Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses

by Michael Taussig

Overview

In this ambitious and accomplished work, Taussig explores the complex and interwoven concepts of mimesis, the practice of imitation, and alterity, the opposition of Self and Other. The book moves from the nineteenth-century invention of mimetically capacious machines, such as the camera, to the fable of colonial ‘first contact’ and the alleged mimetic power of ‘primitives’. Twenty years after the original publication, Taussig revisits the work in a new preface which contextualises the impact of Mimesis and Alterity. Drawing on the ideas of Benjamin, Adorno and Horckheimer and ethnographic accounts of the Cuna, Taussig demonstrates how the history of mimesis is deeply tied to colonialism and the idea of alterity has become increasingly unstable. Vigorous and unorthodox, this cross-cultural discussion continues to deepen our understanding of the relationship between ethnography, racism and society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138242982
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/29/2018
Series:	Routledge Classic Texts in Anthropology
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Taussig is 1933 Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, USA, and is affiliated with the European Graduate School in Switzerland.

Table of Contents

1. In Some Way or Another One Can Protect Oneself From Evil Spirits by Portraying Them

2. Physiognomic Aspects of Visual Worlds

3. Spacing Out

4. The Golden Bough: The Magic of Mimesis

5. The Golden Army: The Organization of Mimesis

6. With the Wind of World History in Our Sails

7. Spirit of the Mime, Spirit of the Gift

8. Mimetic Worlds: Invisible Counterparts

9. The Origin of the World

10. Alterity

11. The Color of Alterity

12. The Search for the White Indian

13. America as Woman: The Magic of Western Gear

14. The Talking Machine

15. His Master’s Voice

16. Reflection

17. Sympathetic Magic in a Post-Colonial Age

Editorial Reviews

Taussig draws on anthropological theory to expound on the evidence and implications of imitation (mimesis) and difference, or self and other (alterity). His study is farflung and unorthodox, blending Latin American ethnography and colonial history with the insights of Walter Benjamin, Adorno, and Horkheimer, reaching for deeper understanding of ethnography, racism, and society. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"Taussig's deeply informed anthropological readings present us with a contemporary cabinet of curiosities that informs the longstanding fascination with the primitive in the constitution of the modern, and shocks us, in the spirit of Benjamin, into reconsidering what we thought we had largely dismissed in our concerns with the politics of representation." — George E. Marcus, Rice University
"In Mimesis and Alterity Taussig investigates the contacts between anthropologists and subjects and the world created therein . . . his accounts have the tactility one gets from a good storyteller." — Artforum
"This book can most profitably be read in conjunction with Taussig's provocatice and often original earlier works (e.g. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism) since these provide the details of the historical and cultural stage of mimetic performance." — Bulletin of Society for the Anthropology of Europe

From the Publisher