Collectif Qu'est-ce qu'un corps? explores non-Western body concepts

The collective work "Qu'est-ce qu'un corps?" edited by Stéphane Breton and published by Musée du quai Branly/Flammarion challenges Christian civilization's foundation of the body. The book, which serves as a catalogue for a mediocre exhibition (not for its objects but its presentation), includes texts by Michèle Coquet, Michael Houseman, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Anne-Christine Taylor, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. It opens with an anecdote: missionary-anthropologist Maurice Leenhardt asked Boesoou the Canaque what he brought, expecting "spirit," but Boesoou replied "you brought us the body." For the Canaque, the person is not identified with the body but is at the crossroads of social relations. In West Africa, a person exists only through doubles—ancestors or spirits—who transmit substance. For Amazonian peoples, the body depends entirely on the gaze of predator or prey, and there is no representation of the body, only adornment. A text attempting to summarize Western European culture from Antiquity to digital imagery is necessarily too ambitious and somewhat rushed. Catherine Millet reviews the publication.