For the Greeks, the sharing of cooked meats was the fundamental communal act, so that to become vegetarian was a way of refusing society. It follows that the roasting or cooking of meat was a political act, as the division of portions asserted a social order. And the only proper manner of preparing meat for consumption, according to the Greeks, was blood sacrifice. The fundamental myth is that of Prometheus, who introduced sacrifice and, in the process, both joined us to and separated us from the gods-and ambiguous relation that recurs in marriage and in the growing of grain. Thus we can...
For the Greeks, the sharing of cooked meats was the fundamental communal act, so that to become vegetarian was a way of refusing society. It follows t...
Each year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mizane of southern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual sacrifice, a symbolic observance of their submission to the divine. After this sober ceremony comes a bacchanalian masquerade which seems to violate every principle the sacrifice affirmed. Because of the apparent contradiction between sacrifice and masquerade, observers have described the two as entirely separate events. This book reunites them as a single ritual process within Islamic tradition.
Each year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mizane of southern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual sacrifice, a symbolic observanc...
" Veyne's] present book has some kinship with his sprightly theoretical work "Comment on ecrit l'histoire"; and he declares that its aim was to provoke reflection on the way our conception of truth is built up and changes over the centuries. . . . The style is brilliant and exhilarating." Jasper Griffin, "Times Literary Supplement""
" Veyne's] present book has some kinship with his sprightly theoretical work "Comment on ecrit l'histoire"; and he declares that its aim was to provok...
Valeri presents an overview of Hawaiian religious culture, in which hierarchies of social beings and their actions are mirrored by the cosmological hierarchy of the gods. As the sacrifice is performed, the worshipper is incorporated into the god of his class. Thus he draws on divine power to sustain the social order of which his action is a part, and in which his own place is determined by the degree of his resemblance to his god. The key to Hawaiian society--and a central focus for Valeri--is the complex and encompassing sacrificial ritual that is the responsibility of the king, for it...
Valeri presents an overview of Hawaiian religious culture, in which hierarchies of social beings and their actions are mirrored by the cosmological hi...
Nicole Loraux has devoted much of her writing to charting the paths of the Greek "imaginary," revealing a collective masculine psyche fraught with ambivalence as it tries to grasp the differences between nature and culture, body and soul, woman and man. The Experiences of Tiresias, its title referring to the shepherd struck blind after glimpsing Athena's naked body, captures this ambivalence in exploring how the Greek male defines himself in relationship to the feminine. In these essays, Loraux disturbs the idea of virile men and feminine women, a distinction found in official...
Nicole Loraux has devoted much of her writing to charting the paths of the Greek "imaginary," revealing a collective masculine psyche fraught with ...
