Object fetishism is becoming a more and more pervasive phenomenon. Focusing on literature and the visual arts, including cinema, this book suggests a parallelism between fetishism and artistic creativity, based on a poetics of detail, which has been brilliantly exemplified by Flaubert's style. After exploring canonical accounts of fetishism (Marx, Freud, Benjamin), by combining a historicist approach with theoretical speculation, Massimo Fusillo identifies a few interpretive patterns of object fetishism, such as seduction (from Apollonius of Rhodes to Max Ophüls), memory activation (from Goethe to Louise Bourgeois and Pamuk), and the topos of the animation of the inanimate. Whereas all these patterns are characterized by a projection of emotional values onto objects, modernism highlights a more latent component of object fetishism: the fascination with the alterity of matter, variously inflected by Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Barnes, and Mann. The last turning point in Fusillo's analysis is postmodernism and its obsession with mass media icons-from DeLillo's maximalist frescos and Zadie Smith's reflections on autographs to Palahniuk's porn objects; from pop art to commodity sculpture.

Written by a British army officer, this book delves into his experiences serving and traveling across West Africa, including countries such as Gambia, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Benin. Though some of the descriptions are rather dated, it nevertheless provides an interesting perspective of the various tribes that reside in the region.

First published in 2005. Written by eminent Egyptologist, E.A. Wallis Budge, this work addresses Egyptian religion and mythology in all of its manifestations, from times when earth, sea air and shy were filled with hostile spirits and men lived in terror of the Evil Eye, to the moment when Egyptians hailed Amen-Ra as their one god. Topics include the predynastic cults, magic, gods (cosmic, stellar, borrowed and foreign), Memphite theology, judgement of the dead, and the underworld. Important hymns and legends, in English translation are included.

This volume continues to explore the life and works of Auguste Comte during his so-called second career. It covers the period from the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon in late 1851 to Comte's death in 1857. During these early years of the Second Empire, Comte became increasingly conservative and anxious to control his disciples. This study offers the first study of the tensions within his movement. Focusing on his second masterpiece, the Système de politique positive, and other important books, such as the Synthèse subjective, Mary Pickering not only sheds light on Comte's intellectual development but also traces the dissemination of positivism and the Religion of Humanity throughout many parts of the world.