I recommend the latter, especially. Taussig is an anthropologist,
though his work is interdisciplinary. It certainly tries
to be spooky (to theorize about that which is most difficult
to know) while it is also empirically grounded, fully materialist
in its materials. What Taussig really zooms in on, which is
hard to talk about except as magical, is that in mimesis
which "unites" viewer & viewed, that which bonds habit to
convention, that which of course belies language - the
phenomenology of it, rendered in historical & anthropological terms.
He theorizes by using countless instantiations of that which he
is getting at, and, of course, making them "other" to what we
once took them to be, and swooping back & forth through time,
from Darwin to the present, & back & forth from indigenous
South American shamanic cultures to our own technological one.
(His concern has been with colonialism, specifically, in this work,
it's with colonialist self/other constructions, and not only
those by Us of Them....) His texts are wonderful places to spend
time. I've just revisited this work in order to compose this
message, and I'm happy to have done so, since I hadn't read it
all carefully enough. Taussig draws on discussions of mimesis by Walter
Benjamin, that I am not otherwise familiar with, and they are
undoubtedly worth the time & trouble to get acquainted with
(all cited in bibliography).
Heartfelt thanks to both Arne & Rolfe for references.
My my, more & more to read.
Judy
....................
Judy Diamondstone diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Graduate School of Education Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place New Brunswick, NJ 08903
Eternity is in love with the productions of time - Wm. Blake