Magic and modernity : interfaces of revelation and concealment / edited by Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Meyer, Birgit.

Pels, Peter.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Magic.

Divination.

Witchcraft.

Spiritualism.

Physical Description:

viii, 390 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

This is the first book to explore comparatively how magic- usually portrayed as the antithesis of the modern- is also at home in modernity.

Contents:

Introduction: Magic and Modernity / Peter Pels 1

1. Between Science and Superstition: Religion and the Modern Subject of the Nation in Colonial India / Gyan Prakash 39

2. Undying Past: Spirit Possession and the Memory of War in Southern Mozambique / Alcinda Honwana 60

3. Robert Kaplan and "Juju Journalism" in Sierra Leone's Rebel War: The Primitivizing of an African Conflict / Rosalind Shaw 81

4. The Citizen's Trance: The Haitian Revolution and the Motor of History / Laurent Dubois 103

5. Hidden Forces: Colonialism and the Politics of Magic in the Netherlands Indies / Margaret J. Wiener 129

6. On Witch Doctors and Spin Doctors: The Role of "Experts" in African and American Politics / Peter Geschiere 159

7. The Magical Power of the (Printed) Word / Martha Kaplan 183

8. Ghanaian Popular Cinema and the Magic in and of Film / Birgit Meyer 200

9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Modern Medicine Between Magic and Science / Jojada Verrips 223

10. Spirits of Modernity: Alfred Wallace, Edward Tylor, and the Visual Politics of Fact / Peter Pels 241

11. Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism: Another Theory of Magic / Michael Taussig 272.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 343-374) and index.

ISBN:

0804744637

0804744645

OCLC:

50630490