The New Science of the Enchanted Universe: An Anthropology of Most of Humanity

Marshall Sahlins

Veröffentlicht von Princeton University Press 2022

The New Science of the Enchanted Universe

An Anthropology of Most of Humanity

Marshall Sahlins

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691238166

Übersicht
Inhalt

Über dieses Buch

One of the world’s preeminent cultural anthropologists leaves a last work that fundamentally reconfigures how we study most other cultures

From the perspective of Western modernity, humanity inhabits a disenchanted cosmos. Gods, spirits, and ancestors have left us for a transcendent beyond, no longer living in our midst and being involved in all matters of everyday life from the trivial to the dire. Yet the vast majority of cultures throughout human history treat spirits as very real persons, members of a cosmic society who interact with humans and control their fate. In most cultures, even today, people are but a small part of an enchanted universe misconstrued by the transcendent categories of “religion” and the “supernatural.” The New Science of the Enchanted Universe shows how anthropologists and other social scientists must rethink these cultures of immanence and study them by their own lights.

In this, his last, revelatory book, Marshall Sahlins announces a new method and sets an exciting agenda for the field. He takes readers around the world, from Inuit of the Arctic Circle to pastoral Dinka of East Africa, from Araweté swidden gardeners of Amazonia to Trobriand Island horticulturalists. In the process, Sahlins sheds new light on classical and contemporary ethnographies that describe these cultures of immanence and reveals how even the apparently mundane, all-too-human spheres of “economics” and “politics” emerge as people negotiate with, and ultimately usurp, the powers of the gods.

The New Science of the Enchanted Universe offers a road map for a new practice of anthropology that takes seriously the enchanted universe and its transformations from ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary America.

Autoreninformation

Marshall Sahlins (1930–2021) was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Chicago and the author of many books, including Stone Age Economics and Culture and Practical Reason. Frederick B. Henry, Jr., is an independent scholar and translator.

Rezensionen

“The New Science of the Enchanted Universe is a work of profound scholarship and remarkable theoretical daring. The crowning achievement of a long and brilliant anthropological career, this book is destined to become a classic.”—Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, author of The Relative Native: Essays on Indigenous Conceptual Worlds

“In this capstone to a life’s work, Marshall Sahlins offers a sweeping vision of humanity and the gods, delivered with his inimitable blend of panache and provocation.”—Webb Keane, author of Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories

“Marshall Sahlins has never published a book that didn’t change how anthropologists think about the ways humans live, and this is no exception. The New Science of the Enchanted Universe is peak Sahlins, at once a tour de force of anthropological argument and a great read.”—Joel Robbins, author of Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society

“This much-anticipated volume brings us Sahlins at his iconoclastic best. His voice leaps from the pages in a magnificent reprise of a scholar-warrior’s lifelong challenge to visions of humankind at large. That largesse here becomes a mode of restorative justice, exposing the anthropocentrism at the heart of so much explanation, a jolt to bring us to our senses.”—Marilyn Strathern, author of Relations: An Anthropological Account

Fachgebiete

Frontmatter Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	i
Contents Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	v
Prologue Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	vii
Acknowledgments Öffentlich zugänglich PDF downloaden	ix
Introduction Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	1
1 Human Finitude Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	16
2 Immanence Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	34
3 Metapersons Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	70
4 The Cosmic Polity Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	124
Afterword Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	174
Bibliography Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	177
Index Erfordert eine Authentifizierung Nicht lizenziert Lizenziert PDF downloaden	187