The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America by Michael Taussig

The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America by Michael Taussig

In this classic book, Michael Taussig explores the social significance of the devil in the folklore of contemporary plantation workers and miners in South America. Grounding his analysis in Marxist theory, Taussig finds that the fetishization of evil, in the image of the devil, mediates the conflict between precapitalist and capitalist modes of objectifying the human condition. He links traditional narratives of the devil-pact, in which the soul is bartered for illusory or transitory power, with the way in which production in capitalist economies causes workers to become alienated from the commodities they produce. A new chapter for this anniversary edition features a discussion of Walter Benjamin and Georges Bataille that extends Taussig's ideas about the devil-pact metaphor.

"Original, acute, and admirable" - The New York Review of Books "[Taussig] gives us superb ethnography, a Marxist critique of world capitalism, a lesson in analogical and dialectical techniques (some of them bordering on the mystical), and argues convincingly that humanist interpretation can be as empirically 'hard' as scientific measurement." - American Anthropologist"

Michael T. Taussig is professor of anthropology at Columbia University. He is author of ten books, including What Color Is the Sacred? and Walter Benjamin's Grave.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780807871331
ISBN 10	0807871338
Titel	The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
Autor	Michael Taussig
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	The University of North Carolina Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2010-03-30
Seitenanzahl	320
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar