Undressing Religion Commitment and Conversion from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

by Arthur, Linda B.

• ISBN13: 9781859734803
• ISBN10: 1859734804
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-01
• Publisher: Berg Pub Ltd

Summary

From Islam to Confucianism to Voodoo, dress plays a pivotal role in religious expression. This book investigates how dress symbolically evidences both religious and social systems across a wide range of cultures - from Africa and South America to Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Caribbean. In some of these cultures, dress is part of a system of social control. Gender issues feature prominently since the control of female sexuality is often of great importance to the world's religions. Members of each ethno-religious group actively construct their own lives, and use dress symbolically. A central tenet for many of these groups is that the soul is visually manifested on the body through dress. Drawing on rich ethnographic case studies, this wide-ranging and interdisciplinary volume represents a major contribution to the study of both religion and dress.

Author Biography

Linda B. Arthur is a Professor and Department Chair, Apparel Merchandising and Interior Design, at Washington State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Note on Contributors	ix
List of Illustrations	xiii
Introduction	1	(6)
Cloth and Conversion: Yoruba Textiles and Ecclesiastical Dress	7	(18)
Elisha P. Renne
Minkisi Do Not Die; BaKongo Cosmology in the Christian Rituals of Simon Kimbangu and Simon Mpadi	25	(20)
Shannen Hill
Dressing the Divine Horsemen: Clothing as Spirit Identification in Haitian Vodou	45	(20)
Susan Tselos
Christianity, Cloth, and Dress in the Andes	65	(18)
Lynn A. Meisch
Clothed with Authority: The Rationalization of Marist Dress-Culture	83	(18)
William J. F. Keenan
Confucianism Manifested in Korean Dress from the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries	101	(12)
Inwoo Chang
Haekyung L. Yu
Islamic Religion and Women's Dress Code: The Islamic Republic of Iran	113	(18)
Faegheh Shirazi
The Afghan Woman's Chaadaree: An Evocative Religious Expression?	131	(16)
M. Catherine Daly
Sartorial Entanglements of a Gujarati Wife	147	(22)
Emma Tarlo
Veiling and Unveiling: Reconstructing Malay Female Identity in Singapore	169	(14)
Joseph Stimpfl
Continuation and Change in Tenganan Pegeringsingan, Bali	183	(18)
L. Kaye Crippen
Patricia M. Mulready
School Uniforms as a Symbolic Metaphor for Competing Ideologies in Indonesia	201	(16)
Linda B. Arthur
Index	217