Urmila Mohan
Biographic Data
| ID | 91547 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Urmila Mohan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Urmila |
| FAMILY NAME | Mohan |
| SIGNATURE | MOHAN U |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7174-0140 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
"Efficacious intimacy" and the making of embodied worlds through belief practices
This article is written from an anthropological perspective that emphasizes making and motion in material culture studies as ways to understand the embodied, social aspects of religion. It summarizes key aspects of the 'efficacious intimacy' framework as developed by the author over the last decade, linking the bodily-and-material to subject, object, and worldmaking processes, affects and effects, and emphasizes the relevance of these ideas for t…
The Efficacy of Intimacy and Belief in Worldmaking Practices
Masking in Pandemic U.S
Classification Schemes Gone Awry
Classification schemes for collecting, studying, and displaying objects in museum contexts are power-filled forms of knowledge in Foucauldian senses. When such typologies are imprecise or, more harmfully, misleading or forthrightly mistaken, a museum's collecting practices, curatorial interpretations, and exhibition display decisions can go astray and obscure the social structural and ideological processes that produced the objects in the first p…
The Indonesian Alcove at the American Museum of Natural History
Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were iconic figures whose contributions to visual anthropology are well documented, but what is less well known is their role as collectors and curators of Indonesian objects. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses a large Balinese collection with numerous textiles, paintings, carvings, and puppets. Some of these objects were housed in permanent exhibits, such as the AMNH's Hall of Pacific People (H…
The Power of Fabrication
The fabrication and usage of cloth is part of human experience in cultures around the world. The material is part of religion, politics, economics, and kinship, among other domains (Weiner and Schn
Objecthood
The anthropological study of objecthood as the sociocultural context of being and becoming an object involves attention to the materiality and agency of objects, form and meaning, and dynamic processes of objectification. Objecthood goes beyond the issue of semiotic evaluation since objects become sociocultural agents through a network of entities that range from aesthetics and the effects of their physical properties to the values and meanings i…
Curatorial Authority in Digital Scholarship
Clothing as a Technology of Enchantment
This paper explores the effects and uses of shining garments in the contemporary Hindu group Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Shiny, decorative surfaces perform a paradoxical function in Iskcon's temple in Mayapur, India, and are worn both by deities and devotees in specific contexts. The importance of glaze can be understood through the centrality of gaze in Hindu worship, i.e., the magical efficacy of darshan where the …
Brinkgreve, Francine
Anthropos , Seite 647 - 648
Marching the devotional subject
Drawing on the Maussian notion of the technologies of the body, on the Schilderian theory of the Körperschema, on the neurocognitive sciences and the Foucauldian concept of subjectivation, this article shifts the study of religion away from the verbalized creeds, doctrines and texts towards the consideration of the bodily-and-material cultures that are prominent in most, if not all, religious traditions. This shift helps us to understand how the …
From prayer beads to the mechanical counter
This paper compares the use of older and newer technologies in Hindu chanting through the example of Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees. Iskcon is global but has spiritual roots in West Bengal, India, and devotees try to connect with the deity Krishna through daily chanting. The use of prayer beads is compared to the mechanical counter, the haptics of chanting is linked to the co-ordination of mental and physical rh…
Marching the devotional subject
Drawing on the Maussian notion of the technologies of the body, on the Schilderian theory of the Körperschema, on the neurocognitive sciences and the Foucauldian concept of subjectivation, this article shifts the study of religion away from the verbalized creeds, doctrines and texts towards the consideration of the bodily-and-material cultures that are prominent in most, if not all, religious traditions. This shift helps us to understand how the …
From prayer beads to the mechanical counter
This paper compares the use of older and newer technologies in Hindu chanting through the example of Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees. Iskcon is global but has spiritual roots in West Bengal, India, and devotees try to connect with the deity Krishna through daily chanting. The use of prayer beads is compared to the mechanical counter, the haptics of chanting is linked to the co-ordination of mental and physical rh…
The Indonesian Alcove at the American Museum of Natural History
Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were iconic figures whose contributions to visual anthropology are well documented, but what is less well known is their role as collectors and curators of Indonesian objects. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses a large Balinese collection with numerous textiles, paintings, carvings, and puppets. Some of these objects were housed in permanent exhibits, such as the AMNH's Hall of Pacific People (H…
From prayer beads to the mechanical counter
This paper compares the use of older and newer technologies in Hindu chanting through the example of Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees. Iskcon is global but has spiritual roots in West Bengal, India, and devotees try to connect with the deity Krishna through daily chanting. The use of prayer beads is compared to the mechanical counter, the haptics of chanting is linked to the co-ordination of mental and physical rh…
Clothing as a Technology of Enchantment
This paper explores the effects and uses of shining garments in the contemporary Hindu group Iskcon (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). Shiny, decorative surfaces perform a paradoxical function in Iskcon's temple in Mayapur, India, and are worn both by deities and devotees in specific contexts. The importance of glaze can be understood through the centrality of gaze in Hindu worship, i.e., the magical efficacy of darshan where the …
Brinkgreve, Francine
Anthropos , Seite 647 - 648
Marching the devotional subject
Drawing on the Maussian notion of the technologies of the body, on the Schilderian theory of the Körperschema, on the neurocognitive sciences and the Foucauldian concept of subjectivation, this article shifts the study of religion away from the verbalized creeds, doctrines and texts towards the consideration of the bodily-and-material cultures that are prominent in most, if not all, religious traditions. This shift helps us to understand how the …
Objecthood
The anthropological study of objecthood as the sociocultural context of being and becoming an object involves attention to the materiality and agency of objects, form and meaning, and dynamic processes of objectification. Objecthood goes beyond the issue of semiotic evaluation since objects become sociocultural agents through a network of entities that range from aesthetics and the effects of their physical properties to the values and meanings i…
Curatorial Authority in Digital Scholarship
The Power of Fabrication
The fabrication and usage of cloth is part of human experience in cultures around the world. The material is part of religion, politics, economics, and kinship, among other domains (Weiner and Schn
Classification Schemes Gone Awry
Classification schemes for collecting, studying, and displaying objects in museum contexts are power-filled forms of knowledge in Foucauldian senses. When such typologies are imprecise or, more harmfully, misleading or forthrightly mistaken, a museum's collecting practices, curatorial interpretations, and exhibition display decisions can go astray and obscure the social structural and ideological processes that produced the objects in the first p…
The Indonesian Alcove at the American Museum of Natural History
Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson were iconic figures whose contributions to visual anthropology are well documented, but what is less well known is their role as collectors and curators of Indonesian objects. The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses a large Balinese collection with numerous textiles, paintings, carvings, and puppets. Some of these objects were housed in permanent exhibits, such as the AMNH's Hall of Pacific People (H…
Masking in Pandemic U.S
The Efficacy of Intimacy and Belief in Worldmaking Practices
"Efficacious intimacy" and the making of embodied worlds through belief practices
This article is written from an anthropological perspective that emphasizes making and motion in material culture studies as ways to understand the embodied, social aspects of religion. It summarizes key aspects of the 'efficacious intimacy' framework as developed by the author over the last decade, linking the bodily-and-material to subject, object, and worldmaking processes, affects and effects, and emphasizes the relevance of these ideas for t…
Art (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (3 works) · Asian Studies and History (2 works) · Computer Science (2 works) · Embodied cognition (2 works)