Handbook of Contemporary Animism

Graham Harvey is Reader in Religious Studies at the Open University, UK. He is author of Animism: Respecting the Living World and editor of Religions in Focus.

"This Handbook is an outstanding collection of important voices and ideas. Nothing else like it currently exists. It is valuable across disciplines, for both faculty and students alike, and fills a tremendous void in the scholarly work on animism." - Kenneth Mello, Southwestern University, USA. "The Handbook addresses a topic which fascinates scholars and students in religious studies and anthropology. Presenting an overview of the numerous approaches to both animism and its "siblings" fetishism and totemism, the Handbook examines the many definitions of animism - illustrating this with a wide range of case studies of indigenous traditions - and demonstrates the significance of animism today." - Bettina E. Schmidt, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. "A massive collection - featuring some of the eminent figures in the field, exploring the range of thought on animism at the present moment - The collection is a vast celebration of the progress made not only on the subject of animism but on crucial anthropological topics including religion, personhood, embodiment, materiality, and performance." - Anthropology Review Database

• List of Figures Contributors Permissions / Acknowledgements General Introduction, Graham Harvey; SECTION 1: DIFFERENT ANIMISMS Sectional Introduction; 1. We Call it Tradition, Linda Hogan; 2. Animism, Conservation and Immediacy, Danny Naveh and Nurit Bird-David; 3. Animism and a Proposal for a Post-Cartesian Anthropology, Kenneth M. Morrison; 4. Animism for Tylor, Robert A. Segal; 5. Building on Belief: Defining Animism in Tylor and Contemporary Society, Martin D. Stringer; SECTION 2: DWELLING IN NATURE/CULTURE Sectional Introduction; 6. Beyond Nature and Culture, Philippe Descola; 7. The Materiality of Life: Revisiting the Anthropology of Nature in Amazonia, Laura Rival; 8. Metamorphosis and Identity: Chewong Animistic Ontology, Signe Howell; 9. The Ancestral Sensorium and the City: Reflections on Religion, Environmentalism and Citizenship in the Philippines, Paul-Francois Tremlett; 10. The Invisibles: Toward a Phenomenology of the Spirits, David Abram; SECTION 3: DWELLING IN LARGER THAN HUMAN COMMUNITIES Sectional Introduction; 11. Death and Grief in a World of Kin, Deborah Bird Rose; 12. Hunting Animism: Human-Animal Transformations among the Siberian Yukaghirs, Rane Willerslev; 13. Ontology and Ethics in Cree Hunting: Animism, Totemism and Practical Knowledge, Colin Scott; 14. Moral Foundations of Tlingit Cosmology, Fritz Detwiler; 15. Embodied Morality and Performed Relationships, Douglas Ezzy; 16. The Animal Versus the Social: Rethinking Individual and Community in Western Cosmology, Priscilla Stuckey; SECTION 4: DWELLING WITH(OUT) THINGS Sectional Introduction; 17. Being Alive to a World Without Objects, Tim Ingold; 18. Animate Objects: Ritual Perception and Practice among the Bambara in Mali, Tord Olsson; 19. Animism, Fetishism, and the Cultural Foundations of Capitalism, Alf Hornborg 20. The New Fetishism: Western Statue Devotion and a Matter of Power, Amy Whitehead; SECTION 5: DEALING WITH SPIRITS Sectional Introduction; 21. "The One-All": The Animist High-God, Rane Willerslev; 22. Shamanism and the Hunters of the Siberian Forest: Soul, Life-force, Spirit, Roberte Hamayon; 23. Bodies, Souls and Powerful Beings: Animism as Socio-Cosmological Principle in an Amazonian society, Isabella Lepri; 24. Exorcising "Spirits": Approaching "Shamans" and Rock Art Animically, Robert J. Wallis; 25. Whence "Spirit Possession"? Paul Christopher Johnson; 26. Psychedelics, Animism and Spirituality, Andy Letcher; 27. Spiritual Beings: A Darwinian, Cognitive Account, Stewart Guthrie; SECTION 6: CONSCIOUSNESS AND WAYS OF KNOWING Sectional Introduction; 28. Sentient Matter, Max Velmans; 29. Towards an Animistic Science of the Earth, Stephan Harding; 30. Talk Amongst the Trees: Animist Plant Ontologies and Ethics, Matthew Hall; 31. Action in Cognitive Ethology, Marc Bekoff; 32. Embodied Eco-Paganism, Adrian Harris; 33. Researching through Porosity: An Animist Research Methodology, M.J. Barrett; 34. Consciousness, Wights and Ancestors, Jenny Blain; SECTION 7: ANIMISM IN PERFORMANCE Sectional Introduction; 35. Nature in the Active Voice, Val Plumwood; 36. Animist Realism in Indigenous Novels and Other Literature, Graham Harvey; 37. The Third Road: Faerie in Hypermodernity, Patrick Curry 38. Objects of Otaku Affection: Animism, Anime Fandom, and the Gods of - Consumerism? Casey Brienza; 39. The Dance of the Return Beat: Performing the Animate Universe, Olu Taiwo; 40. Performance Is Currency in the Deep World's Gift Economy: An Incantatory Riff for a Global Medicine Show, Ronald Grimes; Bibliography; Index