Synopses & Reviews
A provocative exploration of the pig in European culture and anti-Semitism, The Singular Beast chronicles the cultural and religious character of the pig and details the folkloric beliefs still found among both provincial and urban Europeans and the rituals that have been associated with it from the Middle Ages to today.
Review
"A stunning compendium of porcine and theological folklore... With remarkable acuity, The Singular Beast shows how the pig, the Jew and the Christian have been locked in a fatal and macabre pas de trois for the past two millenniums." Times Literary Supplement
Synopsis
This original account of the significance of the pig and its relationship to Jews in European Christian culture encompasses a vast array of folklore, history and ritual. Practices related to the breeding, slaughter and consumption of the pig have inspired both religious and secular taboos and rituals, laid out by the author in fascinating detail. She demonstrates clearly the power which a symbol may hold to mould an ethnic identity, and the book stands both as s study of the role of the pig, and as an analysis of the creation of anti-Semitic myths.
Synopsis
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About the Author
Claudine Fabre-Vassas is a research fellow at the Centre Nationale Recherche Scientifique and teaches at the École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Carol Volk is a translator and Foreign Service Officer based in Washington, D.C.