n her article, Silva considers the significance of similarity and polythetic classification in ritual practice and ritual theory. Inspired by Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblances and his descriptive method, and building on the work of R. Grimes, R. Needham, and, J. Z. Smith, Silva bring out the similarities among three different types o…[Read more]

The statements of researchers on the topic of basket divination and the statements of basket diviners in northwest Zambia, Africa, do not fully agree. While researchers rightly stress the importance of observation, analysis and interpretation in basket divination, going so far as to describe diviners as scientists, they fail to recognize that…[Read more]

In this article, the author explores basket divination, a technique found in Zambia and neighboring countries, as a form of material religion. Mores specifically, the author shows that in basket divination the idea of objectivity (objective knowledge) is directly associated with the materiality of the oracle used for divining. In the Luvale…[Read more]

This chapter on witchcraft in northwest Zambia shows that forms of asking and giving may be deployed to suspend suspicion about the motives of others, even as they possess the potential to kill. When a woman asks a witch for a gift of salt to flavor her food, the witch feigns generosity but forces that woman to join the coven in recompense. In…[Read more]

Instead of asking what evil is, let us see where evil takes us. Based on many conversations on the topic of witchcraft in northwest Zambia, Africa—conversations in which witchcraft is presented from the perspective of the bewitched—the concept of evil takes us to a ghastly realm of destruction and transfiguration where the discourse of mor…[Read more]

Reification, fetishism, alienation, mastery, and control – these are some of the key concepts of modernity that have been battered and beaten by postmoderns and nonmoderns alike, with Bruno Latour, a nonmodern, discarding them most recently. Critical of this approach, which creates a rift between moderns and nonmoderns, the author engages in d…[Read more]

Sónia Silva is an Associate Professor of anthropology at Skidmore College. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Zambia, as well as museum work in Europe and the USA, Silva’s research deals with materiality, material religion, the notion of the fetish, ritual and religion, divination, witchcraft, violence, and museums. Silva is the author of Alon…[Read more]

This essay introduces and explores some explicitly theological concerns in the work of the Orcadian poet, novelist, and dramatist George Mackay Brown (1921–96). More specifically, its interest is with Brown’s presentation and treatment of the notion of time. Drawing on examples from a wide selection of his work, it is argued that Brown’s conve…[Read more]

This article articulates some of the main arguments both for and against euthanasia under the circumstances being envisaged by the Victorian Parliament’s Legal and Social Issues Committee. More particularly, its concern is to attend to some of the theological issues germane to the subject. To this end, it identifies and discusses six arguments f…[Read more]

This paper has two parts. First, I examine Basil of Caesarea’s theological anthropology and show how he understands the human being as a body-soul unity. The body is the good instrument of the soul. It is marvelous because it has been molded by God’s own hands. In the second part, I examine what I call Basil’s theological physiology, which flows…[Read more]

Basil of Caesarea, in his polemic against astrology (Homiliae in hexaemeron 6,5−7), makes direct, creative uses of Origen’s anti-astrological treatise (Philocalia 23). My argument is based on an identical context, namely the interpretation of Gen 1:14b, and five close similarities in content, some verbatim, between Basil’s sermon and Orige…[Read more]

The internet has changed the ways human beings connect and understand one another. Through the use of social media, people find themselves immersed in a digital environment consisting of various practices and behaviors. As Christianity continues to negotiate the often tricky relationship it has with digital experience, what philosophical and…[Read more]

The internet has changed the ways human beings connect and understand one another. Through the use of social media, people find themselves immersed in a digital environment consisting of various practices and behaviors. As Christianity continues to negotiate the often tricky relationship it has with digital experience, what philosophical and…[Read more]

Previous work on inter-ethnic coexistence in Mauritius has portrayed secularism as the only possible site of the national, which is at the same time described as clearly separated from religious traditions. In contrast, focusing on understandings of secularism among Mauritian Muslims in the context of a politics of diasporic ‘ancestral c…[Read more]

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

This article explores the interface of multiple legal systems in early modern Daghestan. By comparing colonial engagements with legal plurality with indigenous genres of Daghestani legal discourse, I aim to shed light on the plurality of legal systems that preceded as well as informed legal discourse under colonialism. The Daghestani turn to…[Read more]