International Conference
University Cologne, Germany
25-26 September 2017
a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School& for the Humanities Cologne
Aachener Str. 217 | 50931 Köln
University Cologne, Germany
25-26 September 2017
a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School& for the Humanities Cologne
Aachener Str. 217 | 50931 Köln
Organized by Marcello Múscari (Universidade de São Paulo), Ehler Voss (Universität Siegen) and Martin Zillinger (Universität zu Köln)
This workshop zooms in on new communities of practice and enskilment that evolve around techniques of mediumship in an interconnected world. The increased mobility of people, organizations and media that take part in or reformulate trance practices and spiritual experiences has significantly widened the scope and outreach of adepts of trance, spirit possession and spiritual body arts. Their body techniques, symbols and artifacts play a major role in the re-organization of spirituality on site and the emergence of transnational spirited publics across time and space, co-producing the “local” and the “global” of religious and spiritual practice.
Components of shamanic journeys, afro-Brazilian rituals, trance mediumship and mystic traditions circulate, compete and merge with each other and are often combined with “alternative” healing procedures and body sports, reshaping individual experiences and cosmologies, mediating scales and contexts of situated communities of practices.
With this workshop we intend to bring together work on new communities of practices, which evolve around mediumship, spirit possession and trance rituals, by adressing how these practices are taught and learned, transformed and re-invented in different settings. In particular, we are intested in the discussion on „apprenticeship“ as a process of enskilment (Ingold) in context of co-participation that is increasingly transformed through technologisazion, standardization and interaction at a distance. Increasingly, people do not only co-operate across ‘social worlds’ (Strauss), they act simultaneously in different and only partially overlapping social relations. The communal practices of trance and mediumship do therefore not signify the existence of firmly established communities, rather communality has to be continuously produced through interaction. We invite participants to reflect upon how, under the condition of heterogeneity, spiritual sociality and a shared socio-material world is produced through the mutual recognizable production of practices and common situations among spirits, their mediums, experts and followers.
Components of shamanic journeys, afro-Brazilian rituals, trance mediumship and mystic traditions circulate, compete and merge with each other and are often combined with “alternative” healing procedures and body sports, reshaping individual experiences and cosmologies, mediating scales and contexts of situated communities of practices.
With this workshop we intend to bring together work on new communities of practices, which evolve around mediumship, spirit possession and trance rituals, by adressing how these practices are taught and learned, transformed and re-invented in different settings. In particular, we are intested in the discussion on „apprenticeship“ as a process of enskilment (Ingold) in context of co-participation that is increasingly transformed through technologisazion, standardization and interaction at a distance. Increasingly, people do not only co-operate across ‘social worlds’ (Strauss), they act simultaneously in different and only partially overlapping social relations. The communal practices of trance and mediumship do therefore not signify the existence of firmly established communities, rather communality has to be continuously produced through interaction. We invite participants to reflect upon how, under the condition of heterogeneity, spiritual sociality and a shared socio-material world is produced through the mutual recognizable production of practices and common situations among spirits, their mediums, experts and followers.
Conference Program
Monday, 25 September 2017
12.30 Opening. Martin Zillinger (University of Cologne)
Rodrigo Toniol (Utrecht University): Capturing Spirituality and Setting Religion
Bettina Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): Anthropology of Religious Experience: a Deictic Approach to the Study of Mediumship
Coffee Break
Viola Teisenhofer (Groupe Société, Religions, Laicité, Paris): “Is It Me or Is It the Entity?” Mediumship, “Spiritual Development” and Ritual Interactions in the Temple Guaracy, a Transnational Umbanda Shrine House
Marcello Múscari (University of Cologne & São Paulo): On African Spirits, Planets and Shamanic Journeys: Exploring Rituals as Scale Shifting Technologies among a German Umbanda
Coffee Break
Fiona Bowie (King's College London): Spirit Release Therapies. Healing Networks and Mediumistic Practices in Contemporary Britain
Keynote Lecture. Inger Sjørslev (University of Copenhagen): New Skills New Rituals. From Possession to Precision in Two Brazilian Religions
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
Helmar Kurz: (University of Muenster): Tranformation of Spiritist Practice. A Journey from Germany to Brazil and Back
Emily Pierini (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): The Mediumistic Body. Learning Spirit Mediumship in the Vale do Amanhecer
Coffee Break
Anja Dreschke (University of Siegen): How to Become a Shaman in Cologne. Spiritual Practices and Embodied Knowledge in Popular Reenactment
Aline Ferreira (University of São Paulo): Healing Skills. Non Indigenous in the Search of Forest Technologies
Lunch Break
Ruy Blanes: (Spanish National Research Council, Santiago de Compostela): Silent Prophets. On discernment, Mediation and Anti Aesthetics in Angolan Prophetism
Ehler Voss (University of Siegen): Scaling the Skill. Learning Mediumship in a Spiritualistic Church in California
Final Discussion
12.30 Opening. Martin Zillinger (University of Cologne)
Rodrigo Toniol (Utrecht University): Capturing Spirituality and Setting Religion
Bettina Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): Anthropology of Religious Experience: a Deictic Approach to the Study of Mediumship
Coffee Break
Viola Teisenhofer (Groupe Société, Religions, Laicité, Paris): “Is It Me or Is It the Entity?” Mediumship, “Spiritual Development” and Ritual Interactions in the Temple Guaracy, a Transnational Umbanda Shrine House
Marcello Múscari (University of Cologne & São Paulo): On African Spirits, Planets and Shamanic Journeys: Exploring Rituals as Scale Shifting Technologies among a German Umbanda
Coffee Break
Fiona Bowie (King's College London): Spirit Release Therapies. Healing Networks and Mediumistic Practices in Contemporary Britain
Keynote Lecture. Inger Sjørslev (University of Copenhagen): New Skills New Rituals. From Possession to Precision in Two Brazilian Religions
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
Helmar Kurz: (University of Muenster): Tranformation of Spiritist Practice. A Journey from Germany to Brazil and Back
Emily Pierini (University of Wales Trinity Saint David): The Mediumistic Body. Learning Spirit Mediumship in the Vale do Amanhecer
Coffee Break
Anja Dreschke (University of Siegen): How to Become a Shaman in Cologne. Spiritual Practices and Embodied Knowledge in Popular Reenactment
Aline Ferreira (University of São Paulo): Healing Skills. Non Indigenous in the Search of Forest Technologies
Lunch Break
Ruy Blanes: (Spanish National Research Council, Santiago de Compostela): Silent Prophets. On discernment, Mediation and Anti Aesthetics in Angolan Prophetism
Ehler Voss (University of Siegen): Scaling the Skill. Learning Mediumship in a Spiritualistic Church in California
Final Discussion