Shamanism
Freshman Honors Seminar
Fall 2013
T 2:00-4:30
Prof. Bruce Grant
25 Waverly, r. 601
bruce.grant@nyu.edu
From New Age sweat lodges to Soviet Siberia, shamanic spirit mediums have been
construed as everything from healers to magistrates to visionaries to political subversives. This
course explores anthropological literature on shamanism in Asia and the Americas in order to ask
how we constitute and appropriate the exotic in a variety of broadly construed religious settings.
By focusing on the core figure of the shaman, we also look to track a twentieth-century history of
anthropological reasoning.
Requirements
1. Active Class Participation
2. Three double-spaced 5-10 page papers
3. Final Examination
20%
60%
20%
Memoranda
Submit a 1-page memorandum at the start of each class by way of
developing, criticizing, praising, or otherwise engaging an analytical issue, question or problem
raised by the reading. This will not be a summary of the reading, but a response to the reading.
The memoranda will not be graded, but their submission each week is a firm requirement of the
course and central to the participation grade. Each student will informally present a summary of
their memorandum at the start of each class. (No memorandum is required for the first class
meeting).
Writing Assignments
There are three options for the writing component of the course. Listed below is a set of
questions for each round of papers; we may add to these as the course progresses. Students have
the choice of (1) writing on a given question; or, (2) proposing a topic of their own that is
relevant to the course. This may take the form of a book review or article review; it may take up
a separate question; or (3) it may track one larger topic in three installments if the first
assignment leaves you wanting to pursue an issue in greater depth.
In each instance, the primary criterion for grading will be the creative and synthetic use of course
readings, followed secondarily by the specific dimensions of the subject itself. Prior to designing
your own topic, please email a proposed plan.
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Assignment Schedule
Possible Topics
9/24
Paper 1
xx
xx
Paper 2
Paper 3
"Is Shamanism a Religion?'
"What and How do Shamans Heal?"
"Is the New Age a New Orientalism?"
"Is Shamanism a Universal?"
"Is History the Narcotic of our Time?"
Calendar
Introductions
Sep 3:
Introductions
What Makes the Exotic?
Sep 10:
Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala
Sioux (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964).
Reference readings:
Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator,” in Illuminations (New York: Schocken,
1968), 69-82.
McCluskey, “Black Elk Speaks,” Western American Literature 6, no. 4 (1972):
231-242.
Shamanism: A Handbook
Sep 17:
Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1964), Foreword, chs. 1-5, 8, 13, 14, Epilogue.
Reference reading:
Atkinson, “Shamanism Today,” Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992): 307330.
The Shaman as Pyschotherapist I
Sep 24:
Lévi-Strauss, “The Sorceror and His Magic,” in in Structural Anthropology, Vol.
1 (New York: Basic, 1963), 167-185.
Lévi-Strauss, “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” in Structural Anthropology, Vol.
1, 186-205.
Reference reading:
Krader, “The Shamanic Tradition of the Buryats,” Anthropos 70 (1975): 105-144
(esp. 105, 108).
Lévi-Strauss, “The Scope of Anthropology,” in Structural Anthropology, Vol. 2
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 3-32 (esp. 29-30).
Paper 1 Due
The Price of Exotica: Being Orientalized
October 1:
Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978), selections.
Recommended:
Obituary of Said in The New York Times (2003)
3
Shamanism in the Age of Aquarius
October 8:
Harner, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing (San Francisco:
Harper and Row, 1980).
Recommended:
Poncelet, “Helpful Hints for Journeying,” Shamanism 5, no. 4 (1993): 32-35.
October 15: No class, Fall Break
Time in Shamanic Narrative
October 22:
Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983), selections.
The Shaman as Pyschotherapist II
October 29:
Obeyesekere, Medusa’s Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious
Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
Paper 2 Due
Shamanism and Colonialism
November 5: Taussig, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and
Healing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), selections.
November 12: Taussig, Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man, selections.
Recommended:
Freud, “The Uncanny,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4 (New York: Basic Books,
1959), 368-407.
Marx, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof,” in The MarxEngels Reader (New York: Norton, 1978), 319-329.
Mirrors and Magic
November 19: Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York:
Routledge, 1993), “A Report to the Academy,” chs. 1-9.
November 26: Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, chs. 10-17.
Discussion of Mimesis in Non-Shamanic Settings
December 3: Film examples: Scenes from Nanook of the North, Fitzcarraldo
Paper 3 Due
The Packaging of Exotica
Dec 10:
Collins, Reading National Geographic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1993), selections.
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1920s Soviet Poster: “Elect Workers to the Native Council. Shun the Shaman and the Exploiter!”