A01=Gananath Obeyesekere
amerindian tradition
Author_Gananath Obeyesekere
buddhism
buddhist tradition
canada
Category=JHM
Category=QRAC
Category=QRVG
Category=VXPR
classicists
cosmology
cross cultural scholarship
cultural relativism
cultural stories
death
empedocles
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_mind-body-spirit
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethics
greek tradition
human condition
indic civilizations
indologists
intellectual context
karma
melanesia
methodological framework
nietzsche
personal transformation
philosophy
pindar
plato
pythagoras
rebirth
reincarnation
siberia
textbooks
weber
west africa
wittgenstein
Product details
- ISBN 9780520232433
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 11 Nov 2002
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
With "Imagining Karma", Gananath Obeyesekere embarks on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small-scale societies of West Africa, Melanesia, traditional Siberia, Canada, and the northwest coast of North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar, and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth. As Obeyesekere compares responses to the most fundamental questions of human existence, he challenges readers to reexamine accepted ideas about death, cosmology, morality, and eschatology. Obeyesekere's comprehensive inquiry shows that diverse societies have come through independent invention or borrowing to believe in reincarnation as an integral part of their larger cosmological systems. The author brings together into a coherent methodological framework the thought of such diverse thinkers as Weber, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche.
In a contemporary intellectual context that celebrates difference and cultural relativism, this book makes a case for disciplined comparison, a humane view of human nature, and a theoretical understanding of 'family resemblances' and differences across great cultural divides.
Gananath Obeyesekere is Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is the author of The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific (1997), The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (1984), Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience (1984), and The Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology (1990).
