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Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira 1st Edition

by J. Lowell Lewis (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 14 ratings
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Based on eighteen months of intensive participant-observation, Ring of Liberation offers both an in-depth description of capoeira—a complex Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines feats of great strength and athleticism with music and poetry—and a pioneering synthetic approach to the analysis of complex cultural performance.

Capoeira originated in early slave culture and is practiced widely today by urban Brazilians and others. At once game, sport, mock combat, and ritualized performance, it involves two players who dance and "battle" within a ring of musicians and singers. Stunning physical performances combine with music and poetry in a form as expressive in movement as it is in word.

J. Lowell Lewis explores the convergence of form and content in capoeira. The many components and characteristics of this elaborate black art form—for example, competing genre frameworks and the necessary fusion of multiple modes of expression—demand, Lewis feels, to be given "body" as well as "voice." In response, he uses Peircean semiotics and recent work in discourse and performance theory to map the connections between physical, musical, and linguistic play in capoeira and to reflect on the general relations between semiotic systems and the creation and recording of cultural meaning.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0226476839
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0226476834
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    University of Chicago Press
  5. Publication date
    September 15, 1992
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    8.5 x 5.66 x 0.7 inches
  8. Print length
    294 pages
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (September 15, 1992)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 294 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226476839
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226476834
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 5.66 x 0.7 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 14 ratings

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  1. John Lowell Lewis

    John Lowell Lewis

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  2. John Lowell Lewis

    John Lowell Lewis

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    After receiving my Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Washington, I taught there and at several community colleges in the Seattle Area. My initial fieldwork was in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, doing research on the martial dance called capoeira. This research was later published as Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago 1992). This book has proved very popular, both with academics and with capoeira practitioners and is still in print. After leaving Seattle, I taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Amherst College in Massachusetts, before taking up long-term residence at the University of Sydney in Australia. I taught there for nearly twenty years, in Anthropology and Performance Studies, with a brief tenure in Aboriginal Studies. I retired from active teaching in 2008, and now reside in Bellingham, WA where I am looking after my elderly mother. Recently I completed a long term project on performance theory which has now been published by Palgrave Macmillan, entitled The Anthropology of Cultural Performance (2013). This book presents many of the ideas I developed over my teaching career, including sections on ritual, play, work, carnival, embodiment, emplacement, and intercorporeality. One provocative conclusion is that contemporary life in many large-scale societies should not be thought of as 'cultural' in the strong sense, but is instead a 'culture-like' process. I hope readers will enjoy the ideas in this book as much as they have appreciated my earlier work.

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
14 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

G
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good. A bit rough in some ways.
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2012
Verified Purchase
This book remains one of the most complete overviews of Capoeira to the English speaking initiate. It's a good guide for ignorant rookies in that respect. The outsider-looking-in narrative really relates to a lot for the average American jumping feet first into Brazilian sub-culture.

However, I got the impression at times that this book is little more than a reprinted master's thesis. As the phrase goes, "A mile wide and an inch deep". The book does a good job at helping you get into the mindset and tropes present in Capoeira culture. So it will help you understand those invisible rules no one seems to ever tell you about. But beware, its not going to solve every culture clash, political/historical perspective, or ego-game a Mestre is going to throw your way.
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Andreas Lyon (andreaslyon@hotmail.com)
5.0 out of 5 stars Capoeira at the border to Brazil.
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 1999
Yes, I think this book deserves five stars, because it gave me insight; both professional and personal. Training Capoeira for seven years (including two trips to Brazil for the same reason) has taken me to the strange border between two cultures: my own Danish average European socio-historic background, and the Afro-brazilian transcultural vegetation in which Capoeira flourishes. Alouring - and as Lewis notes: deceptive, Capoeira as a performance reveals conflictuality on the Afro-brazilian social and historical level, which differs from the writers own background; in this case quite similar to my case. The task of relating to this difference is met by Ring of Liberation through respect of the ontic 'way' of the capoeirista, and at the same time maintaining an epistemic approach. What this means, is that Ring of Liberation can be read by the intellectual layman as well as the non-brazilian capoeira enthusiast, as a guide to experiences already had or about to happen...great stuff!
23 people found this helpful
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Craig Wiggins (besouro@rocketmail.com)
4.0 out of 5 stars Biased, perhaps, but not an "agenda of subjugation"
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 1999
I used this book, along with a host of other books, transcripts, articles and recordings of capoeira to complete my undergraduate thesis in anthropology. Regarding an earlier post here, i don't think that Lewis was trying to necessarily undermine the black African origins of capoeira, but rather his experiences with capoeiristas around Brazil led him to focus on the wholly Brazilian cultural aspects (samba, too, is a cultural phenomenon with roots in Africa). While i do belive that his treatment of the African origins of capoeira were sketchy, this is to be expected as the data on capoeira's African origins is not very clear, and to the best of my knowledge is to date a matter of conjecture. The only truth regarding that matter is that capoeira did come from Africa with the (primarily West African) slaves and developed into modern capoeira while in Brazil. This last part, "in Brazil", is something that I stress in the sense that although many Caribbean and South American nations received slaves from the same parts of Africa, only Brazil's slaves and mulattos produced capoeira.
More to the point of this type of entry: the book is a definite must-read for anyone (capoeirista or not) interested in the modern expressions of african diasporan culture.
16 people found this helpful
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e. christian felts
4.0 out of 5 stars To date, the finest book on Capoeira in the English language
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 1998
Having played Capoeira for several years it has been a constant problem finding reliable historical and cultural reference. Not speaking Portuguese is a problem, because most books will be written in that language. This book was written by the author to fulfil his research requirements at the University of Chicago and was published by the U of C Press. it is exhaustively researched and candidly honest about both the history of Capoeira and it's modern role in Brazil. It also covers notable personalities who have practiced the style and goes into great detail regarding the music. No techniques are diagramed in this book, but capoeira techniques are very interperative and the only way to really learn them is to play, so the lack of pictures is not really a concern. An amusing sidebar is that this book is sold shrinkwrapped. this means that martial arts dorks who by it to practice pre-rehearsed moves then go out to say that they know Capoeira find themselves out of l! uck when they get home and take the wrapping off. I think that is funny.
4 people found this helpful
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AndrewsV@Harpo.tnstate.edu
2.0 out of 5 stars Another biased account of Capoeira!
Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 1998
Another biased account of Capoeira which lacks the scientific rigor to connect Capoeira with its African roots. Ring of Liberation, attempts to assert Capoeira as a Brazilian art form and strips it of its African roots. Lewis's basic premise traces Capoeira to samba circles in 19th century Brazil. It remains to be seen how Capoeira could develope its fighting elements through urban samba circles in Bahia. Lewis utilizes anthropological jargon to complicate the story of Capoeira, it seems to be a mask to hide his agenda. An agenda which seeks to undermine Capoeira as an empowering agent for its descendants (Africans in the Diaspora). Ring of Liberation should be praised as another book about Capoeira, but severly critisized for its biased nature and cultural disempowering approach!
8 people found this helpful
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Andre Tabanez (atabane@lsu.edu)
4.0 out of 5 stars A nicely writen book about a misterious sport
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 1998
This book brings a good deal of information on the history of capoeira and on the phylosophy behind it. After a few years practicing it, I finally had in my hands some background to understand some of the the principles, and part of the history of this sport. The author apparently has had contact with many mestres, both in Brazil and in the US, and has done quite an intensive survey on historical records, to get to his conclusions. Furthermore, he analyzes capoeira under an anthropological light, giving a scientific taste to the book that we don't find in most publications about it (although I don't agree with some of his interpretations). My only complain is that I would like to see more figures in the book, which would make it more interesting to people with less knowledge on the subject.
5 people found this helpful
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Paolo Andrighetto
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnifico
Reviewed in Italy on October 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
Un saggio storico-antropologico molto profondo, ricco di idee e spunti per capire la semiotica che sta dietro alla Capoeira.
In diversi punti illuminante. Va detto che questo testo ha oltre 20 anni, sicuramente oggi diverse asserzioni potrebbero essere riscritte in modo diverso, più preciso, ma nel complesso forse uno dei migliori testi sull'argomento.
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