 | Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses by Michael Taussig
Buy new: $35.95 / Used from: $23.49 I happened onto this book by chance and, as you can see by this list, got kind of engrossed with it. A challenging read, lyrically written almost mystical in its implication.
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 | The Nervous System by Taussig
Buy new: $33.96 / Used from: $10.92 A companion piece to M&A, I love "Tactility and Distraction" but recommend you read the whole thing.
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 | Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing by Michael Taussig
Buy new: $25.65 / Used from: $16.74 I wouldn't use the term 'masterpiece' lightly, but folks this is the really deal. You might choose to read this first, alternately M&A then Shamenism then reread M&A.
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 | Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings by Walter Benjamin
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $6.71 Read "One Way Street", "Surrealism", and "On the Mimetic Faculty"
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 | Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $5.00 Of course that's assuming you're already read: "The Storyteller," "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," and "Theses on the Philosophy of History"
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 | The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) by Susan Buck-Morss
Buy new: $32.58 / Used from: $17.94 Buck-Morss does a remarkable job of presenting Benjamin to the English reader, so this one is on the list just for good measure.
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 | The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto (Great Books in Philosophy) by Karl Marx
Buy new: $7.58 / Used from: $2.48 Highly recommended. In addition to the commodity fetish, Marx provides Taussig with inspiration in these unsual manuscripts.
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 | History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics by Georg Lukács
Buy new: $21.94 / Used from: $13.00 The most influential 20th Century Marxist? Perhaps. This list should also have his work on the novel as a foil to Auerbach, but H&CC is too useful to leave off.
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 | Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature by Erich Auerbach
Buy new: $15.21 / Used from: $11.99 A classic 'end of the West' text, but hey it was World War I can you blame 'em?
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 | Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Max Horkheimer
Buy new: $20.24 / Used from: $16.95 This translation is superior to the orange and black cover version. Difficult and depressing as it is, read "Concept of Enlghtnmnt," "Odysseus," "Culture Industry" & the fragmented "Notes and Drafts"
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 | Marxism and Form by Fredric Jameson
Buy new: $16.81 / Used from: $14.80 Some theory by Jameson will help you keep your Marxists staight.
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 | Totem and Taboo (Dover Thrift Editions) by Sigmund Freud
Buy used from: $0.15 Ahh, Dover Thrift editions, you can't resist 'em. These essays by Freud are at once deeper and more fanciful than anything else on this list.
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 | The Freud Reader by Sigmund Freud
Buy new: $15.61 / Used from: $7.15 A great Freud resource, read what you need. I recommend "The Unconscious" and "Repression". However, it does not include is essay "Fetishism" which is a must!
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 | The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion: A New Abridgement from the Second and Third Editions (Oxford World's Classics) by Sir James George Frazer
Buy used from: $7.54 The abridged version will do. I think reclaiming this maligned classic is part of Taussig's agenda. Freud owes a great debt to Sir Frazier.
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 | General Theory of Magic (Routledge Classics) by Marcel Mauss
Buy new: $10.23 / Used from: $10.97 Much more rigorous than Sir Frazier, this work by Mauss also shares a lot in common with the Golden Bough.
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 | In the Realm of the Diamond Queen by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Buy new: $23.56 / Used from: $2.40 OK now, contemporary ethnography... one of the best written recent ethnographies is this text by Tsing. The author deploys Taussig's theory in analysis of field work.
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 | A Space on the Side of the Road by Kathleen Stewart
Buy new: $28.75 / Used from: $13.95 This is a very challenging, playful, gripping book. Stewart demonstrates the nervous principles of mimetic repetition in a clear fresh way. A book frequently hated by people from West Virginia.
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 | Ethnomimesis: Folklife and the Representation of Culture by Robert S. Cantwell
Buy new: $27.50 / Used from: $5.89 Its remarkable that this work came out at the same time as Taussig's M&A... an idea whose time had come apparently. Combines Eng.Lit, Am.Lit, and folklore prospectives.
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 | Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) by Pierre Bourdieu
Buy new: $22.75 / Used from: $20.24 For me, mimetic repetition always comes back to habitus. Look for my forthcoming treatise on the subject in about 10 years.
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 | Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) by Jean Baudrillard
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $5.42 Postmodern theories of copying, doubling, repitition. You might also want to take a look at Umberto Eco's "Travels in Hyperreality" and Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle"
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 | The Location of Culture by Homi Bhabha
Buy used from: $8.50 "Of mimicry and men" and "Sly civility" are seminal essays in mimesis studies.
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 | The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Rey Chow
Buy new: $17.59 / Used from: $16.98 What a great title! Read "Keeping them in their Place"
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 | Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa by Paul Stoller
Buy new: $37.95 / Used from: $6.11 A friend of mine called Stoller Taussig-lite, but boo on him. I liked this book with its history of Hauka's mimetic relationship to colonialism. Could be effective with undergrads.
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 | Imperial Eyes: Studies in Travel Writing and Transculturation by Mary Louise Pratt
Buy used from: $18.50 An important rethinking/ reimagining of colonialism in the Americas. Pairs well with the opening history of Taussig's "Shamenism"
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 | Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (Key Concepts Series) by Bill Ashcroft
Buy used from: $23.95 Honestly, I found this book to be very helpful in cutting through academic jargon. A must if you have a rusty or uneven background in post-colonialisms.
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