In Search of Coherence

Marcel Jousse’s anthropology of mimism is a plea for a change of civilization. Our present-day Western civilization has decomposed the human being into a mind-soul-spirit and a body, put writing as the apex of this human’s expression, and set this human as the conqueror of his world. Jousse pleads for a threefold re-composition: a human compound, expressing himself as a whole, and in exchange with a cosmos that he mimes and infuses with consciousness. What is needed is an evolution, neither progressive nor regressive, but an evolution in depth, reconnecting the new with the old--in short, coherence.''After In the Beginning was Mimism, In Search of Coherence displays another splendid synthesis of Marcel Jousse’s body of thought and teachings. Professor Sienaert offers us a view of the anthropological law of mimism as a comprehensive unifying theory of human sciences. The Joussian search for ’more realism’ is rendered in ethic coherence between human speech and human acts (human sayings and human doings).''--Gabriel Bourdin, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, UNAM-Mexico''In Search of Coherence is a milestone in the panorama of studies on oral culture and oral tradition. Its scientific depth and impressive acribia, pervading all the hermeneutic discourse, make Dr. Sienaert’s work not only an indispensable epistemological instrument in analyzing Marcel Jousse’s contribution to the study of oral tradition but also an essential tool in academic teaching.'' --Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Nanyang Technological University, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Singapore ''The proclamations of Marcel Jousse offered the twentieth century a modern way of understanding the ancient power of oral performance. Edgard Sienaert is his most eloquent translator and insightful interpreter, and in this new book he brings Jousse back to life, showing how we are most finely human when we recognize that style is a permanent and not a temporary virtue, and when we believe in the coherence of movement and metaphor, body and spirit. Those of us who celebrate the humanities should be very grateful to both Marcel Jousse and Edgard Sienaert.''--J. Edward Chamberlin, University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto; Author of The Banker and the Blackfoot: A Memoir of My Grandfather in Chinook CountryEdgard Sienaert is Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for Africa Studies of the University of the Free State, South Africa. He edited and translated Marcel Jousse’s published works into English and is the author of a study, in French, of Jousse’s unpublished 1931-57 lectures program: ''In the beginning was mimism. A holistic reading of Marcel Jousse’s oral lectures.''