The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice

What does it mean to give a gift ? Is the gift an expenditure without reserve? Is there such a thing as a pure gift? Or does the gift inevitably set off a circle of return the effect of which is to annul the gift and reduce the gift to an economic circle? In this timely and outstanding collection of studies editors Edith Wyschogrod, Jean-Joseph Goux, and Eric Boynton have brought together a distinguished group of anthropologists - Maurice Godelier, George Marcus, Stephen Tyler - and philosophers - Mark C. Taylor, John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux and Adriaan Peperzak, who debate these issues with rich empirical studies and incisive philosophical explorations that make a major contribution to understanding a philosophical enigma that has disturbed contemporary philosophers from Marcel Mauss to Jacques Derrida. The essays included in the volume: Some Things You Give, Some Things You Sell, But Some Things You Must Keep for Yourselves: What Mauss Did Not Say about Sacred Objects by Maurice Godelie. The Gift and Globalization: A Prolegomenon to the Anthropological Study of Contemporary Finance Capital and Its Mentalities by George Marcus Capitalizing (on) Gifting by Mark C. Taylor Even Steven or No Strings Attached by Stephen Tyler Mothering, Co-muni-cation and the Gifts of Language by Genevieve Vaughan The Time of Giving, the Time of Forgiving by John D. Caputo Seneca against Derrida: Gift and Alterity by Jean-Joseph Goux Giving by Adriaan Peperzak.