The seminar will cover the religions of the Indigenous religions of Lowland South America, with an emphasis on Amazonia, especially its shamanic traditions, as well as the Indigenous religions of Oceania. Topics will include worldview, ritual, and myth, as well as the effects of Christian missionary activity in these areas.
Evgenia Fotiou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Crete. She is a cultural anthropologist researching Indigenous Knowledge Systems, which often encompass both medical and religious knowledge. Specifically, she looks at how these systems get appropriated and re-imagined as they become globalized. She has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and Latin American studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed doctoral research on Amazonian shamanism in Peru and its transformation through globalization and shamanic tourism. Her current work urges scholars to reexamine assumptions about Indigenous Knowledge Systems and to engage meaningfully with non-Western epistemologies. She has served on the board of Anthropology of Consciousness, a section of the American Anthropological association, and has edited special issues in the journals Anthropology of Consciousness and Frontiers in Pharmacology. She is currently on the editorial boards of The Journal of Psychedelic Studies and Psychedelics.