Variously described as an exchange of gifts, a destruction of property, a system of banking, and a struggle for prestige, the potlatch is considered one of the founding concepts of anthropology. However, the author here dismisses such a theory, arguing the concept was invented by 19th-century Canadian law for the purpose of control. 9 halftones.
During the Enlightenment, Western scholars racialized ideas, deeming knowledge based on reality superior to that based on ideality. Scholars labeled inquiries into ideality, such as animism and soul-migration, “savage philosophy,” a clear indicator of the racism motivating the distinction between the real and the ideal. In their view, the savage philosopher mistakes connections between signs for connections between real objects and believes that discourse can have physical effects—in other words, they believe in magic. Christopher Bracken’s Magical Criticism brings the unacknowledged history of this racialization to light and shows how, even as we have rejected ethnocentric notions of “the savage,” they remain active today in everything from attacks on postmodernism to Native American land disputes. Here Bracken reveals that many of the most influential Western thinkers dabbled in savage philosophy, from Marx, Nietzsche, and Proust, to Freud, C. S. Peirce, and Walter Benjamin. For Bracken, this recourse to savage philosophy presents an opportunity to reclaim a magical criticism that can explain the very real effects created by the discourse of historians, anthropologists, philosophers, the media, and governments.
This groundbreaking multidisciplinary book presents significant essays on historical indigenous violence in Latin America from Tierra del Fuego to central Mexico. The collection explores those uniquely human motivations and environmental variables that have led to the native peoples of Latin America engaging in warfare and ritual violence since antiquity. Based on an American Anthropological Association symposium, this book collects twelve contributions from sixteen authors, all of whom are scholars at the forefront of their fields of study. All of the chapters advance our knowledge of the causes, extent, and consequences of indigenous violence—including ritualized violence—in Latin America. Each major historical/cultural group in Latin America is addressed by at least one contributor. Incorporating the results of dozens of years of research, this volume documents evidence of warfare, violent conflict, and human sacrifice from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, including incidents that occurred before European contact. Together the chapters present a convincing argument that warfare and ritual violence have been woven into the fabric of life in Latin America since remote antiquity. For the first time, expert subject-area work on indigenous violence—archaeological, osteological, ethnographic, historical, and forensic—has been assembled in one volume. Much of this work has heretofore been dispersed across various countries and languages. With its collection into one English-language volume, all future writers—regardless of their discipline or point of view—will have a source to consult for further research. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza 1. Status Rivalry and Warfare in the Development and Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization Matt O’Mansky and Arthur A. Demarest 2. Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence Rubén G. Mendoza 3. Territorial Expansion and Primary State Formation in Oaxaca, Mexico Charles S. Spencer 4. Images of Violence in Mesoamerican Mural Art Donald McVicker 5. Circum-Caribbean Chiefly Warfare Elsa M. Redmond 6. Conflict and Conquest in Pre-Hispanic Andean South America: Archaeological Evidence from Northern Coastal Peru John W. Verano 7. The Inti Raymi Festival among the Cotacachi and Otavalo of Highland Ecuador: Blood for the Earth Richard J. Chacon, Yamilette Chacon, and Angel Guandinango 8. Upper Amazonian Warfare Stephen Beckerman and James Yost 9. Complexity and Causality in Tupinambá Warfare William Balée 10. Hunter-Gatherers’ Aboriginal Warfare in Western Chaco Marcela Mendoza 11. The Struggle for Social Life in Fuego-Patagonia Alfredo Prieto and Rodrigo Cárdenas 12. Ethical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence in Latin America Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index
"The Great Depression of the 1930s was a golden age for advertising, as corporate America sought to retain its customer base in the wake of the Crash of '29. For a struggling paper manufacturer in Cloquet, Minnesota, the times were all the more difficult because it had recently invested in costly new machinery. In desperation, the executives of Northwest Paper called in an ad agent from Chicago to boost sales and save the company. Together, they created an ad campaign that would be one of the longest-running and best-known in American commercial history. The name of the firm and its location in the north woods of Minnesota provided the inspiration for a series of story-ads featuring the adventures of the North West Mounted Police of Canada." "The sixteen artists who worked on the Mountie series between 1931 and 1970 were among the most famous commercial illustrators of their day. The first of these was Hal Foster, who later created the Prince Valiant comic strip. Another, the most prolific "Mountie" artist, was Arnold Friberg, who stayed with the project for thirty-three years. Friberg's Mounted Police pictures are much sought-after by collectors and are still in circulation in the form of calendars, pamphlets, and other printed materials."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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The public generally regards the media with suspicion and distrust. Therefore, the media's primary concern is to regain that trust through the production of sincerity. Advancing the field of media studies in a truly innovative way, Boris Groys focuses on the media's affect of sincerity and its manufacture of trust to appease skeptics. Groys identifies forms of media sincerity and its effect on politics, culture, society, and conceptions of the self. He relies on different philosophical writings thematizing the gaze of the other, from the theories of Heidegger, Sartre, Mauss, and Bataille to the poststructuralist formulations of Lacan and Derrida. He also considers media "states of exception" and their creation of effects of sincerity—a strategy that feeds the media's predilection for the extraordinary and the sensational, further fueling the public's suspicions. Emphasizing the media's production of emotion over the presentation (or lack thereof) of "facts," Groys launches a timely study boldly challenging the presumed authenticity of the media's worldview.
