Donnerstag, 21. Mrz 2013, 18:00 - 20:00 iCal

"Ghost Connections – A Political Ecology of Haunted Places in Contemporary Kyoto"

Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University)

 

Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften - Japanologie
Spitalgasse 2, UniversitätsCampus Hof 2, Eingang 2.4, 1090 Wien

Vortrag


The supernatural and the occult have long been a subject of study in anthropology. Most authors have proposed interpretations of beliefs in the occult as a symbolic framework for critiques to sudden change in economic systems, but they did not consider personal experiences, or their interrelational features. Moreover, experiences related to the occult in Japan have been a subject of study in folklore, while an anthropological approach is nearly missing. This talk will provide a “political ecology” (Latour 2004) of haunted places in contemporary Kyoto, through an analysis of personal experiences and a focus on how these are constructed through interactions among human and non-human actors. Drawing on ethnographic data, I will present internet-based processes of creation of haunted places. Secondly, I will analyze people’s experiences in haunted places, arguing that a focus on the body, through which the “environment” is enacted and created, is fundamental for the understanding of hauntings.

 

Andrea De Antoni is Research Fellow at the Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University, Adjunct Lecturer in anthropology at Ritsumeikan and D?shisha University, and Research Affiliate at the Italian School for East Asian Studies (ISEAS). He is presently teaching a course in “Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft” in the University of Vienna, Dept. of Social and Cultural Anthropology.

 

Research interests include Japanese religions, the anthropology of religion and magic, of tourism, and the body. His current research project focuses on haunted places, ghost possession and exorcism in contemporary Japan. He is co-editor of two forthcoming works on Death and Desire in Modern and Contemporary Japan (co-edited with Massimo Raveri, 2014) and Death Rituals in Contemporary Japan (co-edited with Chris Feldman and John Traphagan, 2013).

 

Zur Webseite der Veranstaltung


Veranstalter

Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften/Japanologie und AAJ (Akademischer Arbeitskreis Japan)


Kontakt

Angela Kramer
Universität Wien
Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften - Japanologie
4277-43801
angela.kramer@univie.ac.at