Trust

Trust

Alphonso Lingis

Table of Contents

$18.95 Paper
ISBN: 0-8166-4373-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4373-8

$57.00 Cloth
ISBN: 0-8166-4372-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4372-1

A traveler to the world’s remote corners muses on human relationships and the nature of travel.

Trust is inherent in travel. We ask a stranger for directions, or for a ride. We live among people whose language, culture, and motivations we don’t understand. Trust binds us to another with an intoxicating energy; it is brave, giddy, joyous, and lustful. A sudden attraction careens into sexual surrender, and trust becomes unconditional. Trust laughs at danger and leaps into the unknown.

The author of Abuses and Foreign Bodies, Alphonso Lingis has traveled the globe for many years, and in Trust he reflects on journeys from Latin America to Asia to Antarctica. Whether feeding chocolate sauce and tuna to the baboons who visit his campsite in Ethiopia, celebrating the millennial New Year in Mongolia, or indulging in a passionate love affair in Vietnam, Lingis evaluates what happens around him and how it affects him and others. From these experiences he gains new understandings about spirituality, masculinity, love, death, ecstasy, and change.

In the tradition of such international travelers as Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, and Ryszard Kapuscinski, and with insight reminiscent of John Berger and Joan Didion, Lingis shares both the private revelations and the universal connections he acquires on his exotic journeys. “Travel far enough,” he concludes, “and we find ourselves happily back in the infantile world”—where trust is ultimate.

“The works of Alphonso Lingus are always alive with the possibilities of language. Whether in Addis Ababa or Kathmandu he illuminates the individual, historical and cultural differences that, often unknowingly and beautifully, still afford some semblance of resistance to the homogenizing tendencies of globalization.” —Journal of Historical Geography

Alphonso Lingis is author of The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common, Dangerous Emotions, Abuses, and Foreign Bodies. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Pennsylvania State University.

208 pages | 22 halftones | 5-3/8 x 8-1/2 | 2004
Theory Out of Bounds Series, volume 25

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

I.
Araouane
The Song of the Norias
Facades
Unknowable Intelligence
Rings

II.
The Old Hospital

III.
Typhoons
São Paulo
A Man
Letters
Song of Innocence
Addis Ababa
Love Junkies

IV.
Understanding
The Dreadful Mystic Banquet
The Return of Extinct Religions
Lalibela
Vodou
Breakout

V.
Reticence

Notes



Trust Alphonso Lingis Table of Contents		$18.95 Paper ISBN: 0-8166-4373-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4373-8 $57.00 Cloth ISBN: 0-8166-4372-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-4372-1
A traveler to the world’s remote corners muses on human relationships and the nature of travel. Trust is inherent in travel. We ask a stranger for directions, or for a ride. We live among people whose language, culture, and motivations we don’t understand. Trust binds us to another with an intoxicating energy; it is brave, giddy, joyous, and lustful. A sudden attraction careens into sexual surrender, and trust becomes unconditional. Trust laughs at danger and leaps into the unknown. The author of Abuses and Foreign Bodies, Alphonso Lingis has traveled the globe for many years, and in Trust he reflects on journeys from Latin America to Asia to Antarctica. Whether feeding chocolate sauce and tuna to the baboons who visit his campsite in Ethiopia, celebrating the millennial New Year in Mongolia, or indulging in a passionate love affair in Vietnam, Lingis evaluates what happens around him and how it affects him and others. From these experiences he gains new understandings about spirituality, masculinity, love, death, ecstasy, and change. In the tradition of such international travelers as Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, and Ryszard Kapuscinski, and with insight reminiscent of John Berger and Joan Didion, Lingis shares both the private revelations and the universal connections he acquires on his exotic journeys. “Travel far enough,” he concludes, “and we find ourselves happily back in the infantile world”—where trust is ultimate. “The works of Alphonso Lingus are always alive with the possibilities of language. Whether in Addis Ababa or Kathmandu he illuminates the individual, historical and cultural differences that, often unknowingly and beautifully, still afford some semblance of resistance to the homogenizing tendencies of globalization.” —Journal of Historical Geography Alphonso Lingis is author of The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common, Dangerous Emotions, Abuses, and Foreign Bodies. He is professor emeritus of philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. 208 pages \| 22 halftones \| 5-3/8 x 8-1/2 \| 2004 Theory Out of Bounds Series, volume 25 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface I. Araouane The Song of the Norias Facades Unknowable Intelligence Rings II. The Old Hospital III. Typhoons São Paulo A Man Letters Song of Innocence Addis Ababa Love Junkies IV. Understanding The Dreadful Mystic Banquet The Return of Extinct Religions Lalibela Vodou Breakout V. Reticence Notes