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More on Taussig
John Mcreery (jlm@TWICS.COM)
Fri, 7 Oct 1994 22:22:58 JST
As a fan of George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," I personally
would prefer Anglo-Saxon "otherness" to latinate "alterity." But different
folks, different strokes. "Mimesis" raises other issues. Without, I'm
ashamed to say, being able to remember the argument, I do remember a fat
and famous book by Eric Auerbach called "Mimesis," which Taussig
mentions not at all. Makes his approach to research seem more than a little
off-the-wall. I'm also bothered by his rather cavalier treatment of
Joel Sherzer's work. Only one item, _Kuna Ways of Speaking_ is cited. He
makes no mention of _Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna culture through its
discourse_, which to me at least is a monument of careful and respectful
research, a credit both to Sherzer and to the Kuna verbal artists whose
words he explicates. Even allowing for slippage in publication schedules,
one can help noticing that _Verbal Art in San Blas_ was published in
1990, _Mimesis and Alterity_ in 1993. [n.b., the "can help" in the
previous sentence should be "can't help."] To be concerned with such things
may seem a bit old-fashioned, but.....
John McCreery (JLM@TWICS.COM)
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