Author : Nicolas Meylan
Release : 2017-07-10
Genre : Religion
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 243/5 ( reviews)
Book Synopsis Mana: A History of a Western Category by : Nicolas Meylan
Download or read book Mana: A History of a Western Category written by Nicolas Meylan. This book was released on 2017-07-10. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mana: A History of a Western Category Nicolas Meylan proposes a critical account of Western imaginations of mana, a word belonging originally to Oceanic languages but borrowed by European languages in which it acquired the meaning ‘supernatural power.’ While mana is best known for its tenure in the disciplines studying religion, Nicolas Meylan situates such academic uses in a wider context, analyzing the ways Westerners conceptualized mana in the earlier colonial context as well as its mobilizations in the late 20th and early 21st centuries by (video)game designers and Neo-Pagan witches. This focus on various Western uses of mana allows for the critical investigation of the ways power has been mystified in conjunction with religion.