Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 19
One interesting parallel to the concept of Nihonjinron is the concept of "blackness" within African-American discourse. There were many articles questioning if Barack Obama was "black enough," and there are quite a few books on the essential nature of black culture (some of which is of high scholarship - --- and some are not). Robert Farris Thompson, for example, in his brilliant book, TANGO, tries a physical language of dance and movement going back to the Bakongo cultures in pre-colonial times, noting that, for one example, the high-kneed strut of a drum major in American marching bands, reflects physical movements that had specific meanings.
Best
Ellis Amdur
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