Synopses & Reviews
Defacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. It begins with the notion that such activity is attractive in its very repulsion, and that it creates something sacred even in the most secular of societies and circumstances. In specifying the human face as the ideal type for thinking through such violation, this book raises the issue of secrecy as the depth that seems to surface with the tearing of surface. This surfacing is made all the more subtle and ingenious, not to mention everyday, by the deliberately partial exposures involved in “the public secret”—defined as what is generally known but, for one reason or another, cannot easily be articulated.
Arguing that this sort of knowledge (“knowing what not to know”) is the most powerful form of social knowledge, Taussig works with ideas and motifs from Nietzsche, William Burroughs, Elias Canetti, Georges Bataille, and the ethnography of unmasking in so-called primitive societies in order to extend his earlier work on mimesis and transgression. Underlying his concern with defacement and the public secret is the search for a mode of truth telling that unmasks, but only to reenchant, thereby underlining Walter Benjamins notion that “truth is not a matter of exposure of the secret, but a revelation that does justice to it.”
Synopsis
“This volume [which asks what happens when something precious is despoiled] is vintage Taussig. . . . It has the hallmarks of his other works—originality, unusual associations among diverse sources, provocative and definitely contestable interpretations of classic theoretical texts, and a generally intimate, fascinated style of communicating with his readers.”—George Marcus, Rice University
Synopsis
This account of sacrilege in relation to secrecy as a form of active unknowing is a study not only of taboo and transgression, but also of truth's paradoxical need for secrecy. The book begins to illuminate this paradox by juxtaposing tales of the violation of monuments, contemporary newspaper accounts of transgressions, and the record of secrecy in Franco's Spain. It then brings Hegel's death-space and Nietzche's burlesque of 'depth' to bear on the mystique of masking among the Zapatistas in Mexico, as well as the role of unmasking in initiation rites in Tierra del Fuego, New Guinea, Australia, and Central and West Africa. Extending his earlier work on mimesis and the 'nervous system', the author develops a pastiche of storytelling and analysis to elaborate Walter Benjamin's notion that 'truth is not a matter of exposure which destroys the secret, but a revelation which does justice to it'.
Synopsis
This account of sacrilege in relation to secrecy is a study of taboo and transgression, and of truth's paradoxical need for secrecy. Juxtaposing the violation of monuments, contemporary newspaper accounts of transgressions, and the record of secrecy in Franco's Spain, it then brings Hegel and Nietzsche to bear on the mystique of ritual masking and unmasking. The author develops a pastiche of storytelling and analysis to elaborate Walter Benjamin's notion that 'truth is not a matter of exposure which destroys the secret, but a revelation which does justice to it'.
Synopsis
Defacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. In specifying the human face as the ideal type for thinking through such violation, this book raises the issue of secrecy as the depth that seems to surface with the tearing of surface.
About the Author
Michael Taussig is Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author, most recently, of The Magic of the State.
Table of Contents
Prologue; 1. Sacrilege; 2. Secrecy magnifies reality; 3. In that other time: Isla Grande; 4. The face is the evidence that makes evidence possible; 5. The secret of the gift; Notes; Bibliography; Index.