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Welcome back to UniScoops! Even though a man recently became the seventh Millionaire jackpot winner of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, you guys are the real winners for being readers of UniScoops every week 😉
Here’s a taste of what we’re serving today:
Michel de Montaigne: On the Cannibals 🍖
PLUS: Moon Water, ‘Headspace’, and Poetry Through Windows 📖
MFL
Michel de Montaigne: On the Cannibals 🍖
Meet Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), the OG philosopher of the French Renaissance (the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries - renaissance literally translates to ‘rebirth’!). He is probably most famous for dropping a collection of essays called Essais. In fact, he was the first person to describe his work as essays, or ‘attempts’ - think of the French verb essayer, which means ‘to try’!
Michel de Montaigne
On the Cannibals (or Des cannibales in the original French) was one of these essays. Completed around 1580, the essay focuses on the ceremonies of the Tupinambá people in Brazil. Most notably, he described how tribes would engage in a ceremony of eating the bodies of their dead enemies as a matter of honour.
💡 Things to consider
Irony: On the surface, many would see this as a simple essay that depicts these people as savages and barbarians. However, the essay has an undertone of irony, suggesting that Montaigne was critiquing the prevalent European perspectives on these ‘barbarians’. He could be questioning why non-Europeans are automatically labeled as savage, highlighting the European tendency to use their society as a benchmark. Can his approach be considered a precursor to later Enlightenment concepts of universalism and cultural relativism?
I wonder what Alanis Morissette would think about Montaigne…
Colonialism: During Montaigne’s time, there existed considerable intrigue surrounding the 'New World' barbarians, particularly those encountered in present-day Brazil, where Villegaignon had landed in 1557. Montaigne clearly felt compelled to address this topic in the essay. Could Montaigne be suggesting that it is not the colonised who are the savages, but the colonisers?
Massive uno reverse on the idea of colonisation
Christianity: During Montaigne’s time, something called the Wars of Religion was taking place in France. These were a series of conflicts between the Protestant and Catholic faction in France lasting 35 years. Throughout On the Cannibals, there is a semantic field of human body parts (it is an essay on cannibalism after all). Could this be an allusion to the Catholic practice of consuming the body and blood of Jesus after transubstantiation during communion? And, if so, does that mean Montaigne might be making a reference to the Wars of Religion, and calling the French people the real savages? It’s interesting to note that, during the war, people actually ended up practising cannibalism to survive during times of famine…
🔎 Find out more
🍒 The cherry on top
🌜Moon Water: It turns out the Moon may have been quietly collecting water for billions of years. This fascinating piece explores how data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals ice building up in permanently shadowed craters — and why that could be key to future lunar missions. A must-read if you’re interested in Astronomy.
🧠 ‘Headspace’: Ever feel like your head is so packed you can’t fit one more thought in? This engaging article explains that your brain doesn’t actually fill up like a hard drive. Instead, it filters experiences through attention and emotion, and memories are reconstructed, not stored as perfect files. A fascinating read for anyone interested in Neuroscience or Psychology!
📖 Poetry Through Windows: Hong Kong-born British poet Sarah Howe takes us on a unique journey, using six new poems to explore artworks from across Asia. This Google Arts & Culture feature includes poem readings from Howe herself, as well as reflections on how art writing can reframe what we see, like looking through a new window. A great site if you like Literature or Art!
👀 Keep your eyes peeled for…
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That’s it for this week! We’d like to thank this week’s writer: Gabriel Pang.
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