The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
1980
First Published
3.96
Average Rating
320
Number of Pages
Michael Taussig explores the social significance of the devil in the folklore of contemporary plantation workers and miners in South America. Grounding his analysis in Marxist theory, Taussig finds that the fetishization of evil, in the image of the devil, is an image which mediates the conflict between precapitalist and capitalist modes of objectifying the human condition.
Avg Rating
3.96
Number of Ratings
473
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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1 STARS
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Author
Michael Taussig
Author · 17 books
Michael Taussig (born 1940) earned a medical degree from the University of Sydney, received his PhD. in anthropology from the London School of Economics and is a professor at Columbia University and European Graduate School. Although he has published on medical anthropology, he is best known for his engagement with Marx's idea of commodity fetishism, especially in terms of the work of Walter Benjamin.
