Don Seeman is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. He is co-editor of the "Contemporary Anthropology of Religion" series at Palgrave and is also the convener of the 'Emory Forum for the Ethnographic Study of Religion.' He currently holds research grants from the Social Science Research Council and the Mind-Life Institute. He received his PhD in Social and Medical Anthropology from Harvard University, where he was advised by Arthur Kleinman and also held an NIMH postdoctoral fellowship in applied medical anthropology. He works to bring together textual and ethnographic research methods and to forge new bridges between anthropology and religious studies approaches to the study of human experience. His work speaks to ritual theory, medical/psychological anthropology and the phenomenology of religion.
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion (Palgrave Macmillan)
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is proudly sponsored by the Society for the Anthropology of... more Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is proudly sponsored by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion,. and is co-edited by Don Seeman and Tulasi Srinivas. We seek proposals for ethnographic monographs and edited volumes that contribute broadly to the anthropological study of religious experience, cultures and practice, as well as innovative interdisciplinary works. Please see our flier for more details!
The new softcover edition is out (Jan. 2022!). See the attached flier for a discount code, 30% o... more The new softcover edition is out (Jan. 2022!). See the attached flier for a discount code, 30% off till May and 50% for the rest of this month when you order directly from the publisher!
This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures o... more This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures of the World,” edited by Matti Bunzl and Jeffrey Shandler.
Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.
Ethos: Journal of Psychological Anthropology, Mar 2012
""In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in... more ""In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in psychological anthropology and beyond. Like 'culture,' which it arguably seeks to either qualify or displace, the concept of 'experience' has generated its own interpretive literature, competing schools of analysis, and internal resistances. We propose that the anthropology of experience has achieved a degree of recognition and maturity that renders genealogical reflection, stocktaking, and agenda setting both possible and necessary.
Although the anthropology of experience, like experience itself, does not (and perhaps should not) lend itself to easy definition as a singular or unified theoretical paradigm, it does involve a fluid constellation of themes shared by what are traditionally regarded as parallel or divergent lines of inquiry: what might be glossed imperfectly as the phenomenological and psychoanalytic schools within sociocultural anthropology. Here we aim neither for naıve synthesis nor a mathematical sum of parts, but for more adequate ways of depicting and making sense of what Dewey calls 'the inclusive integrity of "experience."’ This will require more concerted attention to the sources of ethnographic inquiétude—the gaps, silences, limits, and opacities—that either preoccupy or remain overlooked within both traditions." [experience, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, phenomenological anthropology, psychoanalytic anthropology, inquiétude]""
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, 2010
Despite the explosion of interest in Jewish mysticism in recent decades, scholars have only rec... more Despite the explosion of interest in Jewish mysticism in recent decades, scholars have only recently begun to explore in any depth how mystical texts function as literature. This includes not just literary readings of Jewish mystical texts, but also extends to questions of mystical and literary efficacy. In other words, what kinds of strategies are employed in Jewish mystical writing to convey mystical content and ethos, to shape religious subjectivity in distinctive ways, or even to influence the cosmos through specialized acts of writing and reading (i.e., producing and consuming literature)? Moreover, how do these literary and mystical projects intersect, reinforce, and possibly even place limits upon one another in different textual settings? Finally, how might consideration of these topics change the way we think about Jewish literary studies more broadly?
This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theolo... more This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theological inquiry. The following round table between theologians, anthropologists and scholars of religion asks each participant to reflect on the limitations of their own major field of inquiry
This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theolo... more This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theological inquiry. The following round table between theologians, anthropologists and scholars of religion asks each participant to reflect on the limitations of their own major field of inquiry
... Back to Top. Postcolonial Disorders (review). Don Seeman. Common Knowledge, Volume 15, Issue ... more ... Back to Top. Postcolonial Disorders (review). Don Seeman. Common Knowledge, Volume 15, Issue 3, Fall 2009, pp. 510-511 (Review). ...
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook (b. 1865–d. 1935) is considered one of the most important moder... more Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook (b. 1865–d. 1935) is considered one of the most important modern Jewish thinkers and shaper of some of the most significant trends in Religious Zionism. He was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and the founder of the institutional state rabbinate, as well as an influential yeshiva known as Mercaz Ha-Rav. Rabbi Kook was known for the breadth and depth of his scholarship across all the branches of traditional Jewish scholarship, including law, philosophy, and Kabbalah as well as his appreciation for contemporary science and non-Jewish philosophy. Witnessing the disaffection or rebellion of Jewish youth from tradition, particularly among the Zionist pioneers in the Land of Israel, he devoted himself with special fervor to the attempted reconciliation of modernity with Orthodox Judaism. To this end, he developed a series of dialectical responses that often seemed to accord spiritual dignity to the characteristic features of modern c...
William Robertson Smith wrote in 1885 that the biblical convention whereby aman is said to “go in... more William Robertson Smith wrote in 1885 that the biblical convention whereby aman is said to “go in” to his bride represents a linguistic trace ofonce widespread “beena marriage,” in which men joined the natal households of the women who took them as husbands. It was an error of literalist reductionism, but one that lent support to an imposing infrastructure of systematic kinship theory and evolutionism that continues to excercise an influenceon some contemporary scholars. Another way of saying this is that Robertson Smith failed to recognize a significant biblical metaphor—that of men enteringwomen's tents—when he saw one. This misapprehension of biblical poetics has had important consequences for the way in which he and his successors have interpreted the Hebrew Bible.
Ce commentaire critique de l'article d'Eliezer Witztum et Yehuda Goodman, paru dans le me... more Ce commentaire critique de l'article d'Eliezer Witztum et Yehuda Goodman, paru dans le meme numero, sur la psychotherapie de juifs appartenant a la communaute ultra-orthodoxe Hareidi de Jerusalem, souligne d'importantes questions theoriques quant aux modalites d'une psychotherapie fondee sur la narration de la douleur. L'A. pose la question d'une psychologie adaptee a cette communaute culturelle et religieuse d'une part, et celle plus generale d'une phenomenologie culturelle. L'A. montre que le recours a la subjectivite en ethnopsychiatrie, a l'experience collective et a la signification culturelle est fondamental pour l'avancee de la psychologie clinique et theorique.
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion (Palgrave Macmillan)
Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is proudly sponsored by the Society for the Anthropology of... more Contemporary Anthropology of Religion is proudly sponsored by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion,. and is co-edited by Don Seeman and Tulasi Srinivas. We seek proposals for ethnographic monographs and edited volumes that contribute broadly to the anthropological study of religious experience, cultures and practice, as well as innovative interdisciplinary works. Please see our flier for more details!
The new softcover edition is out (Jan. 2022!). See the attached flier for a discount code, 30% o... more The new softcover edition is out (Jan. 2022!). See the attached flier for a discount code, 30% off till May and 50% for the rest of this month when you order directly from the publisher!
This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures o... more This book is the inaugural volume in a new series on Jewish Ethnography called “Jewish Cultures of the World,” edited by Matti Bunzl and Jeffrey Shandler.
Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.
Ethos: Journal of Psychological Anthropology, Mar 2012
""In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in... more ""In recent decades, human experience has become focus or frame for a wide variety of projects in psychological anthropology and beyond. Like 'culture,' which it arguably seeks to either qualify or displace, the concept of 'experience' has generated its own interpretive literature, competing schools of analysis, and internal resistances. We propose that the anthropology of experience has achieved a degree of recognition and maturity that renders genealogical reflection, stocktaking, and agenda setting both possible and necessary.
Although the anthropology of experience, like experience itself, does not (and perhaps should not) lend itself to easy definition as a singular or unified theoretical paradigm, it does involve a fluid constellation of themes shared by what are traditionally regarded as parallel or divergent lines of inquiry: what might be glossed imperfectly as the phenomenological and psychoanalytic schools within sociocultural anthropology. Here we aim neither for naıve synthesis nor a mathematical sum of parts, but for more adequate ways of depicting and making sense of what Dewey calls 'the inclusive integrity of "experience."’ This will require more concerted attention to the sources of ethnographic inquiétude—the gaps, silences, limits, and opacities—that either preoccupy or remain overlooked within both traditions." [experience, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, phenomenological anthropology, psychoanalytic anthropology, inquiétude]""
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, 2010
Despite the explosion of interest in Jewish mysticism in recent decades, scholars have only rec... more Despite the explosion of interest in Jewish mysticism in recent decades, scholars have only recently begun to explore in any depth how mystical texts function as literature. This includes not just literary readings of Jewish mystical texts, but also extends to questions of mystical and literary efficacy. In other words, what kinds of strategies are employed in Jewish mystical writing to convey mystical content and ethos, to shape religious subjectivity in distinctive ways, or even to influence the cosmos through specialized acts of writing and reading (i.e., producing and consuming literature)? Moreover, how do these literary and mystical projects intersect, reinforce, and possibly even place limits upon one another in different textual settings? Finally, how might consideration of these topics change the way we think about Jewish literary studies more broadly?
This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theolo... more This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theological inquiry. The following round table between theologians, anthropologists and scholars of religion asks each participant to reflect on the limitations of their own major field of inquiry
This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theolo... more This third volume of Practical Matters is devoted entirely to questions of ethnography and theological inquiry. The following round table between theologians, anthropologists and scholars of religion asks each participant to reflect on the limitations of their own major field of inquiry
... Back to Top. Postcolonial Disorders (review). Don Seeman. Common Knowledge, Volume 15, Issue ... more ... Back to Top. Postcolonial Disorders (review). Don Seeman. Common Knowledge, Volume 15, Issue 3, Fall 2009, pp. 510-511 (Review). ...
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook (b. 1865–d. 1935) is considered one of the most important moder... more Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook (b. 1865–d. 1935) is considered one of the most important modern Jewish thinkers and shaper of some of the most significant trends in Religious Zionism. He was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and the founder of the institutional state rabbinate, as well as an influential yeshiva known as Mercaz Ha-Rav. Rabbi Kook was known for the breadth and depth of his scholarship across all the branches of traditional Jewish scholarship, including law, philosophy, and Kabbalah as well as his appreciation for contemporary science and non-Jewish philosophy. Witnessing the disaffection or rebellion of Jewish youth from tradition, particularly among the Zionist pioneers in the Land of Israel, he devoted himself with special fervor to the attempted reconciliation of modernity with Orthodox Judaism. To this end, he developed a series of dialectical responses that often seemed to accord spiritual dignity to the characteristic features of modern c...
William Robertson Smith wrote in 1885 that the biblical convention whereby aman is said to “go in... more William Robertson Smith wrote in 1885 that the biblical convention whereby aman is said to “go in” to his bride represents a linguistic trace ofonce widespread “beena marriage,” in which men joined the natal households of the women who took them as husbands. It was an error of literalist reductionism, but one that lent support to an imposing infrastructure of systematic kinship theory and evolutionism that continues to excercise an influenceon some contemporary scholars. Another way of saying this is that Robertson Smith failed to recognize a significant biblical metaphor—that of men enteringwomen's tents—when he saw one. This misapprehension of biblical poetics has had important consequences for the way in which he and his successors have interpreted the Hebrew Bible.
Ce commentaire critique de l'article d'Eliezer Witztum et Yehuda Goodman, paru dans le me... more Ce commentaire critique de l'article d'Eliezer Witztum et Yehuda Goodman, paru dans le meme numero, sur la psychotherapie de juifs appartenant a la communaute ultra-orthodoxe Hareidi de Jerusalem, souligne d'importantes questions theoriques quant aux modalites d'une psychotherapie fondee sur la narration de la douleur. L'A. pose la question d'une psychologie adaptee a cette communaute culturelle et religieuse d'une part, et celle plus generale d'une phenomenologie culturelle. L'A. montre que le recours a la subjectivite en ethnopsychiatrie, a l'experience collective et a la signification culturelle est fondamental pour l'avancee de la psychologie clinique et theorique.
This article examines the significance of Birgit Meyer’s work on the ‘moral imaginary.’ The first... more This article examines the significance of Birgit Meyer’s work on the ‘moral imaginary.’ The first part of the article argues that Meyer has more in common with phenomenological anthropologists than she admits and endorses her approach to the current debate between ‘ontological’ and ‘cultural constructivist’ approaches. The second section invokes the moral psychology of Maimonides along with contemporary debates in the anthropology of Islam to argue that Meyer’s work should stimulate a broadly comparative approach to the whole topic of moral imagination. Do filmic media, for example, inevitably favor a dualistic conflict between personifications of good and evil over other, more monistic, religious positions? And how might the study of medieval moral psychologies enrich the contemporary ethnography of religion?
... Hinduism may resonate with unconscious fantasies, Ingham writes, but this is not all it is... more ... Hinduism may resonate with unconscious fantasies, Ingham writes, but this is not all it is about and, in any case, what is more interesting is the way in which Hindu epics, lore, and practice may have rhetorical effects on socially ger-mane unconscious motivation (1996: 238). ...
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2012
One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism, by Don Seeman. New Brunswick... more One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism, by Don Seeman. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009. 240 pp. $46.95. One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism is an ethnographic study of the "Feres Mura" in Israel and Ethiopia. The so-called "Feres Mura" are the descendants of Ethiopian Jews, some of whose ancestors converted to Christianity in Ethiopia in the 1800s but have now reasserted their Jewish identity and desire to live in Israel. There are now more than 100,000 Ethiopians living as Jews in Israel, with about 20,000 "Feres Mura" who are the central concern of Seeman, although he also gives attention to "Feres Mura" still in Ethiopia. Seeman started research on the Beta Israel community in 1989, conducted research in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the summers of 1992 and 1993 and in Israel between 1994 and 1996, and concentrated on Jerusalem and Haifa, including immigrant absorption centers, between 1998 and 2003. He clearly is an expert on the topic. One of his main arguments is that the "Feres Mura" must be viewed as "an integral part of the larger Beta Israel or Ethiopian Jewish community whose center is today in Israel" (p. 5). Seeman notes that the term Beta Israel is the term most commonly used today in both academic and historical contexts, and is frequently used by Beta Israel to describe themselves. He puts the words "Feres Mura" in quotation marks every time he uses them, and advocates that another term should be used. In fact, as seen, he uses the more encompassing term Ethiopian-Israelis in the subtitle to make his point, this term being used to accurately include those "Feres Mura" who now live in Israel. Seeman emphasizes three spheres of state policy that impinge heavily upon the "Feres Mura": (1) immigration policy, (2) public health practice, and (3) the power of Israel's religious establishment. He also emphasizes the controversy over the policy of return to Judaism, a policy constantly under pressure to change, and which did change drastically during his years of research. Seeman reminds the reader that it was Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef 's ruling in 1973 accepting the Jewishness of the Beta Israel that set the stage for the eventual immigration to Israel of the Beta Israel, but that, after years of arguments both ways, this drastically changed in 2007 when Minister of the Interior Meir Shitreet "tried to galvanize public opinion to emend the Law of Return to withhold automatic citizenship from immigrant converts in order to remove the temptation of mass conversion by groups like the 'Feres Mura'" (p. 196). The Minister's position was, "No one should go looking for any lost tribes because I won't let them in any more. . . . Let them go to America" (p. 196). After an Introduction, the book is divided into seven chapters. In Chapter One, "A Death in Addis Ababa," in July 1992, a year after the "Feres Mura" dilemma "burst onto Israeli public consciousness" with the Operation Solomon airlift, Seeman introduces the reader to the "purity, authenticity, suffering, and a sense of belonging to a people and a nation" (p. 40). In Chapter Two, "The Question of Kinship," he gives a good historical overview of life in Ethiopia since the mid-1800s. Special attention is given to Abba Mahari, a leader of the Beta Israel in Ethiopia, who, in 1862, was among the leaders of a disastrous attempted exodus to the "Holy Land" of Israel because he believed that God was ready to gather diaspora Jews back to the land of their fathers. …
Rabbi Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica (18001853) has been described as the most radical of the... more Rabbi Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica (18001853) has been described as the most radical of the Jewish mystics and as a religious anarchist.1 Some scholars have wondered how he managed to resist the antinomian pull of his own doctrine, and to suffer the chaotic ...
We live in a time of extreme and increasing partisanship in American politics, and this may pose ... more We live in a time of extreme and increasing partisanship in American politics, and this may pose special challenges for rabbis and other public religious intellectuals. Should I eschew politics from the pulpit altogether as a pragmatic effort to serve a politically diverse community? Or should I feel called upon to adopt what some have labeled a " prophetic voice, " speaking forcefully in the name of Torah for a set of conclusions that may be more or less in line with those adopted by one of the warring factions of contemporary American civil life? As a personal matter, neither of these feels particularly authentic or useful. How can I self-righteously claim the authority of Torah for positions that can only be loosely accommodated, in the vast majority of cases, by the classical sources that define our tradition? And how, on the other hand, can a Torah divorced from the pressing issues of our day—refugees, national defense, taxation, and civil rights—be considered in any way a Torah of life? The pragmatic issues faced by rabbis in the field are real, but I want to take a more reflective approach to thinking about the different valences of Torah that we teach. What might a coherent philosophical account of the problem of " politics from the pulpit " look like?
This short reflective essay on Malbim's (1845) commentary on the Biblical Book of Esther explores... more This short reflective essay on Malbim's (1845) commentary on the Biblical Book of Esther explores Malbim's "proto-feminist" approach to the analysis of genocide and misogyny in Megillat Esther. Grounded in classical midrash and close reading of biblical texts, Malbim demonstrates the intersectionality of oppression and the need for more political sophistication in the way we read biblical texts.
This is my contribution to a round table on Ethnography and Theology I convened for the online jo... more This is my contribution to a round table on Ethnography and Theology I convened for the online journal Practical Matters (volume 6), 2013. Ethnographic writing as a hard moral praxis.
Based on ethnographic research I conducted as senior honors student, this paper examines the ways... more Based on ethnographic research I conducted as senior honors student, this paper examines the ways in which Ethiopians in Israel talk about race and color as elements of both distinction and shared identity in the context of meetings with African Americans, white Israeli and American Jews and Black Hebrews in Israel
Don Seeman and Daniel Reiser are hosting an international conference/workshop on the teachings of... more Don Seeman and Daniel Reiser are hosting an international conference/workshop on the teachings of R. Kalonymos Shapira, author of the last known work of traditional Jewish scholarship written on Polish soil, in the Warsaw Ghetto. Our conference celebrates Reiser's publication of a new critical edition of R. Shapira's Ghetto sermons and highlights some of the new directions in scholarship on his work.
The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University is pleased to announce a two day intern... more The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University is pleased to announce a two day international workshop (March 18-19, 2015) convened by Prof. Don Seeman and Dr. Shlomo Guzmen: "Jews, Text and Ethnography." This workshop will address critical theoretical and methodological issues in the anthropology of Judaism as well as comparative issues raised by the anthropology of textuality in Christianity and Islam. Participants include Jonathan Boyarin (Cornell University) Philip Wexler (the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Ayala Fader (Fordham), Marcy Brink Danan (The Hebrew University), Don Seeman (Emory) Alan Brill (Seton Hall), Simon Dein (University College, London), James Bielo (Miami University) and Sam Cooper (Bar-Ilan). More Details to Follow.
In 1970, Shlomo Pines argued on thematic and linguistic grounds that the 14 th century Arab histo... more In 1970, Shlomo Pines argued on thematic and linguistic grounds that the 14 th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun probably had access to Maimonides' 12 th century Judeo-Arabic work Guide of the Perplexed. Pines minimized Maimonides' influence on Ibn Khaldun to one brief passage in which Khaldun discusses aspects of Jewish or biblical history. Given the probability that Ibn Khaldun had access to the Guide, however, I argue that this philosophical work contributed significantly to Ibn Khaldun's theory of kinship solidarity (" group feeling ") or 'asabiyya upon which much of his Muqaddima turns. Three out of five of Ibn Khaldun's " premises " regarding kinship: the relationship between group feeling and agnatic lineage, the importance of desert life for promoting group feeling, and the importance of political rule by members of one's own lineage are all prefigured in Maimonides' account. I argue that Maimonides may have provide Ibn Khaldun with an important bridge between Arab kinship solidarity and Aristotelian philia. Beyond the claim of influence, this essay argues that both Maimonides' Guide and Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima may be better understood when read in juxtaposition. As exemplars of a broad medieval religious culture concerned with Aristotle, with kinship norms rooted in sacred scriptures and with arguments about historical causality, these are works that shed light on one another's most important themes. Maimonides reveals a missing intellectual context for Ibn Khaldun's 'asabiyya theory, which remains influential to this day; reading Ibn Khaldun helps to clarify Maimonides' neglected reflections on social theory and the centrality of kinship.
Building on a 1970 essay by Shlomo Pines showing that Ibn Khaldun most likely read the Guide of t... more Building on a 1970 essay by Shlomo Pines showing that Ibn Khaldun most likely read the Guide of the Perplexed I demonstrate that central features of Ibn Khaldun's theory of social solidarity ('asabiyya) are foreshadowed by Maimonides, and that this recognition helps to put both authors in a better interpretive context.
Bioethics has emerged as an academic discipline shaping the ways in which new reprod... more Bioethics has emerged as an academic discipline shaping the ways in which new reproductive technologies are used and conceptualized. While kinship and reproduction almost always raise implicit questions about ethics, the nature of personhood and the structure of cosmology, self-defined “religious bioethics” has done so in specially explicit and powerful ways. In recent years, moreover, the English language literature on first Christian and then Jewish bioethics has also burgeoned with attempts to create Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist bioethical accounts drawing on distinctive hermeneutic traditions and ethical strategies—each seeking a “seat at the table” - and the ability to help shape or enter into a conversation with the dominant biomedical (and avowedly secular) bioethical discourse. Yet while anthropologists have developed a significant literature engaging and critiquing the dominant biomedical discourse on reproduction, there has been far less explicit engagement with this emerging sacred bioethical literature. This chapter probes the relationship between avowedly sacred and secular bioethical discourses with respect to reproductive technology. It probes the relationship between the theologies and ethnographies of assisted reproduction and what these fields might learn from one another.
I argue that Saiman's beautifully written book is actually a work of practical theology rather th... more I argue that Saiman's beautifully written book is actually a work of practical theology rather than history or phenomenology of Jewish Law. This help's to explain the book's power, as well as its lacunae. Free and online at the journal of Law and Religion until February 15, 2020!
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Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.
Although the anthropology of experience, like experience itself, does not (and perhaps should not) lend itself to easy definition as a singular or unified theoretical paradigm, it does involve a fluid constellation of themes shared by what are traditionally regarded as parallel or divergent lines of inquiry: what might be glossed imperfectly as the phenomenological and psychoanalytic schools within sociocultural anthropology. Here we aim neither for naıve synthesis nor a mathematical sum of parts, but for more adequate ways of depicting and making sense of what Dewey calls 'the inclusive integrity of "experience."’ This will require more concerted attention to the sources of ethnographic inquiétude—the gaps, silences, limits, and opacities—that either preoccupy or remain overlooked within both traditions." [experience, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, phenomenological anthropology, psychoanalytic anthropology, inquiétude]""
Synopsis: “One People, One Blood” is an ethnographic study of Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity and are today clamoring for the right to ‘Return to Judaism’ and claim citizenship in the State Israel. It focuses on the lived experience of these refugees and on the complex moral and political controversy over their ongoing cultural and religious transformation. This is the first ethnography ever devoted to this group, or to the cultural politics of Ethiopian Judaism. I argue that epistemological limitations in the study of religious experience ought to be taken into account by Israeli policy makers who decide “who is a Jew” based on uncritical assumptions about the nature of religious conversion. I also use the ‘Feres Mura’ dilemma to raise broader questions about the nature of Jewishness and the political role of academic scholarship.
Although the anthropology of experience, like experience itself, does not (and perhaps should not) lend itself to easy definition as a singular or unified theoretical paradigm, it does involve a fluid constellation of themes shared by what are traditionally regarded as parallel or divergent lines of inquiry: what might be glossed imperfectly as the phenomenological and psychoanalytic schools within sociocultural anthropology. Here we aim neither for naıve synthesis nor a mathematical sum of parts, but for more adequate ways of depicting and making sense of what Dewey calls 'the inclusive integrity of "experience."’ This will require more concerted attention to the sources of ethnographic inquiétude—the gaps, silences, limits, and opacities—that either preoccupy or remain overlooked within both traditions." [experience, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, phenomenological anthropology, psychoanalytic anthropology, inquiétude]""