The articles gathered here, written by eminent French anthropologists, present a novel angle on the way societies function. The writers argue that because societies are not abstract intellectual constructions, they cannot be dissociated from the physical individuals that constitute them, or from the affects (feelings and emotions) expressed by them.
Included here are studies of Western and non-Western societies on such subjects as skin colour, religious rituals involving animals, witchcraft and “flying” sorcerers, passion in traditional North African cultures, and breast-feeding (both induced lactation to breastfeed infant girls and “spontaneous” lactation to breastfeed infant boys) in parts of Italy.

Françoise Héritier is an anthropologist and teaches at the Collège de France. She is the author of Les Deux Soeurs et leur mère and Masculin/Féminin I and II, published by Editions Odile Jacob.
Margarita Xanthakou, an anthropologist, is a research fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).