Magic in Popular Narratives

The book deals with manifestations and relics of magical thinking in the narrative folklore of Cieszyn Silesia (Teschen Silesia, Tesín Silesia). The point of departure is a phenomenological and social constructivist approach to human cognition. The author follows the cognitive dimensions of pre-modern folklore and popular texts in general. They are conventional in the sense that they are repeated in many variants inside one communicative group. Habituation based on more or less accurate reproduction of stereotypes (and corresponding experiences), motives, action scenarios, rationalizations, and motivations, is the source of relatively stable world image. The key concept developed in the book is redefined categorization understood as the simplification and stabilization of too complex and changing reality through shared narratives.

List of contents

magical thinking - social construction of reality - pre-modernity - Cieszyn Silesia - Teschen Silesia - cognitive anthropology - historical anthropology - social memory - folklore studies - everyday knowledge - folk philosophy - sacred - phenomenology - phenomenology of religion - phenomenological sociology

Product details

• Authors: Jan Kajfosz
• Assisted by: Malgorzata Kowalska (Editor), Jan Pytalski (Translation)
• Publisher: Peter Lang
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.02.2021
• EAN: 9783631840351
• ISBN: 978-3-631-84035-1
• No. of pages: 218
• Dimensions: 168 mm x 19 mm x 216 mm
• Weight: 356 g
• Illustrations: 2 Abb.
• Series: Modernity in Question
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works