The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice

by Edith Wyschogrod (Editor), Jean-Joseph Goux (Editor), Eric Boynton (Editor)

Overview

What does it mean to give a gift? In this timely collection, distinguished anthropologists-Maurice Godelier, George Marcus, Stephen Tyler-and philosophers-Mark C. Taylor, John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux and Adriaan Peperzak, explore an enigma that has disturbed contemporary philosophers from Marcel Mauss to Jacques Derrida.The essays included in the volume: Some Things You Give, Some Things You Sell, But Some Things You Must Keep for Yourselves: What Mauss Did Not Say about Sacred Objects by Maurice Godelie.The Gift and Globalization: A Prolegomenon to the Anthropological Study of Contemporary Finance Capital and Its Mentalities by George MarcusCapitalizing (on) Gifting by Mark C. TaylorEven Stevenor No Strings Attachedby Stephen TylerMothering, Co-muni-cation and the Gifts of Language by Genevieve VaughanThe Time of Giving, the Time of Forgiving by John D. CaputoSeneca against Derrida: Gift and Alterity by Jean-Joseph Goux Giving by Adriaan Peperzak

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823221660
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2002
Series:	Perspectives in Continental Philosophy , #22
Edition description:	2
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edith Wyschogrod is J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought emerita at Rice University. The most recent of her books are An Ethics of Remembering: History, Heterology, and the Nameless Others; Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy; and a second edition of Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics (Fordham). Jean-Joseph Goux is Lawrence H. Favrot Professor of French Studies at Rice University and author of Frivolit de la valeur: essai sur l'imaginaire du capitalisme and The Coiners of Language. ERIC BOYNTON is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Allegheny College.

Editorial Reviews

Based on a conference held at Rice University in 1999, this volume is an interesting addition to recent philosophically informed literature on the gift. Following a brief introductory essay by Wyschogrod, the volume is divided into three sections. The first, with essays by Maurice Godelier, George E. Marcus, and Mark C. Taylor, explores the social, economic, and political functions of gift-giving in the context of the global economy. The second section, with essays by Stephen A. Tyler and Genevieve Vaughan, examines how language and gender influence the role that giving plays in shaping communities. The final section, responding to the work of Derrida and Levinas, addresses the ambiguities and paradoxes of gift-giving and the gift's relation to alterity, with essays by John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux, and Adriaan Peperzak. Drawing from anthropology, religion, and philosophy, the essays are all of high quality and will be accessible to a broad and multidisciplinary audience. This volume complements nicely the collections edited by Alan Schrift (The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity, 1997) and Aafke Komter (The Gift: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, 1996) and would be a welcome addition to academic libraries. Of interest to undergraduates through faculty.

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