Thicker Than Water

Thicker Than Water
Author: Melissa Meyer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135342008

Blood is more than a fluid solution of cells, platelets and plasma. It is a symbol for the most basic of human concerns--life, death and family find expression in rituals surrounding everything from menstruation to human sacrifice. Comprehensive in its scope and provocative in its argument, this book examines beliefs and rituals concerning blood in a range of regional and religious contexts throughout human history. Meyer reveals the origins of a wide range of blood rituals, from the earliest surviving human symbolism of fertility and the hunt, to the Jewish bris, and the clitoridectomies given to young girls in parts of Africa. The book also explores how cultural practices influence gene selection and makes a connection with the natural sciences by exploring how color perception influences the human proclivity to create blood symbols and rituals.

Rituals Of Blood

Rituals Of Blood
Author: Orlando Patterson
Publisher: Civitas Books
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1999-12-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781582430393

In the first essay, Patterson analyzes the very latest survey data to delineate the different attitudes, behaviors, and circumstances of Afro-American men and women, dissecting both the external and internal causes for the great disparities he finds.In the second essay, Patterson focuses on the lynching of Afro-American boys and men during the decades after Reconstruction, particularly on the substantial number of cases that constituted apparent ritual human sacrifice. As no one has done before, Patterson reveals how the complex interplay between Christian sacrificial symbolism and the deep recesses of post-bellum Southern culture resulted in some of the most shameful, barbaric events in American history.The third essay brings us into the late twentieth century, with an investigation of the various images of Afro-American men portrayed by the media. From the demigod (Michael Jordan) to the demon (Colin Ferguson) to the demigod-turned-demon (O. J. Simpson) and the crossers of racial and gender boundaries (Michael Jackson and Dennis Rodman)—all contribute to the cultural complications of our contemporary society.Rituals of Blood advances Patterson's new model of ethnic relations that opens American society to a new and freer dialogue.

Blood Ritual

Blood Ritual
Author: Philip De Vier
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2001
Genre: Antisemitic literature
ISBN: 9780937944158

Blessings of the Blood

Blessings of the Blood
Author: Celu Amberstone
Publisher: Rituals
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-06-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781990581038

"I have heard a call across a million years. I will answer it." Here is a book of women's rituals surrounding and embracing menstruation. With sensitivity, author Celu Amberstone gathers prayers and spiritual experiences from women celebrating their bodies and their profoundly personal experiences. Readers looking to support personal identity and strengthen a sense of community will find much of interest in Blessings of the Blood: a Book of Menstrual Lore and Rituals for Women. "May the works of your hands and the meditations of your heart be healing." This edition is a new release of a celebrated book previously released in 1991 from Beach Holme Press. For years, readers eagerly sought the book through used book dealers. Celu Amberstone and Kashallan Press are proud to release this new edition by popular request. Blessings of the Blood is available in an affordable ebook version for the first time, to complement the handsome trade paperback. For anyone interested in possibly feeling better about their blood, I highly recommend the book "Blessings Of The Blood" By Celu Amberstone. It is a wonderful book with personal stories of menarche, menopause and creativeness. It really opened my eyes to just how sacred and beautiful our blood is. -review on Mum website This is one of the best books on the subject of menstruation, and I wish they would reissue Celu's masterpiece! Filled with anecdotes, storytelling and empathy. -SMB, review on Amazon

Blood Libel

Blood Libel
Author: Hannah Johnson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2021-03-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0472902547

The ritual murder accusation is one of a series of myths that fall under the label blood libel, and describes the medieval legend that Jews require Christian blood for obscure religious purposes and are capable of committing murder to obtain it. This malicious myth continues to have an explosive afterlife in the public sphere, where Sarah Palin's 2011 gaffe is only the latest reminder of its power to excite controversy. Blood Libel is the first book-length study to analyze the recent historiography of the ritual murder accusation and to consider these debates in the context of intellectual and cultural history as well as methodology. Hannah R. Johnson articulates how ethics shapes methodological decisions in the study of the accusation and how questions about methodology, in turn, pose ethical problems of interpretation and understanding. Examining recent debates over the scholarship of historians such as Gavin Langmuir, Israel Yuval, and Ariel Toaff, Johnson argues that these discussions highlight an ongoing paradigm shift that seeks to reimagine questions of responsibility by deliberately refraining from a discourse of moral judgment and blame in favor of an emphasis on historical contingencies and hostile intergroup dynamics.

Blood Sacrifice and the Nation

Blood Sacrifice and the Nation
Author: Carolyn Marvin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1999-03-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521626095

This compelling book argues that American patriotism is a civil religion of blood sacrifice, which periodically kills its children to keep the group together. The flag is the sacred object of this religion; its sacrificial imperative is a secret which the group keeps from itself to survive. Expanding Durkheim's theory of the totem taboo as the organizing principle of enduring groups, Carolyn Marvin uncovers the system of sacrifice and regeneration which constitutes American nationalism, shows why historical instances of these rituals succeed or fail in unifying the group, and explains how mass media are essential to the process. American culture is depicted as ritually structured by a fertile center and sacrificial borders of death. Violence plays a key part in its identity. In essence, nationalism is neither quaint historical residue nor atavistic extremism, but a living tradition which defines American life.

Blood Ritual

Blood Ritual
Author: Frances Gordon
Publisher: Headline Book Pub Limited
Total Pages: 498
Release: 1994
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780747248071

Legacy of Blood

Legacy of Blood
Author: Elissa Bemporad
Publisher:
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190466456

In Legacy of Blood, Elissa Bemporad traces the legacies of the two most extreme manifestations of tsarist antisemitism-pogroms and blood libels-in the Soviet Union, from 1917 to the early 1960s. By exploring the phenomenon and the memory of anti-Jewish violence under the Bolsheviks, this book sheds light on the changing position of Jews in Stalinist society.