An anthropological guide to the art and philosophy of mirror gazing / Maria Danae Koukouti & Lambros Malafouris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Koukouti, Maria Danae, author.

Malafouris, Lambros, author.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Thinking in the world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Self-perception--Case studies.

Self-perception.

Self-consciousness (Awareness)--Case studies.

Self-consciousness (Awareness).

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

ix, 188 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

Summary:

"The ability to look at one's face in the mirror and the ability to find one's self in the mirror are two quite different things. The former is a natural capacity that humans share with other animals; the latter is an acquired skill that only humans can master. The craft of mirror-gazing, despite its relevance to daily life is barely understood. An Anthropological Guide to the Art and Philosophy of Mirror Gazing provides a metaphysical manual to understand it. The book is written from a cross-disciplinary and object-based perspective. The role of the mirror as a technology of self-objectification is explored through various case studies of cultures such as the Buryats of Eastern Mongolia. By using various anthropological examples, Koukouti and Malafouris survey and reflect on the structures and experiences of consciousness that underpin the specular image and the different meanings of the self. By combining metaphor, comparison and estrangement - where what was thought of as natural is seen as deliberately caused and altered - this book weaves together ethnographic description and philosophical analysis with empirical examples and experimental studies that allow the reader to think about the world and their subjectivity a bit differently"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. About mirroring: An introduction

I see `me'

Fooled by the mirror

Towards a comparative anthropology of mirror gazing

Patterns that connect

Book synopsis

pt. 1 Dis-enchantment

2. The image thief

a profound madness

Inside the mirror

Images that do not travel

Liar, trickster, mime

Phantomachia

The terror of bilocation

Vanishing act

3. Beautiful scars

The gaze of the holy inquisition

A desire that can only look at itself

The mirroring of disgust

Resistance

In search of beauty/in defence of a scar

pt. 2 Re-enchantment

4. Looking through the looking-glass

A world that goes the wrong way

Fabulous monsters

Animals are people

The gaze of imagination

Broken mirror

5. The other in the mirror

Masters and slaves

Mirror fiction

Erised

A portrait's gaze

Living masks

This cannot be me

6. The gaze of the shaman

Mongolia: A land of permeable borders

The world at the other side of the mirror

Portal, weapon, shield

Daunting mirror

A dark glimpse

Hazy shapes and metaphors

Thinking dead

Lonely glass

pt. 3 Hunters and Prey

7. The mirror trap

Self-hunting

Captured: Traps as mirrors and mirrors as traps

Mimicry in the land of the `soul hunters'

Stories of transformation

Seducing Narcissus

Hunter's beauty/the prey is in love

Predatory image

Soul exchange in Amazonia

Hunters and prey: The gaze of the prey

8. How to look in the mirror

Transparent illusion

Healing

Phantom pain

Severed mirroring/a sickness of the gaze

Social mirrors

Body without organs

On seeing through

Metamorphoses: The gaze of the hunter

9. Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Other Format:

Online version: Koukouti, Maria Danae. An anthropological guide to the art and philosophy of mirror gazing.

ISBN:

9781350135154

1350135151

OCLC:

1132282573

Publisher Number:

99987165030