Tag Archives: traditional

Miss America speaks about cultural competency

Before an audience of roughly 100 Yale students, faculty, and staff on Feb. 4 in Battell Chapel, Nina Davaluri — Miss America 2014 — shared her goal of spreading cross-cultural understanding and combating ignorance.  

Last September, 24-year old Nina Davaluri became the first woman of South Asian decent to win the Miss America pageant. Following the crowning, some critics called Davaluri a “terrorist” while others stated that she was not “American enough” to represent the United States. Students from the Asian American Cultural Center (AACC) and the South Asian Society (SAS) responded to the racist commentary by organizing a dialogue to promote cross-cultural understanding.  (more…)

Read More

Seasonal awareness a traditional way of life

A celebration of the traditional connections between human lives, the seasons and the natural world form the basis of a new book by University of Exeter academic, Professor Nick Groom.

The book, calledThe Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year’, is an urgent plea for English rural traditions not to be forgotten, and investigates not only how society is becoming cut off from the rhythms of the natural world, but also the ways in which the annual cycle has been celebrated for centuries. (more…)

Read More

UA Celebrates Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month. The UA will celebrate with a variety of events, kicking off on Friday.

The University of Arizona will celebrate Native American Heritage Month starting Friday followed by a full slate of activities, seminars, a film showcase and public television programming.

With one of the largest Native American student populations in the Southwest, the UA has more than 1,000 students who identify as Diné or Navajo, Tohono O’odham, Pascua Yaqui, Hopi, Cherokee and other Native nations. (more…)

Read More

Evolution of Religious Patriarchy as a Mate-Guarding Strategy?

One of the largest and longest studies in a traditional African society sheds light on religious practices and cuckoldry. Genetic data suggest religious patriarchy is directly analogous to the mate-guarding tactics used by animals to ensure paternity.

Religious practices that strongly control female sexuality are more successful at promoting certainty about paternity, according to a study published in the June 4, 2012 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In an interdisciplinary collaboration, a group of researchers around biological anthropologist Beverly Strassmann from the University of Michigan and University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer analyzed genetic data on 1,706 father-son pairs in a traditional African population – the Dogon people of Mali, West Africa – in which Islam, two types of Christianity and an indigenous, monotheistic religion are practiced in the same families and villages. (more…)

Read More