The Woman of Our Origins
Publisher
:
Belin-Herscher
Parution date
:
2003
EAN
:
9782733503362
Description
Claudine Cohen’s ambitious and beautifully executed book, La femme des origines, pieces together artistic representations, archeological records, and anthropological writings to examine the prehistoric woman from all angles. Writing in a learned and accessible style, and aided by numerous color photographs of prehistoric statues and cave paintings, she confidently delves into the fascinating questions surrounding the lives and images of these women. Cohen guides the reader through sections dealing with creation myths, the first females (“Lucy” and the “African Eve”), sexual relations, family life, Goddess worship, and the avatars of a matriarchal society. Moreover, she details how the perceptions surrounding these issues have evolved over time in the world of art, anthropology, and theory (notably with the rise of feminism). Cohen’s observations and theories are anchored in the thoughtful, piercing analysis of her impressive supply of visual evidence. The result, in the author’s own words, is an “investigation into an image which certainly reflects the place of women in our society, but beyond that, provides a new look at the feminine condition in the earliest stages of human history.”
La femme des origines has won the Prix Tanesse de l'Académie des sciences morales et politiques and the Prix de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Author
Claudine Cohen : Claudine Cohen specializes in Paleontology and Prehistorical studies at the prestigious École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, where she also directs a research program entitled Biology and Society. She has authored numerous books, including Boucher de Perthes: Les origines romantiques de la préhistoire (Belin, 1989) and Le Destin du mammoth (Seuil, 1994), published in 2002 by the University of Chicago Press as The Fate of the Mammoth. She is currently working on the first English edition of Liebniz’s Protegé.
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