Overview

Taussig describes how through theatres of ecstasy, composed of fragments of the great story that the State, for the perpetuation of its spiritual authority, needs to tell about itself, these spirits are provided a reservoir of magical powers. Developing concepts of the sacred from Bataille, the post-Surreal College of Sociology, Canetti, Marx, Hobbes and Walter Benjamin, Taussig creates his own whirlwind theatre of spirit-possession, utitlizing popular shrines, official monuments and slogans, money, the police, the freeway system, automobiles, taxis, the stealing of the sword of the state and, last but not least, through fetishization of Europe's (dead) Others - Native Americans and people of African descent.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael Taussig
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.320kg
ISBN:  

9780415917919

ISBN 10:   0415917913
Pages:   216
Publication Date:   04 February 1997
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Part 1 The Spirit Queen’s Court; Chapter 1 The Spirit Queen; Chapter 2 The Mountain; Chapter 3 The Shrines; Chapter 4 Waiting for Ofelia; Chapter 5 Billy the Kid and the Break-Through Economy; Chapter 6 Holy Torpor; Chapter 7 Mimesis Unto Death; Chapter 8 Spiritual Treachery; Part 2 The liberator’s Court; Chapter 9 The Infinite Melancholy; Chapter 10 Mucoid Ignominy State-Making as Spirit Possession; Chapter 11 Kitsch is Where Fear Locks with the Mute Absurd; Chapter 12 The Accursed Share; Chapter 13 Money and Spirit Possession in Karl Marx; Chapter 14 Art Adrift in the Passing Crowd Floating Wave-Like on a Freeway; Chapter 15 Faith in Marble; Part 3 The Theater of Divine Justice; Chapter 16 Adventures in Musculature Taximetry and Dada Cinema; Chapter 17 Stealing the Sword; Chapter 18 Pilgrimage as Method;

Reviews

Taussig offer[s] much of value for us to think about. -- Religious Studies Review The clear allusions to the South American local of Taussig's fieldwork and the spooky accompanying photographs and drawings give the whole an errie verisimilitude. He seems to be saying, You think this is fantasy, but it is and is not. Taussig's style of truthtelling roams in the fantasists privileged territory. -- American Journal of Sociology

""Taussig offer[s] much of value for us to think about."" -- Religious Studies Review ""The clear allusions to the South American local of Taussig's fieldwork and the spooky accompanying photographs and drawings give the whole an errie verisimilitude. He seems to be saying, ""You think this is fantasy, but it is and is not."" Taussig's style of truthtelling roams in the fantasists privileged territory."" -- American Journal of Sociology

Author Information

Michael Taussig teaches in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University. He is the author, most recently, of The Nervous System and Mimesis and Alterity, both published by Routledge.

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