureaucratic Logic and Aesthetics of National Mourning

Research paper thumbnail of Tania Forte's Difference

History & Memory, 2000

Tania Forte valued writing the fictional, the autobiographical, the scientific. She strove to wea... more Tania Forte valued writing the fictional, the autobiographical, the scientific. She strove to weave these routes together in shaping her life's journey through anthropology, though this did not yet emerge in her writing. Here I juxtapose three of Tania's texts that limn these routes, foregrounding her fascination with the fixed and the flowing, with differences between exteriority and interiority, between selves and others, between private and public.

Research paper thumbnail of Expressive Interaction and Social Structure: Play and an Emergent Game Form in an Israeli Social Setting

Research paper thumbnail of Bureaucratic Logic, Bureaucratic Aesthetics

Berghahn Books, Jun 1, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of II. Two Studies: State, Religion and Bureaucracy in Ancient China and Modern Greece Cultural Taxonomy and Bureaucracy in Ancient China: The Book of Lord Shang I

Research paper thumbnail of Liminality: Contemplating the Hypothetically Potent Conjunction of the Social and the Physical

Egalitarian Dynamics: Liminality, and Victor Turner's Contribution to the Understanding of Socio-historical Process, 2024

In a late, brief essay, Roy Wagner (2018: 85) refers to liminality as perhaps the most signifi ca... more In a late, brief essay, Roy Wagner (2018: 85) refers to liminality as perhaps the most signifi cant of Victor Turner's discoveries. Wagner compares liminality to energy, stating that, 'liminality and energy share the same description and can be used interchangeably for that reason. Both are invisible to the unpracticed eye and must be inferred from their eff ect on other things, like quantum singularities [are]'. Calling liminality a discovery is especially provocative, because in anthropology we usually reserve discovery for ethnographic facts that we uncover through the grounds of living of actual peoples. We discover the factual that we can substantiate, at least partially, through ethnography. We are rarely said to discover a concept or a theory, as these are most oft en given the status of meta-propositions and/or epistemologies emerging from research results that are highly conditional on a host of changing factors. By referring to liminality as a discovery, Wagner gives to liminality a factual status, even if, as he maintains, this can only be identifi ed aft er it is gone (like a spark of energy or a bolt of lightning). Nonetheless, by implying factuality to liminality, the inference is that liminality exists. Put more directly, liminality is a phenomenon without phenomenality, paradoxical through and through, existing through traces, like the shadows it casts or the light it projects. Yet if liminality may exist

Research paper thumbnail of Postlude: The Interior Sociality of Self-transformation

Research paper thumbnail of Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events

Man, Dec 1, 1993

First published in 1990 by Cambridge University Press Published in 1998 by Berghahn Books Editori... more First published in 1990 by Cambridge University Press Published in 1998 by Berghahn Books Editorial offices: 55 John Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10038, USA 3, NewTec Place, Magdalen Road, Oxford, OX 4 IRE, UK ©1990, 1998 Don Handelman All rights reserved. No part of ...

Research paper thumbnail of 7. Shaping Time: The Choice of the National Emblem of Israel

Stanford University Press eBooks, 1991

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: Reflexivity and Selfhood

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of 8. Self-Exploders, Self-Sacrifi ce, and the Rhizomic Organization of Terrorism

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Chapter Nine BUREAUCRATIC LOGIC, BUREAUCRATIC AESTHETICS The Opening Event of Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day in Israel

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Leadership, Solidarity and Conflict in West Indian Immigrant Associations

Human Organization, Sep 1, 1967

Research paper thumbnail of Chapter 3 THE EXTENDED CASE Interactional Foundations and Prospective Dimensions

Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Myths of creation tend to be especially informative about the organ- ization of cosmology. Such accounts of emergence often bare cosmo- logical principles that, in other kinds of myth, are condensed or summarized. In this regard, Tamil Shaivite conceptions of the divine

acumen, the power of his intellectual grasp, and his willingness to take on and work through any ... more acumen, the power of his intellectual grasp, and his willingness to take on and work through any intellectual challenge. I value serendipity. And that which Jung called synchronicity. My best moments and relationships arrive that way, as unannounced, quiet presences that sometimes are life-changing. My anthropology then and now is to grab onto a strange line of flight and then to hold on for dear life. To wherever. We went and were fascinated. bruce took us through many byways of Sri Lanka and brought me to see, smell, touch, taste, a vibrant corner of South Asia. He had done me a wonderful turn. back in Jerusalem in 1980 a friend told me that I had to meet David Shulman, who had collected and studied Tamil temple myths for his doctorate at SOAS. David was amazing then as he is now, open to everything under the heavens (including the heavens themselves). I was amused to discover that he lived a five-minute walk from my home. David was always supportive, insightful, and encouraging as I slowly found my way through the unfamiliar writings on South Asia, keeping me on track when unwittingly my fantasies took me beyond the possible. David, a poet of the imaginary before he is anything else, is a treasury of knowledge, wisdom, and perception, a polymath by any other name, one who likely thinks that boundaries between academic disciplines are for those who like or need such barriers. Every tyro dreams of such an illuminating guide. The two books we wrote together were a pleasure to do. And every time I write 'then as now' I wonder anew at my good fortune in having friends like these. Reading on South Asia, doing fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, was a strange enjoyment. India fills the senses with imaginings, yet these are imaginings within imaginings, fractal imaginings that are borderless and, for me at least, that curve mind-work inward, involuting, yet involution that is emergent, always re-emerging elsewhere into another angle of an expanding cosmos to which I had not had access before. There follow now

Research paper thumbnail of Blazing the Trail: Way Marks in the Exploration of Symbols. VICTOR TURNER. EDITH TURNER, ed

American Ethnologist, Nov 1, 1996

Research paper thumbnail of Ritual in its own right : exploring the dynamics of transformation

Research paper thumbnail of Moebius Anthropology

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and... more All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Illustrations 3.1. Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. 11.1. Th e Calatrava pylon-parabola at the western entrance to Jerusalem. 273 11.2. Th e Yad Vashem memorial complex with the old Holocaust museum in the background and the new Holocaust museum in the foreground. 11.3. Th e Avenue of the Righteous passing through the new Holocaust museum. 11.4. Th e mall-wall from the Old City wall, looking toward West Jerusalem. 11.5. Th e security wall choppi ng through Palestinian Abu Dis. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Research paper thumbnail of The Manchester School : practice and ethnographic praxis in anthropology

Research paper thumbnail of Celebrations of Bureaucratic Logic: Birthday Parties in Israeli Kindergartens

Research paper thumbnail of Opening Holocaust Remembrance Day: The Bureaucratic Logic and Aesthetics of National Mourning

Research paper thumbnail of Tania Forte's Difference

History & Memory, 2000

Tania Forte valued writing the fictional, the autobiographical, the scientific. She strove to wea... more Tania Forte valued writing the fictional, the autobiographical, the scientific. She strove to weave these routes together in shaping her life's journey through anthropology, though this did not yet emerge in her writing. Here I juxtapose three of Tania's texts that limn these routes, foregrounding her fascination with the fixed and the flowing, with differences between exteriority and interiority, between selves and others, between private and public.

Research paper thumbnail of Expressive Interaction and Social Structure: Play and an Emergent Game Form in an Israeli Social Setting

Research paper thumbnail of Bureaucratic Logic, Bureaucratic Aesthetics

Berghahn Books, Jun 1, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of Moebius Anthropology: Essays on the Forming of Form

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and... more All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Illustrations 3.1. Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. 11.1. Th e Calatrava pylon-parabola at the western entrance to Jerusalem. 273 11.2. Th e Yad Vashem memorial complex with the old Holocaust museum in the background and the new Holocaust museum in the foreground. 11.3. Th e Avenue of the Righteous passing through the new Holocaust museum. 11.4. Th e mall-wall from the Old City wall, looking toward West Jerusalem. 11.5. Th e security wall choppi ng through Palestinian Abu Dis. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

Research paper thumbnail of One God, Two Goddesses, Three Studies of South Indian Cosmology

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jsrc i-xviii_Handelman_F1.indd 2 6/28... more The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jsrc i-xviii_Handelman_F1.indd 2 6/28/2013 5:46:22 PM This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.