Jack Burnham: The Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist Art (1974)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, art criticism, ritual, semiotics, systems art
A collection of essays by the critic Jack Burnham. Originally appeared in Artforum and Arts Magazine.
Publisher G. Braziller, New York, 1974
ISBN 0807607401, 9780807607404
167 pages
via rumblebee
Commentary: John R. Blakinger (Tate, 2017).
PDF (16 MB)
Comment (0)David Graeber, Marshall Sahlins: On Kings (2017)
Filed under book | Tags: · anthropology, authority, kinship, labour, myth, politics, production, ritual, royalty, sovereignty, state, violence
“In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are figures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime ministers can never be. This collection of essays by two of the world’s most distinguished anthropologists—David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins—explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropologically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the study of kingship offers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition.
Reflecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, and utopia—not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial—Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and ubiquitous political figure.”
Publisher HAU Books, Chicago, 2017
Creative Commons BY License
ISBN 0986132500, 9780986132506
xv+536 pages
Carlo Severi: The Chimera Principle: An Anthropology of Memory and Imagination (2007/2015)
Filed under book | Tags: · anthropology, iconography, image, imagination, memory, ritual
“Anthropologist Carlo Severi’s The Chimera Principle breaks new theoretical ground for the study of ritual, iconographic technologies, and oral traditions among non-literate peoples. Setting himself against a tradition that has long seen the memory of people “without writing”—which relies on such ephemeral records as ornaments, body painting, and masks—as fundamentally disordered or doomed to failure, he argues strenuously that ritual actions in these societies pragmatically produce religious meaning and that they demonstrate what he calls a “chimeric” imagination.
Deploying philosophical and ethnographic theory, Severi unfolds new approaches to research in the anthropology of ritual and memory, ultimately building a new theory of imagination and an original anthropology of thought.”
First published as Le Principe de la chimère: Une anthropologie de la mémoire, Éditions Rue d’Ulm, 2007.
Translated by Janet Lloyd
Foreword by David Graeber
Publisher HAU Books, Chicago, 2015
Open access
ISBN 0990505057, 9780990505051
xxxiv+362 pages
Reviews: Stéphanie Leclerc-Caffarel (Gradhiva, 2010, FR), César Carrillo Trueba (Cuicuilco, 2008, ES), André Demarchi (Mana, 2009, BR-PT).
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