Don Kulick
Autor de Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession
Obras de Don Kulick
Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on… (1998) 134 copias
A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea (2019) 109 copias
Obras relacionadas
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- male
- Ocupaciones
- professor (anthropology)
- Organizaciones
- New York University (director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality)
Miembros
Reseñas
Listas
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 11
- También por
- 1
- Miembros
- 561
- Popularidad
- #44,552
- Valoración
- 3.9
- Reseñas
- 11
- ISBNs
- 35
- Idiomas
- 2
- Favorito
- 1
At first, the author’s statement that all Papuans not-so-secretly want to be white people was a bit off-putting. As I read further, I understood what he meant – they wanted to be successful, not necessarily turning their back on their race.
I also marveled at the author’s dedication to learning, then transcribing Tayap, the difficult language of Gapun. There are gender-related endings to words, which confused him in the beginning, but then he was able to create a large body of work describing the grammar and vocabulary of the Gapuners. Their language is slowly being replaced by one called Tok Pisin, which is a pidgin version of English. The lamentable reason for this loss of language is that the younger generations don’t wish to learn to speak Tayap – they feel that is for old people and choose to speak Tok Pisin instead. Once the elders of the tribe pass away, so will Tayap, preserved only in the author’s memory and his comprehensive body of work. That seems poignant to me; working so hard to preserve something that is vanishing before your very eyes. The fact that this language was confined to less than 500 humans at the time of writing is mind -boggling. Another poignant thought is that while these villagers were sharing their language with the author, they were also sharing the memories of their lives. As Kulick puts it: “Today, those recordings are all that remains of their stories, songs, and explanations”.
The author relates stories of his time in Gapun, complete with self-deprecating humor and details that will make you cringe (imagine eating grubs or maggots?) or make you smile ( an intrepid youngster dubs himself the “security” guarding the author and subsequently stays by his side zealously).
DEATH OF A LANGUAGE is a wonderfully written book that will make you think about many things -the loss of this language, the circle of life, and the strength of this anthropologist who devoted so much of his life to these villagers.… (más)