Defacement : Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative / Michael Taussig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Taussig, Michael T., Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 p.) : 4 illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Defacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. It begins with the notion that such activity is attractive in its very repulsion, and that it creates something sacred even in the most secular of societies and circumstances. In specifying the human face as the ideal type for thinking through such violation, this book raises the issue of secrecy as the depth that seems to surface with the tearing of surface. This surfacing is made all the more subtle and ingenious, not to mention everyday, by the deliberately partial exposures involved in "the public secret"—defined as what is generally known but, for one reason or another, cannot easily be articulated. Arguing that this sort of knowledge ("knowing what not to know") is the most powerful form of social knowledge, Taussig works with ideas and motifs from Nietzsche, William Burroughs, Elias Canetti, Georges Bataille, and the ethnography of unmasking in so-called primitive societies in order to extend his earlier work on mimesis and transgression. Underlying his concern with defacement and the public secret is the search for a mode of truth telling that unmasks, but only to reenchant, thereby underlining Walter Benjamin's notion that "truth is not a matter of exposure of the secret, but a revelation that does justice to it."

Contents:

Frontmatter

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS AND CREDITS

PROLOGUE

PART ONE SACRILEGE

SACRILEGE

CEMENT FONDUE

HEGEL'S DEATH SPACE

PART TWO SECRECY MAGNIFIES REALITY

THE LAW OF THE BASE

SECRECY MAGNIFIES REALITY

PITY THOSE WEAK IN LYING

DEATH IN VENICE

SCHOPENHAUER'S BEARD

PART THREE IN THAT OTHER TIME: ISLA GRANDE

ISLA GRANDE

THE MASSACRE OF THE WOMEN

INSTANT THEATER

SELK'NAM UNMASKING

YAMANA UNMASKING: CROSSING THE FACE

"THE EXTRAORDINARY 'CIEXAUS' STATE OF MIND"

FINDING THE SECRET

A JOYOUS THING WITH MAGGOTS AT THE CENTER

THE HARD CORE OF CULTURE

REPOSITORY OF COSMIC POWER

BREATH OF EMPTY SPACE

DESTRUCTION AND SELF-DESTRUCTION

PART FOUR / THE FACE IS THE EVIDENCE THAT MAKES EVIDENCE POSSIBLE

INFINITY AND DISPROPORTION: CROSSING THE FACE

THE ABDUCTION OF MONTAIGNE

STRIKE AND ZOOMORPHIC PHYSIOGNOMICS

THE DISORGANIZATION OF THE "ORGANIZATION OF MIMESIS": THE SUBCOMANDANTE UNMASKED

REFACEMENT: A HISTORY OF READING

UNMASKING AND PROLIFERATION

PART FIVE / THE SECRET OF THE GIFT

THE SECRET OF THE GIFT

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-5036-1713-0

OCLC:

1294423799