Corpse Magic : Echoes Active in the Slayer-Slain Nexus

Michael Taussig

ISBN 10: 0226837416 / ISBN 13: 9780226837413

Published by The University Of Chicago Press Apr 2025, 2025

About this Item

Neuware - Corpse Magic examines beliefs about vengeance the slain magically enact on their killers, focusing on lethal violence in Colombia and the United States. Corpse Magic is a response to the global ubiquity of violence. In this bracing new work, the influential anthropologist Michael Taussig puts killings in Colombia, by gangs and guerrillas, police and the military, and agents of agribusiness, in conversation with mass shootings and police killings, disproportionately of Black people, in the United States. In both contexts, he examines the effects of violent killing on its victims, its perpetrators, and those who witness and relive it through media footage. Drawing from literature, religion, philosophy, and anthropology, Taussig traces the idea that the act of killing 'infects' the killer and spreads outward, then connects this concept of contagion to beliefs in Colombia and elsewhere that the souls of the slain possess those of their slayers and that magic can be used to empower or thwart corpses as agents of vengeance. In this powerful and imaginative work, Taussig asks what kind of power the dead continue to have; what kinds of magic can manage that power; and what, if anything, can stop seemingly endless cycles of violence.

Seller Inventory # 9780226837413

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Corpse Magic : Echoes Active in the Slayer-Slain Nexus
• Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press Apr 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226837416
• ISBN 13: 9780226837413
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 228W x 153H x 19D millimeters 228 millimeters width by 153 millimeters height by 19 millimeters depth
• Weight: 430 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Corpse Magic examines beliefs about vengeance the slain magically enact on their killers, focusing on lethal violence in Colombia and the United States.

Corpse Magic is a response to the global ubiquity of violence. In this bracing new work, the influential anthropologist Michael Taussig puts killings in Colombia, by gangs and guerrillas, police and the military, and agents of agribusiness, in conversation with mass shootings and police killings, disproportionately of Black people, in the United States. In both contexts, he examines the effects of violent killing on its victims, its perpetrators, and those who witness and relive it through media footage.

Drawing from literature, religion, philosophy, and anthropology, Taussig traces the idea that the act of killing “infects” the killer and spreads outward, then connects this concept of contagion to beliefs in Colombia and elsewhere that the souls of the slain possess those of their slayers and that magic can be used to empower or thwart corpses as agents of vengeance. In this powerful and imaginative work, Taussig asks what kind of power the dead continue to have; what kinds of magic can manage that power; and what, if anything, can stop seemingly endless cycles of violence.

About the Author

Michael Taussig is emeritus professor of anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, including And the Garden Is You and Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown, both published by the University of Chicago Press.