Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies
|
Not currently available
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light - Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (Paperback, New edition)
Loot Price: R515
Discovery Miles 5 150
You Save: R167
(24%)
|
|
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light - Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (Paperback, New edition)
(sign in to rate)
List price R682
Loot Price R515
Discovery Miles 5 150
You Save R167 (24%)
Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.
|
Heady stuff: a virorous, venturesome essay with enough ideas in it
for a hundred seminars. Thompson, who is founding director of the
Lindisfarne Association and had written a number of stimulating
books, including At the Edge of History, attacks the
quasi-impossible question of humanity's leap (or fall) from nature
to civilization with lively wit and formidable learning. Thompson
wastes no time in showing where his sympathies lie by dedicating
his work (in a uncharacteristic silly gesture) to "the Eternal
Feminine." He then proceeds to offer a series of splendid feminist
speculations on the pre-historical world, clustered around the
three epochal "moments" of hominization, symbolization, and
agriculturalization. He traces the "displacement of the feminine"
in Sumer and ancient Egypt, and concludes with some reflections on
the coming breakup of our culture and the shape of its replacement.
Thompson is bold, ingenious, and remarkably persuasive. Thus, for
example, he suggests that when the early hominids moved out of the
trees and into the open, dangerous environment of the savannah
females may have deliberately changed their pattern of sexual
receptivity from seasonal (the estrus) to continual, and thereby
literally seduced the males into a new social order, marked not
only by a "full confrontation of mates in frontal intercourse" but
by an altogether richer and denser network of human relations.
Similarly, Thompson builds a case for women as "holistic
scientists," who made the great intuitive discovery of the
periodicity of nature. Hence, in contrast to Robert Ardrey, who
seeks the origins of science in the masculine art of killing,
Thompson finds them in "menstruation, lunar calendars, and
midwifery." As an expositor of mythical thought he is unsurpassed
for his combination of interdisciplinary range and unpedantic
freshness. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this book, William Irwin Thompson explores the nature of myth. Acknowledging the persuasive power of myth to create and inform culture, he weaves the human ability to create life with and communicate through symbols with myths based on male and female forms of power.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.