(Download) "Signs Taken for Wonders, Wonders Taken for Dollar Signs: Karen Tei Yamashita and the Commodification of Miracle." by Ariel # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Signs Taken for Wonders, Wonders Taken for Dollar Signs: Karen Tei Yamashita and the Commodification of Miracle.
- Author : Ariel
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 228 KB
Description
Karen Tei Yamashita's 1990 novel Through the Arc of the Rain Forest introduces characters who possess remarkable features or perform remarkable feats: Kazumasa Ishimaru and the magical ball that whirls in front of his face, an object that helps bring him unparalleled riches; Batista D japan and the wondrous accuracy and endurance of his carrier pigeons whose mysterious messages suggest future events, including Kazumasa's wealth; Chico Paco and the miraculous trek to the Matacao, where his indestructible shrine serves as proof of Saint George's approval and his own fierce, fantastic destiny; Mane de Costa Pena and the feathers that, when brushed against the earlobe, can cure everything from colds to cancer. In each case, the singular sign, taken as a miraculous wonder, becomes commodified in an attempt to replicate the magic on a societal scale. Contribute to Radio Chico and you, too, can be part and parcel of a similar "miracle"; buy a feather and stroke your worries away. The particular exception to the natural world becomes unnaturally duplicated to satisfy consumer demand, amounting to a commercial delusion--and dilution--of effect. Eventually, the natural world reemerges, asserting itself in ways that often disastrously reverse the previous miracles. Yamashita's seemingly bizarre combinations of commodity theory and magic realism allow her to demonstrate how the rhetoric of the former seems informed by the flourishes of the latter, but more importantly it offers her a context to critique modes of production and consumption in global markets. Trafficking between Japan and Brazil--as well as between these countries and wider international systems--has long been a feature of Yamashita's work. Her career as a novelist might well be traced to a 1975 fellowship she received to research Japanese immigration to Brazil. She elaborates that