[Anthropgrad] Reminder: Wednesday Anthropology Seminar

[Ian Keen]

Reminder: Anthropology Seminar Wednesday 10 September 2008
9.30-11.00 a.m. Seminar Room A, Coombs Building, ANU

Ian Keen
Visiting Fellow
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU

'Language and the Constitution of the Supernatural'
Abstract

The paper asks, on what particular properties of language do we draw in
order to bring supernatural entities into virtual existence? Boyer?s
cognitive theory of religion proposes that religious ideas are
successful because they violate the assumptions underlying familiar
conceptual domains, especially that of the person. This theory, though
fruitful, leaves the role of language largely implicit. The paper
proposes ?non-natural predication?, linked here to theories of semantic
constraints, as the linguistic expression of Boyer?s cognitive domain
hypothesis. 
    The roles of non-natural predication in several kinds of language
use are explored in relation to two case studies. The first draws on
transcriptions and translations of cuneiform texts of the Epic of
Creation and the ?Washing of the Mouth? ritual of Babylonian religion;
the second draws on Boddy?s account of the Zar possession cult in the
northern Sudan. In the first, gods were believed to enter and vivify
images (with telling similarities to modern Hinduism); in the second,
jinn spirits are believed to possess persons.
    The paper outlines the properties attributed to Babylonian gods and
images, and to Hofriyati spirits and persons. It shows that narratives
informing the rituals frame supernatural entities by means of
non-natural predicates across the several aspects and dimensions of
narrative. Imaginary properties of objects and persons central to the
rituals are constituted in a related way. It goes on to consider the
relationship between descriptions and narratives that are fundamental to
the constitution of supernatural entities, ritual enactments and
utterances made in the course of those enactments, and the significance
of objects and visual representations. While non-linguistic semiotics
have certain autonomous properties, their significance in these
religious contexts is dependent on descriptions which invoke virtual
referents whose properties are ascribed by means of non-normal
predicates. The paper is thus an exploration of language as an
instrument of the imagination.