Regnfang Regnfang

Tanya Luhrmann is Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in Psychology, and she is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has conducted ethnographic work among groups such as evangelic Christians, American Santerians, Zoroastrians in India, magicians in England, and people hearing voices across cultural contexts. Apart from being the author of lots of academic articles and opinion pieces in the New York Times, her award-winning books include ‘Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft’, ‘Of Two Minds’, ‘When God talks Back’, and ‘How God Becomes Real’.
In this podcast we talk with Tanya about how people make God and Spirits real through various forms of practice and ideas. Tanya shares stories of world- and self-transformation from her fieldwork among magicians in England and evangelic Christians in the United States and unfolds some of the factors influencing such changes. We talk about the world-building effects of prayer, and how faith changes the person of faith. Finally, Tanya describes how cultural theories of mind also have an impact on the manifestation of anomalous, sensory experiences across contexts.
The episode is part of Regnfang’s series of co-publications of the Anthropology on Air podcast. A podcast created and published in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. The podcast was recorded in early December 2023, when Tanya was in Bergen to be a panellist of the annual Holberg Debate.
 
Resources:
Academic Profile: https://anthropology.stanford.edu/people/tanya-marie-luhrmann
Personal website: https://www.tanyaluhrmann.com
-       When God talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (2012)
-       Of Two Minds: An anthropologist looks at American Psychiatry (2001)
-       Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (1989)
-       How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others (2020)
-       Special issue: ‘Mind and Spirit: a Comparative Theory’ (2020)
-       Article mentioned: ‘Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths’ (2021)


Host and production: Sidsel Marie
Music: Victor Lange

In this episode, you will meet professor at the University of Oxford, Harvey Whitehouse. Harvey is the director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, he is Statutory Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of Magdalen College. Harvey has worked extensively with rituals since his first long-term fieldwork in Papua New Guinea in 1980s. His list of publications includes myriads of interdisciplinary contributions, articles, and edited volumes apart from books, with the most recent being ‘The Ritual Animal’ (from 2021).
Currently, Harvey is testing and developing his theory of modes of religiosity which proposes that the frequency, transmission form and emotionality of rituals influences the scale and structure of social organisation. In recent years, his research has expanded beyond religion to examine all kinds of ritual behaviour globally and their role in binding groups together whether being in the context of football, war, or ex-convicts. Apart from that, Harvey has been occupied with questions on the evolution of social complexity, something which is also explored in his forthcoming book ‘Inheritance: the evolutionary origins of the modern world’ that will be published in June 2024. 
In this podcast, we talk with Harvey about what characterises rituals, what kinds of social effects they can produce, and how they have developed throughout history and influenced social organisation. Harvey explains the modes of religiosity theory and we discuss how it can be usefully applied in relation to conflict and contexts as diverse as football fandom, violent extremism, and the environmental crisis. Finally, Harvey shares his vision of an anthropology that reaches beyond interpretive exclusivism and disciplinary silos when trying to understand cultural and social systems.
The episode is part of Regnfang’s series of co-publications of the Anthropology on Air podcast. A podcast created and published in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. The podcast was recorded in November 2023, when Harvey visited Bergen to give the yearly Barth Memorial Lecture.
 
Resources:
Academic profile: https://www.anthro.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-harvey-whitehouse
Personal website: https://www.harveywhitehouse.com
Paper mentioned: Rethinking ritual: how rituals made our world and how they could save it (2023)
Books mentioned: The Ritual Animal (2021), ‘Inheritance: the evolutionary origins of the modern world (forthcoming)

In this episode you will meet Jennifer Hays, who is professor in social anthropology at the University of Tromsø (UiT) – the Arctic University of Norway. Jennifer has been working with hunter-gatherer San Populations in southern Africa for 25 years, as a researcher, and as a consultant for governmental bodies and local and international NGOs. She is, among other things, a founding member of the Hunter Gatherer Education Research and Advocacy Group (HG-Edu), a board member of the Kalahari Peoples’ Fund. She also works as a consultant for UN bodies on global human rights issues. A primary focus of her work has been on issues relating to education, language, and indigenous rights, including the impact of formal education on San lifeways and on their own efforts to attain educational self-determination.
In the podcast, Jennifer gives us insights into what characterises the ways of life of the approximately 10 million people worldwide who live in contemporary hunter-gatherer communities. Focusing on the Ju/’hoansi in the Nyae Nyae conservancy in Namibia, where Jennifer has conducted decades of extensive fieldwork, we discuss some of the challenges that this community face, especially in terms of education and knowledge transmission.
Finally, Jennifer offers some reflections on the complex topic of how we can uphold the rights to self-determination of indigenous peoples, and some of the pitfalls that we must take caution to avoid.
The episode is part of Regnfang’s series of co-publications of the Anthropology on Air podcast. A podcast created and published in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. The podcast was recorded in early November 2023 when Jennifer was in Bergen to give a lecture at the Bergen Anthropology Department Seminars.


Resources:
-       Read more about Jennifer’s work and find her publications here
Host and production: Sidsel Marie
Music: Victor Lange

I denne udsendelse kan du møde filosof og filosofihistoriker Sabrina Ebbersmeyer. Sabrina er lektor på Københavns Universitet, hvor hun forsker og underviser. Hun har publiceret en lang række artikler, bogkapitler og bøger om forskellige filosofiske spørgsmål - heriblandt renæssancens filosofi, naturforståelse,  kvindelige filosoffers plads i filosofihistorien og forholdet mellem emotioner og rationalitet. 
I dette interview giver Sabrina en introduktion til flere filosofiske diskussioner. Hun giver et overblik over renæssanc ens syn på sjælen, herunder den italienske filosof Telesios teori om emotioner. Derudover taler vi om den danske adelskvinde og filosof Birgitte Thotts oversættelse af Seneca. Slutteligt fortæller Sabrina om et nyt og stort anlagt forskningsprojekt, der skal udforske kvindelige filosoffers rolle i Nordens oplysningstid. Hun har netop modtaget midler til det projekt fra det meget prestigefyldte European Research Council (ECR). 
Jeg nød virkelig at tale med Sabrina. Hendes forskning og perspektiver på filosofi er enormt berigende og utrolig interessante. Jeg vil anbefale alle, der har interesse for filosofi, at følge hendes arbejde.


God fornøjelse. 


Klipning: Sidsel Marie 
Musik og vært: Victor Lange 

I denne udsendelse kan du møde Hans Jørgen Brøndum. Hans Jørgen drev trykkeriet og forlaget Brøndum i næsten 40 år, i Nansensgade 41 i København. Brøndum opsatte, trykte og udgav nogle af de fineste udgivelser, vi har på dansk. Det gjaldt danske og udenlandske forfattere og kunstnere såsom Inger Christensen, Henrik Nordbrandt, Per Kirkeby, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett og Fernando Pessoa. 
Hans Jørgen giver i nærværende udsendelse en række erindringer omkring sit virke. Han fortæller om sine unge år som studerende på kunstakademiet i København, om sit første møde med blandt andet digteren Ole Sarvig, om de tidlige år med trykkeriet og om de mange forskellige mennesker, der kom på Nansensgade 41. Du kan høre om, hvordan Hans Jørgen arbejdede sammen med Inger Christensen i forbindelse med udgivelsen af Sommerfugledalen, eller hvordan han indledte sit årelange venskab og virke med Henrik Nordbrandt og Per Kirkeby.
Jeg vil anbefale, at man anskaffer sig Hans Jørgens erindringer, I en kælder sort som kul. Den er enormt velskrevet og indeholder virkelig interessante betragtninger omkring litteratur, kunst og livet i det hele taget. Den kan købes i butikken på Nansensgade 41.


God fornøjelse.

Welcome to Regnfang’s co-publication of the Anthropology on Air podcast. A podcast created and published in collaboration with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Each episode features interviews with social sciences researchers on topics related to the ways in which our human mind and life is entangled with the communities of ideas and beings with whom we live.
In this episode, you will meet Matthew Carey who is associate professor at the Department of Anthropology at Copenhagen University. Matthew’s main field site is in the Moroccan High Atlas where he has done recurring fieldwork since 2002. His work here has, among other things, focused on mistrust, complicity, egalitarianism, sincerity, subjectivity, medical pluralism, and anarchism. Apart from that, Matthew has written on issues related to apocalyptic discourses, conspiracy, lying, and bureaucracy.
 In this conversation, we talk with Matthew about his book ‘Mistrust: An ethnographic theory’ before delving into the subject of infant mortality and parental grief among Tachelhit-Berber speaking communities in Southern Morocco. In trying to explain the radical difference here between showcase and claimed experience of grief when small compared to older children passed away, Matthew provides an anthropological analysis of different forms of emotional attachment and relational bonding.
 The podcast was recorded in early May 2023 when Matthew was in Bergen to give a presentation at the Bergen Social Anthropology Seminar (BSAS).


Host and production: Sidsel Marie
Music: Victor Lange