The Connaught Global Challenge Initiative, Entangled Worlds: Sovereignty, Sanctities and Soil is pleased to present the two events in its Connecting the Books Series for the upcoming Winter 2022 semester.
As an extension of the Entangled Worlds’ “Holy Infrastructure” Reading Group, which has thus far considered the transdisciplinary ways in which infrastructures, sovereignties, charisma, and the political are inextricably linked, Connecting the Books seeks to further this analysis by considering these themes in connection with two recently published ethnographies and their authors: Elayne Oliphant’s The Privilege of Being Banal: Art, Secularism, and Catholicism in Paris (2021, Chicago Press); & Maria José de Abreu’s The Charismatic Gymnasium: Breath, Media, and Religious Revivalism in Contemporary Brazil (2021, Duke University Press).
The Connecting the Books Series began with a conversation with Charles Hirschkind, on the topic of his recent book, The Feeling of History: Islam, Romanticism and Andalusia (2020, Chicago Press) on February 25th, 2021; and continued with J. Brent Crosson and his book, Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad (2020, Chicago Press) on March 24th, 2021. The events with Elayne Oliphant and with Maria José de Abreu will conclude this series.
The format of these events will include a brief introduction by an advanced graduate student, foregrounding the themes of Holy Infrastructures in relation to the respective ethnography, followed by a brief presentation by the author. General discussion and question-answer period to follow.
Since these are in-conversation events we ask that attendees read the respective ethnographies or part of them, which can be found in the University of Toronto online catalogue.
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