The Cock and the Weathercock: The Circular Value of the Wind

Abstract

This paper focuses on the cultural history of the weathercock in order to consider the historical connection between the cockerel and the wind. The wind has, since Aristotle's Meteorologica, been read as a powerful portent and attributed an important economic, sociological and religious value. In the ninth century Pope Nicholas I decreed that the weathercock be placed atop all church steeples to act as a pertinent reminder of the redemption and resurrection of Christ. Looking at how this symbolism is woven throughout cultural history, I contend that the weathercock stands at the heart of what Jacques Derrida termed an 'economic circle'. With this in mind, I argue that contrary to the humanisation of the wind, the weathercock brings to light a new theory of value as situated between the subject-oriented and natural world.

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