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Divination´s Grasp: African Encounters with the Almost Said
Richard Werbner
€ 115.07
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Description for Divination´s Grasp: African Encounters with the Almost Said
Hardback. Num Pages: 352 pages, 21 b&w illus., 3 tables. BIC Classification: JHMC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 5817 x 3887 x 30. Weight in Grams: 631.
Richard Werbner takes readers on a journey though contemporary charismatic wisdom divination in southern Africa. Beginning with the silent language of the divinatory lots, Werbner deciphers the everyday, metaphorical, and poetic language that is used to reveal their meaning. Through Werbner's skillful interpretations of the language of divination, a picture of Tswapong moral imagination is revealed. Concerns about dignity and personal illumination, witchcraft, pollution, the anger of dead ancestors, as well as the nature of life, truth, cosmic harmony, being, and becoming emerge in this charged African setting.
Product Details
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2015
Publisher
Indiana University Press United States
Number of pages
352
Condition
New
Number of Pages
346
Place of Publication
Bloomington, IN, United States
ISBN
9780253018816
SKU
V9780253018816
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-50
About Richard Werbner
Richard Werbner is Professor Emeritus in African Anthropology at the University of Manchester. He is author of Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana (IUP).
Reviews for Divination´s Grasp: African Encounters with the Almost Said
"Werbner's Divination's Grasp documents a long and distinguished career in the service of anthropology. It will be a touchstone for anthropological studies of divination for years to come."—American Ethnologist "Richard Werbner's superb account of moral imagination and the poetics of divination grasps the density of its subject, matching the insights of the diviner with those of the ethnographer. The book takes its place among the very best works of Africanist anthropology as a new classic in the tradition of ethnographic divination and a necessary reminder of live and deep traditions of African wisdom."—Michael Lambek, University of Toronto Scarborough "Richard Werbner has produced a work of rare depth and profound insight that is destined to become a classic in African Studies and the anthropology of religion. In Divinations' Grasp, we come to know Werbner's divinatory mentors, men of profound intelligence who are masters of the poetically contoured 'almost said.' Readers will feel the comfort and inspiration that comes from an encounter with mastery, deep dialogue, and longstanding witness of Tswapong divining séances."—Paul Stoller, author of Yaya's Story: The Quest for Well-Being in the World