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Being and Place among the Tlingit
In Being and Place among the Tlingit, anthropologist Thomas F. Thornton examines the concept of place in the language, social structure, economy, and ritual of southeast Alaska's Tlingit Indians. Place signifies not only a specific geographical location but also reveals the ways in which individuals and social groups define themselves.
The notion of place consists of three dimensions - space, time, and experience - which are culturally and environmentally structured. Thornton examines each in detail to show how individual and collective Tlingit notions of place, being, and identity are formed. As he observes, despite cultural and environmental changes over time, particularly in the post-contact era since the late eighteenth century, Tlingits continue to bind themselves and their culture to places and landscapes in distinctive ways. He offers insight into how Tlingits in particular, and humans in general, conceptualize their relationship to the lands they inhabit, arguing for a study of place that considers all aspects of human interaction with landscape.
In Tlingit, it is difficult even to introduce oneself without referencing places in Lingit Aani (Tlingit Country). Geographic references are embedded in personal names, clan names, house names, and, most obviously, in k-waan names, which define regions of dwelling. To say one is Sheet'ka K-waan defines one as a member of the Tlingit community that inhabits Sheet'ka (Sitka).
Being and Place among the Tlingit makes a substantive contribution to the literature on the Tlingit, the Northwest Coast cultural area, Native American and indigenous studies, and to the growing social scientific and humanistic literature on space, place, and landscape.
eBook
Christopher Columbus's Naming in the 'diarios' of the Four Voyages (1492-1504)
In this fascinating book, Evelina Guzauskyte uses the names Columbus gave to places in the Caribbean Basin as a way to examine the complex encounter between Europeans and the native inhabitants.Guzauskyte challenges the common notion that Columbus's acts of naming were merely an imperial attempt to impose his will on the terrain. Instead, she argues that they were the result of the collisions between several distinct worlds, including the real and mythical geography of the Old World, Portuguese and Catalan naming traditions, and the knowledge and mapping practices of the Taino inhabitants of the Caribbean. Rather than reflecting the Spanish desire for an orderly empire, Columbus's collection of place names was fractured and fragmented - the product of the explorer's dynamic relationship with the inhabitants, nature, and geography of the Caribbean Basin.To complement Guzauskyte's argument, the book also features the first comprehensive list of the more than two hundred Columbian place names that are documented in his diarios and other contemporary sources.
eBook
The place-names of Wales
The Place-Names of Wales was originally published in 1998 and reissued in 2005. This current updated publication adds some 30 places but more importantly takes advantage of recent research. The entry for each place-name provides details of historical forms and dates, analyses each name into its component linguistic elements with meaning, tracks the later linguistic development of the name and the influences upon it particularly within a bilingual society, compares the name with similar names elsewhere and interprets that meaning within the history of Wales and in the local context having regard for the landscape and changing land-use. The introdution, as well as explaining the link between place-names and language, history and landscape, has a section on the significance of place-name study, and a short section to allow non-Welsh speakers to understand some relevant sound-changes.
Book
“Written upon the Stones”: Of the Cyclops, the Shamir and Other Legends of Origin in Benjamin of Tudela’s Book of Travels
This paper examines legends on the origins (aetiologies) of places and placenames in Benjamin of Tudela’s travel account. Origin stories are prevalent in medieval travelogues, but Hebrew travel accounts employ a unique form that is embedded in placenames. Midrash Shem (מדרש שם), as this form is known in Jewish tradition, is the homiletical interpretation of names, typically characterized in some measure by wordplay. I suggest that these legends and placenames serve Hebrew travel literature both as an evidential tool and as an artistic means of expression, contributing to the construction of “known” and “foreign” lands and peoples, and consequently to the formulation of group identities. En route to the foreign and unknown, yet “own”, holy Eretz Yisrael, Benjamin of Tudela encounters Jewish communities and records a variety of aetiologies throughout the Middle East. In retelling the origins of the travelled landscape, he transmits local mythical, theological and historical content as well as particular Jewish-diasporic socio-political realities. Diversely told origins of Roman architecture, scattered across most of Benjamin’s account, show how these local traditions varied. Some aetiologies fuse traditional with foreign content to affirm a sense of belonging under foreign rule, while others actively undermine established non-Jewish narratives or even oppose competing Jewish narratives.
Journal Article
Named Places in Lear's Limericks
(Rather than \"illustrated limericks,\" a term implying subordination of the drawings to the verse, I call them picture-limericks-though sometimes \"limericks\" for short.) Most Lear experts now agree in theory that \"interpretation ripples . . . between picture and text\" (Uglow, p. 155). [...]in what follows, I will demonstrate that Lear's place-names often have mythic, legendary, or historical associations that invite interpretation and enrich or even determine meaning. Since childhood he read travel books (Uglow, p. 25). A close friend and travel companion, Franklin Lushington, recalled that, before going to a country or region, Lear \"studied every book he could lay hands on that would give him . . . information as to its physical characteristics and its history. [...]most of these works have never been subject to analysis.) These places may be categorized as familiar (located in the British Isles), exotic (foreign), and ancient, with torical or associations. The picture seems to catch the crouching objector-to-toads at the commencement of a leap (physical self-projection), which would be selfharming if, as seems likely, he were to land on the raised forks.
Journal Article
Rhetorical Transformation in the Qurʾān and Pre-Islamic Poetry: A Comparative Analysis of Space, Animal, and Natural Figures
This study examines how selected place names, animal figures, and natural elements are used rhetorically in the Qurʾān and pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. It explores the rhetorical strategies associated with these elements, their frequency in pre-Islamic poetry, and their transformation within Qurʾānic discourse. Particular attention is given to how the Qurʾān reinterprets such figures, whether it assigns them new semantic layers, and what depth of meaning these usages convey. The study focuses on the Qurʾān and the Mu’allaqāt—the most prominent collection of pre-Islamic odes—and identifies semantic differences rooted in rhetorical style between the two traditions. While the Qurʾān employs a metaphor- and simile-rich narrative style, pre-Islamic poetry tends toward a direct, descriptive mode of expression. The symbolic function of landscape, animal, and cosmic imagery is analyzed in this context. Pre-Islamic poetry typically portrays the world as it is, often grounding meaning in the immediacy of the desert environment. In contrast, the Qurʾān embeds similar elements within a broader metaphysical framework, imbuing them with theological significance. The central aim is to investigate how the Qurʾān engages with and transforms the literary legacy of pre-Islamic poetry, and what rhetorical mechanisms it employs in this process. Thus, the study contributes to understanding the Qurʾān’s rhetorical structure and narrative method considering its linguistic and cultural context.
Journal Article