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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Please join us this Friday for the 4th meeting of
“Sensing the Unseen,” a seminar series to discuss current scholarship on the
sensory and media modes that people employ to access realms of existence and
experience outside the immediately visible. <br>
<br>
<i><span style='font-style:italic'>All seminar meetings are free and open to
the public - no registration is required. <br>
</span></i><br clear=all>
</span></font><font size=5><span style='font-size:18.0pt'><a
href="http://web.mit.edu/unseen/species/occult.html">The Occult and Uncanny:
Governing</a></span></font><br clear=all>
<font size=5><span style='font-size:16.0pt'>Friday, December 3, 2:30 - 5:00
PM <br>
@ MIT 56-114 (<a href="http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=56">Whitaker Building #56</a>,
Room 114)<br clear=all>
</span></font><br clear=all>
Speakers: Adam Ashforth and Bruce Grant <br>
Discussants: Mary Steedly (Anthropology, Harvard), Mark Auslander
(Anthropology, Brandeis)<br clear=all>
<br clear=all>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Adam Ashforth — Spiritual Insecurity in the
Democratic State: A Relational Realist Approach</span></b> <br>
The promise of security from harm for its citizens, coupled with the entitlement
to seek justice in response to harm, is a foundation of legitimacy in modern
states. For people living in a world with witches, sorcerers, demons, evil
spirits, and other invisible powers, however, state institutions offer little
in the way of justice and security in the face of malevolence. This paper
examines recent efforts by communities in rural <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Malawi</st1:place></st1:country-region> to secure themselves from
bloodsuckers rumored to be working for the state president to provide blood for
foreign white Satanists. It outlines a relational realist framework for
analyzing spiritual insecurity and shows how the politics of everyday relations
with invisible forces shape practices of politics and government at the level
of the state, with particular implications for democratic governance. <br>
<br>
Adam Ashforth teaches in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Michigan</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>. He is the author of three
books, including <i><span style='font-style:italic'>Madumo, a Man Bewitched</span></i>
(<st1:City w:st="on">Chicago</st1:City>, 2000) and <i><span style='font-style:
italic'>Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in <st1:country-region w:st="on">South
Africa</st1:country-region></span></i> (<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:City>,
2005). He is currently working with a group of Malawians who have been
chronicling everyday responses to the AIDS epidemic since the turn of the
century. <br>
<br>
<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Bruce Grant — Shrines and Sovereigns:
Competing Modes of Governance and its Limits in the Former Soviet Union</span></b>
<br>
Through interviews and archival readings, this paper follows the social life of
a religious shrine in rural Azerbaijan over the twentieth century. Founded to
honor a regionally famous Muslim holy man from <st1:place w:st="on">Arabia</st1:place>,
this small, rather commonplace mausoleum, and the community of faithful that
serve it, have passed from ignominy to heroism, and back to ignominy again
across changing political economies. Retrospective accounts of the shrine’s
life under Soviet rule offer a telling window onto larger questions of how
average citizens in the Soviet countryside perceived socialist rule itself. By
exploring practices and beliefs around the site, I show how accounts of
mystical mobilities, miraculous rebel leaders, and the "near-death" experience
of religion under Soviet power shed light on competing logics of autonomy,
governance, and sovereignty in this long-contested world area. <br>
<br>
Bruce Grant teaches anthropology at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">New
York</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.
He is the author of two books — <i><span style='font-style:italic'>In the
Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas </span></i>(Princeton 1995)
and <i><span style='font-style:italic'>The Captive and the Gift: Cultural
Histories of Sovereignty in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
and the Caucasus</span></i> (Cornell 2009) — as well as co-editor of the
recently released <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i><span
style='font-style:italic'>Russia</span></i></st1:place></st1:country-region><i><span
style='font-style:italic'> Reader: History, Culture, Politics</span></i> (Duke
2010). He serves as President-Elect of the Association for Slavic, East
European, and Eurasian Studies. <br>
<br>
……….<br clear=all>
A Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures to be held at MIT in
2010-2011, “Sensing the Unseen” is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and
hosted by MIT Anthropology. Our website provides more details, including
upcoming seminars: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/unseen/">http://web.mit.edu/unseen/</a>
<br clear=all>
<br clear=all>
Maps & directions to the “Sensing the Unseen” seminar can be found here: <a
href="http://web.mit.edu/unseen/directions.html">http://web.mit.edu/unseen/directions.html</a><br>
Sign up to receive email reminders about upcoming seminars: <a
href="https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/unseen_list">https://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/unseen_list</a>
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