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Book Synopsis
We often invoke the magic of mass media to describe seductive advertising or charismatic politicians. In The Mana of Mass Society, William Mazzarella asks what happens to social theory if we take that idea seriously. How would it change our understanding of publicity, propaganda, love, and power? Mazzarella reconsiders the concept of mana, which served in early anthropology as a troubled bridge between primitive ritual and the fascination of mass media. Thinking about mana, Mazzarella shows, means rethinking some of our most fundamental questions: What powers authority? What in us responds to it? Is the mana that animates an Aboriginal ritual the same as the mana that infuses a rioting crowd, a television audience, or an internet public? At the intersection of anthropology and critical theory, The Mana of Mass Society brings recent conversations around affect, sovereignty, and emergence into creative contact with classic debates on religion, charisma, ideology, and aesthetics.

Mana of Mass Society Chicago Studies in Practices

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    A Hardback by William Mazzarella

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      Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
      Publication Date: 24/10/2017
      ISBN13: 9780226436111, 978-0226436111
      ISBN10: 022643611X
      Also in:
      Archaeology

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      We often invoke the magic of mass media to describe seductive advertising or charismatic politicians. In The Mana of Mass Society, William Mazzarella asks what happens to social theory if we take that idea seriously. How would it change our understanding of publicity, propaganda, love, and power? Mazzarella reconsiders the concept of mana, which served in early anthropology as a troubled bridge between primitive ritual and the fascination of mass media. Thinking about mana, Mazzarella shows, means rethinking some of our most fundamental questions: What powers authority? What in us responds to it? Is the mana that animates an Aboriginal ritual the same as the mana that infuses a rioting crowd, a television audience, or an internet public? At the intersection of anthropology and critical theory, The Mana of Mass Society brings recent conversations around affect, sovereignty, and emergence into creative contact with classic debates on religion, charisma, ideology, and aesthetics.

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