1 option
Magical criticism : the recourse of savage philosophy / Christopher Bracken.
De Gruyter University of Chicago Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 Available online
View online- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Bracken, Christopher.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Semiotics.
- Magical thinking.
- Philosophy and civilization.
- Ethnophilosophy--History.
- Ethnophilosophy.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (278 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2007.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- 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.
- Contents:
- Introduction : what are savages for?
- Discourse is now
- The new barbarism
- The mana type
- Commodity totemism
- Allegories of the sun, specters of excess
- Coda : the Solaris hypothesis.
- Notes:
- Description based upon print version of record.
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-255) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9786611959180
- 9781281959188
- 1281959189
- 9780226069920
- 0226069923
- OCLC:
- 476228668
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.