THE SEMIOTIC REVIEW OF BOOKSprojects.chass.utoronto.ca/semiotics/srb/vol 16.1.pdfWinter and Spring/Summer. Editorial: 1-5 Noise Music By Paul Hegarty Ecosocial Semiotics 5-10 By Scott

THE SEMIOTIC REVIEW OF BOOKSVOLUME 16.1-2 2006 ISSN 0847-1622http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb

Editorial

Noise MusicBy Paul Hegarty

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Editorial: 1-5Noise MusicBy Paul Hegarty

Ecosocial Semiotics 5-10By Scott Simpkins

Pop Spirituality 10-15By David A. Nock

Toronto Semiotic Circle Redux 15By Gary Genosko

Insight: Mauss’s Memory 16-18By James Clifford

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THE SEMIOTIC REVIEW OF BOOKSVolume 16.1-2 (2006)

Table of Contents

For something seemingly very difficult totalk about, noise music has spawned arange of options for theorists, as if

theory was waiting all the time to answer itsquestion. Why the wait, why the currentinterest? Perhaps it is that noise has beenheld at bay by centuries of rationalism and,prior to that, religions based on organizationand the clarity of belief. We can certainlyfind noise within religions, generally as thatwhich is to be combated: temptation ordoubt in Christianity, the world in Buddhism.Noise is ever-absent amidst the rendering ofthe world as rational – even Descartes got toReason through dreams filled withthunderclaps, falling and the noise of the cityin opposition to he would erect a mentalbeing. Newton's thinking is filled with thenoise of 'bad science', Hooke's with theaesthetic. Renaissance and early modernscience could be the noise of religiousthinking and vice-versa. But the thought ofnoise comes late, just as the thought of chaosfinally comes to map systems that do notseem to obey systemic principles. Like chaostheory, noise theory is not 'just noise', but anattempt to structure noise's relation to form,structure, logic, linearity. This attemptshould, in my view fail, or else it will nolonger be noise. But all thinking dooms theunthinking to be thought, brought in, andlose its noisiness – this too is part of aninevitable circuiting of failure, which is initself noise.

I. Applying Theory to Noise

The wish to theorize noise, or to usenoise as model, object or whatever, is a wishto understand what previously eluded others:its appearance in the radicalization of music

is initially an attempt to finally summon theuniverse that had up until now been veiledto humanity. Noise was the truth of natureand the truth of human society (Cage,Russolo) – its exploration would make ofhumanity an expanding universe ofsensation. However, as the futurists intuited,this world of sensation was not going to be agentle one. The late 20th century producesa more disillusioned music, away from therestricted economy of the academic 'avant-garde', and now noise is offered as thatwhich cannot be appropriated, mastered,made musical – whilst all the while occurringin the place of music, without allowingdwelling in that place. Jacques Attali firsttried to deal with noise in his 1977 bookNoise, but only in the last few years has thenotion spread, to become a heuristic tool(even in cybernetics, it is too easily defined,closed off, isolated and muffled). Writersshift between imagining noise as beingutopian (in a good way) and utopian (in away fit to be criticized). I will argue belowthat this imaginary of noise is too simple,and based on 'strength' models of theory,which aspire to rightness, definition, results –so that noise becomes a utility and/or adecorative flourish. Against, outside orbeyond this, noise should be the continualfailing of noise, the ceaseless exclusion ofwhat is produced as unacceptable soundwhilst being taken in to social ritual andconvention. Noise signals the failing ofsense and structure, but in so doing, becomesincorporated as non-noise. The moment ofnoise is always just a suspension betweenthese failures.

Thinking on noise is a curious part of'new musicology', which since Adorno'smultiple restatements of the necessity of an

avant-garde to reflect social conditions(without necessarily explicitly referring tothem), has sought to place music in thewider context of an understanding thatmany musical paradigms and 'givens' aresocially constructed, embedded in particularsocieties and analyzable beyond thepositivism of score-reading. Noise is nodifferent, and implies an assessment, whethergood or bad, of the capacity of music totransgress codes, whether such transgressionis also an actual subversion, and whetherthis can be extended beyond 'the musical'.Popular music has purported to be the soundof rebellion since the 1950s, at least awayfrom the flabby genre of 'pop' itself, but inorder to remain avant-garde, the stakesbecame higher for every micro-generation ofmusicians, as they had to go against, or gofurther than predecessors. Noise is in thischange, in the initial unacceptability ofdissonances, but noise is actually in it too –as music incorporated feedback, for example,or introduced samples, played withrecording, and so on. A Hegelian 'story ofrock' would tell of an ever higher noisecontent, interspersed with backlashtunefulness. The pinnacle would then bethe noise music that comes out of and afterindustrial music of the late 1970s, whichbrought in everyday objects, the ruinedindustrial environment providing material,and much of this comes from Japan, hencethe grab-bag term 'Japanese noise' whichaccounts for a highly diverse range ofperformers. Like Hegel, it is hard to arguewith this story, but it does not have to betold as a teleology, unidirectional andmeaningful. Instead, what seems like anobvious tool to apply – Bataille's notion ofexcess – offers a different theorization: wherenoise is always a momentary sacrificialexperience, that sacrifices itself, anoscillating accursed share; here noise isalways what is excluded as waste, only nowbrought in (sonic debris, mistakes, 'non-musical' objects, the too loud or the tooquiet). As the exclusion is brought undercontrol (e.g. by ears adjusting at aperformance, or by getting some familiaritywith a recording), noise fades, so mustendlessly be resuscitated, to be killed again,over and over. Below, I will put this ideaalongside the practice of Japanese noiseperformer Masonna, and then go further (or,more accurately, always less far) with GianniVattimo's idea of weakness.

Why listen to noise? Firstly, we couldreturn to Cage and say that it is theimmanence of the world presenting itself tous, and we should not (because we cannot)escape it. As well as this, noise is imaginedas resistance, one that goes beyond, that isliterally the loudest, toughest, etc. But the

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reward there is fleeting – noise will fail youthere, and your drive to escalation willalways be thwarted. Noise's power (throughvolume, dissonance and disruption) isphysical – it resists mastery (albeit likeKant's sublime). Instead of a utopia oflistening, noise is the infliction of hearing.Does that mean any noise is good? No –noise is bad…. Sound that is purposelycreated might be perceived by others (e.g.neighbours) as noise, and to some extentthat looks like an ideal of noise – proximityalong with lack of control, as well as being,probably, only a byproduct or waste of otheractivity. But like 'white noise', it is lackingthe suggestion of purposiveness that makesnoise a question, a challenge rather than athump in the face. If it is too purposive (e.g.loud behaviour expressly loud to annoyothers) it has nothing to do with noise andeverything to do with control throughrationalized means. Noise cannot be autility and still be noise. The noise of say,muzak in shopping malls is more curious, asimulation of noise (noise in airports and theuse of the address system would be worthinvestigating, particularly in the age of the'war on/of terror').

The various theorizations of noise splitinto the following styles:

Ecstatic: noise offering a communion,a new society, however briefly. Suchan approach has close connections towriting on what in the 1990s wasreferred to as rave/club culture. Theemphasis here is on the physicaltaking over from the rational.

Extreme/Excess: here noise really ismore: noise is the avant-garde, thefurthest music has got. This can stillbe interested in the physical, but alsoin how thought breaks down. Noisehas great potential, in thisformulation. Noise as potential,even.

Adorno: noise music is just anothercommodification of attempted avant-gardism. Those who engage in it aredoubly misled, as since Adorno'identified' the culture industryproblematic, any avant-gardism thatignores it is in some way doomed tofail whilst believing it is offeringsomething new. Noise here is theculture industry's last gasp, andpossibly a sign of its desperation.Any new noise, if such a thing ispossible, is turned into culturalcapital, reified by its consumers.Those who use Adorno have toforget his hostility to anything thatcomes after classical music.

Attali: noise is what society does notaccept; so negatively defined, it isalways caught up in its relation towhat is considered meaningful,acceptable. Noise here is aninheritance of sacrifice, with thenotion of sound being physicallythreatening. He advocates pirateradio, sampling etc., as means ofcreating 'noise in the system'. Thefirst edition of his book was implicitlyBataillean, combining Hegelian andNietzschean views. His conclusionsare weak, and, unfortunately,

expanded on to the cost of the betterbits, in his 2001 rewrite.

Deleuze and Guattari: noise here is aproliferation of sound,deterritorialization of both music andlistener. Noise is rhizomatic, aplateau of intensities etc. Such anapproach is used as a means ofidentifying transgressive, 'subversive'culture. Here, too, there is always ahappy outcome.

Failure/impossibility: noise is only everdefined against something else,operating in the absence of meaning,but caught in the paradox of nihilism– that the absence of meaning seemsto be some sort of meaning.

Not thinking about it at all: here, to tryto think critically or understandnoise is to betray it, to lose itsradicality. This must be the mosttraditional perspective.

Authenticity/purity: noise as pureexpression (like Jackson Pollock, orClement Greenberg's Pollock). Thiswould be one response to Adorno, insaying that noise is only possible inreaction to an all-pervasivehyperculture industry.

These are all 'strong' theories, to which wecould add a weak, failing theory, that wouldnot be about failure but an enactment, asupplementary replaying of noise's failure,where neither failure is definitive. The wayinto this, I think, is through Bataille's notionof excess, which superficially seems to workonly as a validation for those who mightpraise an authentic transgression in theextremes of noise. Masonna too, offers us avery literal form of excess, in terms of hisown 'excessive' physical performances, the'extreme' noise of his concerts andrecordings. But he also offers us an equally'obvious' weakness or failing, at the momentswhere he gasps for breath, or loses track ofthe noise, and it falls back into beingstrumming or thumping. I want to claimthat Masonna suggests the application ofBataillean excess to his work. Firstly at theobvious level, then at the level where bothBataille and Masonna approach failure, andalso in how the obviousness of excess is keyto understanding that this 'present' excess isthe trace of the actual, absent excess thatstructures noise, noise as failure. But this is afailure that is not self-contained, a result ofmusical badness, or listeners' lack ofcompetence or capacity, nor that it is onlynoise that fails.

Why failure, though? Certainly not tostand in awe before the 'ineffable object ofnoise', or to claim noise fails because it isfundamentally misguided. It is not a badfailure – noise fails to be noise, even as,hopefully, it fails in being music, and this isits condition – not exactly what it sets out todo, but how it could function, if it did ordoes. This double failure – not being noise,not being music – is the only fleeting successnoise can have. This is not negative, exceptat the level of noise being a negativity – i.e.,noise does not positively inhere in a specificpiece or style of music, it occurs in arelation. The failure of noise is not due tosome problem with how it got made, or howit is listened to, understood – failure occurs

in the relation to noise of: music, a piece ofnoise, noise music, the performer or thelistener. Failure is not about not doingsomething, nor is it a result, what it is is anoperator of noise.

II. Containing

Bataille's notion of 'sovereign failure', asexpressed in The Accursed Share, vols. II andIII, offers a way of thinking about failure andimpossibility not as tragic, but as functional –as the mode or formlessness of noise and thelistening to noise. Excess can be about losingthe self, but more than this, excess is actuallyless (having become more first). Excess, forBataille, is part of the principle ofexpenditure that defines the universe, andendlessly alternates with the principle ofconservation or accumulation. Excess isabout death, waste, eroticism, drunkenness,sacrifice, transgression – all the good thingsin life….so noise seems to be ideal forBataille and vice-versa – but Bataille's notionof excess is not about goodness, aboutcommunion or some sort of realization ofnothingness: it is a principle of evil, apatheticevil. Excess cannot be about gain, butinstead involves loss: the loss of self in ritualor noise music will only ever be virtual loss, asuggestion of how waste might come out.And there is only ever this not-quite-occurring of excess, the same as noise neverquite occurs as noise, as it is always multiplymediated in order to be heard, let alonelistened to.

Excess is not transgression, nor attainablethrough it – excess parallels those, but alsoparallels the restricted world of survival,saving, truth, logic and so on. Noise asexcess does not exist purely, authentically asexcess, but only in relation to both musicand to judgments about noise. In otherwords, putting excess and noise together isthe combining of two things that have noautonomous existence. But it does seem likethis: why is noise music excessive? Firstly invery mundane ways – volume, or absence of,use of materials deemed non-musical,pushing materials beyond a point where thesound coheres in discrete patches; butsecondly, because we conceive it as excess asa result of these elements. Excess, though, isnot quantitative, 'louder', 'harsher', 'moreshocking': it is in the pushing to the ordinarylevels of excess and then in the excess thatoccurs toward the listener. Excess is waste,not a surplus: it only is in being spent:

Excess energy (wealth) can be usedfor the growth of a system (e.g. anorganism); if the system can nolonger grow, or if the excess cannotbe completely absorbed in its growth,it must necessarily be lost withoutprofit; it must be spent, willingly ornot, gloriously or catastrophically(Bataille 1991: 21).

If it only comes to be – in fact only fails tocome to be – as waste, nonetheless it isalways there, "energy is always in excess"(1991: 23), and it is the non-excessive that isthe by-product.

So noise music has to try to get to somesort of limit, or be some sort of limit, towork. But noise isn't at the limit, or thelimit – even the most 'cathartic', loud harsh

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performance or recording only works as noisewhen the limits of that particular bit ofnoise/music are in play. And this is thepossibility of weakness, failure, beingconsumed rather than blazing gloriously, rockgod style, and where no-one is in control, orthe beneficiary of loss. What you get is stillnothing.

This NOTHING is what Batailledescribes as sovereignty, a deformed versionof (what he imagines to be) Hegel's idea ofmastery. Sovereignty is where the subject isexceeded, lost, put beyond the self. Thismight lead us to imagine a happy catharsisfor performer and individual, but this loss isloss, not something to be chalked up asexperience, as gain, as cultural capital. It isalso a loss that has always been within us,existing as being-to-be-lost. The unknowingpossibly induced by the 'experience' of noisealso fails – and this is sovereign failure(1991: 204). In terms of noise, this appliesnot only to the listening, but also to theprocess of understanding or theorizing it.Nick Smith (2005) has recently talked andwritten of the mundane failure of noise whenwe either: a) get used to it; or b) reflect onit. But what if this is not a mundane failureat all, but a necessary part of a machinicconception of noise that is not about noiseobjects that get sense imposed on them, orlose impact as they get listened to by gratefullisteners, but about a noise-relation, a noise-body? I think the answer to this is theabsence of an answer that can maintain acritical purity or the purity of some sort ofideal noise that eludes our impositions. ForBataille, anguish alternates with apathy astwo states of interest, and in the setting ofnoise, apathy is the outcome of noise andnoise's failure coming together, and thisapathy cannot be sustained, as it gives wayto judgment. The outcome of noise is thefailure to inhabit a moment of sovereignfailure (where we so nearly know nothing),such that, as he says in his novel MmeEdwarda, all we have left is irony and thelong wait for death – irony is not, of course,to be taken as the rational, diacriticalawareness that would help us control things.Rather it is Bataille's ultimate end ofanything worth doing, the last thing. Howpleased we are if noise succeeds or fails, andhow much closer to noise when frustrated,excited, and physically addressed by noise.How pleased we are if we have a strongtheory that masters either the success orfailure.

III. Instead Weakness

Masonna is consistently described asbeing at the extreme end of Japanese noise,so that is what makes him a good example ofweakness and excess. Excess in normalterms, applying to the blocs of intense soundand similarly weakness in the normal sensedescribing the gaps or the collapses in thatnoise. Through Bataille and Vattimo, wecan rethink these two categories as crossingone another (with Masonna ahead of thegame). Just like Bataille's own aestheticreadings, excess starts out from fairlytransparent excesses, and only then does itmove on. The pieces I will discussdemonstrate what superficially seem likeblocs of excessive or extreme noise, broken

with moments of failure, where extravagancedissipates. I am looking at those obviousexcesses and failures as ways into a moreintricate weakness, wherein the excessresonates across loud phases and gaps, andwhere the weakness crosses out and overfrom the superficial moments of failingstrength in Masonna's performances andrecordings.

Masonna is described on his own websiteas the 'rock god of noise music', and here aresome representative comments:

Alien8: "Maso Yamazaki a.k.aMasonna is undoubtedly the mostover the top player in the field ofextreme noise", using a "barbaric mixof vocals and noise".

Mute: Masonna is "Japan's mostextreme noise artist”.

Nick Smith: Masonna "creates thebrutal high-volume nearly-whitenoise that has become increasinglycharacteristic of the movementknown as noise music" (2005: 44).

A UK Music Reviews site: "intense,harsh, and brutal feedback, whitenoise, and screaming. There's nomelodies here, no singing or lyrics,not even a proper rhythm – just freeform noise, the agony of sound"(kowz.co.uk).

But all of this is not just thecommodification and/or deification ofMasonna – his stuff plays this game too, withthe 'extreme' performance, seeminglyunpredictable sound outcomes, and theintensity of what is produced. Everythingseems to be combining to attribute purity,authenticity and a newly centered artist,master of his form, or formlessness. MasonJones argues that "Masonna is too muchconcerned with pure expression to betheoretical enough" to follow John Cage(seaoftranquility.org) – in a good, decisiveand masterful way. But what if what madethis noise music noise was more formless, aprocess of form disintegrating and accreting,and that all pure human-driven noise didproduce bursts of noisiness – moments wherethe listening is interrupted, whether thelistener is familiar/smug or deeplytraumatized by the newness? This processwould not come clear either in the buildingapparent formless form of the noise piece, orin its failure to stay noise.

If we take his DVD montage ofperformances, Like a Vagina, we see and hearsomething that promises to take us to a newlevel of excessive performance (while tying into a lengthy tradition, or history, of 'extreme'performance), and where the performer isputting himself at stake, pushing himself, theequipment and audiences beyondfunctioning. Noise is being staged as amaximum (of sounds or noises), and also atand as its breaking apart. Where or when isthe noise? When is the judgment of noise inplay? Noise and its failure never emerge asdiscrete: instead the louder noise, therecognizable noise fails, while the failing,gasping, panting becomes noise. But thenoise is maybe never heard as such – itwould be that which crosses over,transgresses in the sense of the crossing thathas always crossed over already, unknown.

Then the noise could be at the momentsSmith describes as those pauses that suggestmeaning, "like the vertical strips in BarnettNewman" (2005: 3), the points where weseem to be nearest to controlling thenoisiness, or that the noise lets up, themoments of gathering.

Instead of gathering noise, noise asgathering of noise; instead of noise as loss,noise as loss of noise (in terms both of thedisappearance of noise, and the attempt atimposing meaning, and then this impositionfailing, not through being wrong, but becausethat imposition had always been emergingfrom the noise anyway).

This could apply to the moments offailure: of instrument, of voice, or ofrecording (or editing). The moment mightoccur as direct excess is in itself exceeded –and distortion stops, or the voice cracks. InMasonna we could still think of theseoccurrences as illustrating the commitment,the authenticity of pushing the barriers, ofletting go. "Assenting to life up to the pointof death" as Bataille says in Eroticism (1962:11). They also offer a pause for reflection,but only if we think that reflection has beenprevented in the rest. Or it could beassimilation – a space where judgment isallowed to occur, where distance, critical orotherwise is re-established. This relies onthe notion that distance is abolished in theharsher explosive noise blocks. So whatthese moments give is like Kant's sublime –the sense that something we cannot judgejust occurred, but this is only a trick – theapparent breakdown of noise, anexacerbation of noise, not its ending. Noisebecomes a mobile force and momentaryweakness then seems to confirm noise asforce: and force disrupts form (and form inturn includes the connection to the listener).Force, though, is not to be taken as strength,but something like Nietzsche's 'will to power'(a force that does not belong to someone,but acts between, like gravity). This force isalso material, or what connects anddisconnects the material from the realm ofhearing or judging noise – literally played outin the bad use of equipment – hands on footpedal, bad drumming, bad editing of thevideo (notably around the 5 minute mark),the cringing use of what we have to call a'noise harmonica' (10 minutes in). It is thisbad element that distinguishes noise fromother uses of noise, which work throughmastery of equipment, composition,technique. That this 'badness' can be donewell only adds to its wrongness. For now.

IV. More, Weakness

Masonna often veers between loud noiseand silences, occasional glimpses of musicand semi-contemplative voice sounds. Thisis combined, as in "Test Edit", on the albumNoskl in Ana, with bad montage,emphasizing that noise cannot become aunity, an amorphous ambience and staynoise (Similar 'structures' occur in track 4,1.05, and towards the 2 minute mark; and intrack 7, where the 'gap' outside of noise goesfrom 11.30 to 12.35. Does the timecounting of digital media reduce somethingnoisy about noise? Or is that to imagine apurity of performance that has never beenthere, only imagined as lost, or to come?).

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In this piece, voice, guitar and percussionfight through blasts of feedback. This thengives way (1.05) to panting, very close to themicrophone and a rhythmic machineclicking. At 1.39-1.41, noise again comes in,overloading even as noise, at 1.41. Silence, avoice at some sort of limit, and suggestions ofmusic are not pauses but act as changes inthe relation of piece and/or performer toaudience: expectation removes the presenceof noise, stopping it from just being, frombeing there to be understood: familiar. Thisis where noise starts to appear, and endlesslyfails to appear. The voice is noisy for beingoutside of language, and seemingly indexingthe limits of endurance, but what we largelyhear is a 'bad' version of that, mediated bythe microphone's reception of breath - thepossibly authentic carrier of Masonna'ssubjectivity is there only in how it isdiminished, made noisy.

Repetition, and even the fascination of anoise becoming something we can follow,and carrying on anyway, apathetic to ourappropriation also work like silence in thesetting of noise. In the Ruins' track "B.U.G.",on Stonehenge, we have the setting of heavypercussion and bass – rock power, but aweaker force, in the guise of strength,emerges in the painful repetition of a shortphrase (from just past 1.00 to about 2.50),which gradually loses all variation, creating akind of non-anticipation (the phrase is alsoshort enough that if played by a DJ, theaudience can suspect the CD to be broken,so they veer between different types ofanticipation). From 1.19 to 1.26, a ride orsomething similar suggests a gatheringchange, only for the riff to return and repeat,unaltered for over a minute. The rest of thetrack (over 2 minutes) is also the repetitionof a riff, but the busyness of the drumssuggests some sort of dynamic.

There isn't really a way around themoment where conceptualizing or processingleads to familiarity of noise – but if noisemusic is aware of that, it can alternatebetween endless alteration and thesuggestion of coherence. This living on iswhat Vattimo (1988:1) proposes with his ideaof weakness. He argues that "the 'weakening'of Being allows thought to situate itself in aconstructive manner within the post-moderncondition". Being is weakened, via Nietzscheand Heidegger, by its persistence in a worldthat has lost the notion of true, properlyontological Being: it exists as if it were realBeing, and whilst it represents the mourningof Being, this mourning is also weak. OnceBeing lives on in weakness, so does art andculture as whole: or it does if it is culture/artthat tries to address what is actually goingon, rather than believing in modes ofthinking and acting that are gone, orexposed as completed weakness (Vattimo'sweakness cannot end itself – that is theweakness). Art becomes a remnant, aremainder or residue among other remnants,and if it realizes this (i.e., acts as if it isremnant and as if it were something more),then it can still have value, the kind of valueproposed by Nietzsche, that is outside ofjudgments of goodness, correctness, truth orfalsity. It will then be possible to:

Transform the work of art into aresidue and into a monument capableof enduring because from the outset

it is produced in the form of thatwhich is dead. It is capable ofenduring not because of its force, inother words, but because of itsweakness (Vattimo 1988: 86).

Noise, then, becomes something capable ofliving on in a commodified culture, and isperhaps the form music should take (orshould be given, attributed). Noise itselfmust be residue, and within that residueremnants and relics of musical form undoeach other, producing not only 'weakened'music, but 'weak noise' – noise that lives onin its own failure (to come to be, to be itself,to be other, to get outside). Noise does notseek to win, and theorizing about it shouldalso weaken.

This philosophical, or 'ontological'weakness supplants the literal moments ofweakening within noise. Like excess, it isnot heroic, but profoundly comic, pointless,wasteful and the place to look for it is whereexcess is at its most obvious or banal, andthen, almost but not quite against that – indirect banal weakness and where we mightbe hit by a limit rather than forcing our waythrough – this is the place weaknessemanates from. Take Masonna's "AcidRecordings, parts 1, 2 and 3", on thecompilation Extreme Music from Japan. From0.22 in, we have heavy breathing into themicrophone, feeble, vaguely animalistic; thisis broken by 2 seconds of noise, and thenfollowed by a combination of pathetic singsong and banging. It ends in feedback howls.Are these to be taken as triumph (orextravagant failure)? Possibly, but the 'noise'of the piece is in the non-relation of thedifferent 'sections', and the awkwardnessrather than the perversely measured ending.But, it is not that these transparently 'weak'sections are noisy because they indexweakness, they are noise to the weakness ofthe transparently noisy elements. Weaknessis the living on of the transgression of'extreme' noise and the living on of noisewhere, ostensibly, it isn't (when in relation tothe more overt noise, i.e., within the contextof noise music, mostly).

That is the start of it, but then theweakening infiltrates the rest of theproduction and listening, to the point wherewhat was strong, or full of force, is theweakness as art, as music. To respond tonoise might be to fail in the most mundaneway, but maybe that failure functions.Maybe we can aspire to fail in ourunderstanding, not to be mystical, ecstatic,respectful of the music, or the performance;but because to succeed is the greater failure,to master noise through critique or assess thefailure of the strong, the failure of the passivenihilist. The weak failure is not abstract,dematerialized, but historically situated. Itfails to fail, and cannot hope to succeed.Instead it alternates between the twopossibilities, never settling. The weakeningthat is noise is paralleled by weakening oftheory – and these cannot meet, onlyrecognize the residue of how they tried tomeet. Is noise tragic, then? Hardly.

V. On the Pessimism of Strength (chezNietzsche)

Weakness and noise as failure are aweakening of tropes such as the body, the

listener, the musician. All or none of thesebegin to constitute a noise-body, aperpetually weakening body that is always n-1, minus the 1 hidden in modernistmultiplicities, including in music of theavant-garde. The noise-body emanatesnoise, hears elsewhere than its ears, andcannot balance very well. The noise-bodystarted out in Descartes' dream, where he isendlessly toppling but not falling, woken by athunderclap. Reason and the mind asconductor of the body do not only stem fromthis, they are perpetually haunted by it. Asnoise tries to go elsewhere, to be the goingand not-quite-arriving, it too is haunted bymeaning, music and bodies that work as theyshould. So maybe the weakening noise-bodyis an expression of will to power as haunting.Instead of the noise/meaning division, orthat between noisy and disciplined bodies,the noise-body is a connecting, an openingbetween discrete, semi-noisy bodies and thedisciplined – in which case this haunting isan ethics, an ethics of the impossibility ofconnection, where that impossibility drivesfurther attempts and affects the world ofnon-noise, which, after all, is only a by-product, a noise of noise, a precarious, evenif long-lived, organization. Eugene Thacker(2004: 45) writes of bioinformatics excludingnoise because of its capacity forunpredictable transformation: "above all, thenoise reduction in the process of translationis concerned with a denial of thetransformative capacities of different mediaand informational contexts themselves". Atthe same time, biomedia are precisely suchendless mediations, an internal noising of thebody with, within and without technology.One thing: the noise-body will secrete moreand more noise, even as noises are broughtinto the realm of aesthetic or ethicalunderstanding, and the noise body will besecreted more and more.

Noise is material – the failing of form,and a failing that has led to all form, beforeit is materialist, before it partakes in eithercommercial, artistic or communal circuits. Amaterial that is emission, not presence. Noris it absent – thinking about noise is notenough; thinking about a Platonic noiseunmatched by our weak noise is too much.Weak noise filters across strong meaning,strong attributions, strong being. Weaknessprevents failure through living on as if failurewas inevitable and never going to happen,here, now. So, noise, and here, in the shapeof Masonna, is, barely. As if it were not.

Paul Hegarty performs with Safe andteaches cultural theory in the Department ofFrench at University College Cork, Ireland.

References

Attali, Jacques (1985) Noise: The PoliticalEconomy of Music. Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press.

Bataille, Georges (1991) The AccursedShare, vols. II and III. New York: Zone.

--- (1989) My Mother/Madame Edwarda/The Dead Man. London: Marion Boyars.

--- (1962) Eroticism. London and NewYork: Marion Boyars.

Hegarty, Paul (2003) "Residue - Margin -Other: Noise as Ethics of Excess", in Argos2003. Brussels: Argos

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Hegarty, Paul (2004) "Full With Noise:Theory and Japanese Noise Music", inArthur and Marilouise Kroker (eds.), Life inthe Wires: A CTheory Reader. Victoria: NewWorld Perspectives.

Kahn, Douglas (1999) Noise Water Meat:A History of Sound in the Arts. Cambridge,MA and London: MIT Press.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1968) The Will toPower. New York: Vintage.

Smith, Nick (2005) "The Splinter in YourEar: Noise as the Semblance of Critique",Culture Theory Critique 46 (1): 43-59.

Thacker, Eugene (2004) Biomedia.Minneapolis and London: University ofMinnesota Press.

Vattimo, Gianni (1988) The End ofModernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics inPostmodern Culture. Cambridge: Polity.

Web sites:

www.alien8recordings.com

www.yamazaki-maso.net (Masonna)

www.seaoftranquility.org

www.kowz.co.uk

Ecosocial SemioticsPaul J. Thibault, Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body: An Ecosocial Semiotic Theory. With a Foreword by M. A. K. Halliday. Londonand New York: Continuum, 2004.

By Scott Simpkins

Paul Thibault develops a denselytheoretical discussion of cognitive andecosocial components of semiotics that

could be viewed as a cognitive scienceperspective on work undertaken in moderntimes from Charles Sanders Peirce to RolandBarthes. Published in Continuum’s wide-ranging Open Linguistics Series, Brain, Mind,and the Signifying Body is “linguistic” in thelooser sense insofar as Thibault’s interest isin self-organizing, complex semiotic systemsbut has language (in its broadest sense) as itsbasis. Yet, Thibault adds abiological/ecological focus to thisinvestigation because, as he contends,“language in all of its facets is intrinsic to ourbiological make-up” (281-82).

Thibault is contributing to part of alarger body of work by related thinkersattempting to, as M. A. K. Halliday remarksin his Foreword to the book, develop “newstrategies of thought, new dimensions ofknowledge” (xi). Halliday, Thibault, JayLemke, Colwyn Trevarthen, James J. Gibson,and a handful of others working on cognitivestudies have been publishing books in venuessuch as the Continuum series and articles injournals such as Linguistics and the HumanSciences, Theory & Psychology, RecherchesSémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry, Social Semiotics,Semiotica, The Journal of Mind and Behavior,Journal of Pragmatics, and Mind, Culture, andActivity.

Overall, Thibault is working within afairly lengthy tradition motivated by thedesire to make semiotics, the study of signsand sign systems, more nuanced andcomprehensive. He acknowledges his debtto the four decades of research in the“systemic-functional theory of language”outlined by Halliday, Christian Matthiessen,and others. Thibault’s focus is on the waysthat language, in all its facets (e.g.,lexicography, phonology, grammar) andpurposes, is structured in response to societalinfluences and human practices. This wouldinclude speech situations and genres,nonverbal communication, the actualmaterial shape of a given language, oraldiscourse, and a host of other considerations,such as the ways in which we write and talkwith others in relation to our environment.For example, my sitting in the courtyard ofmy university’s Student Union while writingthis right now – listening to birds chirping,

feeling and hearing the wind, and catchingsnatches of several conversations, some ofwhich are in languages other than English –undoubtedly could have an impact on thelanguage I use, as opposed to if I were in acubicle in one of several libraries nearby, orsquirreled away in my cluttered office orworking at home.

Like Thibault’s attempt to broaden hisrange of data for this study, Barthes, StanleyFish and others have argued similarly alongthese lines for moving past the rather narrowlimitations of data selection in linguistics, forinstance as can be seen in John Stewart’s(1995) stress on analyzing sentences derivedfrom transcribed actual conversation, asopposed to sentences constructed by linguiststo demonstrate a principle – such as, anexample of positive “any more”: “There’s alot of female truck drivers any more”. Or, toput it another way, to use models of analysisdrawn from the sentence for larger, syntagm-based models which essentially extend thatform of analysis proportionately. Thibaultproposes “a shift away from the sentence-based units that characterized formalgrammars, which were mainly based onassumptions about written language” (46)and promotes a form of analysis that isintertextual, in the sense of analyzing speechexchanges among speakers, not unlike thework of conversational analysis inspired, inpart, by the theorizing undertaken by figuressuch as Mikhail Bakhtin and Gilles Deleuze(in Cinema 2 [1989 (1985): 225-234]) onconversation. Thibault champions anemphasis on communicative interaction andthe overall Gestalt produced by a givenspeech situation; indeed, even the fact thatsuch a Gestalt can take place under thecircumstances. The systemic-functionaltheory Thibault is engaging here could evenbe said, as he claims, to have “helped toredefine what grammar itself is and does”(46).

This practice of dialogic consideration isextended by Thibault toward variouselements of consciousness entailed incommunicative exchanges, such as eventcomplexes/simplexes, gestural activity,affordances, message units, reportability,object systems, mental images, scenes,interaction systems, rhythm and the metricalfoot, tone groups, infant noise(protolanguage), eye contact, and re-

encoding of speech in the course ofhearing/reading it from others. Essentially,then, Thibault is “bringing together theintra-organism and inter-organismperspectives on meaning-making” (46).This, again, offers exciting new possibilitiesfor semiotics by blending realms which areoften seen as independent or of varyingdegrees of salience in the larger scheme ofsemiosis. Citing work by Wilson (1998) andothers, Thibault argues that “recentdevelopments in the theory of complexdynamic open systems show the importanceof developing a theory of social semiosis inwhich the socio-cultural and the biologicaldomains of inquiry are brought into a newdialogue with each other”. A congruence ofthis nature provides for a much moreresponsive portrayal of the nature ofsemiosis. As Thibault suggests, “it is nowbecoming possible to make a start in theprocess of building the theoretical bridgesbetween the ‘intra-organism’ and the ‘inter-organism’ perspectives on meaning-makingactivity such that there is no contradictionor dichotomy between the two” (48).

In this study, Thibault offers thefollowing premises: “The purpose of languageand other semiotic modalities is to guide andco-ordinate our interactions with the non-self and to integrate us with our ecosocialenvironment across space-time scales that gobeyond the here-now scale of the biologicalorganism’s material interactivity with itsimmediate physical environment” (48). Anumber of significant concerns areintroduced here as again Thibaultendeavours to imagine a communicativeGestalt resulting from a transcendentsemiotics. As he observes, the argument canbe made convincingly that the system oflanguage would have, over time, developedprogressively as a decidedly human practiceinfluenced, in part, both by the impact thatour bodies themselves and our surroundingsoverall would exercise. This would be truefor both individual sign users as well ashumans as a whole. This focus on the bodilycontribution to consciousness, along with theecosocial consideration, enables Thibault tosubstantially expand our conception of therealm of thought typically considered thesole purview of the mind. Takingchronological factors into account, Thibaultasserts further his interest in exploring how

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“language and other semiotic modalities” are“modes of embodied meaning-makingactivity-in-time which directly contribute tothe self-organization of neural processes atthe same time as the latter – neural processes– directly participate, on their own scalarlevel, in semiotic processes, rather than lyingbehind these as the efficient causes ofsemiotic activity”.

Essentially, Thibault is theorizing aperspective on human thought by way ofsemiotics in this present work, one thatincludes considering the impact of bothexternal and internal stimuli and operations.In his “Preface” he notes that it is crucial forsemiotics to develop a perspective that takesinto account collectively crucialconsideration of social interaction,environmental factors, and the body in orderto emphasize facets of semiosis that havebeen seen as immaterial by virtue of theirvery materiality. This internal/external,upward/downward perspective allowsThibault to considerably thicken a semiotictheory far beyond other less-inclusiveorientations. By focusing on how the brainin conjunction with the mind contribute tothe signifying process among human beingsand their environment, he emphasizes boththe immaterial facet of thought as well as itsmaterial component.

A multi-planer model allows Thibault tofocus on several different aspects ofsignification simultaneously, as well as on theway in which our larger sense of self (“SELF”to Thibault; the “Me myself” to WaltWhitman) is constructed/constructing withinit. Thus, the emphasis here is on whatThibault conceives of as multiple planes ofscales and the ways in which we are situatedwithin them. Thibault examines how ourenvironment, and our position within it,along with the impact of the brain/mindcomplex, influence the interrelated processesof signification that he views as“trajectories”. “It is only through theattempt to understand the constitutiveinseparability of the semiotic-discursive andphysical-material cross-couplings anddynamics”, he argues, “that we canadequately theorize our and others’embodiment, our subjective experience ofour ecosocial environments, our perceptionsof our inner states and sensations and themeanings we attribute to these both in ourinternal dialogues in ‘inner’ speech activity,as well as in our interactions with others, andthe materiality of the body as playing acentral, not marginal, role in social meaning-making activity” (xiv).

One impetus for this study is Thibault’sdesire to address what he sees as a needlesslyconstrained tendency in semiotics to employa linguistic conception of the text as a modelfor semiosis. (Recall the earlier commentaryon semiotic analyses based on the sentenceparadigm.) This can lead to the inability to“see not only the continuities that linkhuman semiosis with the semiosis of otherspecies”, he observes, “but also thecontinuities that exist between perception,non-linguistic conceptual thinking, mentalimagining, consciousness, and semiosis”.Accordingly, the multidirectional spatialconception of chronology figures in as well,as Thibault frames signification as multiplychronological, moving both in the future as

well as the past. Thus, “trajectory” wouldnot entail a linear arc in this sense, butrather an oscillating linkage or network thatradiates out in all directions of time. Indeed,this arc of time can be viewed, from thisperspective, as offering a type of time-line toconceptualize its path of activities back andforth. This, for Thibault, becomes an“action-trajectory” or a “semiogenetictrajectory” which “affords the integration ofthe body-brain’s material interactivity withits here-now environment with past eventsand occasions of interacting with others, aswell as with anticipated possible futureoutcomes” (5). In effect, Thibault tries tosketch out a capacious, multi-connectiveweb of considerations that factor into thehuman engagement in semiosis. As a result,this perspective “provides a way ofconceptualizing how body-brainscontextually integrate information derivingfrom different perceptual modalities (e.g.seeing, hearing, moving) in the here-now oftheir own and others’ bodily activities toevents, activities, and so on, on other space-time scales, both in the actual past and inthe anticipated future, involving either thesame or other participants” (6). Thisconcern for widening his schema ofsignification to include inter-group elements,as well as those elements pertinent to eachindividual participant, creates a significantlyall-encompassing view of our semioticpractices.

Thibault sketches out the process bywhich humans, as sign users, are inextricablybound up in their environments, as opposedto those who propound “formalist models oflanguage” (7) based on the belief that“language is autonomous with respect toboth its physical-material basis in the body-brain complex of the individual organism andthe wider social and cultural practices andmeaning systems that characterize andconstitute a given human community”. Inthis regard, he challenges what could beconceived as the mentalist view of semioticsand, instead, explores a schema of semiosisthat accounts for numerous scales of activityembedded in the realm of individual signusers which, in turn, accounts for context ina fluid manner that views it both as flexibleyet constraining. It becomes clear thatThibault is genuinely combining bothenvironmental/bodily factors into his schemaand the social facet of meaning-makingwhich is, indeed, also integral to semioticundertakings, although this could be viewedas a weak point given its reliance upon anotion of context which is unnecessarilyessentialistic (for a challenge to such anotion of context, see Derrida, 1979 [1978];1982 [1971]). Thibault argues that our“body-brain complex” is indistinguishablefrom consciousness in the course ofsignification and addresses what he views asa lack in cognitive semiotics of accountingfor the broader system of social production ofmeaning which includes an individual signuser in the whole of semiosis. This suggestionof systematic organization may be a less-compelling aspect of Thibault’s argument,granting, perhaps, a vaguely teleological castto things that might not necessarily possesssuch features. One could, obviously, allowfor the possibility of such organized order, inthe same way that Charles Darwin gamely

accepted the possibility of intelligent design(although not in its current, politicizedrendition in the United States), but systemtheorists entertain what, to me, seemssufficient: namely, that a system doesn’tnecessarily have to be systematic (on thisissue, see Simpkins 2001: 87-120). But, itdepends on what sense of “context”,“integral”, “structure” and “systemicallyorganized” (and later, “pattern”) thatThibault had in mind here.

Given the illusory distinctions that seemto position humans as entities distinct fromtheir own materiality and the surroundingsthey inhabit, the history of consciousness hasrepeatedly, one could argue, struggled withattempts to reconcile all of the factorsThibault entertains here as interactive bynature. Significantly, Thibault undertakes aconceptualization that proposes consideringthem all in relation to, and having impacton, each other. “Rather than a constitutiveseparation of mind, body, and environment”,Thibault considers “the ways in whichindividuals and their interactions with boththeir inner and outer environments aremediated by higher-scalar systems ofinterpretance and the social practices in andthrough which these systems of interpretanceare deployed in particular contexts” (8).Clearly, a spatial consideration of theseelements provides a radically different notionof the semiosis involved in constitutingourselves as subjects than perhaps is morecommonly portrayed in semiotics. YetThibault conceives of these spatialconstraints produced by the multi-scalarplanes of signification as exercisingconsiderable reduction of our options fordetermining whether something is“meaningful”, a systemic limitation thatperhaps cannot operate with as mucheffectiveness as he contends. Unlike, say,the presumption of a clue in a detectivenovel having a material ground connectionwith an actual crime, it could be arguedinstead that there is no transcendentalsignified within a world of unmoored (andperhaps unmoorable) signifiers. Such asituation based on supposedly infinitesemiosis is not unlike Gertrude Stein’scomplaint about California: there’s no therethere.

For Thibault, stimuli to and from everyplane, as well as the organs used torecognize, and arguably re-create thosestimuli, are considered as partaking in animmense interactional process. “Perceptionand action are closely linked to each other atthe same time as they implicate, on-line, andconstantly respond to, neural, motor, andcontextual (environmental) factors”, hemaintains. Not surprisingly, “the traditionalconception of the brain as a centralprocessing unit that ‘represents’ or ‘models’an external world has no place here” (13).As opposed to a more “traditional” view,Thibault contends that the site wheresemiosis and thought take place is notnecessarily the brain in and of itself, butpossibly a nexus of trajectories connectingour social interaction, environments, bodies,and minds. This consideration obviouslygives the body-brain a substantial role in thecreation of consciousness typically associatedwith “mind”.

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Furthermore, Thibault effectivelyoutlines a three-tiered model of scales ofcognition, the uppermost (not unlike Peirce’ssense of Thirdness) of which essentially isconstituted by something beyond theindividual in a manner akin to our notion ofan entity such as “society”. Thibault levels achallenge to notions of upward causation bysuggesting that potential directionality couldoperate in several directions, even at thesame time. He contends that “the lower-scalar neural processes in the brain andcentral nervous system, along with the body’ssensori-motor activity, are neither the sourcenor the ‘cause’ of meanings and theirinterpretation” (see also Thibault 2000). Tothe contrary, he suggests that a synergisticoperation is at work in the course ofconsciousness. Thus, the activities of thebody-brain are seen to take place within agreater “timescale” of different planessimultaneously. By way of this schema ofinteractional planes, Thibault assesses theoperations of what he views as a“supersystem” that has a mediating influenceover a given sign user. Within such arhizomorphous conceptualization, thecombined elements of social andenvironmental interaction becomeintertwined with the body-brain construct.

By this rejection of a reliance upon acausal path that trickles upward fromseemingly less salient elements, Thibault’sdismantling of a privileged direction enableshim to entertain influences regardless ofpriority. He maintains, for instance, that “thestructuralist reading of the semiotic notion ofstratification has overemphasized thenontransitivity of the relations acrossdifferent strata” (43). In contrast tostructuralists who in his view have “co-opted” paradigms from Saussure, Thibaultattempts to outline a way that “value” couldbe reconciled with his view of closureless,fluid systems. This perspective would focusunderstandably both on action andchronology, thereby enabling him, he argues,to displace the notion of a language as afixed, pre-existing sign system with a moreresponsive model that accounts for languagecoming forth as signification is actuallyoccurring. The emphasis on real-timesemiotic exchanges here, as found ininterpersonal communication, is extendedfurther to any form of semiosis, and oncemore related to both bodily and cognitivefactors.

By disregarding the more conventionalperspective of ostensibly logical impact,Thibault arguably creates a decidedlydifferent view of semiotic systems here.Drawing upon Togeby (2000) and makinggood on Halliday’s contention in hisForeword, Thibault observes that “we needto develop a new discourse for talking andthinking about the ways in which brain,body, and ecosocial semiotic environment areembedded in and are functioningparticipants in higher-scalar systems that linkall three components in complex,hierarchically organized and non-linearinteractions across the many levels ofrelations and space-time scales that areinvolved” (17). To make it fully sensitive toexternal considerations, this undertakingwould need to be supplemented by takinginto account the ways in which an ecosocial

consideration perceives the process ofproducing meaning. Furthermore, Thibaultmaintains that the brain’s systemicmanifestation influences the structures of oursemiotic systems. From this perspective,then, Thibault imagines the body, theenvironment, social dynamics, and brainstructures as mutually attuned.

In part, Thibault engages in a similardiscourse strategy in regard to semiotics here.Using Nöth (1990) as an illustration, hemaintains that the convention in manysemiotic undertakings entails a desire toestablish a typology of signs or to focus ondecoding them. Here, though, Thibaultrefrains from making the “sign” a prominentcomponent of his attention. Citing work byBouissac (1998), he adds: “The pervasiveand uncritical acceptance of the notion ofthe sign as something which calls to mindsomething other than what it is has failed toclarify the ontological status of the conceptof the sign or the ways in which this conceptrelates to processes of meaning-making andtheir textual and artefactual products” (34).Yet, this raises an interesting question aboutthe sign even having the potential for anontological status at all. Notice thatThibault frames this expression as a“concept” which would suggest to me that heis thinking in terms of its ontological beingwithin the consciousness of a thinkingsubject. The sign, then, would not actuallyhave any independent materiality or “being”itself. Aside from this issue, however, is the“fundamental question” for Thibault which ishow we produce and implement notions ofinteractional contexts that allow us to framesomething outside of our individualperspectives. This is not unrelated to ErvingGoffman’s observations in Frame Analysis, inwhich he, for instance, describes the humanpractice of discerning one’s location andsituation immediately upon waking (think ofthe beginning of Francis Ford Coppola’s film,“Apocalypse Now”), or Barthes’ cognitivegrid imposition (in Roland Barthes) thatallows him to recognize a scribble as asignifier without a signified, or JacquesAttali’s description (in Noise) of informationwe render as intelligible by conceiving it as“noise”, or those postcards you see inAustralia that superimpose a contour map ofthat country over a map of the USA orEurope to provide a striking size comparison.

It seems here that Thibault may be tooeager to embrace a type of materialistsemiotics with this assertion, apprehensivepossibly about the aforementioned“nothingness” of a seemingly endlessoscillation of semiosis as it is viewed in someconceptions of semiotics (see Simpkins 2001:121-66). After all, even Peirce’s notion ofinfinite semiosis becomes a new processimmediately again once a final signified isreached or apprehended as such. It ispossible that Thibault engages in this refusalto accept the sign-as-constant-displacementin order to return to the possibility of anepistemological “gain” for cognitivesemiotics, and clearly an argument can bemade for such an accumulation ofprogressive understanding. A commonexample that I use in classroom discussionsof this situation is: look up a word in adictionary (“being”, for instance) and thenlook up each word in its definition, and so

on. On the one hand, it would seem thatcomprehension of that first word wouldnever be reached; on the other hand,eventually one would get a sense of what“being” refers to. Thibault, as I read him,would cast the end of my previous sentenceas “...one would get a sense of ‘being’”.

“Rather than seeing the brain as a sort ofdigital computer which operates on andmanipulates abstract symbol strings insideindividual heads”, Thibault envisions a“notion of value” that illustrates “how wecan connect biology and society in aconceptually unified way through the notionof activity” (51). This is an importantassertion for Thibault, insofar as he desires tomodel a discipline of semiotics that plugs themany holes, or resolves the many conflicts of,what he sees as common in so-called“mainstream semiotics” (see Hodge andKress 1988).

Numerous examples could be culled fromBrain, Mind, and the Signifying Body todemonstrate Thibault’s approach todeveloping such a super-charged semiotics.As a whole, they illustrate that he is stayingas far away (perhaps) as possible from aneatly reductive enterprise. In fact, he goesout of his way to stress the systemic nature ofsemiosis, regardless of how it manifests itself.As he asserts, “semiotic systems are open,far-from-equilibrium systems” which“maintain themselves through constantexchanges of matter, energy, and informationbetween the thermal dynamics of the systemand its external environments” (244). Letme focus on a couple of these “systems” hereas a way of illustrating Thibault’s project.

Infant : Parent Semiosis

One of the more striking paradigmsThibault addresses is the“dyadic interactionthat characterizes joint mother-infantsemiosis” at the point of developmentdiscussed by Trevarthen (1978, 1987, 1992)as “primary intersubjectivity” (36). Therudimentary semiotic interaction between achild and its mother would seem to be justthat. But, by engaging studies by Trevarthenand Halliday, Thibault outlines themultidirectional complexity entailed in thisaction, considering both the ways in whichthe child is entrained into the earliest stagesof “entering semiosis” (Hodge and Kress[1988]), and the manner in which themother is enmeshed in an adult version ofthe same phenomenon.

“Newborns seek out eye contact withsignificant others (parents, caretakers)”through “activities [that] constitute the veryearliest stages of dialogic interaction” (36),Thibault observes. In part, though, thisdecoding of the infant’s ”speech” isconstructed by way of the mother’sprojection of that encoding onto it. Onecould argue, in fact, that pet owners do thesame thing as, in my own case, when my catscurries into my office at home with (what Iinterpret as) an “upset” look on her face,which “means” that someone is at the frontdoor (I don’t have a door bell). Repeatedexperiences of this have led me to embracethe “habit” of associating this “look” with aspecific signified. The same can be said formothers interacting with their infants.“Such expressive moments on the part of the

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newborn ‘trigger’ reciprocal andcorresponding acts on the part of thecaretaker, who construes the newborn’smovement as having some meaning relevantto the emerging dyad” (36-37), Thibaultasserts. One might wonder, however,whether this is a trigger, or to extend thismetaphor (as I did with my cat example), atrigger “pulled” by the mother who wants tofind significance in the “responses” of herinfant, in the same way (to use yet anotherpersonal example) that my grandmother usedto assure me that, without question, herChihuahua understood what she was sayingto it in English.

To Thibault, the mother and infant“engage in a reciprocal exploration of and aselective attention to the environment inwhich the dyad is formed” (37). Thibaultchooses to give this “selection” a form ofsignificance it may actually “have”, if such anassertion can be allowed; although, on theother hand, it could be argued (perhapscontrary to Thibault’s earlier questioning ofthe immateriality of the sign) that thisselection is only given significance by thedecoder. As in, a sign is something whichstands for something to someone else.

Rather than accepting that an infant maybe just “looking at” something in a non-instrumental fashion, Thibault casts thispractice as a component of a developmentalagenda. By gazing, for example, a child isinvestigating its environment and socialworld in search, at least in part, ofratification as a subject by others. And,Thibault adds, this visualization leads tocognitive maturation and semioticcompetence. Additionally, the gazefunctions as a means for individual cognitivedevelopment for both people involved, andnot just the child, as one might expect, sincethere is a parallel, integrated activity takingplace between them.

This importing of significance allowsThibault to frame these seemingly low-levelexchanges as, in fact, possessing muchgreater sophistication and significance thanwould be granted from a non-instrumentalframe. As Thibault notes, “the notion ofmeaning is a highly specified category whichwe normally reserve for the kinds of semiotictransactions with others and the perspectivesthese afford that characterize oursemiotically mediated transactions with thenon-self (cf. Secondness), including ourconspecifics” (38).

The kinds of dyadic exchanges Thibaultexplores here (including those betweenhumans and bonobos [see also Thibault2004]) suggest that varying degrees ofnonetheless similar cognitive practicesindicate that humans share semiotic abilitieswith other beings through commondenominators among a wide range of“subjects”. Meaning, along these lines, isgiven a much broader array of allowancesthan is found in more conventional views ofcommunicative salience in semiotics.Undeniably, this approach paves the way forany number of new developments and foci inthis discipline. For instance, lower-levelsemiotic exchanges (such as those Idescribed with my cat) take on much greaterpotential for analysis of the construction ofmeaning-making, even though obviously my

cat doesn’t have cognitive or expressioncapacities equal to mine.

Thibault stresses “the fundamentallymultimodal character of all human meaning-making” (246) and maintains that newer andhigher modes of cognitive development donot leave behind the earlier, lower modes,but rather, incorporate them in amultidirectional fashion. Furthermore, toextend this observation to infant semoisis,Thibault argues that the infant’s gradualcognitive development does not leave behindits earlier orientations. To the contrary,while building upon these earlier, lesssophisticated skills, the infant always remainsin possession of – or consults, one might say– those skills. These artefactual abilities, inother words, are never wholly superseded,rendered obsolete, or outgrown. By way ofcognitive metonymy, Thibault is able to offera parallel here in which the infant’sdevelopment is compared with the inventionof hybrid media or language forms. “Ratherthan impeding the full flowering of languageas the ultimate expression of humanrationality, this process of integration hasafforded the possibility of the evolution ofnew genres and ways of making meaningincluding the multimedia and hypertextgenres characteristic of the age of theInternet”.

The “Gaze Vector”

Studies in nonverbal communicationhave already made substantial progress indescribing and theorizing the function ofelements such as intonation, pitch, tone,volume, mouth facets (the smile versus thesmirk, etc.), eyebrow facets, hand gestures,and so on. Eye facets were obviously alsocomponents to be considered incommunication, and they, too, have beentaken into account as well, but not perhapsin the manner that Thibault uses the “gazevector”, which he assesses as “a process-participant configuration” (201). The idea of“looking someone in the eye” and otherforms of making contact (or avoidingcontact) are viewed here as cognitivecontent in terms of the gaze’s link with one’sconsciousness, the ratification of the other’ssubjecthood, and the means by which itsupplies potential impetus for conjectureabout the signifiers/signifieds being offeredand then decoded by each participant.Thibault points out that even though “meta-functional principles operate at the lower,less specified integrative level of perceptualawareness”, they nevertheless can makesignificant contributions to the process ofinterpersonal (and intrapersonal)communication. In fact, while nonverbal (orextra-verbal) elements in conversation couldbe viewed as merely supplemental – evenoutside of a given “message” – Thibaultassigns them an integral part in the overallprocess of semiosis (of course, the pre-verbaltechniques used by infants would figure inhere as well). The gaze vector contains bynecessity a “target” which from theperspective of semiotics can be consideredsomething like a two-part signified. Thedecoder of another’s gaze would, accordingly,be endeavouring to determine what it revealsin terms of the gazer’s intent. Thibault’sconception, then, is threefold: ultimately a

target is discerned; the decoder is led to thetarget by following the gaze vector; and thegazer initiates the process of analysis.

Finally, for Thibault, “the gaze is alsorelated to the here-now ground relative tothe observer (the self) who interprets theother person’s gaze” (201). The gazer,accordingly, interpellates not only the gazeeas a subject, but also provides somethingakin to “context” within the conversation.While Thibault somewhat curiously portraysthe gazer’s function as that of “the objectivegrounder or the actualizer of the gaze”,arguably this is an act of subjectiveprojection and cognitive framing, as, in fact,Thibault observes.

Thibault takes a constructivist standtoward material existence, granting it apresence only insofar as it is created by asubject involved in semiosis. This hassignificant implications in terms of the gazerwho is seen, consequently, as a creativeagent, rather than someone passivelyperceiving something already there prior tothe gazer’s agency. “The fact that the worldis not something ‘out there’, an object initself, having its own reality independent ofour ways of making meaning about it, hasimportant implications for the body-brain”,he suggests. “The recognition of this factrequires the abandonment of therepresentational theory of mind andcognition and its replacement with a view inwhich the world and its meanings areactively produced by us” (184). From thisperspective, each subject in, say, a dyadicspeech exchange scenario, is effectivelycreating her interlocutor, but also creatingherself as well. This constantly fluid processis, furthermore, influenced by factors derivedfrom the environment and the body.

The Hand

The hand would serve as a suitableillustration of this facet of semiosis. Afterall, as Thibault observes, the hand allows usto venture with greater surety, precision,agency and comprehension into oursurroundings that would, perhaps, otherwiseremain less accessible to cognition.

Barthes points out that the chopstick hasa deictic function and serves as a signifyingextension of the hand:

it points to the food, designates thefragment, brings into existence by thevery gesture of choice, which is theindex; but thereby, instead ofingestion following a kind ofmechanical sequence, in which onewould be limited to swallowing littleby little the parts of one and thesame dish, the chopstick, designatingwhat it selects (and thus selectingthere and then this and not that),introduces into the use of food not anorder but a caprice, a certainindolence: in any case, an intelligentand no longer mechanical operation(1982 [1970]:16).

The same could be said for the function ofthe hand serving as a proxy of, andcontributor to, consciousness. The hand,thus, would be seen as directive tool,allowing humans to construct hierarchiesbased upon relevance of some things over

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that of others (e.g., the one approachingstorm cloud among other seeminglystationary, innocuous clouds). The hand isseen as possessing the capacity to convey awide array of signifying functions (not tomention sign language), but by adding itsability to articulate the self, Thibaultsignificantly broadens consideration of itsnumerous semiotic abilities and tasks. Thiswould be especially pertinent for the humanhand, which possesses much finer incrementsof meaning-making than those of animalsand receives the additional benefits of beingconnected with vision of a higher cognitiveorder.

Citing the gaze vector as an illustration,Thibault observes that it enables the“capacity for abstract exploration which, inturn, allows the organism to place itself inthe position of others and, therefore, to viewthings others do, as well as to abstractly lookahead and reflect on possible courses ofaction and their consequences before theseare put into action as actual movement andbehaviour” (183). This observation alsoreveals how Thibault is able to sketch out anenormous chain of relations in humanconsciousness and semiosis, in which brain,mind, body, environment, etc. are all inter-connected and constantly playing off of eachother. Means of articulation further developthis semiotic web, as he notes while drawingupon Gibson (1986 [1979]). In the course ofwriting, for instance, think of the significanceof being able to convey meaning to others bylinguistic transference through our hands.And this, of course, would apply as well evento sign language “writing” among othersigners. Once again, this observation showsThibault’s constant return to the socialinteraction facet of semiosis, pointing outthat the seemingly inward, soliloquy-likeaction of writing, in fact, necessarilypresupposes participation of a decoder atsome future point. Figuratively speaking,interpersonal communication can beconceived as an action similar to holdinghands, a form of social linking across timeand space that not only supplements, say,linguistic utterances, but also serves as anindependent meaning-making conduit aswell. Elaborating on his earlier work on thisissue (1992), Thibault adds:

We produce our world in and throughour semiotically mediatedinterventions in and engagementswith this vague and undifferentiatedmass of possibilities, which we cannever, in any case, know orexperience directly, but always onlymediately. The projection into theworld of the highly delicatedifferentiations afforded by thesensori-motor activities of the handand face-vocal-trace systems alsomeans that we endow thephenomena of our experience withvalue, affect and motivationalsalience (189).

As was seen earlier, Thibault stresses theconstructive nature of semiosis and ironicallychallenges his own reluctance to accept itsimmateriality in light of the constantdisplacement of signifieds in the process ofmeaning-making. For, as he suggests, weclearly impose significance on a givensignifier, rather than somehow determining

with certainty its significance (a significance,indeed, that it can never possess anyway).

Inner Speech

Thibault has already established hisstance on inner speech in his entry in TheEncyclopedia of Semiotics (1998). Here, in amanner similar to his approach to theoutward component of writing, Thibaultaddresses the ecosocial components of theinternalized discourse we engage in, whichhe refers to as “linguistically realizedthinking” (271; related to Kinsbourne 2000).Essentially, Thibault maintains that thesemiotic procedures we employ in anyexterior discursive practices are undertakenthe same way in interiorized speech andoutlines the various ways in which thissemiotic practice is patterned after othermore seemingly external forms ofsignification. This observation clearlyenlarges the ways in which we define thismedium of (self-) communication. Thibaultobserves that our conception of semanticswill change if we conclude that inner speechmodels itself after discourse, as opposed tothe sentence.

Similarly, the ways in which wecommunicate with others socially arepatterned along the same lines as ourinternal “discourse” functions, Thibaultcontends. An important component ofThibault’s view of inner speech, then, is thatit clearly follows the same operations ofproposition formation and cognitive framing.Used in exterior speech, it could be said thatthis particular speech is the voice ofconsciousness, articulating and constitutingitself. Inner speech, he maintains, “makesuse of conceptual categorizations and allowsfor the taking-up of modalized propositionalattitudes”, and also “exhibits properties oftextual unity and coherence in relation toboth its internal (textual) organization andits contexts of utterance” (273).Additionally, he notes, “inner speech quaobject of conscious reflection” in partcontributes to the establishment andrecognition of “SELF”.

The SELF

Thibault imagines the SELF as relationaland immaterial, contingent uponinteractional dynamics between the bodyand those elements that frame and form iton both the inside and the outside. “Wehave self-awareness not of the self per se, butof the self-in-interaction-with-surround (i.e.the internal milieu and the externalenvironment)” (250). The semiotic SELFcan be viewed as an interpretive construct,in keeping with Peirce’s sense of self-building(see Colapietro and Walter Benn Michaels)as opposed to self-revealing. Significantly,Thibault posits the action of interiorspeaking as a principal tool in thisundertaking. “The meanings expressed ininner speech are only accessible to theconsciousness of the SELF in whoseperspective the given occurrence of innerspeech is grounded”, he observes. “There isno functional requirement that thesemeanings be interpreted by others in thepublic realm” (275; see also Vygotsky [1986(1934)] and Thibault [1998]). Drawing

upon related work by Carruthers (1996), headds that the SELF can thus, by talking withitself, generate an awareness of the nature ofthe dialogue of self-thought, as well as self-scrutiny and even a form of consciousgovernance. Indirectly, it could be argued,Thibault extends Jacques Lacan’s contentionthat the unconscious is structured like alanguage, to consciousness along similarlines. Citing earlier work by Harré andGillett (1994), he asserts that we create aself-trajectory by way of monitoredconsciousness that allows us to traverse andintelligibly grid everyday life.

Given the far-ranging density of Brain,Mind, and the Signifying Body, it is hardlysurprising that Thibault would need moreroom to develop it further, and thecompanion volume, Agency andConsciousness in Discourse: Self-OtherDynamics as a Complex System (2005), isdesigned to enable him to do just that. Inparticular, Thibault follows up thisinvestigation by focusing on the ways inwhich the individual subject exercises agencyin relation to consciousness. His attentionremains on the procedures of social semioticinterplay as it is mediated and created by thebody-brain complex.

In Brain, Mind, and the Signifying Body,Thibault essentially responds to what he seesas “the need for a theory which can discussdifferent scalar levels that are implicated inthe organism’s transactions with theaffordances in its environment” (14). Andhis assertion of the significance of thisenterprise to identify connections betweenconscious humans, their bodies, and theirworld seems wholly justifiable: “Thefunctional and contextual basis of systemic-functional theory will prove to be an idealconceptual and analytical tool for developingthese links” (48).

Scott Simpkins is Professor of English at theUniversity of North Texas, a lecturer withthe Semiotics Institute Online (“CriticalSemiotics”), and author of Literary Semiotics:A Critical Approach.

References

Barthes, Roland (1982 [1970])“Chopsticks”, in Empire of Signs, trans.Richard Howard, New York: Hill and Wang,pp. 15-18.

Bouissac, Paul (1998) “ConvergingParallels: Semiotics and Psychology inEvolutionary Perspective”, Theory &Psychology 8.6: 731-53.

Carruthers, Peter (1996) Language,Thought and Consciousness: An Essay inPhilosophical Psychology, Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press.

Colapietro, Vincent (1989) Peirce’sApproach to the Self: A Semiotic Perspective onHuman Subjectivity, Albany: State Universityof New York Press.

Derrida, Jacques (1979) “‘I haveforgotten my umbrella’”, in Spurs: Nietzsche’sStyles, trans. Barbara Harlow, Chicago:University of Chicago Press, pp. 122-43.

--- (1982 [1971]) “Signature EventContext”, in Margins of Philosophy, trans.Alan Bass, Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, pp. 307-330.

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Deleuze, Gilles (1989 [1985]) Cinema 2:The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinsonand Robert Galeta, Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press.

Gibson, James J. (1986 [1979]) TheEcological Approach to Vision Perception,Hillsdale, NJ and London: LawrenceErlbaum.

Harré, Rom and Grant Gillett (1994)The Discursive Mind, Thousand Oaks, CAand New Delhi: Sage.

Hodge, Robert and Gunther Kress (1988)Social Semiotics, Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Kinsbourne, Marcel (2000) “InnerSpeech and the Inner Life”, Brain andLanguage 71: 120-23.

Micheals, Walter Benn (1977) “TheInterpreter’s Self: Peirce on the Cartesian‘Subject’”, Georgia Review 31 (Summer): 383-402.

Nöth, Winfried (1990) Handbook ofSemiotics, Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press.

Simpkins, Scott (2001) Literary Semiotics:A Critical Approach, Lanham, Md.:Lexington Books.

Stewart, John (1995) Language asArticulate Contact: Toward A Post-SemioticPhilosophy of Communication, Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press.

Thibault, Paul J. (1992) “Grammar,Ethics, and Understanding: FunctionalistReason and Clause as Exchange”, SocialSemiotics 2.1: 135-75.

--- (1998) “Inner Speech”, TheEncyclopedia of Semiotics, ed. Paul Bouissac,Oxford and New York: Oxford UniversityPress, pp. 312-14.

--- (2000) “The Dialogic Integration ofthe Brain in Social Semiosis: Edelman andthe Case for Downward Causation”, Mind,Culture, and Activity 7.4: 291-311.

--- (2004) “Agency, Individuation, andMeaning-Making: Reflections on an Episodeof Bonobo-Human Interaction”, in LanguageDevelopment: Functional Perspectives on Speciesand Individuals, eds. Geoffrey Williams andAnnabelle Lukin, London and New York:Continuum, pp. 112-36.

Pop SpiritualityAdam Possamai, Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2005.

By David A. Nock

Aspectre is haunting the sociologists ofEurope – the spectre ofsecularization. This spectre suggests

with increasing reliance on science, empiricalmethod and rationality that the need forbelief in a supernatural supra-empirical realmwill dissipate. This paradigm largelyinfluenced the European founders ofsociology in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. British sociology andBritish sociologists of religion havepowerfully revived this perspective (seeDavie 1988 for a useful summary of thesociology of religion’s development, 483-488). The patriarch of the British sociologyof religion, Bryan Wilson (b. 1926) has beena powerful advocate of the secularizationthesis (Gee 1998:558). Aberdeen’s SteveBruce (b.1954) carries on as most energeticexponent of the secularization thesis with aseemingly inexhaustible supply of books andarticles which provide further evidence(Davie 1998:485; see also Bruce 2002).Little examined has been the conundrumposed by the secularization thesis: if itsinsights are correct, then the sociology ofreligion represents a dying specialty withlittle future. British sociologist Stephen J.Hunt (b. 1954) has noted this andcomments that “the decline of religion, as asocial phenomenon, will mean the decline ofthe sociology of religion” (2002:214) and also“if religion continues to decline in Westernsocieties then the sociology of religion willitself become increasingly marginalized”(2002:215). The irony is that the Britishsociology of religion tradition has been veryactive and lively, especially in a countrywhere measures of religiosity have shown aregular and steady decline.

Perhaps sociologists of religion ought toshutter up the windows and put up the signs“Going out of business”. Arguably this oughtto be the case, but then again, it may bepremature. What specialty ever voluntarilyputs out the lights? I wonder how long ittook the supporters of the horse to realizethat the roads were going to be the kingdomof the car and not the equine? Sociologists ofreligion have responded in various ways torevitalize their specialty. One has been tosuggest that decline is limited to certainspecific suppliers, that is, certain specificreligious organizations, but that growth canbe expected in new alternative suppliers.This is the viewpoint of the resurgenceperspective (also dubbed the innovation orrational-choice perspective) backed by theprominent American Rodney Stark, b. 1934(Nauta 1998:493-495) and his variouscollaborators. Stark has predicted thatMormonism is on the road to become thefirst major world religion since Islam (Stark1984), based on similar growth rates to earlyChristianity in its first 175 years (despite thedifficulty in estimating such growth rates inthe early centuries of the Christian Era,Stark has proven himself something of amagician in establishing them at 40 percentper decade over a period of three hundredyears; see Stark 1996).

Lest one think that Mormonism is simplya variant of Christianity like Catholicism,Stark makes it clear that Mormonism hasadded such a great deal of new content thatit is distinct from Christianity in much thesame way that Christianity became Judaism(that is to say, a distinctly new religiousmovement). Stark’s paradigm has become

quite influential in the United States whereboth religion in general and Mormonismspecifically remain quite strong.Secularization theory dominates in Britainwhere the established Church of England hasdeclined like water washing away soil: slowlyat first but with a persistence that picks upspeed.

If one thing is clear it is that despiteassertions and pretensions to the opposite,neither of these perspectives can claim to beuniversal. Perhaps only a Canadian can saythat! Both British and American thinkersstill tend to be mired in a kind of cognitiveimperialism – the British see secularizationeverywhere. When the American evidencedid not seem to support the perspective,Wilson explained away the recalcitrant databy stating that American religion wassuperficial and therefore just anotherexample of secularization (1982: 152)!Similarly, Stark presents never-ending datasets showing that Mormons or other newreligious movements have high growth ratesin areas outside of the United States, even ifthe growth rates refer to teeny, tiny absolutenumbers (a growth from 5 to 10 actualmembers provides a formidable growthrate!).

If sociology of religion is to survive itmust go beyond these strategies.Secularization is a dismal prospect fordevotees of the sub-discipline and prominentsociologists of religion should probably ceaseto be quite so eager in their endorsement ofit. Perhaps the main thrust of its findingscannot be avoided in certain parts of theglobe but large parts of the world seemunaffected by secularization – in Central and

Togeby, Ole (2000) “AnticipatedDownward Causation and the ArchStructure of Texts”, in Downward Causation:Minds, Bodies and Matter, ed.s Peter BøghAndersen et al. Aarhus: Aarhus UniversityPress, pp. 261-77.

Trevarthen, Colwyn (1978) “Modes ofPerceiving and Modes of Acting”, in Modesof Perceiving and Processing Information,eds. Herbert L. Pick and Elliot Saltzman,Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 99-136.

--- (1980) “The Foundations ofIntersubjectivity: Development ofInterpersonal and CooperativeUnderstanding in Infants”, in The SocialFoundation of Language and Thought, ed. D.Olsen, New York: Norton, pp. 316-42.

--- (1992) “An Infant’s Motives forSpeaking and Thinking in the Culture”, inThe Dialogical Alternative: Towards A Theoryof Language and Mind, ed. Astri Heen Wold,Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, pp. 99-137.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986 [1934]) Thoughtand Language, trans. Alex Kosulin,Cambridge, MA and London: The MITPress.

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South America, Africa, the Middle East, andparts of Asia (Lester 2002). The UnitedStates itself stands as a refutation of thenotion that “advanced” countriescharacterized by science and technology shedreligion as a kind of natural progression.Opposition to the resurgence theory isavailable and Eileen Barker has expresseddoubt that any new religious movement isgoing to take up the slack of the decliningJudeo-Christian organizations. In fact shepoints that many have lost ground sincehighpoints in the 1960s and 1970s.

If the sociology of religion is going tosurvive as a specialty, then other strategieswill have to be tried. One has been to widenthe scope by changing the title and focus ofthe sub-discipline: religion and spirituality,implicit religion, alternative religions, quasi-religions, functional equivalents to religion asseen in sports, political movements etc.Stephen J. Hunt has pointed to this tendencyin the discipline: “It is evident that theemerging paradigms in the sociology ofreligion continue to extend definitions ofreligion. The problem remains, however, thatsuch a broad definition appears to includetoo much of what has not historicallycounted as religion…Today, practicallyanything can be regarded as religion by usinga broad criterion….” (2002:214-215).

In general, the larger strategy is toenvisage religion as an element of culture. Inthis approach, the emphasis hinges less onorganizations and organized religions, andmore on finding new religious and spiritualthemes that are found in culture and popularculture. Although some organizations mayemerge to support these forms of religion andspirituality, they are usually quite different,more recent, and less socially dominant fromthe traditional forms and houses of worshipassociated not only with Christianity, butwith the major world religions in general.Many of these new cultural expressions ofreligion and spirituality may seem facile orephemeral to those who are used to themassive institutional expressions of thehistoric organized religions, but arguably ifone is looking to the future of religion andspirituality, it is to these manifestations thatone should look (rather than to a traditionalorganization such as Anglicanism in Canadaabout whom prominent religion andspirituality author and renegade priestAnglican Tom Harpur has predicted will seeits last member leave by 2061!; Shackleton2005). As I complete this article, word cameto me of a new book by Hunt that discussesrational choice and postmodernist theories ofreligion as the main rivals to thesecularization paradigm.

Adam Possamai’s Religion and PopularCulture: A Hyper-Real Testament fitscomfortably within such a postmodernistframe that rejects the rational-choice andsecularization-as-demise alternatives. Hisfocus is on the intersection of religion andspirituality with the mass media and popularculture. As he says: “It will be the argumentof this book that religious imagination is alsopresent in popular culture, perhaps morenow than ever” (17).

There follows a discussion of culture ingeneral and the previous distinction between“Fine Art” or “high” culture often patronizedby the “upper classes” (18) and “popular

culture” often “part of the mass mediaand…consumed by the masses” (Ibid.).Possamai appeals to postmodernism asdestroying this formerly clear and easydistinction since this perspective arguesagainst boundaries and hierarchies, andargues that nothing new can be invented,therefore that cultural innovation is more amatter of “promiscuous” mixing andmatching of artistic styles.

The emphasis on popular culture isimportant, says Possamai, because it accordswith a new fluidity and freedom indetermining self-expression. Formerly, hesays,“we were the social reflection of ourparents” in terms of religion, ethnicity, class,political affiliation, and cultural tastes andchoices. This has disappeared and we live ina world where the individual increasingly“create[s] one’s own biographic/identity”from what the author calls “this library ofchoices” available (20-21). Possamairecognizes that traditional institutions,including organized religion, are on thedefensive in modern society, and thispervades the realm of the religious and thespiritual. Instead of looking for insights oftranscendence at the buildings and facilitiesof mainstream churches, there is a move to“draw on a vast range of religious resourcesthrough consumerism” associated with themass media and popular culture (21).Spirituality is increasingly built up by what ison offer through popular culture, andpopular culture is an important facet oftoday’s marketplace. Possamai asserts that intoday’s society “we can know people by whatthey consume”, perhaps a sad replacementfor “cogito, ergo sum” (22).

Theoretically, this book aims toincorporate the influence of postmodernism(Baudrillard and Lipovetsky) and criticaltheorists such as the Frankfurt School andJameson. However the author avows that heis a disciple of neither approach. His work,he says, “does not follow a postmodernistapproach” (21). He distances himself fromthe Frankfurt School by criticizing theirtendency to view “social actors as dupes”(22). So, in the end, the author viewshimself as a Weberian. However when itcomes to Weber, one must always ask, whichWeber? Is it the Weber who is the Parsonianidealist emphasizing cultural values ascausative; the materialist Weber whoemphasized the importance of economic andpolitical factors; or, the Weber whodeveloped verstehen and who may be cited asa pioneer of symbolic interaction, or indeed,some other Weber? For Possamai, Weber’sattraction is that he did not view socialactors as dupes but as “agents” or actors butstill carried by some socio/cultural forces”(22). The Weber summoned by Possamai isthe verstehen Weber who calls for analysis of“the meaning social actors give to theiractions” but a Weber who is neithercompletely idealist in simply asserting thatwhat actors state determines their world nora positivist or determinist who would suggestthat actors are simply pre-programmed byexternal forces.

Such a theoretical perspective carriesmethodological implications. The authorspecifically endorses “a more impressionisticthan positivistic approach” (22) and he citesthe examples of Simmel and Weber himself

in this regard. In working on a doctoraldissertation on New Age Spirituality,Possamai conducted various interviews. Hehas extended this with published texts andalso surfing Internet sites and chat-rooms.Possamai comments he aims “to produce atype of anthropological/sociological ‘thick’description” through development of such “areflexive ethnography” (26).

The chapters that follow elaborate theseideas and strategies. Chapter 1 on “Religionand Spirituality: From Modernity toPostmodernity” underlines the vicissitudesthat religion has undergone with thetransition from a modern to a postmodernworld. Possamai presents evidence thatreligion is on decline, especially among theyoung. Yet as religion declines, interest inspirituality survives, even thrives. The author(34) recapitulates some of the theoreticaldebates entered into by sociologists ofreligion (secularization, resurgence) andsuggests the emergence of a “tertium quid”(“some third thing”). This relates to theincreasingly individualized character ofspiritualities and their divorce from organizedreligions, yet significance as an importanttrend. He cites recent Australian researchthat on any given day ten percent ofhouseholds report participating inreligious/spiritual activities and are similar inincidence to “sporting and cultural activities”(40). Watching TV remains a more frequentactivity but Possamai reminds us that in thisnew era, even the spiritual dimensions ofwatching TV cannot be dismissed as “someof the shows and movies can provide asource of spiritual inspiration” (40).

Chapter 2 is titled “Consumer Religions”.It starts by emphasizing the importance ofconsumer marketing in a world whereindividuals are not so much citizens asconsumers. In this spiritual marketplace,groups and movements which do not payclose attention to the wants of the consumerwill be facing empty pews (or theatre seats asin the New Paradigm churches discussed bythe author). Possamai starts by recounting ascene from the movie Dogma in which aninnovative Catholic priest tries to woobelievers back with a reimaged Christ – goneis the suffering crucifixion victim, in is asmiling “Buddy Christ” with a cheerfulthumbs-up gesture. Possamai asserts that inour postmodern times, religion “is definitelypart of consumer culture” (47). Herecognizes that “some groups are moreinvolved than others” but the overall trend istoward this incorporation of religion intoconsumer culture and that “what is new isreligion’s full immersion into it” (Ibid.). SinceMel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ appearedafter the substance of this book was finished,it seems that even a suffering Messiah cansell at the box office if a cultural commodityhas enough Hollywood charisma behind it!

The chapter then goes on to discuss whatthe author terms Hyper-Consumer Religions.Specifically these turn out to be New Agegroups and individuals. However the authorfinds that many such interviewees dislike theNew Age designation, and he utilizes a newterminology for the movements, in particular“presentist perennism”, meaning alternativespiritualities looking neither to the future norto the past for their inspiration but to general“deep cultural changes occurring…[within]

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post-industrial societies” (51) such asdeclining belief in progress, radicalindividualism, and fluidity between sub-cultures.

Possamai interviewed 35 respondentsfrom Melbourne who belong to suchalternative spiritualities. Topics discussedinclude the Cultural Appropriation ofIndigenous Cultures and also the tendencyfor perennists not to expect or demandobjective historicity in their“reconstructing[ing] history into myths”.These interviews may provide some insightsinto this alternative spirituality but it seemsto me to lose the thrust of the chapter sinceno real evidence is presented to support theclaim that New Age perennism is the hyper-consumer religion par excellence. Whilemention is made of its “products for gainingand enhancing sensations” (49), my ownvisits to St. Francis Cathedral in Sante Fe,New Mexico and the Catholic Marian shrineat Knock, Ireland provide evidence thathyper-consumer religions may have hadample precedents before the perennists (noteto Possamai: I doubt “presentist perennism”is going to replace a catchy label such as“New Age”. Perhaps he should go back tothe graphic novels that he loves so much fornew (if not new age) inspiration!).

Chapter 3, “Subjective Myths”, takes itscue from Jean Baudrillard with his suggestionthat “the real and the unreal haveimploded”, that we live in a society of “signs”and that a “de-materialised concept ofreality” is sustained by “media generatedimages” (24). For persistent empiricists suchas myself (no positivist, however), thischapter resonates with interest as it delvesinto various specific groups and movementsusing the empiric of Internet sites. Thechapter further extends the assumption ofthe previous chapter that it is “perennists”who in particular “find inspiration frompopular culture” in addition to “an array ofdiverse religions for the source of theirspirituality”.

A variety of groups and movements arediscussed in this light, starting with theinfluence of science fiction on the creationof new religious movements. These includethe Church of All Worlds which took itsinspiration from Robert Heinlein,Scientology “another movement clearlyinspired by science fiction” (o.c.), the StarWars Appreciation Society which has beenoperating in Australia to establish the Jedi asan officially recognized religion, and theHeaven’s Gate group inspired as they wereby the X-Files and Star Trek. More generally,Possamai refers to such aforementionedmovies and television series, and otherspreviously unmentioned such as Buffy theVampire Slayer, as having “opened, or evenpopularised the doors of extraordinaryperception and appeal to these spiritualconsumers” (59).

The author then discusses furtherexamples of popular culture on alternativespiritualities from other genres. Theseinclude the influence of writer H.P. Lovecrafton new religious movements such as theChurch of Satan and relatively unorganizedexamples such as Teenage Satanism.Another set of influences is that of vampire-inspired groups that “base their religiosity on

vampire fictions” (60). Yet anothersubstantial genre is that of “fantasy” andhere the author lists various examples (canhobbits be far behind?) that “are all parts ofa cultural reservoir which contribute to neo-pagan thinking” (61).

Not only does popular culture contributeto the creation of sustained narratives andmyths but also to the creation of “pop icons”who neo-pagans often utilize in their practiceof magic “instead of more traditional gods”(62). When an example of this is given,invoking the image of Jared from the Subwaysubmarine sandwich ads to help the believerachieve success on a diet, one starts towonder if Bryan Wilson was on to somethingwith his musings about the facile nature ofreligion in the United States!

The rest of this chapter turns to moretheoretical considerations about thesechanges in postmodern society which haveled from Yahweh to Jared! Attention is paidto Lipovetsky, Featherstone and others.Lipovestsky suggests that in “advanced‘modern’ societies”, the hold of roles, norms,and class have waned as the autonomousindividual “constructs who he or she is…partof the great adventure of the self” (65). Thisconstruction of the self unencumbered bytraditionally ascriptive criteria isaccomplished in large part by the process ofconsumption: “if before we inherited oursocial characteristics from our family andkept them as part of our identity for the restof our life, today, it can be argued that wemake ourselves who we want to be” (65).

Chapter 4 on “Hyper-Real Religions”carries on exploring religions (spiritualities)which have been created or heavilyinfluenced by constructed stories and fictionfrom popular culture. Possamai concentrateson the Jedi religion as an extended casestudy. He cites 2001 censuses in Australiaand the United Kingdom showing largenumbers of devotees, refers to his interviewwith one such devotee (“Christina”), also tovarious Web sites of the movement, and endswith interviews with George Lucas. Hemakes clear that some of the allure has to dowith the disillusionment felt by many in thispostmodern era with the traditional churchesand with the political sector (73).

Ironically, Lucas seems less than blissfulabout a “completely secular world whereentertainment [is] passing for some kind ofreligious experience” (75). This however isthe tendency that Possamai suggests “mightbe growing in the near future” (75).

Possamai outlines his own ideal-typologybased on spiritual growth involvingilluminational development, instrumentaldevelopment, and entertainment arguingthat hyper-real religions are in a position tocontribute to all three forms of spiritualgrowth. Specifically each type of spiritualdevelopment can be realized with the Jedireligion, such as meditation, the use of yoga,socializing, having fun, etc.

Possamai then draws upon the work ofUlrich Beck on the risk society (especially inthe incarnation of terrorism since 2001) tosuggest that increased perception of riskenhances the prospects of hyper-realreligions (81). He speculates (his own word)on why hyper-real religions may appeal inthe post-9-11 risk society. Traditional

religions may represent violence andconfrontation while hyper-real religions mayoffer forms of escapism from an unedifyingpresent; unreal religion may bring comfort inthat as in stories like Lord of the Rings, it isthe weakling hobbits who eventuallyovercome the evil wizards. Possamai alsodraws upon Latin America where hyper-realreligions may serve the disempowered (“themarginalized, the demonized and thedominated”) with “a form of protest againstmainstream culture” (82).

Chapter 5, “New Forms of ReligiousIdentification Carried by Popular Culture”,for my money, is one of the most interestingin the book. It focuses on the humanpotential ethic, that is, “a belief in thespiritual development of the self and itslatent abilities” (88). Increasingly people lookto alternative spiritualities not just toworship the divine but to discover it withinthemselves. This may be on a reflective levelbut it is also conceptualized as thedevelopment of higher powers normallydenied to mundane mortals. To quote fromone Web site: “A Jedi strives to excelphysically, mentally, emotionally andspiritually, and can put these in motioninstantly” (100). One interviewee (“Julian”)reports how he attempted to developtelepathy and the powers to read minds andto send messages through the use of suchpowers (98). Possamai points to theubiquitous slogan found in the New Agemovement: “You are god and can doanything” (89).

Much of the chapter is expended on theinterrelationship of this human potentialethic with the development of comic booksuperheroes from 1938 forward (the adventof Superman). Possamai points out thatearlier superheroes had often been imaginedas having divine or semi-divine provenanceor, mortals who had to work assiduously andascetically at their special gifts. Also suchheroes often had an “official” status withreligious, governmental or militaryhierarchies. The new superheroes, incontrast, often gained their powers as theresult of accidents, were originally ratherordinary and gained their powers quickly andwithout special ascetic efforts. In otherwords, potentially they were the democratic“Everyman(woman)”. They were assuredlynot charismatic religious leaders, orcommanding generals, warriors or politicalleaders. They seemed quite ordinary asreporters or students. Finally, the modernsuperhero has few pretensions of launchinggrand new narratives relating to grandioseplans for society. Instead, despite theirsuperpowers, they seemed to restrict theirvision to sweeping crime off the streets. InPossamai’s words, “they support the statusquo and are not interested in changingsociety” (96). The author also expends somewords on how the human potential ethicincluding its spirituality component haspervaded the discourse of self-help expertssuch as Oprah Winfrey, Suze Orman, JohnGray and others.

He finishes off this fascinating chapterwith some musing about trends which mayargue against Weber’s grim prediction ofdisenchantment and “the over-rationalisationof everyday life”. One of these is precisely thehuman potential ethic and the inspiration it

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has received from popular culture and thesuperheroes. Through such mechanisms, e.g.“a reconnection with nature”, Possamai seesus as “at the heart of a re-enchantmentprocess” (103).

Chapter 6, “Esoteric Knowledge(s) andPopular Culture”, zeroes in on the secretsystems of knowledge often reserved for elitesof cognoscenti. Over long periods of historysuch systems of thought have often had agreat appeal as knowledge denied to the lessadvanced common herd. Just as I write thisin Spring 2006, we have witnessed a majormedia blitz dealing with the long-lost Gospelof Judas produced in the third century by theGnostics [followers of wisdom], suppressedby Catholic Christianity. Sure enough on p.107 there is a reference to “the concept ofesotericism—and also that of occultism andGnosticism” (107).

Just as the Gospel of Judas is no longerreserved for an inner circle of adepts but hasbeen instantly diffused in books, mediareports, and the Internet so a major point ofthis chapter is that such esoteric and secretknowledge can no longer remain so in thepostmodern era: “Within perennism, esotericknowledge is no longer secret…and evenappears to have become a public commodity”(107). One occult Web site warns: “Don’tcount on having ‘secrets’ revealed to you.Ninety-nine percent of them are alreadypublished in some form, somewhere” (108).

Allied to the theme that secretknowledge systems preserved by elite groupsis an anachronism in cybersociety, the authoremphasizes that material which used to beavailable only in difficult-to-understandtexts, now gets simplified into “a kind of ‘do-it-yourself’ exercise…it is quicker and easier”(110-111). Possamai inevitably draws fromthe work of George Ritzer in referring to thisas “the McDonaldisation of Occult Culture”(117). He relates back to earlier themes inreferring to several interviews with “Anne”and “Steve”, and concludes that this processof simplification contributes to a world inwhich “the individual becomes his or herown authority” and this process has beenfurthered by the development of “esotericismsimplified” in which all knowledge(s) are“now so easily accessible and not controlledby some ‘intellectual of the esoteric’” (117).

Chapter 7, “The Logic of Late Capitalismand the Stasis of Religion”, is a theoreticaldiscourse relating the author’s insights aboutpostmodern religion and spirituality with F.Jameson’s well-known analysis about thenature of late capitalism. Possamai essayssomething which I have hinted at in severalarticles: that there is a conjuncture betweenthe nature of religion and spirituality in anysociety and its economic system ofproduction. As such, Possamai summarizessome key points of Jameson’s thinking onhow capitalism has advanced through threestages culminating in late capitalism. Thislast stage is characterized by such features aspartaking in pastiche and in the collapse ofwell-defined standards. Another feature isthe omnipresence of stasis: “Everything in artand culture has already been invented; allone can do is to re-invent” (128). When itcomes to religion and spirituality, Jamesonclaims that “postmodern culture isthoroughly secularized”. Possamai instead

points to the contrasting view of McClurewho argues that American postmodernculture can be characterized “in terms of aresurgence of spiritual energies, discoursesand commitments” and that postmoderntexts “make room in the worlds they projectfor magic, miracle, metaphysical systems ofretribution and restoration” (125).

Possamai agrees with McClure thatpostmodern culture is not secularized but heagrees with Jameson’s general depiction ofcapitalism’s development and suggests that“perennism is part of the logic of latecapitalism…as a new spiritual way of beingin this phase of late capitalism….” (126).Possamai also agrees with the notion of stasisas characterizing both religion andspirituality in addition to the wider cultureand economy. Whereas Jameson refers to thewriters and artists of today as constrained by“no longer being able to invent new stylesand worlds – they’ve already been invented”,Possamai insists that the “last act of religiouscreativity in terms of content” may havebeen the UFO religions (dating to the 1950s)or perhaps “the booming of New ReligiousMovements in the 1960s-1970s” (130-131).The author ends by celebrating “thereligious vitality of our time period”. Even ifnothing new is being invented when it comesto ideational content this vitality relates tothe de-institutionalization of religion and thedevelopment of “individualized religions”.

Chapter 8, “Popular Culture and Hypo-Consumer Religious Groups”, takes us towhat may be more familiar ground for manysociologists of religion: conservative religiousgroups and their objections to themainstream use of popular culture as well asto specific occult, and perennist groups.Possamai focuses on several strands of“monotheistic fundamentalism” (using themodern and recent “extended” definitionrather than the original and specificdefinition which dates back to 1910 and aseries of pamphlets defending traditionalChristian doctrine entitled TheFundamentals). By focusing on this extendeddefinition, Possamai is empowered to putunder his lens traditions taken fromChristianity, Islam, and Judaism and theirresistance both to popular culture and to theperennists so comfortable with it.

If we needed reminding, Possamai drawsattention in the phrase “late capitalism” tocapitalism’s continuing emphasis still onprofit (no matter how much changes in theevolution of capitalism, some things doremain constant). He points out the effectsthat can have on cultural products evenwhen it comes encapsulated in a religiouspackage. Thus The Prince of Egypt’s narrativeon Moses “finishes on a Hollywoodhappy/selling ending” and does not deal with“the real/not-selling ending about thepunishment by God of the Jewish tribe”(141).

There follows discussion of the resistanceof conservative and fundamentalist religiousgroups to the products of popular culture.Noteworthy to many readers might be thediscussions of Pokemon, Harry Potter, TheLord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons,Digimon, and heavy metal music. Possamaiknows that The Lord of the Rings was writtenby a devout Roman Catholic adherent and

in fact it appears that Tolkien has caught amore favourable shake than J.K. Rowling. ASouthern Baptist theologian writes aboutGandalf as “a kind of archangel sent fromGod who has special abilities to helppeople…while the Potter wizard…performsmagic that can be used for selfish or evilpurposes” (146). Also discussed is theresponse of various Christians who areintrigued by some of the popular cultureproducts and who still retain hopes that theirChristianity will not be compromised. Thusthere is actually a Web site forChristianGoths! Another such site evencastigates Christians for having “too longallowed non-Christians to dominate theimaginal world of role-playing, which wasoriginally inspired by Christian men likeJ.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis” (155).

One strategy of such conservative groupsis a “re-appropriation of popular culture”through the creation of cultural products foruse internally by their own adherents. Herethe author lists various Christian comics,games, and rock and heavy metal musicsuitably cleansed. He might have expandedthis list to include movies intended mainlyfor committed believers, some of which havebeen major box office hits, although mostoften ignored by the mainstream media (see,however, Houpt 2001 and his claim “There’sa growing demand for movies aimed atChristians who feel ignored by Hollywood”).Readers will no doubt be stimulated to knowof cultural heroes such as Captain Bible orThe Cardinal (the latter being a universitystudent who can fly but “has no othersuperpowers and must rely on his faith inJesus to get him through!” 151).

According to Possamai’s analysis, ifperennists are hyper-consumer religions thatemphasize the values of late capitalism suchas relativism and the rest, the hypo-consumer religions “tend to be absolutist andexclusivist” (155). This raises severalproblems. Firstly if relativism and theaforementioned values suited to latecapitalism are peculiar to perennism, thenthe logical deduction is that conservativeChristianity ought to be declining as itconfronts a late capitalism with which it isnot in conjuncture. One could argue atlength about that scenario but mostsociologists of religion would now agree thatsuch conservative groups have showedsurprising resilience. Even though in the1960s and early 1970s it was widely predictedthat religions which did not “modernize”would suffer, it has been the more liberalChristians seeking to keep up with modernvalues who have declined.

What is under-discussed in this book isprecisely the still considerable, if diminishing,numbers of liberal Christians and how theyfit into Possamai’s analysis. Typically theytend to put up far fewer barriers to popularculture. This is not the place, and it is notmy task, to provide an extended analysis onthis topic. However surely the currentanalysis (which focuses on perennists andfundamentalists) needs to be extended toother religious and spiritual groups if a fullunderstanding of the trends of late capitalismis ever to be fulfilled. In Canada, at least, thenumbers of perennists and fundamentalistsare fairly small. No doubt the influence ofthe former group is growing if considered as a

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cultural resource rather than card-carryingmembers of organized groups (notice thesections of any big box bookstore on NewAge, wiccanism, etc). Reginald Bibby (b.1943), Canada’s best-known sociologist ofreligion, has repeatedly pooh-poohed anysuggestion that perennists are making abreak-through in Canada (1993; 2002: 63-65). As far as fundamentalism is concerned,it has made few gains in Canada over anextended period and remains much, muchless influential than in the United States.What has happened, to use the fortuitousphrase of Bibby and Brinkerhoff, is thecirculation of the saints (Beyer 1998:55).Specifically, Canadian evangelicals who arecharismatic (for example, Pentecostals) havebeen gaining at the expense of non-charismatic Evangelicals (e.g. Baptists). Alsorelevant here are the insights of the lateGeorge Rawlyk (1996) and Sam Reimer(2003) that Canadian Evangelicalism tendsto be less doctrinally fixated, lesscontentious, and less politically affiliated tothe political right than is the case in theUnited States. Canada’s largest religiousgroups include Roman Catholics, liberal andmoderate Protestants, and “nones” (thereligious non-affiliates) and these groups arelargely ignored in Possamai’s association ofreligion and spirituality with late capitalism.In Canada, at least, many Catholics are notas conservative as the two recent popeswould like (Nock 1993:52-53). In the 2001census they counted just over 43% of thepopulation. Mainline Protestants numbered20%, the “nones” 16.5%. ConservativeProtestants, despite the “buzz” produced bythem, are at 5.5%, actually down fromprevious estimates in 1961 and 1991 (Bowen2004:24). “Perennists” in Canada asmembers of organizations have alwayscounted less than 1% (discussed as “NewAge” by Bibby 1993, 2002).

There follows a brief conclusion.Possamai does acknowledge that he hasfocused on two extremes (the hyper-consumer perennists on the one hand, andthe hypo-consumer fundamentalist religionson the other). He acknowledges, “inbetween these two ideal-types ofconsumption, many other types ofconsumption that were just touched uponare to be found” (158).

Although briefly raised, Possamai clearlyexpects hyper-consumer religions to be afocus of growth. Although he allows thatthey may be “just a fashion created by thelogic of late capitalism”, he clearly expectsmore of them. Thus he writes: “This hyper-real testament reflects contemporarypractices in the religious field that cannot beleft unstudied. These religious practicesmight become dominant in the near future… hyper-real is here with us and is morelikely to grow as it becomes moremainstream”( 158-59). Stephen J. Hunt isless sanguine when he comments,“nonetheless, if it is the case that fresh formsof religiosity are replacing the old, this maynot effectively reverse the processes of thelong-term decline of religion. It may well bethat from a historical perspective theevidence still points towards an overalldemise. The new religiosity, so it may beargued, does not make up for the decline oftraditional Christianity” (2002:213).

Whether that is true or not seems to meto depend on the correspondence ofpostmodernist and late capitalist theory toreality. As I understand postmodernism,however, correspondence to external realityis rarely this paradigm’s strong suit. TheCanadian political scientist Pauline Rosenau(1992:110), upon whom Possamai relies inpart, discusses at length the skepticalpostmodernists who deny such an externalreality whatsoever, or at least the ability ofhuman cognition to uncover it. The analysisof late capitalism, with its reliance onMarxist political economy as interpreted byErnest Mandel and Fredric Jameson, mayhave more prospects of uncovering verifiablepropositions that correspond to the realworld we live in.

Sociologists of religion, it seems to me,have occasion to welcome this book. As Isuggested at the beginning, there has longbeen a dour discourse within this specialtythat religion was doomed with thecompletion of the rationalization process andits correlates of science and highereducation. Possamai provides a new rationalethat religion may not be dying but changingin line with the new features of latecapitalism. Since this new religiosity (orbetter yet, spirituality) is by nature moreindividualistic and based upon personalchoice than previous religious economies, itstands to reason that sociologists of religionneed to look less to traditional religiousorganizations and more to the products andcommodities of popular culture on the onehand and to the Internet and chat-rooms onthe other hand. This should also suggest totraditional religious organizations that theymay need alternate forms of financing,service provision, and even of worship thanmeeting together physically. If Possami’swork vindicates Durkheim on the one hand(in the Frenchman’s insight that the old godsare dying but that there is no reason whynew ones may not take their place), his workrather undercuts Durkheim’s insistence thatreligion is a collective phenomenon that bestexpresses itself in communal worship.

According to Possamai religion willsurvive in later capitalism but sociologists ofreligion had better get used to gettingbeyond their traditional haunts in templesand cathedrals. They will need to develop akeen eye for the resources of popular cultureand cyberspace. Perhaps, then, I shouldconclude by saluting the work of Chris Seayin his The Gospel According to Tony Soprano:An Unauthorized Look Into the Soul of TV’sTop Mob Boss and His Family (2002). When Ibought it, I will admit that I was just fuellingmy counterintuitive interest in organizedcrime and its influence in Europe and NorthAmerica. It didn’t hit me at the time that Iwas actually developing “data” for myinterest in the sociology of religion!Remember, however, that for Possamai,looking for religious inspiration in popularculture is looking “in all the right places”.The back cover blurb of Seay’s bookpromises that “…God permeates the show”,that “deeper moral issues” we can all relateto, resonate in it; and that pastor Seay willanalyze the Soprano “family” (both of them!)and the various family characters and help“us evaluate our own humanity, andultimately our relationship with God”.

Thankfully, sociologists of religion may nothave to turn out the lights; but we may haveto turn on the TV, our friendly PC, andreplace the Bible with a few salient (graphic)novels!

David A. Nock is Professor in theDepartment of Sociology at LakeheadUniversity. His two most recent booksinclude the co-edited volume (with CeliaHaig-Brown), With Good Intentions: Euro-Canadians and Aboriginal Relations in ColonialCanada (2006) and Star Wars in CanadianSociology: Exploring the Social Construction ofKnowledge(1993). His article on the ChicagoSchool, “The Myth About ‘Myths of theChicago School’: Evidence from FloydNelson House,” appeared in The AmericanSociologist 35/1 (2004): 63-79.

References

Barker, Eileen (1999) “New ReligiousMovements: their incidence andsignificance”, in New Religious Movements:Challenge and Response, edited by BryanWilson and Jamie Cresswell. London andNew York: Routledge, pp. 15-30.

Bibby, Reginald W. (2002) Restless Gods:The Renaissance of Religion in Canada,Toronto: Stoddart.

--- (1993) Unknown Gods: The OngoingStory of Religion in Canada, Toronto:Stoddart.

Bowen, Kurt (2004) Christians in aSecular World: The Canadian Experience,Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’sUniversity Press.

Bruce, Steve (2002) God is Dead:Secularization in the West, Oxford andMalden: Blackwell Publishers.

Davie, Grace (1998) Entry on “Sociologyof Religion” in Encyclopedia of Religion andSociety, ed. William H. Swatos, Jr., pp. 483-488.

Gee, Peter (1998) Entry on “BryanWilson” in Encyclopedia of Religion andSociety, ed. William H. Swatos, Jr., pp. 557-558.

Haupt, Simon (2001) “Faith, hope andmarketing”, Globe and Mail, January 30.

Hunt, S.J. (2006) Religion and EverydayLife, London: Routledge.

--- (2002) Religion in Western Society,Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire andNew York: Palgrave.

Lester, Toby (2002) “Oh, Gods”, TheAtlantic Monthly (February), pp. 37-45.

Nauta, Andre (1998) Entry on “RodneyStark” in Encyclopedia of Religion and Society,ed. William H. Swatos, Jr., pp. 493-495.

Nock, David A. (1993) “TheOrganization of Religious Life in Canada”, inThe Sociology of Religion in Canada, ed. W.E.Hewitt. Toronto: Butterworths, pp.41-63.

Rawlyk, G.A. (1996) Is Jesus YourPersonal Saviour? In Search of CanadianEvangelicalism in the 1990s, Montreal andKingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Reimer, Sam (2003) Evangelicals and theContinental Divide: The ConservativeProtestant Subculture in Canada and theUnited States, Montreal and Kingston:McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Rosenau, Pauline Marie (1992) Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights,Inroads, and Intrusions, Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Seay, C. (2002) The Gospel According toTony Soprano, New York: Jeremy P.Tarcher/Putnam.

Shackleton, Eric (2005) “Pastors andpriests are facing ever more empty pews in2006”, Toronto Star (December 17).

Stark, Rodney (1996) The Rise ofChristianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History,Princeton: Princeton University Press.

--- (1984) “The Rise of a New WorldFaith”, Review of Religious Research 26:1(September): 16-27.

Swatos, William H., Jr. (1998)Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, WalnutCreek, London, New Delhi: AltaMira Press.

Wilson, B. (1982) Religion in SociologicalPerspective, Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Toronto Semiotic Circle ReduxBy Gary Genosko

The Toronto Semiotic Circle wasfounded in 1973 through thecombined efforts of three University

of Toronto professors: Paul Bouissac(French), Lubomir Dolezel (Slavic Languagesand Literatures), and Barron Brainerd(Linguistics). In the search for origins, thenext best thing to a primal scene is a“crucible letter”. Just such a letter wascirculated and signed by all three scholarsmentioned above. However, at the timeBouissac was not in Toronto but inWassenaar, Holland at the NetherlandsInstitute for Advanced Study in theHumanities and Social Sciences. Thefounding gesture was extended outward tolikely fellow travelers in other units in theUniversity of Toronto, and neighbouringuniversities in the southern Ontario region.Shortly thereafter the invitation wasfavourably received and the figures whoseparticipation defined the TSC’s early yearsemerged: Tom McFeat (Anthropology) andDavid Savan (Philosophy), along withseveral colleagues in the French andPsychology departments. In 1976, the TSClaunched its Working Papers and Pre-publications series with Savan’s AnIntroduction to C.S. Peirce’s Semiotics, Part 1.Of course, TSC did not ‘found alone’ for1973 was also the year that saw the launchof the Journal Canadien de RechercheSémiotique (The Canadian J. of Research inSemiotics) by Pierre and Madeleine Monod(Romance Languages, Alberta). In 1981, theJCRS/CJRS was superseded by RecherchesSémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry (RSSI), underBouissac’s editorship.

Although the TSC has seen over thecourse of its discontinuous history its share ofhigh and low points, lulls, leaps andstumbles, it is perhaps best known for thediversity of its colloquia. The weekend peaceand quiet in an ordinary Victoria Collegeacademic building would be broken onSaturday mornings at 10am – still an ungodlyhour for many – as coffee percolated andchairs were moved to accommodate TSC

stalwarts, guests and the curious, as theyassembled to hear the invited speaker. Thatthe interdisciplinary explorations of the TSCwere undertaken each month on a Saturdayin ‘overtime’, if you like, or even ‘downtime’,beyond the weekday schedule with its tangleof classes, meetings and commitments,speaks to the marginality of the project inrelation to the academic and administrativemainstream. This did much to define theTSC’s independence; yet it was the Circle’sdiversity that found full expression in thefreedom of the weekend occasion. Themarginality of semiotics itself within theUniversity of Toronto during the 1970sundoubtedly contributed to the TSC’sweekend slot.

The TSC was a productive institution.Beyond its colloquia, Working Papers, andsponsorship of RSSI, it published biannuallythe International Semiotic Spectrum (ISS)beginning in 1983 until 1992 under a varietyof managing editors, and later sponsored thefounding of The Semiotic Review of Books in1990 by editor-in-chief Bouissac, whichcontinues publication to this day. Mostsignificant is the role that the TSC played inestablishing the International SummerInstitutes in Semiotic and Structural Studies(ISISSS) beginning in Toronto at VictoriaCollege in 1980. The first year of ISISSSwitnessed the participation of the kernel ofToronto semioticians – Savan, McFeat,Bouissac, Dolezel – all of whom offeredcourses during June. Again, semiotics was amatter to which one’s attention turned atend-of term, making it an early summerpursuit.

With the rebirth in 2006 of the TorontoSemiotic Circle under the presidency ofAnne Urbancic (Toronto), it is appropriateto reflect upon the original editorial thatappeared in The Semiotic Review of Books 1.1(1990) by Bouissac, “The Lesson ofDurkheim”. The revolutionarymultidisciplinarity of Durkheim’s annualpublication L’Année sociologique that sought,

from a sociological perspective, to presentresults from the whole range of ‘specialsciences’ in a manner that would be mutuallyfructuous, inspired Bouissac to create theSRB but with semiotics as the mediator andmodeller of contemporary knowledgeproduction across the disciplines. Still, thisbold gesture situated semiotics not inrelation to philosophical or linguisticprecursors but rather in terms of sociology, inDurkheim’s day an emerging social sciencestruggling for legitimacy, and in additionfound in the journal format – not a book-likejournal but a no-frills broadsheet – a mediumof communication and disseminationadequate to the task.

Of course, some prefer the uncle(Durkheim) and others, like myself, preferthe nephew (Mauss). Marcel Mauss’smonumental contributions to the Année andhis efforts to see that his uncle’s projectsurvived him have inspired me to call uponthe renowned anthropologist James T.Clifford to provide the SRB with an “Insight”article in honour of the TSC’s rebirth as wellas to regain the original model of theDurkheim/Mauss Année. Overlooked byintellectual biographers of Mauss, and sodeeply embedded in his files that Cliffordhimself had not consulted it in decades, thegem of an article “Mauss’s Memory”, firstpublished in the obscure, defunct journalSulfur: A Literary Tri-Quarterly 17 (1986):145-53, went where nobody dared to tread:into Mauss’s filing cabinets where thedeterioration of his mind worked itself outthrough hypercategorization. The greatthinker of categories and the social origins ofclassification retreated into a labyrinth ofcombinatorial possibilities under the stressesof age, personal tragedy, illness, and war. Asober lesson for all intellectually adventuroussemioticians: the burden of “knowingeverything” is too difficult for even thegreatest to bear.

http://vicu.utoronto.ca/tsc/

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Marcel Mauss’s erudition waslegendary. Claude Lévi-Straussreports that the audience would

leave his lectures at the Collège de France orthe Ecole Pratiques des Hautes Etudesshaking their heads: “Mauss knowseverything”! He could uncannily retrieve aptdetails from a seemingly limitless reading ofhistorical and ethnographic sources in adozen languages. A passing reference toearrings could trigger a fascinating half-hour,with unexpected asides, on earrings inPolynesia, India, Australia, South America,Africa, Ancient Rome, etc. Lévi-Strauss:

In his work, and still more in histeaching, unthought-of comparisonsflourish. While he is often obscure bythe constant use of antitheses,shortcuts and apparent paradoxeswhich, later on, prove to be the resultof a deeper insight, he gratifies hislistener, suddenly, with fulguratingintuitions, providing the substancefor months of fruitful thinking.

An essay called “Techniques of the Body”gives a hint of Mauss’s oral style. Here are afew lines from what is essentially a long listof the things people in different parts of theworld do with their bodies:

It’s normal for children to squat. Weno longer know how to squat. Iconsider this to be an absurdity andinferiority of our races, civilizations,societies. […]

The notion that sleeping is somethingnatural is completely inexact.[…]Nothing is more dizzying than to seea Kabylie come downstairs withbabouches on. How can he standwithout losing his slippers? I’ve triedto watch, to do it, I don’t see how.And I don’t understand either howwomen can walk in their high heels.[…]

Hygiene of natural body functions. HereI could list numberless facts.[…]

Finally, it must be understood thatdancing while embracing is a productof modern European civilization. Thisshould show you that things quitenatural for us are historical; they mayhorrify everyone else in the worldexcept us.

Mauss was Emile Durkeim’s nephew andchief inheritor of the Année Sociologiquetradition after 1917. Until 1941, as aninfluential Paris university professor, heinspired several generations ofanthropologists and sociologists. Mauss wroteor contributed to classic studies of magic,social morphology, primitive classification,prayer, sacrifice, reciprocity, and the categoryof “the person”. His ideas also ricocheted inthe literary and artistic world. For example,something said at a lecture, “taboos are madeto be broken”, crystallized Georges Bataille’stheory of transgression – at least accordingto ethnographer Alfred Métraux who heard

the mot and passed it on to his friend.

Unlike Durkheim, Mauss was lessconcerned to defend the specific terrain ofsociology than he was to build bridgesbetween diverse perspectives – psychological,sociological, ethnographic, historical – on“l’homme total”. The scope of hisanthropological vision was summed up best,perhaps, in a famous intervention at theSociété de Psychologie in 1924. Discussionhad turned to the philosophical problem ofidentifying fundamental categories of thehuman mind:

The Aristotelian categories are not infact the only ones that exist in ourminds, or that have existed in themind and have to be dealt with.Above all it is essential to draw upthe largest possible catalogue ofcategories; it is essential to start withall those we are able to know menhave used. It will then be apparentthat there have been and still arequite a few dead, or pale, or obscuremoons in the firmament of reason.Small and large, animate andinanimate, right and left have beencategories. Among those familiar tous, take as an example that ofsubstance with which I have dealt ina highly technical way: how manyvicissitudes has it not undergone? Forexample, it had among its prototypes,especially in India and Greece,another notion: the notion of food.

All the categories are merely generalsymbols which, like other symbols,have been acquired by humanity veryslowly. We need to describe thislabour of construction. Indeed, this isone of the main chapters of sociologyunderstood from the historical pointof view. For this labour was itselfcomplex, perilous, chancy. Humanityhas constructed its mind by everymeans: technical and non-technical,mystical and non-mystical; makinguse of its mind (senses, feelings,reason) making use of its body;taking advantage of chance choices,things and times; taking advantage ofnations, their accomplishments, theirruins.

Our general concepts are stillunstable and imperfect. I sincerelybelieve that by concerted efforts,coming from opposite directions, ourpsychological, sociological, andhistorical sciences will someday beable to attempt a description of thispainful history. And I believe that thebest philosophy will perhaps beinspired by this science, thisawareness of the present relativity ofour reason. Allow me to concludethus.

This founding statement of modernanthropology (in Lévi-Strauss’s reading) hasmuch in it that could also attract a surrealist,

or anyone working to expand the recognizedcategories of the human spirit. For Mauss,the “mind” is neither a given product of theintellect nor a biological inheritance, butrather a complex historical mix ofpsychological, emotional, social and politicalinterventions. An emergent anthropology’sability to map and classify this totality is, hethinks, still precarious. And it has no choicebut to build its science on the assumption ofits own historical and cultural relativity.Unlike Lévi-Strauss, Mauss had noorganizing model, drawn from structurallinguistics, to order the vast diversity ofhuman symbols and categories. Indeed, hesaw social, mental, or moral orders astentative, constantly menaced by disorder,produced by historical transformation orruin. This was particularly evident in hiswork after the First World War shook hisbelief in the stability of civilized institutions.

Mauss’s best-known work, The Gift,builds this awareness of disorder into itssurvey of one of humankinds basic means forcreating social stability: reciprocal exchange.Mauss portrays the fragility of agreements togive and receive. More disturbingly, hestresses the affinities between agonisticgiving and violent competition, the thin lineseparating festival and war. Human sociality– for the Durkheimian, human essence –depends on entering into relations ofreciprocity: giving and receiving relatives,commodities, money, visits, words, or anysymbolic tokens binding the person toothers, groups to other groups. But onecannot be related to everyone; there must beexclusions.

Mauss’s survey shows that hospitality orgift-giving often have a dangerous side. Theymay be violently excessive like the Kwakiutlpotlatch. (This was the aspect of Mauss’sessay that most interested Bataille and whichhe would extrapolate in his curious work of“economics”, La part maudite.) For if The Giftmost explicitly portrays exchange as a checkon violence and potential war, it also shows“normal” social contexts in which givingappears to go haywire, where the agonisticelement takes over. Here, the equilibriummodel of exchange tips over into theexperience of pure spending, ludic or violentexcess. Mauss’s model of social order doesnot exclude this ever-present reality. Thestakes remain high. His story of reciprocityalways contains an “or else” – like theKwakiutl ritual he cites:

Part of the ceremonial opens with the“ceremony of the dogs”. These arerepresented by masked men whocome out of one house and force theirway into another. They commemoratethe occasion on which the people ofthe three other tribes of Kwakiutlproper neglected to invite the clanwhich ranked highest among them,the Guetela who, having no desire toremain outsiders, entered the dancinghouse and destroyed everything.

Insight:

Mauss’s MemoryBy James Clifford

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The prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan,remembers his teacher as “a man of inspiredconfusion… [who] managed to concentratea number of crucial things in very fewarticles”. In an interview Leroi-Gourhan wasasked what he recalled of his teacher’sspeech:

His silences, if I may put it thus. Ican’t provide an imitation; so manyyears have passed, and I have anidealized image of Mauss; but he con-structed his sentences in a way thatsuggested things without declaringthem inflexibly. His discourse was allarticulations and elasticity. Most ofhis sentences came up empty, but itwas an emptiness that invited you tobuild. That’s why I said the mostcharacteristic things were his silences.

He was especially amazing when wedid textual explications on authorswho had worked in Siberia on theGiliaks or Goldies. I remembersessions at Hautes Etudes – therewere never more than ten of us, andyet! We gathered around a table likethis one, not quite as long; Mausstranslated from German to Frenchwith commentaries that drewcomparisons from every corner of theglobe. His erudition was fantastic,and we took it in without really beingable to say afterwards how he hadmanaged to be so engrossing.

Mauss did not write books. His Oeuvrescomplètes (edited by Victor Karady) iscomposed of scholarly articles, essays,interventions at meetings, countless bookreviews. Compressed classics like The Gift,and A General Theory of Magic werepublished in the Année Sociologique. Hismagnum opus, a dissertation on Prayerremained a collection of drafts, essays, scrapsand notes. So did other synthetic works onMoney and the Nation. Perhaps because somuch was connected in his encyclopedicmind, Mauss could be easily sidetracked.And he was profligate with commitmentsand loyalties. He lectured constantly andspent years bringing work by deceasedcolleagues (Durkheim, Robert Hertz,Hubert) to completion. A dreyfusard andsocialist in the tradition of Jaurès, he wrotefor L’Humanité, took part in strikes, elections,and the “popular university” movement.Unlike his rather austere uncle, Mauss wasgregarious, bohemian, and something of abon vivant.

Some recall Mauss as a loyalDurkheimian. Others see a precursor ofstructuralism. Some see primarily ananthropologist, others a historian. Stillothers, citing his rabbinical roots, training inSanskrit, and lifelong interest in ritual, allyhim with students of religion like his friendsHubert and Leenhardt. Some stress Mauss’sbohemian iconoclasm, others his coherent,socialist-humanist vision. Some see a brilliantarmchair theorist. Others remember a sharpempirical observer, able to inspire ageneration of fieldworkers. The differentversions of Mauss are not irreconcilable. Butthey do not quite add up. People reading andremembering him always seem to findsomething of themselves.

(Leroi-Gourhan) For a period of twoyears when I was attending nearly allhis courses it was agreed that acomrade and I – a Russian Jew,Deborah Lipschitz, who died in theNazi deportation – would take notesin turn and in a way that would let uscompare them to determine the realcontent of Mauss’s teaching. And wenever managed to construct anythingcoherent because it was too rich andalways ended up at the horizon.Later, a record of his course waspublished by a group of formerstudents. Well, there was a totaldivergence between what they notedand what Deborah and I took down.This is the secret, I believe, of thereal spell cast on his followers.

I have one small story to add to, and nodoubt further confuse, Mauss’s memory. Itstarted in a conversation with DenisePaulme, the ethnographer from Africaresponsible for publishing some of Mauss’slectures under the title Cours d’ethnographie.Paulme was reminiscing about her teacherwho, even as a Professor at the Collège deFrance, always retained something of the bonélève – brilliant, enthusiastic, chaotic.

We spoke of his tragic end. As is widely-known, Mauss spent the German occupationin isolation and emerged without fullpossession of his mind. A Jew and a socialist,he was a doubly marked man. Withoutillusions, when the Germans approachedParis he gave up his teaching and took earlyretirement as President of the Ecole Pratiquedes Hautes Etudes. In public he wore theStar of David stitched to his coat, with pride.But like many others during those years hestayed out of sight. Close Jewish colleagues –Deborah Lipschitz and Maurice Halbwachs –were deported to their deaths. Mauss saw thereciprocity and collective discipline that hadbeen the underpinning of both his sociologyand his socialism crumble. He had oncebefore survived the decimation of ageneration. The new assault seemed to breakhis spirit.

When the Nazis entered Paris, DenisePaulme told me, they set about requisitioning“available” apartments for officers’ quarters.Mauss had acquired a rather large flat whenhe was appointed to the Collège de France.Evicted by the Germans, he moved in withhis companion of many years, a woman ofworking-class origins who lived in a smallerdwelling nearby. But there was no room forMauss’s large library. Paulme and herhusband, the ethnomusicologist AndréSchaeffner (also Mauss’s student), wereamong the friends who helped move hiscollection of books to the Musée del’Homme.

The books, she said, were certainly stillat the Musée. But she didn’t know whetherthey had been fully integrated into its library.Perhaps not – Mauss’s books were an oddaccumulation. His rule was not to acquireanything available at the Paris University.(Professors had the run of the library stacksand enjoyed lenient borrowing privileges.)Since Mauss’s interests were unpredictable,covering both high and low culture, I wascharmed by the idea of his library, asystematic collection of odds and ends. What

if it still existed, a dusty heap, uncataloguedsomewhere in the Musée’s labyrinthinebasements?

Yes, I was told when I went to look, ofcourse, the Mauss collection was cataloguedlong ago. Also, the record of its contents ismissing. No way to tell the things that werekept and those discarded. But would I like tosee what remains in storage?

Some metal shelves in the dark, coveredwith dust. Resting on them, a series ofwooden drawers of different sizes evidentlyonce belonging to a single large cabinet:Mauss’s fichier de travail, his working card-file.

The drawers are numbered 1-15, withtwo missing. They are stuffed with cards, 8 x121/2 centimetres in size. The cards areannotated across the short end (butsometimes the other way) in small, smudgedscript, often abbreviated and barely legible.Most of the cards merely record a citation.Occasionally a theme is registered. Largercards, 15 x 9 cm., mark off the categories.

Taking inventory of half a drawer I count700 smaller and 128 larger cards. Sometimesthey are arranged alphabetically, sometimesnot. A sampling of categories:

Sociological esthetics (100 cards)

Primitive drawings (80)

Animals (1)

Primitives (3)

Ornament (1)

Distinctive ornament (2)

Tattooing (2)

Jewels (2 – with small pencildrawings, apparently of necklaces)Plastic arts (3 – Australian art,French popular art, Indonesian art)

Japanese art (1)

Kinds of ornament (8 – mostly Australian references)

Basket ornamentation (2)

Spiral (4 – from diverse locales,mostly illegible)

Figures (2)

Music (1)

Literature (no cards)

Popular literature (4 – one illegible, one on Turkish and Rumanian marionettes, two in German, on folktales of Indonesia and Togo)

Popular songs and rhymes (4)

Legends and stories (200)

Fables (10)

Transmission of fables (1)

Aesop’s fables (1)

Parables (1)

Also noted (a partial list): Myths, Meteorology, Weapons, Religion, Collecting, Phenomenology, Definitions, Explanatory theories, Ancient theories, Truth (3 cards: one illegible, two on Medieval theology), Representations of Nature (1 card: an article by K. Allen, “The Treatment of Nature in the Poetry of the Roman Republic”, Bulletin of theUniv. of Wisconsin, 1899)…

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The drawers are numbered, not labelled.Thus one cannot guess the file’s overalltopic, if there was one. On a conservativeestimate, the thirteen extant trays fromMauss’s file contain 18,000 small cardsdivided by over 7,000 larger cards.

The number of categories is troubling.

Mauss lived until 1950, a sad figure. Hecould become animated…but then wouldlose track and become confused. Hisextraordinary mind seemed to be turning outof control, starting up lucid, thendiscouraged, aimless. Little is generallyknown about his ailment, and most accountspass over it quickly. Jean Cazeneuve in hisshort study of Mauss simply mentions “nineyears of half-sleep”. A terrible nine years.One of Mauss’s former students, Pierre-Henri Chombart-de-Lauwe, who saw him in1946 told me that after a frustratingconversation of fits and starts Mauss’sparting admonition was: “Il faut publier”!Make sure you publish! The younger mansensed a scholar with many projects to bringtogether, an enormous knowledge still tocommunicate, but lacking the capacity oroccasions to do so. A mind fully aware of itsown ruin.

Mauss’s disarray had medical, moral andsociological causes. I would like merely toadd a dimension suggested by the disturbingcard file with its 18,000 references andnearly half as many categories.

One of Mauss’s most elusive andinfluential ideas, enunciated in The Gift andelsewhere, was that of the “total social fact”.According to this doctrine, crucial humaninstitutions – gift exchange for example –should be seen simultaneously as “religious”,“political”, “economic”, and “social” facts;moreover, one must not forget their “legal”,“cosmological”, “aesthetic”, “ecological”, and“morphological” aspects. To understandsuch “total” phenomena means to tie theminto the whole fabric of human culture, tomultiply their connections with otherinstitutions. But there is a limit to thenumber of interpretive contexts one canbring to bear. And if the outline of the“institution” in question (be it gift exchange,prayer, magic, or the nation) becomes unduly

complex then the vision of “total socialfacts” may dissolve into a frustratingawareness that everything is related toeverything else.

Mauss did what comparative sociologydoes best, with an incomparable, evenexcessive flair. He unexpectedly illuminedone portion of the world by another; onedomain of society by another. Within thefocus of an essay, a lecture, or aconversation, he could brilliantly bring tobear his enormous learning, deepening atopic, extending its ramifications. Mauss wasan “anthropologist” whose subject wasultimately “man”. And his complementarysocialist-humanist vision of unity in diversityembraced virtually all cultures and allepochs.

But there is always another side to suchinclusive programs. For wholeness cannotavoid selection and taxonomy – anirreducible arbitrariness. “Mauss knowseverything”, said his wondering students. Butmight not knowing so much become apainful disorder when the categoriesproliferated and the pegs of memory slipped,when the reciprocal contexts in whichMauss’s marvelous knowledge could bespoken and heard, taught and learned, wereswept away by an abrupt history?

James Clifford is Professor in the History ofConsciousness Department, University ofCalifornia, Santa Cruz.

Sources

The published work of Mauss iscontained in three collections: 1) Sociologie etanthropologie, Paris: Presses Universitaires dela France, 1950. This volume, preceded byan important “Introduction à l’oeuvre deMarcel Mauss” by Claude Lévi-Strauss,contains “Esquisse d’une théorie générale dela magie”(1902), “Essai sur le don” (1923),“Rapports réels et pratiques de la psychologieet de la sociologie” (1924), “Effet physiquechez l’individu de ‘l’idée de mort sugérée parla collectivité” (1926),”Une catégorie del’esprit humain: la notion de la personne,celle de ‘moi’” (1938), “Les techniques ducorps” (1934), “Essai sur les variations

saisonnières des sociétés Eskimos: étude demorphologie sociale” (1904). 2) Oeuvres, inthree volumes, edited and introduced by V.Karady, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1968,1969, and 1969. This collection, containingessays, reports, reviews, oral interventions,etc., is grouped under three thematic titles: I.Les Fonctions du sacré, II. Représentationscollectives et diversité des civilisations, III.Cohésions sociales et Divisions de la sociologie.3) Manuel d’ethnographie, edited by DenisePaulme, Paris: Payot, 1947, a compilation ofcourse notes by Mauss’s students.

English translations: The Gift,Introduction by E.E. Evans-Pritchard,London: Cohen & West, 1954. PrimitiveClassification (with E. Durkheim),Introduction by Rodney Needham, Chicago:U Chicago Press, 1963. Sacrifice (with HenriHubert), Introduction by E.E. Evans-Pritchard, London: Cohen & West, 1964. AGeneral Theory of Magic, Introduction by D.F.Pocock, New York: Norton, 1972. Sociologyand Psychology: Essays, trans. Ben Brewster,London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo,Introduction by James J. Fox, London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

Also cited in this essay: Claude Lévi-Strauss, “French Sociology”, in TwentiethCentury Sociology, G. Gurvitch and W.Moore, eds., New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, 1945. Alfred Métraux, “Rencontreavec les ethnologues”, Critique 195-96(1963). Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Introduction”,in Sociologie et anthropologie, above. GeorgesBataille, La part maudite [1949], Paris:Editions de Minuit, 1967. André Leroi-Gourhan, Les raciness du monde (Interviewswith Claude-Henri Roquet), Paris: PierreBelford, 1982. Jean Cazeneuve, Mauss, Paris:Presses Universitaires de la France, 1968.

See also, Marshall Sahlins, “The Spirit ofthe Gift”, in Stone Age Economics, Chicago:Aldine, 1982. Michèle Richman, ReadingGeorges Bataille: Beyond the Gift, Baltimore:Johns Hopkins U Press, 1982. JamesClifford, “On Ethnographic Surrealism”,Comparative Studies in Society and History23/4 (1981).