Robin Derby
Office: Bunche 7238
Tel. O. 267-5461
derby@history.ucla.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays 3:30-4:45 PM, or by appointment
History 191E:
Witchcraft and
Modernity in
Bunche 2173
TH
Winter, 2005
This class examines a range of beliefs
and practices related to witchcraft and magic in
This course requires students to read and synthesize a lot of materials. Do not take the course if you are not able and willing to read approximately 100-120 pages per week. Students are responsible for coming to their discussion section prepared to discuss the weekly readings. Attendance is mandatory. Other requirements include two seven page papers, a short in-class presentation on one of the week’s readings, and each week students will be required to post to the course bulletin board a comment, issue or question about the week’s readings before class. The amount of reading in the class is formidable, so you will need to plan your time effectively in order to keep abreast of the assignments. Course grades will be tabulated in the following matter: class preparation and participation (including the class presentation and weekly post) 40% and each paper 30%. Unexplained class absences and late assignments will affect your grade. All required books are on reserve at Powell library, and the required articles have been scanned onto or attached to the class website. I strongly urge you to purchase the books, or make copies of the chapters well in advance of class, however, since you will need to refer to the text during class discussion, and be able to do close textual analysis of the texts in your essays. Materials marked with an asterisk are recommended.
The two essays will be both be due at the end of the class. I assume you will have proper and full citations where appropriate, and that the work you submit is your own. Academic honesty will be assumed in the class, and violations will be dealt with harshly.
Books available for purchase at the UCLA Bookstore:
Paul Christopher Johnson, Secrets,
Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of
Brazilian
Laura A. Lewis, Hall of
Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft and Caste in
Colonial
Patricia R. Pessar. From Fanatics to Folk: Brazilian Messianism and Popular Culture,
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion
in
Raquel Romberg, Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of
Magic in Modern Puerto Rico,
Jim Wafer, The
Taste of Blood: Spirit Possession in
Brazilian Candomblé,
Neil l. Whitehead and Robin Wright,
eds., In Darkness and Secrecy: The
Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia,
Jan. 6. Introduction: Approaches to the Study of Religious Phenomena
Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Victor Turner, Geertz
Film: Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard: Strange Beliefs
1.Jan. 13
Explaining Witchcraft
“Introduction” and “Comparative Interface 1: The Variable Faces of Sorcery and
Witchcraft,” in Peter Geschiere. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa,
Translated by Peter Geschiere and Janet Roitman,
“Introduction,” Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels, Magic and
Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and
Concealment,
Jean and John Comaroff, “Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony,” American Ethnologist 26 (2) 1999: 279-303.
*Robin Briggs, “’Many Reasons Why’: Witchcraft and the Problem of Multiple
Explanation,” in Jonathan Barry et al., eds., Witchcraft in Early Modern
Europe: Studies in Culture and Belief,
N.Y.:
2.Jan. 20. Race, Power and the Devil in Colonial
Laura A. Lewis, Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft and Caste in Colonial
*Ruth Behar, “Sex and Sin:
Witchcraft and the Devil in Late Colonial
*Fernando Cervantes, The
Devil in the New World : The impact of Diabolism
in New Spain,
*Andrew Orta, 1999 "Syncretic subjects and body politics: doubleness, personhood, and Aymara catechists." American Ethnologist 26(4): 864-889.
*Andrew Orta, 1998 "Converting difference: missionaries, metaculture, and the politics of locality." Ethnology 37(2):165-185.
3.Jan. 27. Religion
and Social Revolt: Islam
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, parts I & II, *III.
4. Feb. 3. Nationalism and The Religious
Imagination: Patron Saints
Eric R. Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol," Journal of American Folklore, 71, (1958): 34-39.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00218715/ap020274/02a00060/0?searchID=cce44037.11005574360&frame=noframe¤tResult=00218715%2bap020274%2b02a00060%2b0%2c01%2b19580100%2b9995%2b80419899&userID=a9e83017@ucla.edu/01cc99333c00501663367&dpi=3&sortOrder=SCORE&config=jstor&viewContent=Article
William B. Taylor, "The
Virgin of Guadalupe in
http://www.jstor.org/view/00940496/ap020053/02a00020/0?searchID=cc99333c.11005511710&frame=noframe¤tResult=00940496%2bap020053%2b02a00020%2b0%2c01%2b19870200%2b9995%2b80129799&userID=a9e82e0e@ucla.edu/01cce4403500501603ba7&dpi=3&sortOrder=SCORE&config=jstor&viewContent=Article
Jeanette Favrot Peterson, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: Symbol of Conquest or Liberation?," Art Journal 51, 4 (Winter 1992): 39-47.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00043249/ap030127/03a00140/0?searchID=cc99333c.11005513162&frame=noframe¤tResult=00043249%2bap030127%2b03a00140%2b0%2c01%2b19921200%2b9995%2b80078799&userID=a9e82e0e@ucla.edu/01cce4403500501603ba7&dpi=3&sortOrder=SCORE&config=jstor&viewContent=Article
*Louise Burkhart, “The Cult of
the Virgin of Guadalupe in
*William Christian, Apparitions
in Late Medieval and Renaissance
5.Feb. 10. Millenarianism as Ritual Process
Patricia R. Pessar. From
Fanatics to Folk: Brazilian Messianism
and Popular Culture,
*Todd Diacon, “Peasants, Prophets, and the Power of a
Millenarian Vision in Twentieth-century
6.Feb. 17.
Secrecy
and the Gods
Paul Christopher Johnson, Secrets, Gossip, and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian
7.Feb. 24. Shamanism
as Assault Sorcery
Neil l. Whitehead and Robin Wright, eds., In Darkness and
Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault
Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia,
8.Mar. 3. Sorcery and the White Man
Andrew Canessa, “Fear and Loathing on the Kharisiri Trail: Alterity and Identity in the
P. Gose, “Sacrifice and the Commodity Form in the
Mary Weismantel, “White Cannibals: Fantasies of Racial Violence in the
*Abigail E. Adams, “Gringas,
Ghouls and
*Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Theft of Life: The Globalization of Organ Stealing Rumors,” Anthropology Today, 12, 3 (June, 1996): 3-11.
*Luise White, “The Traffic in Heads: Bodies, Borders, and the Articulation of Regional Histories,” Journal of Southern African Studies 23, 2 (1997): 225-38.
*Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: a Particular
History of the Senses,
*Hugo G. Nutini and John M. Roberts, Bloodsucking
Witchcraft: An Epistemological Study of
Anthropomorphic Supernaturalism in Rural Tlaxcala,
9.Mar. 10. The Business of Religion/ Religion as
Business
Raquel Romberg, Witchcraft and Welfare: Spiritual Capital and the Business of Magic
in Modern Puerto Rico, Austin:
*Sidney M. Greenfield, “The Return of Dr. Fritz: Spiritist Healing and Patronage Networks in
Urban, Industrial
*James Holston, “Alternative modernities: statecraft and religious imagination in
the Valley of the Dawn.” American
Ethnologist 26(3) 1999: 605-631.
10. Mar. 17. Spirit Possession: Self, Personhood and the Spirits
Jim Wafer, The Taste of Blood: Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomblé,
*Janice Boddy, “Spirit Possession Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality,” Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 407-34.