(P/B) MAN AND THE SACRED

Παρουσίαση

Throughout the world, people believe that much of what they do is accidental, ordinary, and inconsequential, while other acts can bring on divine retribution or earn eternal grace. In Man and the Sacred, Caillois demonstrates how humanity's ambiguous attitude toward the sacred influences behavior and culture.
Drawing on a diverse array of ethnographic contexts, including the sexual rituals of the Ba-Thong of South Africa and evidence drawn from aboriginal Australian, Eskimo, and traditional Chinese social systems, Caillois analyzes the role of the forbidden in the social cohesion of the group. He examines the character of the sacred in the light of specific instances of taboos and transgressions, exploring wide differences in attitudes toward diet and sex and extreme behaviors associated with the sacred, such as rapture and paroxysm. He also discusses the festival--an exuberant explosion following a period of strict repression--and compares its functions with those of modern war.
A classic study of one of the most fundamental aspects of human social and spiritual life, Man and the Sacred--presented here in Meyer Barash's superb English translation--is a companion volume to Caillois's Man, Play and Games. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 General Interrelationships of the Sacred and the Profane
CHAPTER 2 The Ambiguity of the Sacred
CHAPTER 3 The Sacred as Respect: Theory of Taboo
CHAPTER 4 The Sacred as Transgression: Theory of the Festival
CHAPTER 5 The Sacred: Condition of Life and Gateway to Death
APPENDIX I Sex and the Sacred: Sexual Purification
Rites Among the Thonga
APPENDIX II Play and the Sacred
APPENDIX III War and the Sacred
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX