Table Of ContentThe MyThology in our
language
The MyThology in our
language
Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough
Translated by Stephan Palmié, with a
Preface by Giovanni da Col
Edited by Giovanni da Col and Stephan Palmié
With critical reflections by Veena Das,
Wendy James, Heonik Kwon, Michael Lambek,
Sandra Laugier, Knut Christian Myhre,
Rodney Needham, Michael Puett,
Carlo Severi, and Michael Taussig
Hau Books
Chicago
© 2018 Hau Books and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stephan Palmié, Giovanni da
Col, Veena Das, Wendy James, Heonik Kwon, Michael Lambek, Sandra Laugier,
Knut Christian Myhre, Rodney Needham, Michael Puett, Carlo Severi,
and Michael Taussig
Cover: “A wicker man, filled with human sacrifices (071937)” © The British
Library Board. C.83.k.2, opposite 105.
Cover and layout design: Sheehan Moore
Editorial office: Michelle Beckett, Justin Dyer, Sheehan Moore, Faun Rice,
and Ian Tuttle
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ISBN: 978-0-9905050-6-8
LCCN: 2018962822
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Table of Contents
chapter 1
Translation is Not Explanation: Remarks on the Intellectual
History and Context of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer 1
Stephan Palmié
chapter 2
Remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough 29
Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Stephan Palmié
chapter 3
On Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough 77
Carlo Severi
chapter 4
Wittgenstein’s Spirit, Frazer’s Ghost 87
Heonik Kwon
chapter 5
Deep Pragmatism 97
Knut Christian Myhre
chapter 6
Wittgenstein Exercise 117
Wendy James
vi The MyThology in our language
chapter 7
Wittgenstein on Frazer 137
Michael Puett
chapter 8
Of Mistakes, Errors, and Superstition 155
Veena Das
chapter 9
Remarks on Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough:
Ritual in the Practice of Life 181
Michael Lambek
chapter 10
Explanation as a Kind of Magic 199
Michael Taussig
chapter 11
On an Anthropological Tone in Philosophy 207
Sandra Laugier, translated by Daniela Ginsburg
appendix
Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ritual 227
Rodney Needham
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein 1889–1951
Sir James George Frazer 1854–1941
viii The MyThology in our language
CONTRIBUTORS
Stephan Palmié is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He
is the author of Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity
and Tradition (2002) and The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban
Religion (2013) as well as the editor of several volumes on Caribbean and Afro-
Atlantic anthropology and history.
Giovanni da Col is Research Associate at SOAS, University of London and
Founder and Editor of HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory as well several
volumes and collections on the anthropology of hospitality; luck and fortune;
the anthropology of future; the history of anthropology; animism; and the spirit
world in Tibet and Southwest China.
Veena Das is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at the Johns
Hopkins University and author of Affliction: Health, Disease, Poverty and Life
and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary.
Wendy James recently retired as Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford
and is author of War and Survival in Sudan’s Frontierlands: Voices from the Blue
Nile, The Ceremonial Animal: A New Portrait of Anthropology and The Listening
Ebony: Moral Knowledge, Religion and Power among the Uduk of Sudan.
Heonik Kwon is professorial Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Uni-
versity of Cambridge, and an APJ associate. The author of The Other Cold War,
he co-authored North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics and is completing a
book on intimate histories of the Korean War.
Michael Lambek is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto,
Scarborough. The author of The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person, and
Value, and The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanga, Madagascar,
he co-authored Four Lectures on Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives.
Sandra Laugier is Professor of Philosophy at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-
Sorbonne and author of Etica e politica dell’ordinario, Recommencer la philosophie,
and Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy.
The MyThology in our language ix
Knut Christian Myhre is a researcher at the Department of Ethnography, Nu-
mismatics, Classical Archaeology and University History, University of Oslo. He
is the author of Returning Life: Language, Life Force and History in Kilimanjaro
and editor of Cutting and Connecting: ‘Afrinesian’ Perspectives on Networks, Rela-
tionality, and Exchange.
Professor Rodney Needham (1923–2006) held the chair of social anthropology
at Oxford University from 1976 to 1990 and was author of Mamboru, history
and structure in a domain of Northwestern Sumba, Counterpoints, and Exemplars.
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthro-
pology at Harvard University. He is the author of The Ambivalence of Creation:
Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China and To Become a God:
Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China.
Michael Taussig is Professor of Anthropology at The European Graduate
School and author of What Color is the Sacred?, Walter Benjamin’s Grave, and My
Cocaine Museum.
Carlo Severi is Directeur d’études at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales, Paris. He is author of L’Objet-Personne: Une anthropologie de la croyance
visuelle, The Chimera Principle: An Anthropology of Memory and Imagination, and
co-author of Naven, ou le donner à voir.
