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List of contents
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION. Possession & paradox. Matan Shapiro & Diana Espírito Santo
1. Angels and demons: notes on kinship and exorcism at an Ethiopian orthodox shrine. Diego Malara, University of Glasgow
2. Spirit possessions, racial dispossessions: the second diaspora of race in Afro-Cuban religious experience. Anastasios Panagiotopoulos, University of Lisbon
3. Between possessor and possessed. J. Brent Crosson, University of Texas, Austin
4. Waiting for the deities: spirit possession in the middle voice. Miho Ishii, Kyoto University
5. The motion-power of the collective, or, how spirits “come into view” in Cuba. Diana Espírito Santo, Pontificia Universidad Católica Chile
6. (En)spirited pedagogy: learning and simultaneity in Pentecostalism. Bruno Reinhardt, Federal University of Santa Catarina
7. A theory of passage: paradox and neo-Pentecostal expulsion of demons in Brazil. Matan Shapiro, University of Stavanger
8. The threshold of the cosmos: priestly scriptures and shamanic wilderness in Southwest China. Katherine Swancutt, King’s College London
9. The Mormon dead. Jon Bialecki, University of Edinburgh
10. On the existence of witches, or, how anthropology works. Marcio Goldman, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
AFTERWORD. Michael Lambek, University of Toronto
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
About the author
Diana Espírito Santo is Associate Professor in the Anthropology School at the Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile, ChileMatan Shapiro is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London, UK.
Summary
This edited volume applies the analytic notions of paradox and play to the ethnographic manifestation of spirits, angels, and demons in different locations around the world. The 10 case studies conceptualize the co-presence of humans and entities with terms that do not exclude spiritual reasoning on the one hand, and social explanations on the other. Through in-depth descriptions of localized possession cosmologies, the different chapters collectively propose path-breaking methodological directions in this field, which incorporate ethnographic theories of simultaneity into anthropological theories of religion, kinship, and ritual.
Framed by an introduction written by the editors and an afterword by Michael Lambek, a leading authority in possessions studies, the volume contains cutting edge analyses that will provide readers with new tools to evaluate previously unstudied aspects of spirit possession; all of which stem from the fantastic forms of human movement that accompany the phenomenality of paradoxes in mundane reality.
Foreword
An anthropological and sociological exploration of the notion of spirit possession across diverse contexts and periods.
Additional text
The Dynamic Cosmos is a must-read volume bringing together an excellent collection of ethnographies from different social and cultural contexts. Proposing a completely new, fascinating, and groundbreaking way to understand spirit possession, this work challenges scholars to rethink and reconsider the limits of anthropological representations and classifications. The idea of inviting authors to analyze spirit possession based on concepts such as ‘play,’ ‘simultaneity,’ and ‘paradox’ proves to be absolutely brilliant.
