Carlo Severi
Biographic Data
| ID | 3589877 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carlo Severi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carlo |
| FAMILY NAME | Severi |
| SIGNATURE | SEVERI C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale |
| ORCID | 0009-0004-4800-2539 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 77 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 449 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 76 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Dualités Coclé: Du parallélisme visuel à l’image double
1. Un dieu Tortue à double tête Plat Coclé en céramique polychrome dessiné par William Baake (in Lothrop 1942 : 53) Commençons par un constat. Le thème visuel, que Claude Lévi-Strauss a choisi en 1961 pour la couverture de L’Homme, et que l’archéologue Samuel Lothrop identifiait comme « un dieu Tortue à double tête » (1942 : 52), est isolé et rare au sein même de la tradition Coclé [Ill. 1]. Pour chercher des thèmes analogues, mais toujours trop …
Pietra viva: Mouvement implicite, semblant de vie et anthropologie de l’art
Comment « danse » une peinture ? Comment peut-elle sembler « vivante » ? À travers l’analyse de deux œuvres de Mantegna, cet article se propose de montrer qu’une image en perspective, considérée du point de vue de la polarisation entre ritrarre et imitare qui caractérise l’art italien du Quattrocento, semble vivante lorsqu’elle apparaît à la fois comme animée et inanimée. Il s’agit non seulement, dans le cas de Mantegna, de donner l’image d’un co…
Ritual action, context and comparison
International audience
On peace, self-love, and humanism
International audience
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Their way of memorizing: Mesoamerican writings and Native American picture-writings
International audience
Autoridade sem autor: Formas de autoridade em tradições orais
Tradução do texto: Severi, Carlo. 2018. Authorless authority: forms of authority in oral traditions. In Capturing imagination: A Proposal for an Anthropology of Thought. Carlo Severi, 99-121. Translated by Catherine V. Howard, Matthew Carey, Eric Bye, Ramon Fonkoue and Joyce Suechun Cheng. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Frank Nabeta possui graduação (2000) e mestrado (2006) em Letras na área de Língua Espanhola e Literaturas Espanhola e Hi…
Les arts de la mémoire et les images mentales
Dans ses Questions romaines, Plutarque convie son lecteur à une promenade à travers Rome, chaque station étant à la fois l’occasion d’observer des éléments d’architecture et d’aborder un thème en lien avec la vie, la culture, la politique ou la religion. C’est du moins à partir de cette lecture « topographique » élaborée par John Scheid que s’est noué un dialogue entre l’historien et son collègue, le biologiste Alain Berthoz, dialogue étendu à un…
Seres transmutantes: Uma Proposta Para Uma Antropologia Do Pensamento
obra original: Transmutating beings: A proposal for an anthropology of thought Autoria de: Carlo Severi Tradução: Felipe Neis AraújoFormas de pensar, daquilo que Lévi-Strauss chamou de "sistematização do que é imediatamente apresentado aos sentidos" às teorias causais estudadas por Evans-Pritchard na bruxaria, têm sido interpretadas geralmente como uma expressão de uma linguagem ou "cultura" específica. Neste artigo eu discuto este modo de defini…
Sous le regard de l’ancêtre: Biographie et autobiographie en anthropologie
Dans cette communication, je vais comparer la manière d’appréhender le conflit avec les Blancs qui caractérise deux traditions chamaniques amérindiennes : les Kuna de San Blas (Panama) et les Apaches de l’Ouest (USA). Dans les deux cas, j’analyserai deux modes différents de « faire mémoire » : le récit, qui peut renvoyer à la mythologie, et l’image complexe, liée à l’action rituelle
Authorless authority: A proposal on agency and ritual artefacts
In this article, the author proposes a re-examination of the first example of agency given by Alfred Gell in his famous Art and Agency (1998), namely the Zinganga 'nkisi (nail fetish) of Western Africa. This article essentially argues two points. First, the relation between the artefact and the person it incarnates is not, as Gell has defined it, bi-univocal (one-to-one), but can be better described as one-to-many. In the author's view, the ritua…
Être Patrocle. Rituels et jeux funéraires dans l' Iliade
Dans cet article nous voudrions montrer comment l'approche relationnelle, née de l'analyse d'un rituel, peut éclairer des situations où l'interaction se trouve inscrite dans des contextes autres que rituels. Soit parce que ces interactions ne satisfont pas, comme certaines formes de jeux, toutes les conditions qui définissent normalement une situation cérémonielle, soit parce qu'elles se trouvent inscrites non pas dans un seul rite, mais plutôt d…
Translating worlds: The epistemological space of translation
Translation has played an important but equivocal role in the history of anthropology and linguistics. At least since Saussure and Boas, languages have been seen as systems whose differences make precise translation exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. More recently, Quine has argued that, in purely abstract terms, reference is ultimately inscrutable and translation between languages is in principle indeterminate. From a Kuhn-inspired point …
Transmutating beings: A proposal for an anthropology of thought
Forms of thought, from what Lévi-Strauss called the "systematization [of] what is immediately presented to the senses," to the causal theories studied by Evans-Pritchard in witchcraft, have generally been interpreted as an expression of a specific language or "culture." In this paper, I discuss this way of defining thought. Three classic objections are examined: (1) societies sharing the same "system of thought" may speak different languages, and…
Communication, complexity and form: Communication, complexity and form
Reply to Morin's reply: Reply to Morin's reply
Philosophies without ontology
His argument concerns a logical status of "what it is" which has nothing to do with observable phenomena. He, and all the other metaphysicians from Plato to Kant at least, look for a rational and general principle governing both the world and the thought. If one cannot think what does not exist, then "to exist and to think" are the same (to gar auto' noein estin te kai einai, Frgm. 8, in: Parmenides 1984: 56-57
Primitivist Empathy
The article addresses the subject of primitivism in twentieth-century Western art from Matisse to Frans Kline. Writing from an anthropological perspective, the author starts with a critical discussion of received notions of primitivism as proposed by the art historians Goldwater(1938) and Rubin (1984). Arguing that primitivism goes beyond the issue of formal or iconographic borrowing, Severi proposes that primitivism be understood as a "morpholog…
The arts of memory: Comparative perspectives on a mental artifact
For linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists, the emblematic image always and everywhere preceded the appearance of the sign. This myth of a figurative language composed by icons-that form the opposite figure of writing-has deeply influenced Western tradition. In this article, I show that the logic of Native American Indian mnemonics (pictographs, khipus) cannot be understood from the ethnocentric question of the comparison with writing, but…
A Ideia, a Série E a Forma: Desafios Da Imagem No Pensamento De Claude Lévi-Strauss
Neste artigo, parte-se da abordagem teórica da arte por Lévi-Strauss para aplicá-la a um objeto não explorado pelo próprio autor: a arte abstrata no Ocidente. O texto inicia com uma polêmica entre Lévi-Strauss e o teórico do surrealismo, André Breton, em torno da magia da arte. A polêmica põe a nu a originalidade de Lévi-Strauss enquanto teórico da arte, em diálogo permanente com os Modernistas de sua época, assim como a centralidade da arte na s…
Jean-Hubert Martin et la pensée visuelle: Entretien
Carlo Severi : Votre travail a profondément marqué la présence des arts non occidentaux dans l’art contemporain. J’ai été frappé par cette déclaration, dans l’un de vos textes : « La nécessité d’ouvrir le cercle fermé de l’art contemporain occidental me hante depuis plusieurs années. » C’est sur ce projet d’ouvrir le champ des possibles dans l’art contemporain que je voudrais axer notre conversation. Vous avez beaucoup fait discuter les anthropol…
Pièges à voir, Pièges à penser: Présences cachées dans l’image
Ce dossier est consacré à une réflexion, entre anthropologues et historiens de l’art, sur le rôle de l’ambiguïté dans la représentation visuelle. Potentielle, double ou chimérique, l’image ambiguë a récemment suscité la réflexion, dans les deux disciplines, en termes nouveaux. Pour en rendre compte, nous avons réuni des recherches menées par des ethnologues et des réflexions suscitées par une grande exposition, Une image peut en cacher une autre,…
"L'espace chimérique Chimeric Space. Perception and Projection in "Gaze Acts: Perception et projection dans les actes de regard
This article explores the concept of "chimeric space" as it relates to gaze acts, drawing on ethnographic examples and theoretical frameworks from anthropology and phenomenology. Severi argues that gaze acts are not simply passive perceptions but active projections that shape our understanding of space and the objects within it. He examines how cultural contexts and individual experiences influence the construction of these chimeric spaces, highl…
Les hiéroglyphes et la langue mentale Giovambattista vico et les arts amérindiens de la mémoire
Para linguistas, antropólogos e arquéologos, a imagem emblemática precede e em toda parte, o surgimento do signo. O mito de uma língua figurada, composta de ícones, que constitui a figura adversa ea escrita, influenciou profundamente a tradição ocidental. No presente texto, tentaremos mostrar que nós não poderemos compreender a natureza lógica mnemotécnicas ameríncias (pictografias, quipús) senão passado da interrogação, inevitavelmente etnocêntr…
Witchcraft and Deep Time-a debate at Harvard
Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism - and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology wa…
Naven or the Other Self: A Relational Approach to Ritual Action
In this work, the author propose a novel theory of ritual action founded upon an in-depth study of the wide variety of behaviors that the Iatmul of Papua New Guinea identify as naven: a transvestism rite studied by Gregory Bateson in the 1930s and documented by other anthropologists since. Ritual performance is shown to involve the construction of complex relational networks entailing the condensation of contradictory modes of relationship in acc…
Le Principe de la chimère: Une anthropologie de la mémoire
Qu'elle s'appuie sur l'ornement, la peinture corporelle, le masque ou le pictogramme, la mémoire des peuples « sans écriture » a toujours paru labile, désordonnée, vouée à l'échec. Les « supports mnémoniques » dont parlent les historiens de l'écriture à propos de ces traditions sont régulièrement décrits comme des tentatives avortées de reproduire la forme extérieure d'un objet, ou des moyens graphiques simples d'exprimer des concepts élémentaire…
Memory, reflexivity and belief. Reflections on the ritual use of language
Translating worlds: The epistemological space of translation
Translation has played an important but equivocal role in the history of anthropology and linguistics. At least since Saussure and Boas, languages have been seen as systems whose differences make precise translation exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. More recently, Quine has argued that, in purely abstract terms, reference is ultimately inscrutable and translation between languages is in principle indeterminate. From a Kuhn-inspired point …
Capturing Imagination: A Cognitive Approach to Cultural Complexity
With few exceptions, it has been assumed that the production of a generalizing anthropological theory of human cognition must necessarily entail a reduction of ethnographic complexity. No case-centred analysis has been offered to show that a cognitive approach to cultural complexity is possible. In this article, I want to show that a different cognitive perspective can improve our understanding of ethnographic facts and help us critically to revi…
Memory, reflexivity and belief. Reflections on the ritual use of language
Anthropologists have objected in various ways to this conception, still well alive among historians and other social scientists. Shamanistic recitations, as any other ritual performance, cannot be seen as entirely dependent on the arbitrary will of an individual because they are oriented by a special context of interaction and communication, which is seen as radically different from ordinary social life. Many anthropologists have remarked that ri…
Transmutating beings: A proposal for an anthropology of thought
Forms of thought, from what Lévi-Strauss called the "systematization [of] what is immediately presented to the senses," to the causal theories studied by Evans-Pritchard in witchcraft, have generally been interpreted as an expression of a specific language or "culture." In this paper, I discuss this way of defining thought. Three classic objections are examined: (1) societies sharing the same "system of thought" may speak different languages, and…
The arts of memory: Comparative perspectives on a mental artifact
For linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists, the emblematic image always and everywhere preceded the appearance of the sign. This myth of a figurative language composed by icons-that form the opposite figure of writing-has deeply influenced Western tradition. In this article, I show that the logic of Native American Indian mnemonics (pictographs, khipus) cannot be understood from the ethnocentric question of the comparison with writing, but…
Cosmologia, crise e paradoxo: Da imagem de homens e mulheres brancos na tradição Xamânica Kuna
Tomando como foco uma análise da iconografia ritual kuna, este artigo procura delinear uma teoria da memória social baseando-se tanto em imagens quanto em narrativas. A emergência do Espírito do Branco na iconografia xamânica kuna refere-se à longa série de conflitos violentos entre índios e brancos que marcam a história desse povo. Todavia, uma vez inseridas na tradição ritual, essas histórias do passado se fundem e condensam em imagens complexa…
Warburg anthropologue ou le déchiffrement d'une utopie: De la biologie des images à l’anthropologie de la mémoire
Nous avons tenté de montrer que les recherches longtemps réunies sous le nom de biologie de l'art ont constitué les racines oubliées de la pensée anthropologique d'Aby Warburg. Connues par lui en 1895-1896, ces perspectives nourrissent encore en 1927, à la fin de sa vie, sa réflexion. À partir de l'analyse ethnographique de la représentation des noms propres dans le Sepik, nous avons ensuite montré que, pour tenter de déchiffrer l'utopie dont tém…
The Invisible Path: Ritual Representation of Suffering in Cuna Traditional Thought
"L'espace chimérique Chimeric Space. Perception and Projection in "Gaze Acts: Perception et projection dans les actes de regard
This article explores the concept of "chimeric space" as it relates to gaze acts, drawing on ethnographic examples and theoretical frameworks from anthropology and phenomenology. Severi argues that gaze acts are not simply passive perceptions but active projections that shape our understanding of space and the objects within it. He examines how cultural contexts and individual experiences influence the construction of these chimeric spaces, highl…
Philosophies without ontology
His argument concerns a logical status of "what it is" which has nothing to do with observable phenomena. He, and all the other metaphysicians from Plato to Kant at least, look for a rational and general principle governing both the world and the thought. If one cannot think what does not exist, then "to exist and to think" are the same (to gar auto' noein estin te kai einai, Frgm. 8, in: Parmenides 1984: 56-57
La parole prêtée. Comment parlent les images
Chacun de nous a l'expérience d'une parole adressée à des objets inanimés, auxquels nous attribuons, presque sans le vouloir, une personnalité humaine. Alfred Gell a fait de ce phénomène quotidien la base de sa théorie de l'attribution de subjectivité aux artefacts. L'anthropomorphisme ne se limite cependant pas toujours à une telle forme superficielle. Au sein de l'action rituelle, où se construit un univers de vérité distinct de celui de la vie…
L'univers des arts de la mémoire. Anthropologie d'un artefact mental
Pour les linguistes, les anthropologues et les archéologues, l'image emblématique précède depuis toujours et partout l'apparition du signe. Ce mythe d'une langue figurée composée d'icônes, qui constitue lafigure adversede l'écriture, a profondément influencé la tradition occidentale. Dans cet article, l'auteur essaie de montrer que l'on ne peut comprendre la nature logique des mnémotechnies amérindiennes (pictographies,khipus) qu'en passant de l'…
Their way of memorizing: Mesoamerican writings and Native American picture-writings
International audience
A Ideia, a Série E a Forma: Desafios Da Imagem No Pensamento De Claude Lévi-Strauss
Neste artigo, parte-se da abordagem teórica da arte por Lévi-Strauss para aplicá-la a um objeto não explorado pelo próprio autor: a arte abstrata no Ocidente. O texto inicia com uma polêmica entre Lévi-Strauss e o teórico do surrealismo, André Breton, em torno da magia da arte. A polêmica põe a nu a originalidade de Lévi-Strauss enquanto teórico da arte, em diálogo permanente com os Modernistas de sua época, assim como a centralidade da arte na s…
Le chemin des métamorphoses: Un modèle de connaissance de la folie dans un chant chamanique cuna
Le anime cuna
Pièges à voir, Pièges à penser: Présences cachées dans l’image
Ce dossier est consacré à une réflexion, entre anthropologues et historiens de l’art, sur le rôle de l’ambiguïté dans la représentation visuelle. Potentielle, double ou chimérique, l’image ambiguë a récemment suscité la réflexion, dans les deux disciplines, en termes nouveaux. Pour en rendre compte, nous avons réuni des recherches menées par des ethnologues et des réflexions suscitées par une grande exposition, Une image peut en cacher une autre,…
Introduction. Anthropologie et pragmatique
Une pensée inachevée. L'utopie anthropologique de Ernesto De Martino
Severi Carlo. Une pensée inachevée. L’utopie anthropologique de Ernesto De Martino. In: Gradhiva : revue d'histoire et d'archives de l'anthropologie, n°26, 1999. Dossier : Ernesto de Martino. pp. 99-107
L'Étranger, l'envers de soi et l'échec du symbolisme. Deux représentations du Blanc dans la tradition chamanique Cuna
Severi Carlo. L'Étranger, l'envers de soi et l'échec du symbolisme. Deux représentations du Blanc dans la tradition chamanique Cuna. In: L'Homme, 1988, tome 28 n°106-107. Le mythe et ses métamorphoses. pp. 174-183
Le Nom de lignée
Severi Carlo. Le Nom de lignée. In: L'Homme, 1980, tome 20 n°4. Formes de nomination en Europe. pp. 105-118
Seres transmutantes: Uma Proposta Para Uma Antropologia Do Pensamento
obra original: Transmutating beings: A proposal for an anthropology of thought Autoria de: Carlo Severi Tradução: Felipe Neis AraújoFormas de pensar, daquilo que Lévi-Strauss chamou de "sistematização do que é imediatamente apresentado aos sentidos" às teorias causais estudadas por Evans-Pritchard na bruxaria, têm sido interpretadas geralmente como uma expressão de uma linguagem ou "cultura" específica. Neste artigo eu discuto este modo de defini…
Le Nom de lignée
Severi Carlo. Le Nom de lignée. In: L'Homme, 1980, tome 20 n°4. Formes de nomination en Europe. pp. 105-118
Le anime cuna
Image d'étranger
Le chemin des métamorphoses: Un modèle de connaissance de la folie dans un chant chamanique cuna
Penser par séquences, penser par territoires
Severi Carlo. Penser par séquences, penser par territoires. In: Communications, 41, 1985. L'espace perdu et le temps retrouvé, sous la direction de Rémy Lestienne et Edgar Morin. pp. 169-190
The Invisible Path: Ritual Representation of Suffering in Cuna Traditional Thought
L'Étranger, l'envers de soi et l'échec du symbolisme. Deux représentations du Blanc dans la tradition chamanique Cuna
Severi Carlo. L'Étranger, l'envers de soi et l'échec du symbolisme. Deux représentations du Blanc dans la tradition chamanique Cuna. In: L'Homme, 1988, tome 28 n°106-107. Le mythe et ses métamorphoses. pp. 174-183
Le Chamanisme et la dame du Bon Jeu, suivi d'une réponse de Carlo Ginzburg
Severi Carlo. Le Chamanisme et la dame du Bon Jeu, suivi d'une réponse de Carlo Ginzburg. In: L'Homme, 1992, tome 32 n°121. Anthropologie du proche. pp. 165-177
Talking about souls: The pragmatic construction of meaning in Cuna ritual language
Instinctively we use language rightly; but to the intellect this use is a puzzle. (Wittgenstein 1930[1980]: 1) The anthropological study of ritual symbolism has payed little attention to the transformations of meaning that the ritual use of language can bring about. In this chapter, I will study the case of the Cuna society, where a complex religious category, usually translated as ‘soul’ or ‘spiritual presence’, may seem almost meaningless in or…
Studies in the History of Religions Numen Book Series
Preliminary Material
Index
Metamorphoses of the Mother
The Procreator
Wife-Givers and Wife-Takers
Contradiction, Paradox, Condensation
Maternals Versus Paternals
Defining Ritual Symbolism
Naven after Bateson
Plates
Defining Ritual Form
Towards a Theory of Ritual Action
The Ritual as a Whole
Conclusion and Perspectives: A Relational Approach to Ritual
Bateson and Naven
Philosophy (37 works) · Art (29 works) · Computer Science (22 works) · Humanities (21 works) · History (20 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Anthropology (15 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Ethnography (10 works)