Customer Reviews

Foreign Bodies: Performance, Art, and Symbolic Anthropology

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This is the second book in what I like to think of as Napier's trilogy. If you have not read Masks Transformation, and Paradox, I recommend reading that one first and then this wonderful book, to be followed by The Age of Immunology: Conceiving a Future in an Alienating World. Napier's work is not light reading. His treatment of the concept of the stranger is relevant to the process he traces out in the first book which deals with the way(s) in which notions of alterity and difference are central to societal rituals of transformation. He says that "the recognition of change hinges both on the apprehension of identity and on the awareness of a potential for paradox." (Myths, 3) In this work he takes that thesis a step further and attempts to prove that this process is universal by examining it in different cultures. In the latest work, he introduces the same ideas but in a brand new context using immunology as a trope. I highly recommend all of Napier's work. Although it is anthropology, don't think that his ideas do not have relevance to other areas of study. I used his book for an analysis of Oscar Wilde's uses of paradox and masks in his dramatic and critical work. Jack Worthing's reference to Lady Bracknell as a Gorgon in "The Importance of Being Earnest" came alive to me after reading Napier's meditations on the apotropaic.

This work brings up crucial questions about how we perceive alterity in our society, no small question. People who enjoy philosophy, mythology, literature, psychology, and of course, anthropology will need to be acquainted with Napier's work. You can start here or buy the whole trilogy as I did. You will not be sad you did.

Makes an important contribution to the understanding of Indian and Greek art and myth.