Companion to the Anthropology of Religion

Janice Boddy is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Her books include Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (1989); Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl (1994); and Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan (2007).Michael Lambek is Professor of Anthropology and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His books include Human Spirits (1981, 2009); Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte: Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery, and Spirit Possession (1993); The Weight of the Past (2002); and Ordinary Ethics (2010). He is also the editor of A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

• List of Figures viiiNotes on Contributors ixPreface and Acknowledgments xivWhat Is “Religion” for Anthropology?And What Has Anthropology Brought to “Religion”? 1Michael LambekPart I Worlds and Intersections 331 Presence, Attachment, Origin: Ontologies of “Incarnates” 35Philippe Descola2 The Dynamic Reproduction of Hunter-Gatherers’ Ontologies and Values 50Sylvie Poirier3 Cohabiting an Interreligious Milieu: Reflections on Religious Diversity 69Veena Das4 Religious and Legal Particularism and Universality 85 Winnifred Fallers SullivanPart II Epistemologies 1015 Are Ancestors Dead? 103Rita Astuti and Maurice Bloch6 Coping with Religious Diversity: Incommensurability and Other Perspectives 118Eva Spies7 Varieties of Semiotic Ideology in the Interpretation of Religion 137Michael Lambek8 Religion and the Truth of Being 154Paul StollerPart III Time and Ethics 1699 Ethics 171James Laidlaw10 The Social and Political Theory of the Soul 189Heonik Kwon11 Ghosts and Ancestors in the Modern West 202Fenella Cannell12 The Work of Memory: Ritual Laments of the Dead and Korea’s Cheju Massacre 223Seong-nae Kim13 The Globalization of Pentecostalism and the Limits of Globalization 239Girish DaswaniPart IV Practices and Mediations 25514 Food, Life, and Material Religion in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity 257Tom Boylston15 Trading with God: Islam, Calculation, Excess 274Amira Mittermaier16 Ritual Remains: Studying Contemporary Pilgrimage 294Simon Coleman17 Mediation and Immediacy: Sensational Forms, Semiotic Ideologies, and the Question of the Medium 309Birgit MeyerPart V Languages and Conversions 32718 Translating God’s Words 329Wendy James19 Christianity as a Polemical Concept 344Pamela E. Klassen20 Reconfiguring Humanity in Amazonia: Christianity and Change 363Aparecida Vilaça21 Language in Christian Conversion 387William F. HanksPart VI Persons and Histories 40722 Canonizing Soviet Pasts in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Saint Matrona of Moscow 409Jeanne Kormina23 Reflections on Death, Religion, Identity, and the Anthropology of Religion 425Ellen Badone24 S pirits and Selves Revisited: Zār and Islam in Northern Sudan 444Janice BoddyPart VII Powers 46925 The Political Landscape of Early State Religions 471Edward Swenson26 A Syariah Judiciary as a Global Assemblage: Islamization and Beyond in a Southeast Asian Context 489Michael G. Peletz27 The Catholicization of Neoliberalism 507Andrea Muehlebach28 The Sacred and the City: Modernity, Religion, and the Urban Form in Central Africa 528Filip De BoeckIndex 549