Trance Mediums and New Media

Anja Dreschke (Author) Anja Dreschke, an anthropologist and filmmaker from Cologne, received a degree in cultural anthropology, history of arts and theatre, and film and television studies from the University of Cologne. From 2007 to 2012 she worked as a researcher on the project ''Trance Mediums and New Media'' at the University of Siegen. Currently she is Research Fellow at the graduate school Locating Media at the University of Siegen and Lecturer for Visual and Media Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Recently she released the documentary film Tribes of Cologne, which is concurrently part of her Ph D. dissertation intended as a three-fold project combining text, video, and photography.Martin Zillinger (Author) Martin Zillinger is Assistant Professor at the Research Lab ''Transformations of Life'' at the University of Cologne. A former graduate student of the University of Constance, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Tubingen and was a postdoctoral research fellow in the research project ''Trance Mediums and New Media 1900/2000'' and a Lecturer at the Department of Media Studies at the University of Siegen. He conducted extensive fieldwork in North Africa, especially in Morocco, and in Europe, particularly in Belgium. His research interests include media anthropology, anthropology of religion, and migration, with a special focus on the Mediterranean. He has published several articles and edited volumes. His dissertation, ''Die Trance, das Blut, die Kamera. Trance-Medien und Neue Medien im marokkanischen Sufismus,'' received the Frobenius Research Award of the Frobenius Society.

"Trance Mediums and New Media is a highly significant intervention in the growing literature on religion and media. Unusual in its comparative, interdisciplinary character, the volume deals with a broad range of case-studies - including, amongst others, Sufi, Pentecostal, shamanic and Hindu communities - and drawn from geographical regions as diverse as Mali, Vietnam and Germany. The volume's editors and contributors probe the well-worn polarities of matter and spirit, artifice and nature, which frequently dominate studies of both religion and media. In place of these juxtapositions, the collection instead makes a persuasive argument for the complementary roles of both spiritual mediumship and new media in reconciling the not-so-distinct realms of nature and spirit." -- -Joel Cabrita University of Cambridge "The main theoretical issues - what is becoming of trance and trance mediums in the media saturated societies of today? And in extension of that question: what is becoming of 'the religious' and 'the mediatic'? - are challenging ones, and merit the in-depth exploration that this volume has on offer." -- -Mattijs van de Port University of Amsterdam "This is a highly original and thought-provoking addition to the study of the interrelations between media and religion. Geographically wide-ranging and well-informed both historically and theoretically, the volume explores affinities and synergies between technical mediation and spirit mediumship while also recognizing ruptures and limitations. It succeeds in developing alternatives to styling the encounter of media and mediums as one of modernity and tradition." -- Felicitas Becker University of Cambridge

• I. Media-Techniques of Trance 1) Erhard Schuttpelz (Siegen): Trance Mediums and New Media: The Heritage of a European Term 2) Rosalind C. Morris (New York): On the Subject of Spirit Mediumship in the Age of New Media 3) Ute Holl (Basel): Trance Techniques, Cinema, and Cybernetics 4) Anja Dreschke (Siegen): Possession Play: On Trance Rituals and Impersonation Among the Cologne Tribes II. Mediation and Circulation of Trance Mediums/Media 1) Dorothea Schulz (Cologne): Transmitting Divine Grace: On the Materiality of Charismatic Mediation in Mali 2) Martin Zillinger (Siegen): Absence and the Medialization of the Audio-Visual Unconscious 3) Emilio Spadola (New York): Rites of Reception: Mass-Mediated Trance and Public Order in Morocco 4) Laurel Kendall (New York): Numinous Dress/Iconic Costume: Korean Shamans Dressed for the Gods and for the Camera 5) Getrud Huwelmeier (Berlin): Mediating the Apocalypse: The Disaster of the Titanic in Vietnamese Pentecostal Discourse III. Manifestation, Transformation and Aesthetics of Trance Mediums/Media 1) Claudia Bohme (Mainz): "Look With Your Own Eyes!" Visualization of Spirit Media and their Viewing Techniques in Tanzanian Video Films 2) Heike Behrend (Cologne): Spaces of Refusal: Iconoclastic/Photophobic Spirits and the Technical Medium of Photography 3) Lidia Guzy (Berlin): Medial Transformations: Music, Goddess-Embodiment, and Politics in Western Orissa/India 4) Christopher Pinney (London): Manifestation and Media: The Aesthetics and Politics of Plenitude in Central India