Gift Exchange

Sorcery and social change

by Rena Lederman

Chambri endgame: history and anthropology in New Guinea

by Rena Lederman

Big men large and small: toward a comparative perspective

by Rena Lederman

Comparative strategies: dialectics of the gift

by Rena Lederman

Interests in exchange: increment, equivalence and the limits of big-manship

by Rena Lederman

La Pologne, un don maternel de Catherine de Médicis ? La cérémonie de la remise du Decretum electionis à Henri de Valois

by Ewa Kociszewska

Le Moyen Age 2011/3-4 (Le mécénat féminin en France et en Bourgogne, XIV-XVIe siècles. Nouvelles perspectives)

southern perspectives on the New Guinea Highlands

by Rena Lederman

Exchange of Sacrifices: Symbolizing an Unpopular War in Post-Soviet Russia.

by Serguei Alex. Oushakine (Сергей Ушакин)

In: Fighting Words and Images: Representing War across the Disciplines. Ed. by Elena V. Baraban, Stephan Jaeger, and Adam Muller. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 185-208.

Civiltà nuragica e mondo mediterraneo nel corso dell'età del Ferro - Contesti, materiali, problematiche

by Davide Schirru

The Archaeology and Economy of Homeric Gift Exchange, OpAth 24

by Donald Jones

Reseña de MARÍA EUGENIA AUBET, Comercio y Colonialismo en el Próximo Oriente Antiguo. Los antecedentes Coloniales del III y II Milenios a. C. Barcelona, Bellaterra, 2007.

by Jorge Juan Cano Moreno

Königliche Geschenke aus Lydien, in: Linda-Marie Günther (Hrsg.), Tryphe und Kultritual im archaischen Kleinasien – ex oriente luxuria?, Wiesbaden 2012, 74-95

by Christoph Michels

Usury and Political Friendship in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

by Unhae Langis

Le nomadisme du Grand roi 1988

by Pierre Briant

Iranica Antiqua XXIII, 1988

A Passion for Giving, a Passion for Sharing. Understanding Knowledge Sharing as Gift Exchange in Academia

by Ariane Berthoin Antal

co-authored with Nathalie Richebé, published in Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2009:78-95

This contribution explores knowledge-based interactions among academics through the lens of gift exchange theory.... more This contribution explores knowledge-based interactions among academics through the lens of gift exchange theory. Drawing from interviews conducted in France and Germany, it first reviews the diversity of contexts and reasons for knowledge sharing, then analyzes the processes and the implicit rules that govern them. The use of gift exchange theory brings to light several paradoxes inherent in interactions among members of the academic community, and it offers a fresh way of looking at power, status, and emotions in exchange processes.

"This Alarming Generosity": White Elephants and the Logic of the Gift

by Ross Bullen

American Literature 83.4 (December 2011)

In this essay, I examine the literary and cultural history of the term “white elephant” – a phrase that refers to a... more In this essay, I examine the literary and cultural history of the term “white elephant” – a phrase that refers to a burdensome object that is impossible to sell or give away – by tracing its origin in the American lexicon to the United States’ diplomatic relations with Siam in the 1850s. Although a certain kind of albino elephant (chang pheuak) was regarded as auspicious in Siam, these animals were not white, nor were they given as gifts by the king of Siam in order to “ruin” his rivals. In this paper, I trace the emergence of the white elephant as a figure for value in European and American travel writing. By the 1850s this figure’s connotations as a source of wasteful expenditure had been so internalized that it appears in prominent American literature, including Melville’s Moby Dick. I argue that the white whale operates in a manner that calls to mind the white elephant, and that this novel as a whole functions as an allegorical critique of precisely the oriental despotism decried as the corrupt source of stagnant expenditure of which the white elephant serves as a prominent symbol. Finally, I examine the relationship between Siam and America in George B. Bacon’s Siam, the Land of the White Elephant, As It Was and Is, a text that subtly yet unmistakably aligns the white elephant with the figure of the Siamese twin, suggesting that despite their apparent differences, America and Siam might share a fundamental – and, for Bacon, repulsive – intimacy.

The Prime Minister and the Platypus: a paradox goes to war

by Natalie Lawrence

In press

In February 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded that a live... more In February 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill demanded that a live duck-billed platypus be sent from Australia to Britain. A vigorous male was shipped off but died shortly before arrival in Britain. This request can only be understood if placed in the context of Churchill’s passion for exotic pets as well as the rich history of aristocratic menageries and live diplomatic gifts. Obtaining an animal hitherto unseen alive in Europe would have been a great zoological achievement for London Zoo and secured British authority in heated historical taxonomical debates. This zoological triumph, coupled with accomplishing an extravagant enterprise in the middle of war-time austerity would have boosted public morale. Most importantly, despite its death, the platypus, served as a token for mediating the soured relations between Australia and Britain. Churchill’s platypus provides a unique case of animal collecting that incorporates effects on international diplomacy and public relations along with a great private eccentricity and passion.

L'énigme de la troisième personne

by Dominique Casajus

Published in Différences, valeurs, hiérarchie. Textes offerts à Louis Dumont, Jean-Claude Galley (Ed.) (1984) : 65-78

L'Essai sur le don de Marcel Mauss est un texte fascinant et même inspiré, mais énigmatique à bien des égards. C'est à... more L'Essai sur le don de Marcel Mauss est un texte fascinant et même inspiré, mais énigmatique à bien des égards. C'est à une de ses énigmes qu'on s'est attaché ici. Elle concerne l'usage que Mauss y fait d'une déclaration que le prêtre maori Tamati Ranaïpiri avait faite à l'ethnographe Elsdon Best. Cette déclaration concernait l'obligation de donner et de rendre certains types d'objets, mais elle pose des problèmes d'interprétation et le commentaire qu'en fait Mauss en pose davantage encore.

Internet fra dono e mercato. Discussione su Marco Aime e Anna Cossetta," Il dono al tempo di Internet", 2010

by Anna Cossetta

Queer Gifts: Eros, Affect, and Effluvia in Richard Crashaw’s Sacred Poems

by Karma deGruy

Under review.

“In Vulnera Dei pendentis” (“On the wounds of God hanging”) is typical of Richard Crashaw’s sacred poems in its... more “In Vulnera Dei pendentis” (“On the wounds of God hanging”) is typical of Richard Crashaw’s sacred poems in its intense attention to the wounded body of incarnate God.  As Richard Rambuss has demonstrated, “no English poet was more enraptured by the image of God enfleshed, uncovered, and rendered corporeally vulnerable than was Richard Crashaw” (Closet 26).  Indeed, the intensity of Crashaw’s gaze on the corporeal, vulnerable Christ and his wounded body has provoked responses from dis-ease to disgust.  These myriad wounds and blooming, bloody orifices have been examined by critics such as Rambuss, Ryan Netzley, and Eugene Cunnar, who have explored them as focal points for Crashaw’s Incarnational and Eucharistic imagery; I take my starting point from the effluvia that emerge from these orifices and the work that such effluvia perform.  The blood, sweat, and tears exuding from Crashaw’s poetic bodies become tangible relics of divine Passion and human affect; Crashaw imbues them with superlative value, along the way troubling notions of both aesthetic and theological decorum.  The two short lines in the above epigraph [Fixa manus ; dat, fixa : pios bona dextera rores / Donat, & in donum solvitur ipsa suum (His hand is pierced; pierced, it gives: the good right hand gives holy dews and is itself dissolved into its own gift)] contain a number of elements which recur in
Crashaw’s lyrics: the language of gift and exchange, the strangely liquid quality of the media of exchange in circulation between and among the participants in the exchange relationship, and the tendency of the gift, giver, and receiver to merge.  Through a poetics of gift exchange, Crashaw posits an ongoing reciprocal relationship between human and deity, earth and heaven; he imagines a libidinal, dynamic exchange economy from which the terrestrial and corporeal are not excluded but to which they are in fact integral.