| The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig Contributor(s): Volk, Carol (Translator), Fabre-Vassas, Claudine (Author) |
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ISBN: 0231103662 ISBN-13: 9780231103664 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $118.80 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 1997 Annotation: Throughout history, the breeding, slaughter, and consumption of the pig has been the inspiration for both religious and secular rituals and taboos. In The Singular Beast, a daring and original account of the role of the pig and its relationship to Jews in European Christian culture, Claudine Fabre-Vassas argues that these practices defined the very boundaries between Christians and Jews. Chronicling the cultural and religious significance of a creature that occupies an ambiguous place in the families of those who raise it - as a member of the family and a potential meal - The Singular Beast reveals the continuing power of symbols to sustain or create ethnic identities. Fabre-Vassas details the folkloric beliefs and rituals that have been associated with the slaughter and consumption of pigs from the Middle Ages until today by both provincial and urban Europeans - such as the myth that Jews do not eat pork because their children had been transformed into pigs and the story that they crave the flesh of Christian children because they are deprived of pork. Ranging from early Christianity to the present, from Spain to Scandinavia, The Singular Beast is both a broad study of the extraordinary, complex role of the animal central to the diets and rituals of most European populations and a close historical analysis of anti-Semitism and the creation of real-life myths. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Religion | Judaism - History - History | Western Europe - General - Religion | History |
| Dewey: 398.369 |
| LCCN: 96050482 |
| Series: European Perspectives: A Social Thought and Cultural Criticism |
| Physical Information: 1.15" H x 6.46" W x 9.99" (1.74 lbs) 448 pages |
| Themes: - Religious Orientation - Jewish |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Throughout history, the slaughter and consumption of the pig has been the inspiration for role-playing and taboos, and at the centre of practices that defined the boundaries between Christians and Jews. An exploration of the pig in Judeo-Christian culture and European anti-semitism, this work chronicles the cultural and religious character of a creature that occupies an ambiguous place in the families of those who raise them - at once nearly a member of the family and a potential meal. The author details the folkloric beliefs still found among both provincial and urban Europeans and the rituals that have been associated with the slaughter and consumption of pigs from the Middle Ages until today. The book also demonstrates the continuing power of symbols to sustain or create ethnic identities. |