Vehicles : cars, canoes and other metaphors of moral imagination /
Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign-for example, a cattle car-and its referent, the Holocaust. These "sign-vehicles" serve as modes of semiotic transp...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Berghahn Books,
2014.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign-for example, a cattle car-and its referent, the Holocaust. These "sign-vehicles" serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only "carry people around," but also "carry" how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history. |
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| Item Description: | Electronic resource. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (viii, 214 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781782383765 178238376X |