Catching Wrangham
On the Mythology and the Science of Fire, Cooking, and Becoming Human
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8084837 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Schrempp Schrempp (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 109-109 |
| Publication date | 2011-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Folklore Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0737-7037 • E-ISSN: 1543-0413 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/jfolkrese.48.2.109 |
| OpenAlex | W2028245146 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
Myth and science sometimes converge—nowhere more so than in scenarios concerning the domestication of fire and its consequences for human social life. I examine this claim through an analysis of bioanthropologist Richard Wrangham’s recent book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human, comparing his claims and findings with those of mythologist/anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss in The Raw and the Cooked. I examine myth-science convergences around the following topics: parochialism, narrative speculation, transformations attributed to cooking and fire, temporality in science and myth, and the human fascination with fire as a substance. As part of my analysis of temporality, I look at the projection, in both myth and science, of contemporary cultural contestations (such as gender issues and food debates) into an idealized species-formative moment set in the past. Challenging the rhetorical tendency to invoke science and myth as opposites, I consider possible factors leading to convergence and suggest that science can enrich its perspective through a sympathetic attitude toward myth and other forms of traditional wisdom
Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Parochialism · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Social science · Sociology · Speculation · Temporality · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |