| The Function of Gift Exchange in Stendhal and Balzac Contributor(s): May, Gita (Editor), Thesen, Doreen (Author) |
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ISBN: 0820448826 ISBN-13: 9780820448824 Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi OUR PRICE: $101.27 Product Type: Hardcover Published: November 2000 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | European - French - History | Europe - France - Social Science | Sociology - General |
| Dewey: 843.709 |
| LCCN: 99087390 |
| Series: American University Studies |
| Physical Information: 264 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - French - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Twentieth-century French thinkers such as Marcel Mauss, Georges Bataille, Jean Baudrillard, and Alain Caill (a member of the MAUSS group, an acronym for Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales) have launched repeated attacks on economism and have proposed the gift as an alternative form of social regulation. In this book, a selection of writings by Stendhal and Balzac is studied to see how gift exchange functions in these authors' representations of France in the early nineteenth century, a period during which money emerged as a universal social mediator. The gift is studied from two main perspectives: true gift as a means of establishing a positive relationship and gift as a fa ade masking and facilitating commercial transactions. |