Available in English for the first time, anthropologist Carlo Severi's The Chimera Principle breaks new theoretical ground for the study of ritual, iconographic technologies, and oral traditions among nonliterate 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. This English-language edition, beautifully translated by Janet Lloyd and complete with a foreword by David Graeber, will spark widespread debate and be heralded as an instant classic for anthropologists, historians, and philosophers.

About the Author
Carlo Severi is professor at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales and director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Janet Lloyd has translated more than seventy books from French, including Philippe Descola's Beyond Nature and Culture, published by the University of Chicago Press.


Book Information
ISBN 9780990505051
Author Carlo Severi
Format Paperback
Page Count 400
Imprint HAU
Publisher HAU
Weight(grams) 696g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 155mm * 28mm