Synopses & Reviews
From its traces in cryptic images on the dollar bill to Dan Brownand#8217;s
The Lost Symbol, Freemasonry has long been one of the most romanticized secret societies in the world. But a simple fact escapes most depictions of this elite brotherhood: There are women Freemasons, too. In this groundbreaking ethnography, Lilith Mahmud takes readers inside Masonic lodges in contemporary Italy, where she observes the many ritualistic and fraternal bonds forged among women initiates of this elite and esoteric society.
Offering a tantalizing look behind lodge doors, The Brotherhood of Freemason Sisters unveils a complex culture of discretion in which Freemasons simultaneously reveal some truths and hide others. Womenand#8212;one of Freemasonryand#8217;s best-kept secretsand#8212;are often upper class and highly educated but paradoxically antifeminist, and their self-cultivation through the Masonic path is an effort to embrace the deeply gendered ideals of fraternity. Mahmud unravels this contradiction at the heart of Freemasonry: how it was at once responsible for many of the egalitarian concepts of the Enlightenment and yet has always been, and in Italy still remains, extremely exclusive.and#160; The result is not only a thrilling look at an unfamiliarand#8212;and surprisingly influentialand#8212;world, but a reevaluation altogether of the modern values and ideals that we now take for granted.
Review
and#8220;Evicted from Eternity is, quite simply, one of the finest ethnographies to emerge from research in postwar Europe. . . . Herzfeldand#8217;s meticulous and astute analysis of an urban village sheds light on the remarkable degree of fragmentation that characterizes Italy and its capital. It is also a morality tale for our times. Outstanding.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In this work, Herzfeldand#8217;s exceptional talents as a linguistically sensitive ethnographer and passion for social justice illuminate processes of gentrification in Monti, a neighborhood of Rome near the Colloseum known for artisan workshops, petty thievery, and a vibrant set of social relations wonderfully and cynically impervious to both papal and state authority. Constituting a form of neighborly civility, these relations are losing ground to an encroaching and#8216;civicand#8217; consciousness. By juxtaposing the civil and the civicand#8212;and by exploring the Vaticanand#8217;s and#8216;logic of indulgencesand#8217; as a template for, among other things, condoning violations of the building codeand#8212;Herzfeld transcends old arguments regarding corruption in Italy. A case study of eviction from one apartment complex brings home the tragedy of displacement while exposing a contemporary irony: right-wing political parties have garnered some support among and#8216;redand#8217; working class tenants, disillusioned by the Leftand#8217;s participation, along with the church, in the real estate development of Romeand#8217;s historic center.and#8221;--Jane Schneider, CUNY Graduate Center
Review
"An illuminating immersion in the numerous intricacies compounded in the changing urban dynamics of Monti, Rome's oldest district. . . .and#160;[A] and#160;striking, sophisticated and detailed ethnographic account of the daily aporias encountered in the heart of 'classic Rome.' "
Review
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Review
and#8220;A wonderful bookand#8212;very exciting to read.and#160;Herzfeld has selected the extraordinary historic city of Rome to portray a riveting drama of eviction, class identity, neighborhood solidarity, and place attachment in the face of escalating gentrification.and#160;Housing shortages and the allure of neoliberal market logic have corrupted city officials and owners alike, resulting in a politics of fear of newcomers, the church, and the state. This ethnographerand#8217;s acute grasp of language use and Roman forms of civility produces a rarely seen glimpse of how cultural heritage, real estate interests, and nationalism collide to destroy local residentsand#8217; lives and homes. Both scholars in the social sciences and practitioners in historic preservation and urban planning will enjoy this look into the consequences of neoliberal land use practices.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;
Evicted from Eternity demonstrates the distinctive promise of Europeanist anthropology and its relevance for the discipline more generally. Herzfeldand#8217;s resolute commitment to a refined local ethnographic purview yields a text that is decisively about and#8216;Europe.and#8217;and#160;It is not merely a superb analysis of the famous Monti district of Rome or a contribution to the ethnographic literature on Italy, but the finest ethnography I know of to examine rigorously how the abstract processes of European integration are manifest in the daily lives of its citizens and, in this particular case, discernible in the transformation of virtually every aspect of their emblematic urban landscape.and#160;The text succeeds as a documentary account of contemporary human predicaments, as a moral inquiry into the nature of justice and injustice, and as a passionate narrative imbued with feeling and pathos. Herzfeld has drawn on his formidable scholarly acumen and his vast ethnographic experience to craft an analysis that is truly distinguished.and#160;
Evicted from Eternityand#160;deserves to be acknowledged for what it is: a masterpiece.and#8221;
Review
"Un livre magnifique." Choice
Review
and#8220;A riveting analysis of the women Freemasons in Italy that illuminates the debates about and paradoxes of womenand#8217;s inclusion into a controversial secret and#8216;brotherhood.and#8217; Mahmud initiates us with wisdom into the contradictions of a liberal political philosophy that extols universal brotherhood but is embedded in exclusionary practices of community and ritual based on class, race, and gender. This feminist ethnography is sure to become a classic in the anthropology of Europe.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Beautifully written and staged, Mahmudand#8217;s is an extraordinary work of thinking through fieldwork materials andand#160;experiences. Self-disclosing as havingand#160;produced and#8216;profane ethnography,and#8217; and by finding fraternity with women Freemasons, who were not thought to exist, she advances fresh insights across theand#160;range of topics and issues that have engaged anthropologists, and intellectuals generally, about the presentand#160;morphings of liberal humanism, from within one ofand#160;its most politically conservative expressions.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Mahmudand#8217;s analysis of masculinities and femininities in Freemason societies in Italy reveals brilliantly the power and practices of elite fraternities in contemporary Europe. The book demonstrates how and why feminist ethnographic research can both engage with the micropractices of gender and community making and shed light on larger issues about the role of transparency and secrecy, liberalism and humanism, in making and#8216;Westernand#8217; democracies. This is anthropology at its best: reflexive, engaged, curious, and careful.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Mahmud has crafted a stupendous ethnography of female Freemasonry in Italy. Her writing, sensuously descriptive at one moment and coolly analytical at the next, frames a sophisticated, counterintuitive, but radically persuasive analysis of a modernity that has silenced women even when its self-proclaimed humanism has conditionally included them; and#8216;female brothersand#8217; were as thoroughly excluded from state persecution as they have been belittled by their sometimes well-meaning but condescending male counterparts. Carrying feminist analysis into a resolutely antifeminist female domain to expose the self-satisfaction of liberal European humanism, Mahmudand#8217;s incisive critique does not preclude affection or respect for its targets. Indeed, her sometimes puzzled affection for her highly conservative subjects is one of the bookand#8217;s many attractive strengths, as is the paradoxically revelatory discretion that she, as a talented ethnographer, shared with them. This rare synergy of style, scholarship, and ethical sensibility is a tribute to anthropologyand#8217;s relevance for understanding the paradoxes of modernity.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;I commend this book not only for academic purposes but for anyone seeking a broader understanding of elites. With her bold ethnography, Mahmud delivers an admirable contribution to a growing literature of provincializing Europe and questioning its normative centrality to discourses presumed to have travelled to other locales. Above all this is a further critique of a tendency to discard andlsquo;ethnographic subjectsandrsquo; as not poor enough, not suffering enough, not being marginal enough. By asking andlsquo;What about the unsympathetic subjects of ethnographic studies, whose right-wing or religious views on gender, class, race, sexuality, labor, nationalism, or the military, for instance might push anthropologists to the limits of our own cultural relativism,andrsquo; I take it to be part of a wider question contemporary anthropology faces, the andlsquo;hierarchizationandrsquo; of worthy ethnographic subjects. Mahmud takes a bold stance in answering this question by opening up the conditions of research and delivering a deeply humanistic and attractive ethnography about one of the most powerful global fraternities.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Like all the best ethnographies,
Brotherhood of Freemason Sisters inspires curiosity that increases, rather than diminishes, with the readerandrsquo;s growing sense of discernment.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In
The Brotherhood of Freemason Sisters, Mahmud takes the reader on a journey of discovery that mirrors both her fieldwork experience and the initiation path of the Masons she studies. Her writing is clear and inviting, creating a sense of rapport with the reader as she transitions effortlessly from passages of descriptive narrative, to analysis and theoretical discussion, then personal reflection.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Modern Rome is a city rife with contradictions. Once the seat of ancient glory, it is now often the object of national contempt. It plays a significant part on the world stage, but the concerns of its residents are often deeply parochial. And while they live in the seat of a world religion, Romans can be vehemently anticlerical. These tensions between the past and the present, the global and the local, make Rome fertile ground to study urban social life, the construction of the past, the role of religion in daily life, and how a capital city relates to the rest of the nation.
Michael Herzfeld focuses on Romeand#8217;s historic Monti district and the wrenching dislocation caused by rapid economical, political, and social change. Evicted from Eternity tells the story of the gentrification of Montiand#8212;once the architecturally stunning home of a community of artisans and shopkeepers now displaced by an invasion of rapacious real estate speculators, corrupt officials, dithering politicians, deceptive clerics, and shady thugs. As Herzfeld picks apart the messy story of Montiand#8217;s transformation, he ranges widely over many aspects of life there and in the rest of the city, richly depicting the uniquely local landscape of globalization in Rome.
Synopsis
Shrouded in secrecy and scorned by the general public, Freemasonry has rarely been studied ethnographically. In this book Italian born anthropologist Lilith Mahmud takes us inside this mysterious world for the first time. Focusing on the experiences of the growing number of upper-class Italian women who are joining Masonic lodges, Mahmud reveals how a Masonic identity is formed in the elaborate 33 step initiation rites and how the notion of fraternity remains the ideal for these non-feminist women. Mahmudand#8217;s work is an important contribution to the anthropology of elites in that it shows how enclosed elites orient themselves to public spheres shaped by modern liberaland#160; ideologies of the nation.and#160;and#160; The accountabilities around the conspiratorial define the context in which any elite defines itself to itself and theand#160; public;and#160; the bind between secrecy and developing cultural capital or distinction; being hidden and being envied; being eccentric and being worldly--all ofand#160; these themes are brilliantly addressed by Mahmud through ethnography.
Synopsis
Based on fieldwork conducted over the past fifteen years, Siege of the Spirits is an in-depth ethnography of a tiny community, Pom Mahakan, which dwells at the historic heart of a major metropolis, Bangkok. Pom Mahakan has been targeted for beautification and urban renewal by the city and national governments. The typically poor residents have organized in particular and often paradoxical ways to resist eviction on a large scale. Their protests are couched in the familiar symbolic idiom of the larger movement for the rights of the poor.and#160; But much of that idiom reflects middle-class values and practices. On the one hand, they sought to identify their community with the entire nation and its Buddhist heritage, so that any assault on their integrity could also be represented as an act of treason or sacrilege. Thus claiming the mantle of national history, they invert a scale of legitimacy in which the authorities have tried to place them on the lowest rung. On the other hand, their identification with the official narrative of a state they accuse of ignoring them, and especially with the discourse of reverence for an increasingly controversial and beleaguered establishment, carried serious risks for their future.and#160; Under siege is both their spirit of resilience but also their defense of the spirit shrines threatened with destruction through urban renewal. Herzfeld shows how the residentsandrsquo; claims to represent a microcosm of Thai Buddhist society influence political policy and public opinion. His attempt to arrive at an at least partial understanding of these apparent contradictions leads to the core of Thai ideas about power and into the arenas in which political practices translate those ideas into policies and actions.
About the Author
Michael Herzfeld is professor of anthropology at Harvard University and the author of nine previous books, including, most recently, The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Overture: Encountering the Eternal City
Chapter One: Sin and the City
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Genealogies of Imperfection
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Monti: Paradoxes of Poverty
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Sociable Spaces
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Meeting the People
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Village in the City
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Agonies and Agonistics
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Cadences of a Cultural Preserve
Chapter Two: Popolo and Population
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Artisans
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Shopkeepers
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Intellectuals and Politicians
Chapter Three: The Wages of Sin
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Accountability and Accommodation: Introducing Original Sin
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Original Sinners or Elder Brothers?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Dialectics of Casuistry and Tolerance
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; A Passion for the Past
Chapter Four: Refractions of Social Life
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Segmentation and Subsidiarity
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Civic and the Civil
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Association Life
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Premises of Conflict
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Theaters of Piety and Peculation
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; A Clergy Scorned
Chapter Five: Life and Law in a Flawed State
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Laws and Regulations
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Limits of Law
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The (Disreputable) Origins of Legal Loopholes
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Indulgent Complicities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Forgiveness and Calculation
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Sacred Images and Sinful Spaces
Chapter Six: Scandals of Sociability
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Friends Who Strangle
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Cultivation of Fear
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Restitution and Redemption
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Friends Best Avoided
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; A Family Friend?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Local Narratives: Swaggering Victims
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Credit and Default
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Banking on Fear
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Tactful Silences
Chapter Seven: Extortionate Civilities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Accommodations Civil and Civic
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Discommoding Complicities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Uncivil Pleasantries, Unpleasant Civilities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Culture and Custom
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Peaceful Politics
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Condominial Civilities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Lessons in Civic Civility
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Spatial and Stylistic Violence
Chapter Eight: The Fine Art of Denunciation
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Logic of Denunciation
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Performances of Policing
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Fractured Authority: The Multiplicity of Policing
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Extorting Coffee and Campari
Chapter Nine: Tearing the Social Fabric
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Renters and Owners
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Lawyers and Illegalities
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Eviction and Evasion: The High Stakes of Time and Place
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Gentrification and the Last Frontier
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Endgame
Epilogue: The Future of Eternity
Notes
References
Index