THE CANNIBAL GOD
(Il Dio Cannibale)
Ines Testoni

RIGHTS AVAILABLE 2001

“Hunger is the root of need, the revelation of an inwardness that is not enough in itself and that looks to the world in order to absorb its fullness after recognising its own inevitable shortcomings”.

The publication

The widespread malaise in personal relationships with food which sometimes gives rise to certain paradoxical imbalances such as death by voluntary starvation, is at the centre of a debate involving public opinion and academics alike. Il dio cannibale (The cannibal god) provides a key to understanding anorexia as a symptom of a form of "insanity" that touches every inhabitant in the western world and illustrates the reasons for which it is women who are most often affected, even though it is increasingly destined to affect men, too.
While scientific studies consider anorexia an "illness", Ines Testoni focuses on the nature of the link between western opulence and the phenomenon itself; as with any form of psychological pain, it is an expression of the society from which it emerges, as well as of the sufferer's personal anxiety. Starting, then, with these dual social and individual origins, the author traces the specific cultural and psychological dynamics that are at the bottom of a form of suffering that in the Twentieth Century has become evident through women's fasting.

The author

Ines Testoni is a researcher and teacher of Social Psychology at the University of Padua. She is an expert in themes linked to self-destructive behaviour and the relationship between epistemology and the social construction of knowledge. She has published numerous articles in national and international reviews and is the author of books such as Psicologia del nichilismo (1997). She also interviewed the philosopher Emanuele Severino for La follia dell'angelo (1997).

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