Manager/Coordinator SFB 619
PD Dr. Thomas Widlok
Thomas Widlok is an Anglo-German anthropologist who studied at Münster and Cologne before completing his MSc and PhD at the London School of Economics in 1994. Since then he has held a number of teaching and research positions, lecturing at the Universities of London, Cologne, Heidelberg and – currently – Durham (UK). His research expertise includes the anthropology of religion and economic anthropology. He has carried out long-term field research with hunter-gatherer groups in Australia and above all Namibia being affiliated with the MPI for Social Anthropolgy in Halle and at present with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen.
P 09 - Ritual Economics
Chair: PD Dr. Thomas Widlok thomas.Widlok@mpi.nl
Download preliminary daily schedule here (pdf)
(for better readability kindly print it out)
Common activities:
Reception
On Monday, 29 September, we will officially open the conference with a
reception from 19.30 to 22.30
Key Note Lecture
Tuesday, 30 September:
Key Note Speaker Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.
"Magie und Ritual"
Plenary Discussion
Wednesday, 1 October at 18.00 introductory presentation:
Prof. Dr. Christoph Wulf, Freie Universität Berlin
"The Future of the Science of Ritual in a transcultural Context"
Exchange meeting
Thursday, 2 October from 9:00 - 11:00:
Exchange meeting between scientists from
the German Archaeological Institute
and the Collaborative Research
Center SFB 619
Speakers (synonym for referee, panelist, active participant)
Day 3 – Wednesday, 1 October 2008
9:00-9:45 Jerome Lewis
When goods are shared but ideas are traded:
Ritual economics amongst hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin
9:45-10:30 Dasaiku Tsuru
Spirit Possession among the Baka Pygmies
11:00-11:45 Peter Flügel
Jain Ritual Theory and Practice
11:45-12:30 Corey Lee Bell
Hidden Money, Revealed Sentiment:
Prosperity, Heteromorphic Reciprocity and Relationship Maintenance
in the Bestowal of Laih-sih (red envelopes) in Hong Kong
14:00-14:45 Peter Seele
Competitive advantages of participating in rituals -
An economist’s struggle with collective action and public choice
14:45-15:30 Michael Kozuh
Animal sacrifice at the Eanna temple of Uruk
16:00-16:45 Daniel Schläppi
Wahltag ist Zahltag. Ritualisierte Politik, Ämterkauf und
geschmierte Plebiszite als Ausdruck eines korporativ gedachten
politischen Gemeinwesens am Beispiel der Alten
Eidgenossenschaft (17. und 18. Jahrhundert)
Day 4 – Thursday, 2 October 2008
9:00-9:45 Thomas Widlok
Ritual and
altruism
9:45-10:30 Peter Finke
Ritual and institutional economics
11:00-11:45 Gabriele Sorgo
Rituale an Übergangsorten:
Events in städtischen Einkaufszentren
11:45-12:30 Joachim Görlich
The marketing of an initiation ritual as a
‘real cultural show’ in Papua New Guinea
14:00-14:45 Adriene Baron Tacla
‘And they came bearing gifts…’ - A ‘prestation economy’ in
Western-European early Iron Age societies
14:45-15:30 Vassiliki Koutrafouri
Economy vs. Religion: cooperative, influential or causal relations?
A case study from Aceramic Neolithic Eastern Mediterranean
16:00-16:45 Martin Ramstedt
The Economic Struggle about Ritual in Post-New Order Bali
16:45-17:30 Akira Takada
Reiterating birth:
The spread of the cabama ritual in the central Kalahari
Abstract
"Ritual economics" invites contributions that investigate to what extent the domain of ritual, both religious and secular, is governed by the same logic as economics, whether rituals contain an open or implicit renunciation of everyday economic behaviour, and how assumptions about similarities and differences between ritual and economics have influenced the documentation and analysis of rituals. Are the forms of exchange that are found in rituals simply another form of economizing? Are they opposed to such economizing? Are they independent of it?
Particularly welcome are papers that deal with ritual and economic dynamics: What insights can be gained by comparing ritual and economics with reference to temporal, spatial and social dynamics? How do the expectations of what is "not yet" (e.g. concepts of spiritual/material growth) and of what "will not" be (e.g. concepts of death and decline) influence the practices and processes that govern ritual economics?
