Dream and Culture: An Anthropological Study of the Western Intellectual TraditionPraeger, 1991 - 132 Seiten
In this vital contribution to the study of dream phenomena, Susan Parman investigates the Western cultural structures of knowledge and meaning that relate to dreams. She explores the history of dream phenomena conceptualization from Homeric Greece to the present day. Parman employs a unique anthropological perspective to interpret historical events and ideas, using the dream as a way of describing assumptions about the mind, what it means to be human, and what humanity's place is in the universe. Parman synthesizes both scientific and humanistic approaches to the study of dreams and raises questions about the nature of scientific interpretations. By analyzing the cultural and historical context in which dreams are interpreted, she develops an anthropological approach to the study of dreams as cultural symbols. Parman's analysis is presented in terms of semiotic anthropology--the semantics (meanings), syntactics (linkages with other symbols), and pragmatics (uses) of the dream in different historical arenas in the Western intellectual tradition. Ultimately about epistemology, Dream and Culture will be an invaluable book for interdisciplinary courses on dreams and for classes in the humanities, as well as for interpreting the nature of scientific inquiry as an aspect of the Western intellectual tradition. |