The Biology of Culture
Fall 2016 | Volume XVI, Number 1
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
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First Take
First Take: The Biology of Culture
This is the idea behind this issue of ReVista, to explore the connections between the arts and sciences through the lens of the biological aspects of human culture. Biological research is…
From Chocolate to Potatoes
Cacao Biology
Cacao, a tree whose seeds people use to make chocolate, has long been a way for people to understand the world. For pre- Columbian Mesoamericans, cacao linked people to each other, the plants, animals and places around them, and to the divine, the environment seen…
Fungi and Forests
Where we live, where we come from and the organisms that surround us shape our culture. What we eat or do not eat often hints at our deepest ancestral roots. The peoples of the…
Agrobiodiversity as Jazz Improvisation
Yellow and purple maize, a multitude of assorted beans, sculptural manioc and a plethora of potatoes are a vivid illustration of the biodiversity of foods in the open-air markets of Latin America. Even in the supermarket…
Healing, Sacredness and Beyond
Living with Landscapes: The Primacy of Nature
In many places in America, Asia and Europe, your doctor just might pen a “park prescription” urging green space use or send you to a “forest bathing” spa that touts nature’s health benefits…
Indigo in Guatemala
English + Español
The king of dyes and the dye of kings, indigo—that amazing blue dye—is native to Guatemala. Although it is a common belief that the Spanish brought indigo (añil) to the…
The Coolness of Cleansing
Cleanliness has long served as a form of religious devotion—to be cleansed, purified and sanctified grants one access to sacred spaces and certain ritual experiences. At times…
The Biology of Consciousness
Substitute the word biology for psychology, and you’d have my consideration of consciousness—my own curiosity in writing about that subject parallels that of James about…
Building Bridges
Expecting the Unexpected
That morning, we decided to work in a radically different way. No more collecting in the highlands of Chiriquí. No more collecting in the tall grasses around lakes where crocodiles…
Book Talk
A Ditadura Acabada
The timing of the publication of the fifth and final volume of Elio Gaspari’s monumental history of the Brazilian military regime could not be more relevant. It is ironic that his new…
Spinning Mambo into Salsa: Caribbean Dance in Global Commerce
At a fancy yet packed bar in Tokyo’s most cosmopolitan district; at the patio of a bar in Vancouver facing the Canadian Rockies; at a hotel lounge bar overlooking the skyline of…
Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century
In Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century. Educational Goals, Policies and Curricula from Six Nations, Fernando Reimers and Connie K. Chung examine some policy issues in…
Volunteering for a Cause
What happens when researchers look quite simply for “other ways of telling the story?” Silvia Marina Arrom asks this question at the beginning of her deeply researched history of the male…
La danza hostil
La danza hostil revisits an age-old question in political science: how is political power constructed (and re-constructed)? Alberto Vergara tackles this question by examining…
Democratic Transitions: Conversations with World Leaders
The premise of this well-written and absorbing book is that political leaders matter decisively for democratic regime change. Sergio Bitar and Abe Lowenthal conducted face-to-face interviews…
Latin America in International Politics: Challenging US Hegemony
U.S. studies of the international relations of Latin American states and inter-American foreign policy have traditionally been viewed (stuck even) through the prism of U.S. hegemony, in…
Beyond Geopolitics: New Histories of Latin America at the League of Nations
The League of Nations (LN) was founded on January 10, 1920, at the initiative of President Woodrow Wilson who, at the Paris Peace Conference the year before, had put forth a…