There is actually an entire chapter in the book on cannibal symbolism in the Eucharist and various philosophical treatments of and reactions to it-- I probably should have gone into that more, but the post-colonial-theory applications of the first chapters were so striking to me that I read some other bits of the book possibly with less emphasis on them than the author intended. That really was where I was expecting material on the blood libel, though, and was very surprised not to find it. In the LJ crosspost of this entry Earis is talking about how the European view of cannibalism was amazingly and substantially influenced by the blood libel and it just seems a weird omission on Avramescu's part.
I suspect that what may have been going on is that Avramescu is focusing on academic/philosophical sources exclusively, and makes a valid case for the travel narrative as a form of intentional philosophical argument (exemplified by things like Diderot's supplement to Bougainville and Montesquieu's Persian Letters). I honestly have no idea whether academicians and philosophers were doing anything at all on the blood libel contemporarily. Popular sources certainly were. But Avramescu never uses "popular" sources unless he can argue that they are intended as philosophy; there isn't any popular fiction cited except Robinson Crusoe, which he uses almost entirely as a metaphor.
I... really amazingly disagree with this as a reasonable methodological limitation for an intellectual history, because I think it draws an artificial line between "intellectual" and "popular" discourses, but it is true that the book would have had to be four times as long if he didn't draw that line. And he does acknowledge that line and that he is drawing it. I just wish he'd stated outright if the blood libel fell under the category of material only covered by "popular" sources, it just seems weird for it never ever to be mentioned in the book at all. Sigh.
The book tends to keep the ramifications of dehumanizing people as cannibals exclusively in the realm of philosophy also. Which is probably in its mandate, but I hope someone takes this scholarship as a base and runs with it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-10-25 12:52 am (UTC)There is actually an entire chapter in the book on cannibal symbolism in the Eucharist and various philosophical treatments of and reactions to it-- I probably should have gone into that more, but the post-colonial-theory applications of the first chapters were so striking to me that I read some other bits of the book possibly with less emphasis on them than the author intended. That really was where I was expecting material on the blood libel, though, and was very surprised not to find it. In the LJ crosspost of this entry Earis is talking about how the European view of cannibalism was amazingly and substantially influenced by the blood libel and it just seems a weird omission on Avramescu's part.
I suspect that what may have been going on is that Avramescu is focusing on academic/philosophical sources exclusively, and makes a valid case for the travel narrative as a form of intentional philosophical argument (exemplified by things like Diderot's supplement to Bougainville and Montesquieu's Persian Letters). I honestly have no idea whether academicians and philosophers were doing anything at all on the blood libel contemporarily. Popular sources certainly were. But Avramescu never uses "popular" sources unless he can argue that they are intended as philosophy; there isn't any popular fiction cited except Robinson Crusoe, which he uses almost entirely as a metaphor.
I... really amazingly disagree with this as a reasonable methodological limitation for an intellectual history, because I think it draws an artificial line between "intellectual" and "popular" discourses, but it is true that the book would have had to be four times as long if he didn't draw that line. And he does acknowledge that line and that he is drawing it. I just wish he'd stated outright if the blood libel fell under the category of material only covered by "popular" sources, it just seems weird for it never ever to be mentioned in the book at all. Sigh.
The book tends to keep the ramifications of dehumanizing people as cannibals exclusively in the realm of philosophy also. Which is probably in its mandate, but I hope someone takes this scholarship as a base and runs with it.
Apparently the faking of mummies extended at one point to actual grave-robbing! Whoa. And I did not know that about Ambroise Paré. Cool. Thank you.