Cannibalism

Auf den Spuren eines kannibalischen „Phallogozentrismus des Fleisches“ in Jorge Michel Graus 'Somos lo que hay' (Mexiko, 2010)

by Marco Heiter

veröffentlicht vom Herausgeber unter dem Titel:
Phallogozentrismus des Fleisches – Der karnivore Geschlechterdiskurs am Beispiel des Kannibalenfilms 'Somos lo que hay' (Mexiko, 2010) von Jorge Michel Graus [sic]

in: Denkbilder. Das Germanistikmagazin der Universität Zürich, Nr. 29 / Herbst 2011, S. 33-36.

A zooarchaeological contribution to biological anthropology

by Krish Seetah

La part du féminin et du masculin dans l’infanticide : des realia aux représentations tragiques (Athènes, époque classique), dans S. Dubel et A. Montandon, Mythes sacrificiels et ragoûts d'enfants, PUBP, 2012, p. 315-327

by Aurélie Damet

Résumé – Dans une cité grecque, l’exposition de l’enfant est une manifestation civique et politique de la... more Résumé – Dans une cité grecque, l’exposition de l’enfant est une manifestation civique et politique de la non-reconnaissance d’un jeune futur citoyen, ce qui relève du pouvoir masculin et paternel d’intégrer ou non un nouveau-né à l’oikos mais aussi à la cité. Malgré le rôle nouveau de la mère dans la cité athénienne à partir de 451 a.v. J.-C., cette dernière reste étrangère au processus de reconnaissance. Il existe cependant des exemples d’abandon d’enfant par une femme (Creüse). Les raisons amenant à l’exposition des enfants, le plus souvent de petites filles, sont multiples. Le résultat des études démographiques divergent des cas mythologiques, les enfants abandonnés et héroïques étant plutôt des garçons. Lorsqu’on s’interroge sur les figures infanticides, de meurtres à proprement parler, là encore la question des genres apparaît. Là où les femmes cuisinent, les hommes mastiquent, à de très rares exceptions près. Se pose alors la question de la motivation d’un tel acte, la mise au chaudron de l’enfant et/ou sa mise en bouche. Il apparaît que les cas d’Atrée, de Cronos et du tyran décrit par Platon montrent que la consommation de chairs infantiles est liée au pouvoir, à sa conservation (Cronos), à son accession (Atrée) et au type même du pouvoir. Les motivations féminines sont autres: les femmes grecques n’ont pas le pouvoir, mais elles ont le pouvoir d’atteindre leur mari par la mise à mort de leur progéniture commune. Médée la Barbare, Procné, Philomèle, utilisent l’arme de l’homme, l’épée, pour faire couler le sang de leurs fils et meurtrir leur époux, privé alors de descendance civique. Somme toute, l’infanticide en tant que meurtre violent d’un enfant (et non l’exposition du nouveau-né, acte masculin et civique) est dans l’imaginaire grec un crime féminin. Nombreux sont les exemples qui montrent la propension grecque à séparer les genres dans l’acte affreux du meurtre de l’enfant. Mots-clés – citoyenneté, études de genre, exposition, polis, pouvoir, tecnophagie, tragédie.

Abstract – Exposure of children has political and civic consequences. In a Greek city, it belongs to the male power to refuse to a baby boy the integration into the oikos and the city. Athenian mothers had no role in the legal recognition of their children. Nonetheless,some tragic examples show the role of women (Creuse). It exists many reasons to explain the frequency of exposure in antic Athens. If the demographic studies show that baby girls were more often abandoned than baby boys, several myths are based on the exposure of male heroes (Oedipus, Ion). If we look precisely at the infanticide murder, men and women do not have the same role. When women are cooking, men are eating. Cannibalistic women are very rare in the mythology. But there are many cannibalistic men: Tereus, Kronos, Thyesthes... The fact of eating one’s child is often tied with power issues and fathers are often not aware of their acts. Women decide to kill their children for other reasons : infanticide is a way to hurt their husbands who had rejected or dishonoured them (Procne, Medea).The violent and deliberate murder of a child is a female act. Even Heracles, who kills his children, is compared to female monsters and to female murderers by the tragic chorus.
Stavroula Kefallonitis Le tyran et les enfants de la cité (p. 329-343)
Résumé – Le paradigme du pouvoir politique brutalisant les enfants de la cité trouve depuis l’Antiquité à s’incarner dans des personnages de tyrans. Deux exemples fameux, Périandre de Corinthe et Aristodème de Cumes, convoquent un corpus de récits qui traduisent la même tension politique que les mythes fondateurs d’Ouranos et de Cronos, à savoir l’espoir insensé de conserver le pouvoir à jamais et d’effacer toute perspective diachronique successorale. Dans un univers d’excès et de pulsions (Platon, République, IX), le tyran s’impose comme une figure à la fois réelle et fantasmatique aux confins du mythe et de l’histoire. La métaphore du pouvoir politique infanticide ressurgit au cours des siècles, une fois que les règnes ont basculé dans l’impopularité, révélant que le mythe peut rejoindre l’histoire a posteriori. Elle remet en question l’idée traditionnelle d’une chronologie narrative fermée où le mythe laisse place à l’histoire. Il devient possible de considérer que les récits relatifs aux tyrans évoluent entre un axe historique horizontal et un axe mythologique vertical qui se projette sur le premier.
Keywords – child-exposure, citizenship, Gender history, polis, power issues, tecnophagy, tragedy.

Ethics of Cannibalism

by issei takehara

N. Boroffka, Review: Heidi Peter-Röcher, Kannibalismus in der prähistorischen Forschung. Studien zu einer paradigmatischen Deutung und ihren Grundlagen. Universitätsforschungen zur Prähistorischen Archäologie 20, Aus dem Seminar für Ur- und Frühgeschichte der Freien Universität Berlin (Bonn 1994). Studii şi Cercetări de Istorie Veche şi Arheologie 46, 1995, pp. 83-87.

by Nikolaus Boroffka

Book review

The Cannibal‑Animal Complex in Melville, Marx, and Beyond

by Greg Pollock

“Cooked to Perfection: Cannibalism and Art in Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover.”

by Georgia Christinidis

Hard Times 86 (2009): 25-27.

Pseudis minuta Günther, 1858 (Lesser Swimming Frog). Cannibalism.

by Raul Maneyro

Lombardo, Maneyro & Carreira

Factors influencing the evolution of social behaviour in Australian crab spiders (Araneae: Thomisidae)

by Theodore Evans

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 63, 205–219

The social Diaea are non-territorial, periodically-social spiders that do not weave a snare web, a factor considered... more The social Diaea are non-territorial, periodically-social spiders that do not weave a snare web, a factor considered to be important in spider sociality. Maternal care and heritable retreats are factors common to most group living animals, including social Diaea; suggesting that they are important factors in the evolution of spider sociality. A 4 year survey, along with field and laboratory experiments revealed that mother spiders provided crucial care in the form of a protective Eucalyptus leaf nest and large prey for their offspring. After the mother’s death, the nest was inherited and expanded by the offspring. Larger groups built larger, more protective nests, but expended less individual effort doing so, and so survived better than smaller groups.

Cannibalism and kin recognition in Delena cancerides (Araneae: Sparassidae), a social huntsman spider

by Theodore Evans

Journal of Zoology 271, 233–237 (2007)

Social behaviour in spiders is rare: of the 39 000 species of spiders known, only 23 are considered to be... more Social behaviour in spiders is rare: of the 39 000 species of spiders known, only 23 are considered to be cooperatively social. Delena cancerides is a social species of the huntsman spider that is endemic to Australia. This species is virtually unique among social spiders, having evolved social behaviour in the absence of a snare web. It is thought that this form of social behaviour in D. cancerides has evolved via the sub-social route, that is, the extension of an ancestrally occurring period of maternal care and the delayed dispersal of juveniles. Most social spiders show no aggression towards non-kin conspecifics, prompting suggestions that spiders cannot recognize kin; however, D. cancerides individuals are highly aggressive towards conspecifics introduced from outside their own colony. In order to determine whether selective aggression in D. cancerides has its basis in kin recognition, tolerance behaviour was assessed in the context of kinship and size. We observed that, in general, juveniles preferred to starve than engage in cannibalism of any conspecifics, related or not. However, where cannibalism did occur, non-kin were preferentially eaten, indicating that this species is clearly capable of kin recognition. Size thresholds were also established, below which juveniles are tolerated by adults and above which aggressive interactions leading to death occur. We conclude that kin recognition and juvenile dispersal explain the
uncharacteristically high levels of genetic polymorphism in this species.

Making a meal of mother

by Theodore Evans

Nature 376, 299

All spiders provide some form of maternal care, from weaving protective silk around the eggs to guarding and feeding... more All spiders provide some form of maternal care, from weaving protective silk around the eggs to guarding and feeding spiderlings. An unusual and extreme form of care is matriphagy, where the spiderlings consume their mother. Although widely reported, the significance of this behaviour has not been explored. Her we describe a novel form of maternal care that includes matriphagy in the Australian social spider Diaea ergandros Evans (Thomisideae).

“A thousand miles of cannibal lands”: imagining away genocide in the re-colonization of West Papua

by Tracey Banivanua Mar

Journal of Genocide Research, 10:4 (2008): 583-602

Following recent calls to monitor intensifications of settler-colonial structures (Journal of Genocide Research, Vol... more Following recent calls to monitor intensifications of settler-colonial structures (Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 9, No 4, 2007, p 403), this article focuses on an as yet poorly recognized site of settler-colonial violence against indigenous peoples. Rather than engaging in what the author argues is ultimately a fruitless and potentially diversionary debate over whether the killings, massacres, disappearances and structural elimination of West Papuans amount, conceptually, to genocide, this article focuses on the kinds of discursive and epistemic violence that provide the enabling backbone and camouflage for genocidal practices. The larger questions with which the paper engages is why it is that we remain so reluctant to detect the crime of genocide, and what it is that popularly diverts our attention? In the modern era, when a body of international human rights law maintains some, if largely ineffectual, global scrutiny, it is not only the acquiescent consent of settlers on the scene that needs manufacturing for structural genocide and genocidal events to occur. In the context of globalized markets for, and consumption of, discursive representations, modern genocides are being sold to, and allowed to happen by, all of us. With a particular focus on the spectacle of cannibalism, this article explores what the author argues is a text-book example of the kind of discursive footwork that has historically accompanied colonialism's genocidal structures, and has allowed genocide to masquerade as criminally neutral (unintentional fatal impact or simply progress), or morally compelling (civilizing missions, assimilation, or development). Finally, in exploring the reflected presence of claims of cannibalism and savagery in the face-to-face violence of Indonesian occupation in West Papua, this article also argues for bringing debates about genocide back from the brink of over-analysis. As has been well advanced to date, dimensions of genocide studies threaten to tip the balance of debates so that genocide becomes a concept rather than crime, and a concept that is severed from the blunt physicality of determined and sustained attempts at mass extermination. An over-determined ‘genocide,’ the paper argues, is a temporized genocide, and one which therefore opens crucial space in debates for re-engaging precisely the kinds of colonial discourses that enable, excuse and even naturalize genocide in the first place.

Cannibalism and Colonialism: Charting Colonies and Frontiers in Nineteenth-Century Fiji

by Tracey Banivanua Mar

published in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 52:2 (2010): 255-81.

In my family, stories of our Fijian ancestors' cannibalism have been irreverently recycled in tale-telling moments... more In my family, stories of our Fijian ancestors' cannibalism have been irreverently recycled in tale-telling moments laced with both solemnity and the absurd. I never seriously questioned the reality of the stories, accepting instead their mythical quality and their underlying social allegory. With almost a wink and a nudge these tales of past cannibalism come to life as fables that nearly always taper off into the redemption of being civilized. As I explore in this article, for us as for many who engage cannibal stories, cannibalism refers to more than the cultural practice of anthropophagy. In the wake of William Arens' provocative critique of this meta-myth, it has become more difficult in recent years to uncritically accept and repeat claims of other peoples' cannibalism. Studies by a generation of scholars of history and culture have ensured that the study of cannibalism now is as likely to interrogate those that view and seek it, as it is to examine those reputed to practice it. Anthropologies of tourism and cultural critiques too have cemented its conceptualization as an enduring discourse of savagery.

La triple furia de Cú Chulainn: Motivos literarios y correlatos antropológicos

by Alberto Montaner

Montaner Frutos, Alberto, «La triple furia de Cú Chulainn: Motivos literarios y correlatos antropológicos», Revista de Poética Medieval, vol. 25 (2011) [= monográfico Épica, folklore y literatura comparada: Nuevas perspectivas, ed. Ó. Abenojar y A. Boix], pp. 221-294

Here is revisited Dumézil’s theory about the battle fury linked
to the legends of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn and... more Here is revisited Dumézil’s theory about the battle fury linked
to the legends of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn and one of the Horatii roman triplets. According to him, both legends show rites of passage, as it is proved by the comparison with the one performed in the sacred cannibal dance of the Canadian Kwakiutl Tribe. After a detailed review of the evidence, it is
concluded that Cú Chulainn shows, in fact, three kinds of fury, one related to the initation trance, and two others as varieties of true battle fury. Only the  rst one can be twined with the Kwakiutl rite, while the young Horatius’ story has no relation with this phenomenon and must be explained as a legal and
etiologic legend.

KEYWORDS: Battle fury. Berserksgangr. Ríastrad. Initiation rite. Cú Chulainn. Horatii and Curiatii. Tigillum Sororium. Cannibal dance. Native American Kwakiutl Tribe.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Furia guerrera. Berserksgangr. Ríastrad. Rito iniciático. Cú Chulainn. Horacios y Curiacios. Tigillum Sororium. Danza caníbal. Tribu amerindia kwagul.

Hans Staden's True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil‐by Staden, H., Harbsmeier, M. and Whitehead, NL (eds. and trans.)(2010)

by Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo

2009. Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 28, No. 3:460-461

Dismembering the Trope: Imagining Cannibalism in the Ancient Pueblo World

by Randall McGuire

with Ruth Van Dyke

Eating People: Accusations of Cannibalism Against Christians in the Second Century

by Andrew McGowan

From the Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994)

Christians were accused of a variety of crimes, including cannibalism, during the second century. Since recent... more Christians were accused of a variety of crimes, including cannibalism, during the second century. Since recent anthropological discussions encourage a degree of scepticism when dealing with accusations of cannibalism, this paper considers the charges as instances of "labellng," whereby social relations are expressed using a symbolic stereotype, rather than relying on the traditional explanation of a misunderstanding of "body and blood" imagery.

Cannibalistic Capitalism and other American Delicacies: A Bataillean Taste of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

by Naomi Merritt

Published in Film-Philosophy (Vol. 14, No. 1, 2010) 2010

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) presents a nightmarish vision of an America, metaphorically and... more The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) presents a nightmarish vision of an America, metaphorically and literally devouring itself. ‘Home, sweet, home’ becomes the slaughterhouse and consumers become the consumed as ‘cannibalistic capitalism’ (embodied by a family of unemployed but murderous abattoir workers), wreaks havoc on the lives of a hedonistic group of youths, as the ‘Age of Aquarius’ comes to a bloody end. Chain Saw offers a model of horror that is both deeply rooted in American ideology, taboos, and the key (and interdependent) institutions of the family, the worker and capitalism, yet produces aberrant and transgressive versions of these same social units. In this paper, the film’s representation of ‘cannibalistic capitalism’ will be explored in relation to Georges Bataille’s theory of taboo and transgression. While Bataille asserts that the ‘main function of all taboos is to combat violence’ (thus maintaining the power, integrity and conformity of social institutions), he also suggests that the taboo paradoxically begets its own violent transgression. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, capitalism’s transgressive excesses both ignite the taboo’s prohibitive power while revelling in and glorifying its violation. This paper offers a ‘taste’ of a Bataillean approach to the theorising of horror and the spectatorial ‘pleasures’ of submitting to the anguish it provokes.

Eating to Live, Living to Eat: Cannibalism and Sexual Appetite in Ravenous

by Chris Ryan

The 1999 film Ravenous presents cannibalism and the hunger for flesh as a metaphor for homosexual desire, not in order... more The 1999 film Ravenous presents cannibalism and the hunger for flesh as a metaphor for homosexual desire, not in order to demonize homosexuals, but to ultimately make a greater point that we are stronger for accepting ourselves for who and what we are, and that denial of the inner self is tantamount to suicide. My presentation will examine the film’s use of cannibalism in the context of Susan Bordo’s assessment of depictions of masculine hunger in popular culture, contrasting the aggressive and insatiable violence of cannibalism with the coercive and measured violence of vampirism. In addition, I will demonstrate the ways in which the film frames the protagonist’s cowardice throughout the film in order to present his death at its conclusion as a denial-motivated suicide, rather than the sort of sacrifice typical of the heroic narrative.

Bolker, B. M., de Castro, F., Storfer, A., Mech, S., Harvey, E., Collins, J. P. 2008. Disease as a selective force precluding widespread cannibalism: a case study of an iridovirus of tiger salamanders, Ambystoma tigrinum. Evolutionary Ecology Research 10:105–128

by Francisco de Castro