What does it mean to give a gift? In this timely collection, distinguished anthropologists-Maurice Godelier, George Marcus, Stephen Tyler-and philosophers-Mark C. Taylor, John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux and Adriaan Peperzak, explore an enigma that has disturbed contemporary philosophers from Marcel Mauss to Jacques Derrida.The essays included in the volume: Some Things You Give, Some Things You Sell, But Some Things You Must Keep for Yourselves: What Mauss Did Not Say about Sacred Objects by Maurice Godelie.The Gift and Globalization: A Prolegomenon to the Anthropological Study of Contemporary Finance Capital and Its Mentalities by George MarcusCapitalizing (on) Gifting by Mark C. TaylorEven Stevenor No Strings Attachedby Stephen TylerMothering, Co-muni-cation and the Gifts of Language by Genevieve VaughanThe Time of Giving, the Time of Forgiving by John D. CaputoSeneca against Derrida: Gift and Alterity by Jean-Joseph Goux Giving by Adriaan Peperzak

Edith Wyschogrod is J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought emerita at Rice University. The most recent of her books are An Ethics of Remembering: History, Heterology, and the Nameless Others; Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy; and a second edition of Emmanuel Levinas: The Problem of Ethical Metaphysics (Fordham).
Jean-Joseph Goux is Laurence Favrot Professor of French Studies at Rice University (emeritus). He was associated with the Tel Quel group in the late 1960s. Between philosophy, economy, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, his work engages the field of ¿symbolic economy.¿ He taught at the University of California (San Diego, Berkeley) and at Brown University. He was program director at the College International de Philosophie in Paris and associate director at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His books include Symbolic Economies (Cornell University Press, 1990), The Coiners of Languages (University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), and Oedipus Philosopher (Stanford University Press, 1993).
Eric Boynton is Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Allegheny College.