Arctic madness : the anthropology of a delusion / Pierre Déléage ; translated by Catherine V. Howard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Déléage, Pierre, 1976- author.

Contributor:

Howard, Catherine V., translator.

Standardized Title:

Folie arctique. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Missionaries--Northwest Territories--Biography.

Missionaries.

Inuit--Northwest Territories.

Inuit.

Mental illness.

Northwest Territories.

Mental illness--Northwest Territories--Biography.

Discoveries in geography.

Petitot, Emile Fortuné Stanislas Joseph, 1838-1917.

Petitot, Emile Fortuné Stanislas Joseph.

Northwest, Canadian--Biography.

Northwest, Canadian.

Northwest, Canadian--Discovery and exploration.

Canada--Canadian Northwest.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xi, 129 pages : illustrations (some colors), maps (some color) ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : HAU Books, [2020]

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

"Missionary, linguist, and ethnographer Emile Petitot (1838-1916) was known for his work in Canada's Northwest Territories and as the author of a corpus including the first grammar of an Amerindian language and an astonishing body of transcribed ritual texts and myths. However, over the course of his twenty years in the Arctic Circle, he descended into a long delirium and began to summon imaginary persecutions, pen improbable interpretations of his Arctic hosts, and explode in paroxysms of schizoid fury. In telling this story, Pierre Déléage reconstructs, step by step and with the ethnographer's eye, the biography of a delusion. Delving into the obverse of the very texture of ethnographic inquiry, Déléage takes us on an enthralling journey across the indigenous Arctic world, moving skilfully between ethnobiography and the analytic conundrums that arise in profound cognitive displacement. Whoever wishes to know the cost of knowing alien cultures will find this anthropological novella hard to put down"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Persecution Mania: A Missionary among the First Nations

ch. 2 Interpretation Delusions: Israelites of the North Pole

ch. 3 Prophetic Frenzy: Anticipating the End Times.

Notes:

Translation of: La Folie arctique

Includes bibliographical references (pages 121-129).

ISBN:

9781912808274

1912808277

OCLC:

1096518244

Publisher Number:

99986280729