Michael T. Taussig è nato a Sydney, ha studiato medicina, è stato medico di bordo, ha studiato antropologia alla London School of Economics, nel 1968 è andato in Colombia per unirsi alla rivoluzione, e non ha mai smesso davvero, anche se ha finito, come lui stesso afferma, “per insegnare antropologia in costose università americane fino al luglio di quest’anno”. Ha scritto numerosi libri, alcuni in spagnolo per le persone per le quali ha svolto la sua ricerca e altri in inglese, come The Devil and Commodity. Fetishism in South America (1980, Il diavolo e il feticismo della merce, DeriveApprodi, 2017), Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Mimesis and Alterity (Routledge, 1993), My Cocaine Museum (2004, Il mio museo della cocaina, Milieu, 2019), e i recenti Palma Africana e Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown (University of Chicago Press, 2018 e 2020).
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Michael T. Taussig was born in Sydney, studied medicine, was a ship’s doctor, studied anthropology at the London School of Economics, went to Colombia in 1968 to join the revolution, and never really left, “although ended up teaching anthropology in posh US universities till July of this year”. He wrote several books in Spanish for the people for whom he carried out his research and others in English, such as The Devil and Commodity. Fetishism in South America (University of North Carolina Press, 1980), Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Mimesis and Alterity (Routledge, 1993), Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative (Stanford University Press, 1999), My Cocaine Museum (University of Chicago Press, 2004), and most recently, Palma Africana and Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown (University of Chicago Press, 2018 and 2020).
