The Magic of the State

Set in the enchanted mountain of a spirit-queen presiding over an unnamed, postcolonial country, this ethnographic work of ficto-criticism recreates in written form the shrines by which the dead—notably the fetishized forms of Europe's Others, Indians and Blacks—generate the magical powers of the modern state.

Set in the enchanted mountain of a spirit-queen presiding over an unnamed, postcolonial country, this ethnographic work of ficto-criticism recreates in written form the shrines by which the dead—notably the fetishized forms of Europe's Others, Indians and Blacks—generate the magical powers of the modern state.

Michael Taussig teaches in the Anthropology Department at Columbia University. He is the author, most recently, of The Nervous System and Mimesis and Alterity, both published by Routledge.