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10%OFFMai Lan Gustafsson - War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam - 9780801475016 - V9780801475016
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War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam

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Description for War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam Paperback. Num Pages: 224 pages, 1. BIC Classification: JFHF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 226 x 153 x 15. Weight in Grams: 310.

War and Shadows is a fascinating book packed with vibrant stories and lucid exploration of their significance. Mai Lan Gustafsson's account of spirit possession in Vietnam is both nuanced and sympathetic. ― Ann Marie Leshkowich, College of the Holy Cross

Vietnamese culture and religious traditions place the utmost importance on dying well: in old age, body unblemished, with surviving children, and properly buried and mourned. More than five million people were killed in the Vietnam War, many of them young, many of them dying far from home. Another 300,000 are still missing. Having died badly, they are thought to have ... Read more

Gustafsson's rich ethnographic research allows her to bring readers into the world of spirit possession, focusing on the source of the pain, the physical and mental anguish the spirits bring, and various attempts to ameliorate their anger through ritual offerings and the intervention of mediums. Through a series of personal life histories, she chronicles the variety of ailments brought about by the spirits' wrath, from headaches and aching limbs (often the same limb lost by a loved one in battle) to self-mutilation. In Gustafsson's view, the Communist suppression of spirit-based religion after the fall of Saigon has intensified anxieties about the well-being of the spirit world. While shrines and mourning are still allowed, spirit mediums were outlawed and driven underground, along with many of the other practices that might have provided some comfort. Despite these restrictions, she finds, victims of these hauntings do as much as possible to try to lay their ghosts to rest.

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Product Details

Format
Paperback
Publication date
2009
Publisher
Cornell University Press United States
Number of pages
224
Condition
New
Number of Pages
224
Place of Publication
Ithaca, United States
ISBN
9780801475016
SKU
V9780801475016
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Mai Lan Gustafsson
Mai Lan Gustafsson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Christopher Newport University.

Reviews for War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam
In this engrossing account of spirit-possession illness caused by war ghosts in and around Ha Noi, Mai Lan Gustafson demystifies what are often perceived as mystical experiences without reducing them entirely to well-worn conceptual tropes. No doubt the book's greatest strength can be found in the vibrant and sympathetic ethnography of the wide cast of social actors involved in spirit ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for War and Shadows: The Haunting of Vietnam


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