Over the past thirty years, visionary anthropologist Michael Taussig has crafted a highly distinctive body of work. Playful, enthralling, and whip-smart, his writing makes ingenious connections between ideas, thinkers, and things. An extended meditation on the mysteries of color and the fascination they provoke, "What Color Is the Sacred?" is the next step on Taussig's remarkable intellectual path. Following his interest in magic and surrealism, his earlier work on mimesis, and his recent discussion of heat, gold, and ...
Read More
Over the past thirty years, visionary anthropologist Michael Taussig has crafted a highly distinctive body of work. Playful, enthralling, and whip-smart, his writing makes ingenious connections between ideas, thinkers, and things. An extended meditation on the mysteries of color and the fascination they provoke, "What Color Is the Sacred?" is the next step on Taussig's remarkable intellectual path. Following his interest in magic and surrealism, his earlier work on mimesis, and his recent discussion of heat, gold, and cocaine in "My Cocaine Museum", this book uses color to explore further dimensions of what Taussig calls 'the bodily unconscious' in an age of global warming. Drawing on classic ethnography as well as the work of Benjamin, Burroughs, and Proust, he takes up the notion that color invites the viewer into images and into the world. Yet, as Taussig makes clear, color has a history - a manifestly colonial history rooted in the West's discomfort with color, especially bright color, and its associations with the so-called primitive. He begins by noting Goethe's belief that Europeans are physically averse to vivid color while the uncivilized revel in it, which prompts Taussig to reconsider colonialism as a tension between chromophobes and chromophiliacs. And he ends with the strange story of coal, which, he argues, displaced colonial color by giving birth to synthetic colors, organic chemistry, and IG Farben, the giant chemical corporation behind the Third Reich. Nietzsche once wrote, 'So far, all that has given colour to existence still lacks a history'. With "What Color Is the Sacred?", Taussig has taken up that challenge with all the radiant intelligence and inspiration we've come to expect from him.
Read Less
Add this copy of What Color is the Sacred? to cart. $41.39, very good condition, Sold by Midtown Scholar Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Harrisburg, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of What Color Is the Sacred? to cart. $95.58, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by University of Chicago Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 304 p. Contains: Unspecified. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of What Color Is the Sacred? to cart. $112.93, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by University of Chicago Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 304 p. Contains: Unspecified. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of What Color Is the Sacred? to cart. $112.94, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2009 by University of Chicago Press.