Event Title

Cannibalism:Taboo or Culinary Trend

Presenter Information

Samuel Belk, Colby CollegeFollow

Location

Diamond 146

Start Date

30-4-2015 3:00 PM

End Date

30-4-2015 3:25 PM

Project Type

Presentation

Description

Flesh and Blood are life, or so many ancient cultures thought. From ritual sacrifice to consumption of ones enemy, human flesh has always had a mystical life-giving quality. However, over the past few millennia as cultures developed and changed, western thought has portrayed cannibalism as taboo, a repellent practice often associated with demonic rituals and pathological symptoms. Creation myths, religious doctrines, fairytales, and the visual arts, all paint cannibalism as one of the lowest modes of human nature. My research delves into the inner-workings of cannibalism and the reason we find the consumption of our own species so repulsive and why so often we attribute it to those we want to frame as foreign and primitive. Sixteenth-century depictions of cannibalism in the Caribbean, South America, and Australasia comprise the main body of my research, supplemented by canonical works such as Thodore Gricaults The Raft of the Medusa.

Faculty Sponsor

Veronique Plesch

Sponsoring Department

Colby College. Art Dept.

CLAS Field of Study

Humanities

Event Website

http://www.colby.edu/clas

ID

1754

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Apr 30th, 3:00 PM Apr 30th, 3:25 PM

Cannibalism:Taboo or Culinary Trend

Diamond 146

Flesh and Blood are life, or so many ancient cultures thought. From ritual sacrifice to consumption of ones enemy, human flesh has always had a mystical life-giving quality. However, over the past few millennia as cultures developed and changed, western thought has portrayed cannibalism as taboo, a repellent practice often associated with demonic rituals and pathological symptoms. Creation myths, religious doctrines, fairytales, and the visual arts, all paint cannibalism as one of the lowest modes of human nature. My research delves into the inner-workings of cannibalism and the reason we find the consumption of our own species so repulsive and why so often we attribute it to those we want to frame as foreign and primitive. Sixteenth-century depictions of cannibalism in the Caribbean, South America, and Australasia comprise the main body of my research, supplemented by canonical works such as Thodore Gricaults The Raft of the Medusa.

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/231