May 15, 2021

3:30pm Central (UTC 20:30)

Amid a moment of crisis, how might the anthropology of religion shift its focus from “ethics” to “politics”? This lecture begins by highlighting three ways in which our field has taken on politics in recent years: by troubling the distinction between ethics and politics; by thinking religion together with pressing political issues; and by taking a critical look at our conceptual horizons. Elaborating on this third way, it proposes that the anthropology of religion needs to move beyond the human horizon that has historically delimited our analytical and ethnographic frameworks. It asks what it might mean to ethnographically grapple with something bigger, namely: God. Prompted by a reflection on the phrase Allahu akbar (God is the greatest), the lecture maps the challenges posed by a god greater than the human imagination, and considers a range of writing strategies that might help make our texts hospitable to such a figure. Bringing Islam into the ongoing conversation about the relationship between theology and anthropology, this lecture suggests that the figure of God directs us toward the evasive and unknowable—toward that which exceeds our grasp, writing, and analysis. Writing beyond the human horizon presents ethnographic challenges, but ultimately expands rather than curtails politics. Doing so, this lecture suggests, represents a key anthropological contribution to attempts to navigate current political crises.

Amira Mittermaier is Professor of Anthropology and the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011) and Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times (University of California Press, 2019).