Shamanism in the Contemporary Novel : Stories Beyond Nature-Culture Divide

Omtale

Özlem Ögüt Yazicioglu’s Shamanism in the Contemporary Novel examines how shamanism is used as a significant trope in a selection of novels. Yazicioglu contends that the shamanic figures and societies featured in these works have been subjected to marginalization, dislocation, and dispossession through imperialist, colonialist, and capitalist encroachments in different historical contexts. Yazicioglu illustrates how the animalistic cosmologies of the nomadic societies and the ritual practices of shamans in these stories offer alternative perspectives to the long dominant anthropocentric conception of the universe, which underlies the overextraction of the earth’s natural resources and the large-scale destruction of ecosystems under global capitalism.