Dear colleagues
David Wilson and I are organising a panel about "Research among
spirits, ghosts and deities - How to study non-ordinary realities" at
the next conference of the British Association for Study of Religions
(in September at the Open University in Milton Keynes). The abstract
is attached. Among the confirmed speakers is Dr Fiona Bowie (Kings
College London). If you are interested in joining us, please email
David and me. Thank you.
Best wishes
Bettina
Dr Bettina E. Schmidt
School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies
University of Wales Trinity Saint David
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Research among spirits, ghosts and deities - How to study non-ordinary realities
Panel at the BASR 2014 conference at the Open University, Milton Keynes
Panel organisers: Dr Bettina E. Schmidt and Dr David G. Wilson
Though anthropologists have discussed the study of experiences "behind
the veil" of non-ordinary reality over a number of decades (e.g.
Harner 1982, Turner 1993), it is still regarded as contested field. On
one perspective it is not for scholars to judge, as Lewis maintained
(1971), but, as Glass-Coffin recently wrote in the International
Journal of Transpersonal Studies (2013) cultural relativism has
'allowed a side-stepping by the more fundamental question of the
transpersonal'. Anthropologists tend to contextualise the local
accounts, 'domesticating and dismissing them, colonializing knowledge
even as they claim to honour the truth of the Other' (2013: 117).
In this panel we want to discuss this problem, which is at the cutting
edge between anthropology and study of religions. The failure to
contemplate the possibility that non-ordinary realities might be real
inhibits the development of appropriate methodologies for exploring
them. Arguably, this failure contributes significantly to the
continuing difficulty in defining religious studies as a distinct
academic field by creating a knowledge boundary that excludes from
study potentially core phenomena. We therefore welcome papers from
scholars who seek to explore and present new ways of studying
non-ordinary realities.
Please submit an abstract of app. 200 words by 1 June to
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