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Hair as a mirror. Social and cultural dimensions of hair symbolism
Kernová, Michaela ; Czumalo, Vladimír (advisor) ; Soukup, Martin (referee)
We focus on hair as a symbol of personality, cultural and social influence and the object of ritual ceremonies.1 Hair is not only a vitally important part of human body but it is an important cultural phenomenon and serves as important cultural artifact, because it is simultaneously public (visible to everyone), personal (biologically linked to the body), and highly malleable to suit cultural and personal preferences. Hair - whether present or absent, restored or removed, abundant or scarce, long or short, bound or unbound, dyed or natural - marks a person as clearly as a speech, clothing, and smell. Hair tells a lot about every man, about his age, social and family status, his sexual availability and desirability, about his interests, his character, his political stance and religious preferences, his roots, background, his membership in some subculture and about the fashion and the norms of the period (and his conformability or inadaptability). It is a perfect culture- anthropological topic becauce every culture has particular rules and norms how to dispose of hair. Social and cultural influence on hairstyling could be asserted by means of fashion (mild form) or more serious forms of restrict orders (even written as the laws and directions) or just by cultural norms which set the looks of "normal,...
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