Introduction.

Introduction. On a summer day in 1995, an Indian newspaper shocked the world withnews of the abduction of five foreign tourists by Kashmiri militants.Two of the tourists were eventually found dead. The body of one of thembore the name of the militant group carved in its flesh. The crime wasindeed ghastly--but it was also curious and thought provoking. What didit mean for these militants to write their name in the body of theircaptive? Did "writing" on this particular body signifyconquest? The act suggested a new consciousness about writing and achanged stance toward its very nature. The event prompted my exploration of the different schools ofthought about writing in the past few years. Jack Goody, ananthropologist and a pioneer of the field of literacy studies, hasconsistently given priority to understanding the role that writtencommunication has played within contemporary societies in the emergence,development, and organization of social and cultural institutions, i.e.religion, law, commerce, bureaucracy, and the state (Goody 1977, 1986,1987). Literacy studies following Goody have, however, branched out inmany directions. In the field of language socialization socialization/so��cial��iza��tion/ (so?shal-i-za��shun) the process by which society integrates the individual and the individual learns to behave in socially acceptable ways. so��cial��i��za��tionn. , Elinor Ochs andAlessandro Duranti have shown how literacy studies are the key factor inthe language socialization of young children (Ochs and Duranti 1995).Niko Besnier's ethnography has analyzed the changing concept ofpersonhood per��son��hood?n.The state or condition of being a person, especially having those qualities that confer distinct individuality: "finding her own personhood as a campus activist" that accompanies the acquisition of literacy (Besnier 1995).In the case of ancient Greece, Michael Herzfeld has shown that claimsfor civilization were closely tied to literacy (Herzfeld 1989). WilliamSmalley's work among the Hmong community is a classic case study ofpolitics and nationalism in literacy studies illustrating thecommunity's quest for a new writing system in a wake of a politicalupheaval (Smalley 1990). The interface between literacy and gender has also been productive.Nushu, the writing system used solely by women in China, has attractedthe attention of feminist anthropologists (Liu 2004), and a recentinnovative ethnography on female literacy in Nepal describes literacy asan agent of power, as a new generation of women now choose life partnersthrough written correspondence, thus moving away from traditionalarranged marriages (Ahearn 2001). The body as a trope trope?n.1. A figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.2. A word or phrase interpolated as an embellishment in the sung parts of certain medieval liturgies. of analysis is not unknown in studies oflanguage. William Hanks's research on the cultural definition ofthe living body in Maya, including its orientation and space usage,illustrates the consequences of social relations for conversationalpractice in Maya (Hanks 2000). Joao Biehl has shown theinterconnectedness among language, writing, and the body in hisportrayal of Catarina, a mentally ill woman confined in"Vita," an asylum in Brazil (Biehl 2005:21). Catarina's"dictionary," a book in which she records down words orphrases, gives the reader a view into her world. Using Catarina'swriting, Biehl challenges common perceptions of the "mentallyill" in Brazil. This collection of essays represents a departure from the worksnoted above and argues that writing using any known letter forms on thehuman body elevates those signs and places them outside of the realm ofeveryday literacy. In making this argument, the essays approach thediscourse on literacy in a different light. The human body is a spacethat mirrors subjective will and desire, and imposing a known alphabeton that very personal space assumes a meaning that is larger than theletters themselves for the reader. The process of writing on the fleshcan be painful and long, and difficult, but that difficulty becomes anintegral part of the meaning of the letters. This altered meaning--aletter on the skin as opposed to simply a letter--influences theenvironment in which the writing is being produced. Both Susan Phillipsand Daphne Lei take this position in their essays on popular culture.Each argues that letters inscribed on the body have an elevated meaning. Yet another approach to power in literacy is found in the essay onreligion. I argue that in a case in which the shapes of letters resembleparts of the human body, the letters convey meanings that are largerthan the phonetic symbols they represent. Sacred letters are divine inorigin but are read by human beings. Therefore the visual forms of theseletters are not conceived of as written, or carved by human hands, withany explicitly stated intentions, but are read with the belief that theyare a gift of the divine. The letters ascribe sacred meanings to thebody parts they resemble at the same time that the body gives newmeaning to the letters. In "Crip Walk, Villan Dance, Pueblo Stroll: The Embodiment ofWriting in African American African AmericanMulticulture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.See Race. Gang Dance," Susan Phillips challengesthe notion of conventional writing. She proposes a new definition ofliteracy that combines traditional writing and physical movements.Watching gang members in Los Angeles "dance the letters," sheobserves a new manifestation of traditional dualities of mind/body,civilized/savage, written/oral. Her study of gang dance both challengesand reinforces these dualities. Gang dancing, as an embodied expression,emphasizes orality, but at the same time the dancing is embedded in thecontext of the gang's distinctive writing system. She concludesthat the gang members have created "writing" with their bodiesnot to claim legitimacy in the world of mainstream writing, i.e. amongthe elite, but as their own individual style of expression. She leads usto question whether alienation from mainstream society stimulatesmimicry mimicry,in biology, the advantageous resemblance of one species to another, often unrelated, species or to a feature of its own environment. (When the latter results from pigmentation it is classed as protective coloration. among the gang members, as if they are using their own form ofexpression to mock conventional writing. In "The Blood Stained Text in Translation: Tattooing, BodilyWriting, and Performance of Chinese Virtue," Daphne Lei proposes adifferent cultural commentary on tattoos. She shows how the culturalmeaning of tattoos has shifted over time in China. She notes that, inChina, tattooing has had a performative per��for��ma��tive?adj.Relating to or being an utterance that peforms an act or creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering aspect. Lei expands thedefinition of writing by including a woman's body as the site for arange of expressive practices, such as hair cutting and mutilation MutilationSee also Brutality, Cruelty.Mutiny (See REBELLION.)Absyrtushacked to death; body pieces strewn about. [Gk. Myth.: Walsh Classical, 3]Agatha, St.had breasts cut off. [Christian Hagiog. . Sheobserves that the meaning and significance of writing depends on thegendered body. While on the male body, carving or tattooing signifiesvirtue or bravery, mutilation of the female body usually signifies"female" virtues such as chastity. On stage, however, awoman's "blood writing" usually takes place outside ofthe body to guarantee beauty and sensuality in performance. She alsoobserves that literacy, like the female body, is owned by men.Lei's fascinating study concludes with an illustration of thegender politics of writing on the body in the Chinese diaspora. In thatcontext, she problematizes the notion of authenticity and representationby discussing an evocative tattooing incident from Maxine HongKingston's Woman Warrior. In "Writing the Body: Cosmology, Orthography, and Fragments ofModernity in Northeastern India," I address the scenario that thenotion of the body in this specific religious and cultural context wasstrong enough for people to make a specific orthographic choice. Ifurther explore how Indians used the language of science to promote theorthography to the secular nation-state of India. I argue that in thechildren's alphabet books of the Indian nation-state, the cosmologyof the body was later translated into the "secularcosmology"' of orthography. The philosophy of the sacredmanuscript from which the cosmology is taken is "translated"into images and names, as the phonetic names of the alphabet arereplaced by the names of the body parts and accompanied by theirpictures. The three essays are drawn from different fields both within andoutside the bounds of traditional anthropology. However, they all sharecommon concerns about literacy and bodily forms. The interdisciplinarynature of this collective broadens our view of issues that concernanthropology and related fields, especially when we see Chinese Hantattoos speak the same language of deprivation and violence as theembodied literacy of gang members. All of these themes contribute to thestudy of writing in various communities from the perspective of thebody, thus opening new vistas for collaboration and expanding themeaning and relevance of anthropological research. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The articles in this collective were originally presented in apanel I had organized in the Humanities Research Institute, Universityof California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). , Irvine in Fall 2002. I am grateful to the Institute forthe financial support in bringing the participants together. Later,Michael Herzfeld's guidance was invaluable in finding venues ofpublication. My sincerest thanks are to Roy Richard Grinker Roy Richard Grinker (born 1961) is an author and Professor of Anthropology, International Affairs, and Human Sciences at The George Washington University.[1]Grinker is an authority on North and South Korean relations. for his wiseadvice at various stages and the editorial staff of AnthropologicalQuarterly for successfully overseeing the project to completion. Idedicate this collective to the memory of William Bright (1928-2006),noted linguist and anthropologist whose mentorship and friendship was ablessing to my career. He encouraged me to start this project but didnot live to see it in print. REFERENCES Ahearn, Laura. 2001. Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters,and Social Change in Nepal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. Press. Besnier, Niko. 1995. "Literacy, Emotion, and Authority:Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll." Studies in the Socialand Cultural Foundations of Language, p.16. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . Biehl, Joao. 2005. Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment.Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press "UC Press" redirects here, but this is also an abbreviation for University of Chicago PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. . Goody, Jack. 1977. The Domestication domesticationProcess of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into forms more accommodating to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. of the Savage Mind. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. --. 1986. The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. --. 1987. The Interface between the Written and the Oral.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanks, William F. 2000. Intertexts: Writings on Language,Utterance, and Context. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Herzfeld, Michael. 1989. Anthropology through the Looking Glass:Critical Ethnography in the Margins of Europe. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. Liu, Fei-Wen. 2004. "From Being to Becoming: Nushu andSentiments in a Chinese Rural Community." American Ethnologist eth��nol��o��gy?n.1. The science that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.2. 31(3):422-439. Ochs, Elinor and Alessandro Duranti. 1995. "Change andTradition in Literacy Instruction in a Samoan American Community."Educational Foundations 9(4):57-74. Smalley, William. 1990. Mother of Writing: The Origin andDevelopment of a Hmong Messianic Script. Chicago: The University ofChicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including . Sohini Ray Santa Monica College