Richard J. Parmentier
Brown 221, Office Hours: Sabbatical Fall 2008.
Department of Anthropology
Brandeis University
P.O. Box 549110, MS 006
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
rparmentier@brandeis.edu
(781) 736-2220
AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
Semiotic anthropology. Historical anthropology. Linguistic anthropology. Oceania. Middle Ages.
Background and Description
Richard J. Parmentier is a cultural anthropologist specializing in semiotic approaches to language and material culture. After undergraduate training in anthropology at
BOOKS
Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives. Elizabeth Mertz and Richard J. Parmentier, eds. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1985.
The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
The Pragmatic Semiotics of Cultures (Special issue of Semiotica 116:1). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997.
ARTICLES AND COMMENTS
Richard Felciano's Sic Transit. The Diapason, April, p. 14, 1971.
The Mythological Triangle: Poseyemu, Montezuma, and Jesus in the Pueblos. In Alfonso Ortiz, ed., Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 9, Southwest, pp. 609-622. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1979.
House Affiliation Systems in Belau. American Ethnologist 11 (1984): 656-676.
Diagrammatic Icons and Historical Processes in Belau. American Anthropologist 87 (1985): 840-852.
Semiotic Mediation: Ancestral Genealogy and Final Interpretant. In Elizabeth Mertz and Richard J. Parmentier, eds., Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives, pp. 359-385. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1985.
Signs' Place in Medias Res: Peirce's Concept of Semiotic Mediation. In Elizabeth Mertz Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological, pp. 23-48. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1985. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
Times of the Signs: Modalities of History and Levels of Social Structure in Belau. In Elizabeth Mertz and Richard J. Parmentier, eds., Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives, pp. 131-154. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1985.
Mythological Metaphors and Historical Realities: Models of Transformation of Belauan Polity. Journal of the Polynesian Society 95 (1985): 167-193.
Tales of Two Cities: The Rhetoric of Rank in Ngeremlengui, Belau. Journal of Anthropological Research 42 (1986): 161-182.
Puffery and Pragmatics, Regulation and Reference: Aspects of the emiotics of Advertising. Working Papers and Proceedings of the Center for Psychosocial Studies no. 36, 1986.
Peirce Divested for Non-Intimates. RS/SI: Recherches Semiotique/Semiotic Inquiry 7 (1987): 19-39. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
Transactional Symbolism in Belauan Mortuary Rites: A Diachronic Study. Journal of the Polynesian Society 97 (1988): 281-312. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
Disciplining Semiotics. Semiotica 74 (1989): 110-120.
Naturalization of Convention: A Process in Social Theory and in Social Reality. Comparative Social Research 11 (1989): 279-299. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
(with Laurie J. Lucking) Terraces and Traditions of Uluang: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on a Prehistoric Belauan Site. In Rosalind L. Hunter-Anderson, ed., Recent Advances in Micronesian Archaeology. Micronesica 19 (1990): 91-94.
Tropical Semiotics: Global, Local, and Discursive Contexts of Symbolic Obviation. Semiotica 79 (1990): 167-195. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
The Rhetoric of Free Association and Palau's Political Struggle. The Contemporary Pacific 3 (1991): 146-158.
Signs and History in Belau. Pacific Studies 14 (1991): 169-180.
Belau. In Terence H. Hays, ed., Encyclopedia of World Cultures, vol. 2: Oceania, pp. 24-27. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
The Political Function of Reported Speech: A Belauan Example. In John Lucy, ed., Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics, pp. 261-286. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
The Semiotic Regimentation of Social Life. Semiotica 95 (1993): 357-95. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
Comparison, Pragmatics, and Interpretation in the Comparative Philosophy of Religions. In Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy, eds., Religion and Practical Reason: New Essays in the Comparative Philosophy of Religions, pp. 407-40. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. [Revised version in Signs in Society.]
Comment on A. Martin Myers, "Symboling and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic Transition: A Theoretical and Methodological Critique." Current Anthropology 35 (1994): 388-89.
Haole-ing in the Wind: On the Rhetoric of Identity Anthropology. Anthropological Quarterly 69:4 (1996): 220-230.
(with Helen Kopnina-Geyer) Miklouho-Maclay in Palau, 1876. Isla: A Journal of Micronesian Studies 4:1 (1996): 71-108.
Troublesome Signs in Sociocultural Semiotics. Proceedings of the Conference on Intelligent Systems and Semiotics: A Learning Perspective. Gaithersburg, Maryland: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1997.
Charles S. Peirce. In Jef Verschueren et al., eds., Handbook of Pragmatics, pp. 1-18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1997.
Representing Semiotics in the New Millennnium. Semiotica 142 –1/4 (2002): 291-314.
Money Walks, People Talk: Systemic and Transactional Dimensions of Palauan Exchange. L’Homme 162 (2002): 49-80.
Mikronesien, religionsgeschichtlich. Die Religion in Geschiche und Gegenwart, vol. 5. Tubingen: Mohn Siebeck, 2002.
Thomas A. Sebeok. In Vered Amit, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Anthropology, pp. 452-454. (Routledge, 2003)
Description and Comparison of Religion. History of Religions 43 (2004): 233-245.
Semiotic Anthropology. Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Second Edition), Linguistic Anthropology (ed. Michael Silverstein). Elsevier:
It's About Time: On the Semiotics of Temporality. Language & Communication 27 (2007): 272-277.
BOOK REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTES
Review of DeVerne Reed Smith, Palauan Social Structure (Rutgers University Press, 1983). Journal of the Polynesian Society 93 (1984): 217-220.
Review of Milton Singer, Man's Glassy Essence: Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology (Indiana University Press, 1984). Anthropological Linguistics 26 (1984): 457-461.
Review of Joel Sherzer, Kuna Ways of Speaking: An Ethnographic Perspective (University of Texas Press, 1983). American Ethnologist 12 (1985): 161-162.
Review of John Deely, Brooke Williams, and Felicia E. Kruse, eds., Frontiers in Semiotics (Indiana University Press, 1986). Poetics Today 7 (1986): 771-772.
Review of Robert Borofsky, Making History: Pukapukan and Anthropological Constructions of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Anthropological Quarterly 23 (1989): 49-50.
Review of Celio Ferreira, Palauan Cosmology: Dominance in a Traditional Micronesian Society (Gothenburg Studies in Social Anthropology, 1987). Oceania 59 (1989): 312-314.
Review of David Hanlon, Upon a Stone Altar: A History of the Island of Pohnpei to 1890 (University of Hawaii Press, 1987). Journal of the Polynesian Society 98 (1989): 472.
Review of Roger M. Keesing, Melanesian Pidgin and the Oceanic Substrate (Stanford University Press, 1988). Ethnohistory 37 (1990): 337-338.
Review of John Doe, Speak Into the Mirror: A Story of Linguistic Anthropology (University Press of America, 1988). Language in Society 19:1 (1990): 91-93.
Review of Jerome Feldman and Donald H. Rubenstein, eds., The Art of Micronesia (University of Hawaii Art Gallery, 1986). Pacific Studies 14 (1991): 178-182.
Review of William Roseberry, Anthropologies and Histories: Essays in Culture, History, and Political Economy (Rutgers University Press, 1989). APLA Newsletter 14 (1991): 25-26.
(with Craig Davis) Review of William Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (University of Chicago Press, 1990). APLA Newsletter 14 (1991): 6-8.
Review of Karol Janicki, Toward Non-Essentialist Sociolinguistics (Mouton de Gruyter, 1990). Language in Society 20:4 (1991): 644-647.
Review of John Deely, Basics of Semiotics (Indiana University Press, 1990). American Anthropologist 93 (1991): 965-966.
Review of J. Joseph Errington, Structure and Style in Javanese: A Semiotic View of Linguistic Etiquette (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 1 (1991): 232-234.
Review of Alan Howard and Robert Borofsky, eds., Developments in Polynesian Ethnology (University of Hawaii Press, 1989). Oceania (1991): 275-726.
Review of Debbora Battaglia, On the Bones of the Serpent: Person, Memory, and Mortality in Sabarl Island Society (University of Chicago Press, 1990). Oceania 62 (1991): 75-76.
Review of Arthur Grimble, Tungaru Traditions: Writings on the Atoll Culture of the Gilbert Islands (University of Hawaii Press, 1989). Oceania 62 (1991): 76-78.
Review of Harald Haarmann, Language in Its Cultural Embedding: Explorations in the Relativity of Signs and Sign Systems (Mouton de Gruyter, 1990). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2 (1991): 250-252.
Review of Nicholas Thomas, Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 1989). Pacific Studies 15 (1991): 135-142.
Review of Deryck Scarr, The History of the Pacific Islands: Kingdoms of the Reef (Macmillan Australia, 1990). Pacific Affairs 65 (1992): 137-138.
Review of James A. Boon, Affinities and Extremes (University of Chicago Press, 1990). Anthropological Quarterly 65 (1992): 158-159.
Review of Frederick H. Damon, From Muyuw to the Trobriands: Transformations Along the Northern Side of the Kula Ring (University of Arizona Press, 1990). Sojourn: Social Issues in Southeast Asia 7 (1992): 154-157.
Review of Pascal Boyer, Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse (Cambridge University Press, 1990). American Ethnologist 20 (1993): 191-192.
Review of Penelope J. Corfield, ed., Language, History and Class (Basil Blackwell, 1991). American Ethnologist 20 (1993): 197-198.
Review of Nicholas Thomas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific (Harvard University Press, 1991). American Historical Review February (1993): 224-225.
Review of Geoffrey M. White, Identity Through History: Living Stories in a Solomon Island Society (Cambridge University Press, 1991). Ethnohistory 40 (1993): 510-512.
Review of Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford University Press, 1992). History of Religions 33 (1994): 92-94.
Review of Gananath Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific (Princeton University Press, 1992). The Contemporary Pacific Spring (1994): 238-240.
Review of Robert W. Heffner, ed., Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (University of California Press, 1992). Journal of Religion 74 (1994): 275-276.
Book note on Myrdene Anderson and Floyd Merrell, eds., On Semiotic Modeling (Mouton de Gruyter, 1991). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 4 (1994): 115.
Review of Maurice Bloch, Prey Into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1992). History of Religions 34 (1994): 96-97.
Review of Lin Poyer, The Ngatik Massacre: History and Identity on a Micronesian Atoll (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993). The Contemporary Pacific Spring (1994): 204-206.
Review of Nancy Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity (University of Chicago Press, 1992). History of Religions 35 (1995): 89-91.
Review of Bruce M. Knauft, South Coast New Guinea Cultures: History, Comparison, Dialectic (Cambridge University Press, 1993). Ethnohistory 42:2 (1995): 321-322.
Review of Lynn B. Wilson, Speaking to Power: Gender and Politics in the Western Pacific (Routledge, 1995). American Ethnologist 22 (1995): 1035-1037.
Review of Klaus Newmann, Not the Way It Really Was: Constructing the Tolai Past (University of Hawaii Press, 1992). American Ethnologist 22 (1995): 1036-1037.
Review of Hijikata Hisakatsu, Society and Life in Palau (Sasakawa Peace Foundation, 1993). ISLA: A Journal of Micronesian Studies 3:1 (1995): 83-85.
Review of Andrew Strathern, Landmarks: Reflections on Anthropology (Kent State University Press, 1993). Anthropological Quarterly 68:4 (1995): 242-244.
Review of Pascal Boyer, The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion (University of California Press, 1994). Journal of Religion 76 (1996): 151-152.
Review of Martha Kaplan, Neither Cargo Nor Cult: Ritual Politics and the Colonial Imagination in Fiji (Duke University Press, 1995). American Anthropologist 98:3 (1996): 54-55.
Review of Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship (Oxford University Press, 1994). History of Religions 36:2 (1996): 166-167.
Review of Niko Besnier, Literacy, Emotion, and Authority: Reading and Writing on a Polynesian Atoll (Cambridge University Press, 1995). American Anthropologist 99:3 (1997).
Review of Tony Swain and Garry Trompf, The Religions of Oceania (Routledge, 1995). Journal of Religion 77:4 (1997): 666-67.
Review of Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache (University of New Mexico Press, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 7:1 (1997): 136-138.
Review of George W. Stocking, Jr., After Tylor: British Social Anthropology 1888-1951 (Wisconsin, 1995). Anthropological Quarterly 70:3 (1997): 155.
Review of Charles L. Briggs, ed., Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality (Oxford University Press, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 244-245.
Book note of Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating Our Past: The Social Construction of Oral History (Cambridge, 1995). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 249.
Book note of Robert Ford Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (SUNY, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 248-249.
Review of Steven Roger Fischer, Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script (Clarendon Press, 1997). Easter Island Journal of Linguistic Anthropology [in press].
Review of Webb Keane, Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society (University of California Press, 1997). Oceania 68:2 (1997): 142-143.
Review of Richard Handler and Eric Gable, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (Duke University Press, 1997). Anthropological Quarterly 71:3 (1998): 156-157.
Review of Raymond Firth, Religion: A Humanist Interpretation (Routledge, 1996). History of Religions 38:1 (1998): 90-91.
Review of Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache (University of New Mexico Press, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:1 (1997): 136-138.
Review of George W. Stocking, Jr., After Tylor: British Social Anthropology 1888-1951 (Wisconsin, 1995). Anthropological Quarterly 70:3 (1997): 155.
Review of Charles L. Briggs, ed., Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Inequality (Oxford University Press, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 244-245.
Book note of Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating Our Past: The Social Construction of Oral History (Cambridge, 1995). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 249.
Book note of Robert Ford Campany, Strange Writing: Anomaly Accounts in Early Medieval China (SUNY, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 7:2 (1997): 248-249.
Review of Webb Keane, Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society (University of California Press, 1997). Oceania 68:2 (1997): 142-143.
Review of Bonnie Urciuoli, Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class (Westview, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8:1 (1998): 120-122.
Review of Steven Roger Fischer, Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script (Clarendon Press, 1997). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8:2 (1998): 253-255.
Review of Richard Handler and Eric Gable, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (Duke University Press, 1997). Anthropological Quarterly 71:3 (1998): 156-157.
Review of Donald Brenneis and Ronald H. S. Macaulay, eds., The Matrix of Language: Contemporary Linguistic Anthropology (Westview, 1996). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4:3 (1998): 560-61.
Review of Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford University Press, 1998). History of Religions 39:4 (2000): 386-387.
Review of Joel C. Kuipers, Language, Identity, and Marginality in Indonesia: The Changing Nature of Ritual Speech on the Island of Sumba (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Language in Society 29:2 (2000): 305-308.
Review of Nicholas B. Dirks, ed., In Near Ruins: Cultural Theory at the End of the Century (University of Minnesota Press, 1998). American Ethnologist 26:4 (1999): 992-93.
Review of Elizabeth Keating, Power Sharing: Language, Rank, Gender, and Social Space in Pohnpei, Micronesia (Oxford University Press, 1998). Anthropological Linguistics 42:4 (2000): 566-567.
Review of Benjamin Lee, Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of Subjectivity (Duke University Press, 1997). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11:2 (2001): 305-307.
Review of Thomas A. Sebeok, Global Semiotics (Indiana University Press, 2001). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 12:2 (2002): 12-14.
Book note of Gunter Senft, Classificatory Particles in Kilivila (Oxford University Press, 1996). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology [in press]
Review of Machiko Aoyagi, Modekngei: A New Religion in Belau, Micronesia. Man and Culture in Oceania 19 (2003): 107-108.
Review of Roy Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge University Press, 1999). History of Religions 44 (2005): 162-164.
Review of Dorothy Washburn (ed.), Embedded Symmetries: Natural and Cultural (