Il est urgent de ménager dans l'homme un espace pour Dieu, c'est-à-dire un espace d'interrogation où la Parole de Dieu puisse retentir à nouveau comme une Bonne Nouvelle. De plus en plus, le Dieu de la foi doit être cherché pour lui-même, comme une nouvelle gratuité, au-delà de l'utile et de l'inutile. Mais cette gratuité n'évoque aucune évasion. L'une des formes de la responsabilité historique du chrétien, c'est de créer des espaces pour Dieu dans le monde, en ayant la certitude (...) que c'est aussi le meilleur moyen de travailler à la guérison de tout l'homme. (shrink)

Pour les religions comme pour les cultures, la mondialisation présente un double écueil, dialectique : elle peut conduire aussi bien à un syncrétisrne destructeur des identités qu'à des crispations fondamentalistes. Cependant, elle devrait pouvoir favoriser un œcuménisme interreligieux à l'échelle de la planète sans tomber dans le mythe d'une religion mondiale. C'est dans la fidélité à son identité propre que chaque religion peut témoigner de la quête universelle d'une Réalité dernière qu'aucun système religieux ne saurait épuiser. Sans avoir la prétention (...) d'instaurer un nouvel ordre mondial, le christianisme détient un pouvoir prophétique de contre-culture contre les risques à la fois de déshumanisation et de fractures entre personnes et communautés ethniques et religieuses. Religion d'incarnation, il n'annonce pas seulement à tout être humain le salut gratuit de Dieu, il travaille à la guérison des cultures et de la création tout entière. L'Église annonce Jésus-Christ comme événement de salut universel pour tous les hommes, y compris ceux qui appartiennent à d'autres traditions religieuses. Mais les témoins de l'évangile doivent apprendre à ne pas confondre l'universalité du mystère du Christ avec celle du christianisme compris comme religion historique indissociable de sa figure occidentale, et à maintenir une distance entre l'Église comme moyen de salut et le Royaume de Dieu qui ne cesse d'advenir au-delà de ses frontières. For religions as well as cultures, globalization presents a double reef or dialectic : it can not only lead to a destructive syncretism of identities but also to fundamentalist reactions. Il should be able, nevertheless, to favor an inter-religious ecumenism on a planetary scale, without falling into the myth of a world religion. Each religion, faithful to its proper identity, can witness to the universal search of a last Reality, which no religious system can exhaust. Without having the pretension of installing a new world order, Christianity holds a prophetic and counter-cultural power against the risks of, not only dehumanization, but also breakups between persons and ethnic and religions communities. As a religion of incarnation, Christianity not only announces to every human being the gratuitous salvation of God, but it works in healing cultures and all creation. The Church announces Jesus Christ as an event of universal salvation for all humanity, including those who belong to other religious traditions. But the witnesses of the Gospel must learn not to confuse the universality of the mystery of Christ with that of a Christianity understood as a historical religion inseparable from its western form, and to maintain a distance between the Church as means of salvation and the Kingdom of God that doesn’t cease to go beyond its frontiers. (shrink)

Dans une période particulièrement troublée de la vie intellectuelle de l’Église catholique, Henri Bouillard fut à proprement parler un passeur, ouvrant des voies nouvelles dont nous sommes toujours les héritiers. Dans ce parcours très complexe qui a duré près de quarante ans, on peut repérer trois passages dont nous n’avons pas fini de mesurer la portée. Il y a d’abord la volonté de dépasser un anti-modernisme catholique hanté par l’objectivité de la vérité révélée et soucieux de dénoncer le subjectivisme des (...) théologiens s’efforçant de prendre au sérieux l’expérience du sujet croyant. C’est ici le rapport entre vérité et histoire qui est touché. Il y a ensuite un deuxième passage dont la théologie catholique du XXe siècle lui est redevable, c’est le remplacement de l’Apologétique comme science objective par une vraie théologie fondamentale. Il y a enfin un dernier passage, souvent moins relevé mais d’une grande actualité pour notre théologie contemporaine : celui d’une théologie naturelle - ou mieux d’une théologie philosophique - à une théologie des religions. During a particularly troubled period in the intellectual life of the Catholic Church, Henri Bouillard was a true passeur , opening up new paths of which we are still inheritors. In this very complex itinerary covering more than forty years, we can make out three passages, the consequences of which we are far from having fully taken into account. There is, first of all, the will to go beyond Catholic anti-modernism, haunted by the objectivity of revealed truth and obsessively denouncing those theologians who endeavoured to take seriously the experience of the believing subject. The relationship between truth and history is at stake here. There is then a second passage which twentieth-century Catholic theology owes to Bouillard: replacing apolegetics as objective science with a genuine fundamental theology. And there is a third passage, often less noticed but of paramount import for contemporary theology: the transition from a natural theology – or, more precisely, from a philosophic theology – to a theology of religions. (shrink)

Le présent défi pour l’Église, c’est à la fois celui de la mondialisation et d’un pluralisme religieux croissant, qu’il s’agisse des grandes religions ou des nouvelles religiosités. Mais elle doit affronter aussi un indifférentisme religieux qui peut être l’envers d’un combat passionné pour l’homme. Face à ces défis, il faut tenir compte d’un nouveau paradigme théologique, celui d’un pluralisme religieux de principe qui s’interroge sur la signification de la pluralité des religions à l’intérieur du dessein de Dieu. Ce nouveau paradigme (...) nous invite à instaurer un nouveau rapport à la vérité en théologie. Et c’est en allant jusqu’au bout du paradoxe christologique que l’on peut désigner le christianisme comme une religion essentiellement dialogale. Comme l’œcuménisme, le dialogue interreligieux doit être une dimension de toute la théologie. La théologie des religions tend alors à devenir une théologie interreligieuse qui manifeste la fécondation mutuelle des religions dans notre discours sur Dieu et sur le salut de l’homme. (shrink)

Spirito dell'Europa, spirito del cristianesimo : momenti della discussione / J.B. Metz -- Il rapimento dell'Europa e la teologia / H.J. Adriaanse -- L'Europa ipocrita / J. Greisch -- Condizioni dell'apporto di filosofia e teologia al progresso dell'Europa / J.P. Coll -- Teologia e filosofia : le vicende di un rapporto difficile / G. Colombo -- Dall'ermeneutica filosofica all'ermeneutica teologica / C. Geffré -- Antropologie filosofiche e teologiche / J. Macquarrie -- Ermeneutica della differenza / A. Rigobello -- Dalla (...) teologia alla filosofia / X. Tilliette -- Filosofia e teologia : una distinzione superata / R. Panikkar -- Il giudizio finale come problema di filosofia della religione / O. Bayer -- Mistica e illuminismo, affinità e contrasto / E. Salmann -- Sum ergo Deus est : il finito di fronte all'infinito / U. Perone -- La conoscenza come conoscenza di Dio : aspetti epistemologici della teoria dell'intelletto di Meister Eckhart / U. Kern. (shrink)

Dans la foulée de l’oeuvre du théologien français Claude Geffré, cet article réfléchit au rapport entre l’Évangile et les cultures. L’Évangile apparaît comme un «au-delà intérieur» à la culture; ceci n’est possible que parce que la culture est ouverte, par sa dynamique même, à une «transcendance sans nom» . Le rapport entre les deux est envisagé comme une dialectique se résolvant dans la «réponse chrétienne», c’est-à-dire dans les diverses manières dont les croyants, individuellement et collectivement, interprètent en paroles et actes (...) la Parole entendue. (shrink)

Claude Geffré is one of the most important theologians in the past decades for his work in hermeneutics and in theological methodology. In the present article, he proposes his own intellectual biography and looks back at the evolution of catholic theology over the last forty years. While remaining faithful to the theological posture of Thomas of Aquinas, Geffré seeks to define theology as a hermeneutical science. For him, the task of theology is the presentation of a critical correlation between the (...) human experience and the texts of the Christian tradition. (shrink)

Dans le contexte d’une mondialisation qui n’est pas sans ambiguïtés ni opacités, il convient d’examiner à quelles conditions pluralisme culturel et pluralisme religieux sont des chances pour un humanum plus authentique. Le consensus porté par la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme pourrait réorienter le dialogue interreligieux et le nourrir alors que les religions suscitent aujourd’hui un certain scepticisme. Quant au message évangélique, en résonance profonde avec l’attente légitime de plus d’humanité, il porte en lui une capacité de résistance, plus (...) forte que la crise institutionnelle et culturelle des Églises. (shrink)

Dans cet article, le théologien dominicain propose une sorte de biographie intellectuelle qui recoupe l’évolution de la théologie catholique durant les quarante dernières années. Héritier de la tradition intellectuelle dont Marie-Dominique Chenu fut l’initiateur dans son ouvrage, Une École de théologie: le Saulchoir, il explique comment, tout en restant fidèle à la posture théologique de Thomas d’Aquin, il a pris peu à peu ses distances vis-à-vis de la théologie thomiste en tant que théologie métaphysique. En charge à la suite d’Henri (...) Bouillard de la chaire de théologie fondamentale de l’Institut Catholique de Paris, il a cherché à définir celle-ci comme une science herméneutique qui assure la crédibilité du message chrétien à partir d’une corrélation critique entre l’expérience de la communauté chrétienne primitive et l’expérience historique des hommes et des femmes d’aujourd’hui. Il précise alors les conséquences de ce tournant herméneutique de la théologie tant pour la relecture des Écritures que pour la réinterprétation de la tradition théologique et dogmatique. En conclusion, dans la fidélité à l’orientation herméneutique de sa théologie, il fait état de ses principales options dans le chantier toujours ouvert de la théologie des religions ou mieux du pluralisme religieux. (shrink)

A critical and detailed introduction to Kant's philosophy, with particular reference to the Critique of Pure Reason. Since Broad's death there have been many publications on Kant but Broad's 1978 book still finds a definite place between the very general surveys and the more specialised commentaries. He offers a characteristically clear, judicious and direct account of Kant's work; his criticisms are acute and sympathetic, reminding us forcefully that 'Kant's mistakes are usually more important than other people's correctitudes'. C.D. Broad was (...) Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge from 1933 to 1953, and this book is based on his undergraduate lectures on Kant. Broad died in 1971 and Dr Lewy has since edited the book for publication. (shrink)

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis’s death, a special annotated edition of his Christian classic, The Screwtape Letters, with notes and excerpts from his other works that help illuminate this diabolical masterpiece. Since its publication in 1942, The Screwtape Letters has sold millions of copies worldwide and is recognized as a milestone in the history of popular theology. A masterpiece of satire, it offers a sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the (...) vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, The Screwtape Letters comprises the correspondence of the worldly-wise devil Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. For the first time, The Screwtape Letters will be presented in full-text accompanied by helpful annotations in a striking two-color format. These annotations will give fans a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the popular book, providing background information, explanations of terms, historical significance, and excerpts from Lewis’s other works that more fully explain the ideas in this volume. For both expert Lewis fans and casual readers, The Screwtape Letters: Annotated Edition will be a beautiful and insightful guide to a beloved classic. (shrink)

O objeto deste artigo é a leitura que Claude Geffré faz de Paul Tillich em De Babel a Pentecostes: ensaios de teologia inter-religiosa. O autor recorre à teologia de Tillich para desenvolver uma “hermenêutica do diálogo inter-religioso”, a fim de responder ao desafio do pluralismo religioso para a teologia cristã. O argumento que Geffré encontra é que apenas a partir do paradoxo cristológico, à luz do conceito de “revelação final” e “preocupação última”, a teologia cristã pode responder ao pluralismo religioso (...) sem perder-se de si mesmo. O artigo tem dois momentos: primeiro, uma percepção da obra de Geffré, especialmente a primeira parte, intitulada Não há outro nome, onde está nosso foco; segundo, a análise dos três conceitos de Tillich desenvolvidos por Geffré, procurando identificar e caracterizar acentos da leitura e analisar o resultado dessa leitura à luz das referências na obra de Tillich. Nossa conclusão sublinha a pertinência da teologia de Tillich para a reflexão acerca do problema proposto, tal como Geffré demonstra, e destaca uma crítica a partir do conceito de preocupação última, cuja implicação questiona a positividade desse conceito para uma teologia inter-religiosa, uma vez que seu caráter paradoxal seja relativizado. (shrink)

This essay corrects an error in the presentation of the Paradox of the Knowledge-Plus Knower, which is the variant of Kaplan and Montague’s Knower Paradox presented in C. Cross 2001: ‘The Paradox of the Knower without Epistemic Closure,’ MIND, 110, pp. 319–33. The correction adds a universally quantified transitivity principle for derivability as an additional assumption leading to paradox. This correction does not affect the status of the Knowledge-Plus paradox as a rebuttal to an argument against epistemic closure, since the (...) quantified transitivity principle is true in the standard model of arithmetic and therefore innocuous. (shrink)

Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that (...) is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self. The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one’s “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one’s own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. (shrink)

The survival of a unique set of drawings, complemented by a contemporary description and a sale catalogue, enable us to ‘reconstruct’ the cabinet of Bonnier de la Mosson , a miscellaneous collection formed in Paris c. 1740. A brief assessment is offered of the status of such cabinets in the growth and diffusion of science in ancien régime France. We also point to a link with the decorative arts: in a study of such a subject the intellectual and aesthetic dimensions (...) must be treated as a unity if we are fully to evoke the context of the cabinet in the age of the rococo. Only the modern ‘discipline’-oriented viewpoint forces a separation between the history of science and the history of art. (shrink)

This collection features Plato's writings on sex and love in the preeminent translations of Stanley Lombardo, Paul Woodruff and Alexander Nehamas, D. S. Hutchinson, and C. D. C. Reeve. Reeve's Introduction provides a wealth of historical information about Plato and Socrates, and the sexual norms of classical Athens. His introductory essay looks closely at the dialogues themselves and includes the following sections: Socrates and the Art of Love; Socrates and Athenian Paiderastia; Loving Socrates; Love and the Ascent to the Beautiful; (...) The Art and Psychology of Love Explained; and Writing about Love. (shrink)

_A Plato Reader_ offers eight of Plato's best-known works--_Euthyphro_, _Apology_, _Crito_, _Meno_, _Phaedo_, _Symposium_, _Phaedrus_, and _Republic_--unabridged, expertly introduced and annotated, and in widely admired translations by C. D. C. Reeve, G. M. A. Grube, Alexander Nehamas, and Paul Woodruff. The collection features Socrates as its central character and a model of the examined life. Its range allows us to see him in action in very different settings and philosophical modes: from the elenctic Socrates of the _Meno_ and the dialogues (...) concerning his trial and death, to the erotic Socrates of the _Symposium_ and _Phaedrus_, to the dialectician of the _Republic_. Of Reeve's translation of this final masterpiece, Lloyd P. Gerson writes, "Taking full advantage of S. R. Slings' new Greek text of the Republic, Reeve has given us a translation both accurate and limpid. Loving attention to detail and deep familiarity with Plato's thought are evident on every page. Reeve's brilliant decision to cast the dialogue into direct speech produces a compelling impression of immediacy unmatched by other English translations currently available.". (shrink)

The self is a topic that crosses a great many disciplinary boundaries; concepts of the self are central to political science, psychoanalysis, philosophy, sociology, and classical studies. In this book, C.Fred Alford sets forth a psychoanalytic account of the self and applies it to texts by Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rawis, and Rouseau in order to draw out their implicit, often inchoate, assumptions about the self.

"The concluding chapter, penned by C. E. Emmer, both revisits and greatly expands upon disputations within the contested territory of kitsch as term and tool in cultural turf-war arsenals. Focusing on debates surrounding two visual responses to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Dennis Madalone's 2003 music video for the patriotic anthem 'America We Stand As One' and Jenny Ryan's 'plushie' sculpture, 'Soft 9/11,' Emmer utilizes these debates to reveal the coexisting and competing attitudes towards ostensibly kitschy objects and (...) the contentiousness of deploying kitsch as a term in these debates. The buzzing activity of the internet provides much of the raw material for his arguments. Through his close reading of both the works themselves and the public response to them, Emmer once more focuses attention on the competing and overlapping attitudes towards kitsch and the way in which it and its semantic cousins remain a viable and valuable resource with which to police the borders that surround the artworld. Ultimately, his contribution further grounds a wider premise operative in this collection--namely, that a simple and rigid dichotomy of kitsch and (high) art does not and indeed cannot capture the elusive and mercurial nature of kitsch." --from the editor's introduction. (shrink)

The Holocaust marks a decisive moment in modern suffering in which it becomes almost impossible to find meaning or redemption in the experience. In this study, C. Fred Alford offers a new and thoughtful examination of the experience of suffering. Moving from the Book of Job, an account of meaningful suffering in a God-drenched world, to the work of Primo Levi, who attempted to find meaning in the Holocaust through absolute clarity of insight, he concludes that neither strategy works well (...) in today's world. More effective are the day-to-day coping practices of some survivors. Drawing on testimonies of survivors from the Fortunoff Video Archives, Alford also applies the work of Julia Kristeva and the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicot to his examination of a topic that has been and continues to be central to human experience. (shrink)

Identity theory The doctrine that mental states are identical with physical states was defended in antiquity by Lucretius and in the early modern era by Hobbes. It achieved considerable prominence in the 1950s as a result of the writings of Herbert Feigl, U. T. Place, and J. J. C. Smart. (See, e.g., Smart (1959). These authors developed reasonably precise formulations of the doctrine, clarified the grounds for embracing it, and responded persuasively to a range of objections. More recently it has (...) been defended systematically by Hill (1991) and Papineau (2002). Other contemporary advocates include Loar (1990), McLaughlin (2004), and Polger (2005). The doctrine also figures explicitly or implicitly in the writings of dualists, who are of course concerned to oppose it. Thus, for example, it plays an important role in Kripke’s influential defense of dualism (Kripke 1980). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 211-222 [Access article in PDF] Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness C. Jason Lee DESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the magic (...) works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind."This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations.Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal.After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things... (shrink)

Introduction: conceptual analysis of teaching, by B. P. Komisar and T. W. Nelson.--A concept of teaching, by B. O. Smith.--The concept of teaching, by I. Sheffler.--A topology of the teaching concept, by T. F. Green.--Teaching: act and enterprise, by B. P. Komisar.--Must an education have an aim? By R. S. Peters.--Curriculum as a field of study, by D. Heubner.--Can and should means-ends reasoning be used in teaching? By C. J. B. Macmillan and J. E. McClellan.

These are a few of the paradoxes that typically lead philosophers to oversimplify love--and that draw C. D. C. Reeve to explore it in all its complexity, ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.1 (2000) 106-123 [Access article in PDF] The (Mis)Uses of Cannibalism in Contemporary Cultural Critique C. Richard King At least since 1979, when W. Arens demystified what he termed "the man-eating myth," cannibalism, once a fundamental feature of the anthropological imagination and a primary trope for interpreting cultural difference, has become subject to serious debate and lingering doubt [see Osborne]. Even as some anthropologists have sought to recuperate (...) anthropophagy as a tangible symbolic, ideological, and ritual complex [Brown and Tuzin; Conklin, "'Thus are our Bodies'"; Forsyth; Harris, Good to Eat 199-234; Sanday], a constellation of scholarly projects and popular works has complicated cannibalism by relocating it in the West. Perhaps most visibly, Hollywood cinema has reclaimed cannibalism. Although a handful of films have revived well-worn clichés of dark-skinned savages preparing to consume Westerners, as in King Solomon's Mines and Crocodile Dundee, others have cast the Western subject as cannibal to grapple with the horrors of reluctant cannibalism, as in Alive! [see Fiddes 121-31], to work through the transgressive and terrifying desires associated with psychopathic cannibalism, as in The Silence of the Lambs [Fuss; Halberstam], and importantly to parody the normative beliefs and behaviors of white, middle-class, heterosexual EuroAmericans, as in Eating Raoul and Parents. At the same time, an array of scholars, artists, and activists have invoked cannibalism to fashion critical perspectives on Western cultural practices. In his film Cannibal Tours (1987), Dennis O'Rourke encourages his audiences to think critically about tourists who travel to the Sepik River Valley to encounter reformed cannibals, asking implicitly who the cannibals are, the Melanesians who formerly (were thought to/claim to have) practiced anthropophagy or the tourists who travel to New Guinea to consume them [see Bruner]. Others have pushed the metaphor. Michael Ames, borrowing explicitly from O'Rourke, uses the cannibal to reframe ethnographic museums and their practices. Similarly, Jane Tompkins asserts that "Museums are a form of cannibalism made safe for polite society" [533]. More generally, Crystal Bartolovich playfully glosses consumerism as the cultural logic of the late cannibalism; bell hooks speaks of the EuroAmerican desires for and incorporation of things ethnic as "eating the other"; and Rosalind Morris suggests that cannibalism is the essential metaphor for late capitalism. More telling, however, are a set of overlapping critical projects that offer detailed theorizations [End Page 106] [Begin Page 108] of contemporary anthropophagy. Here, I will examine three that have had an important impact on discussions of tourism, museums, cultural appropriation, and consumption. Dean MacCannell, in an exciting exploratory review of the documentary Cannibal Tours, makes explicit what O'Rourke left unsaid: we are cannibals, and contemporary capitalism is neocannibalism. Perhaps more radically, Jack Forbes argues that Western civilization fosters cannibalism as an embodied, psychosocial condition or psychosis rooted in exploitation and consumption. Inspired at least in part by Forbes, Deborah Root rethinks Western civilization as cannibal culture.Although I am terribly sympathetic with these perspectives, particularly their political commitments and theoretical creativity, I am disturbed by the practices and effects that animate them. Indeed, as powerful as this critical field promises to be, it is at the same time troubling and dangerous. Although it defamiliarizes practices of cultural production and consumption, it does not enhance understanding of the contexts in which individuals and institutions deploy them and does less to effectively challenge or undermine them. In reframing beliefs and behaviors to accentuate productivity and power, it reinstates and reaffirms binaries and, worse, often turns on the same forms of appropriation.* * *Arguably, flesh eating has always promoted the elaborations of differences. Works central to the Western canon mobilize cannibalism to make (sense of) the world. Herodotus offers an early anthropophagic distinction:These Scythian husbandmen then occupy the country eastward for three days' journey.... Beyond this region the country is desert for a great distance; and beyond the desert Androphagi dwell.... The Androphagi have the most savage customs of all men; they pay no regard to justice, nor make use of any established law. They are nomads and wear a dress like a Scythian; they... (shrink)