{"product_id":"the-implied-spider-politics-and-theology-in-myth-paperback","title":"The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eWendy Doniger\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt this time of heightened political sensitivities, it may seem impossible to make serious comparisons among different cultures. And at a time when human difference is so relentlessly celebrated, it may even seem impossible to talk about the traditions and experiences that join us across race, religion, and nation. Wendy Doniger offers a powerful antidote to the paralysis of postcolonial intellectual life. In this spirited, enlightening book, she shows just how to make sense of, and learn from, the extraordinary diversity of cultures past and present. Tapping a wealth of traditions, from the Hebrew Bible to the \u003ci\u003eBhagavad Gita, \u003c\/i\u003e Doniger crafts a new lens for examining other cultures, and finding in the world's myths--its sacred stories--a way to talk about experiences shared across time and space. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Of all things made with words,\" Doniger writes, \"myths span the widest of human concerns, human paradoxes.\" Myths, she shows, bridge the cosmic and the familiar, the personal and the abstract, the theological and the political. They encourage us to draw various, even opposed, political meanings from a single text as it travels through different historical contexts. And she demonstrates how studying myths from cultures other than our own can be exhilarating and illuminating. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMyth, Doniger shows, provides a near-perfect entree to another culture. Even if scholars such as Freud, Jung, and Joseph Campbell typically overstated the universality of major myths and suppressed the distinctive natures of other cultures, postcolonial critics are wrong to argue that nothing good can come from a systematic comparative study of human cultures. Doniger offers an engaged, expansive critical tool kit for doing just that. She suggests critical and responsible ways in which to compare stories--or texts or myths or traditions--from different cultures by revealing patterns of truth from themes that recur time and again. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this book, Doniger helps expand the arena of meaning we live in, leaping, in her words, \"from myth to myth as if they were stepping stones over the gulf that seems to separate cultures.\" She enables us to see, at last, the \"implied spider\" that weaves the web of meaning that sustains all human cultures-the fabric of our shared humanity.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWendy Doniger is Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago and a member of the Committee on Social Thought. Her books include \u003ci\u003eDreams, Illusions, and Other Realities; Other Peoples' Myths; The Cave of Echoes;\u003c\/i\u003e and the English-language edition of Yves Bonnefoy's \u003ci\u003eMythologies.\u003c\/i\u003e Her translations of such sacred texts as \u003ci\u003eThe Rig Veda\u003c\/i\u003e are widely considered definitive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 256\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.47 x 9.14 x 5.94 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 20, 1999\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47454381375666,"sku":"9780231111713","price":61.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0770\/3891\/1666\/files\/5f7738792237e76964977647e9362624.webp?v=1778849609","url":"https:\/\/box.dadyminds.org\/products\/the-implied-spider-politics-and-theology-in-myth-paperback","provider":"DADYMINDS BOX","version":"1.0","type":"link"}