More-than-human Religion: Indigeneity, Objects, and Ecologies

Do forests think? Are animals persons? Should museum objects be treated as subjects? “More-than-human Religion” is a collaborative project based at Florida State University around these sorts of questions. The goal is to foster conversation through the interdisciplinary study of religion between Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and theorizing, on the one hand, with the “material turn” in Anglo-American theory and method on the other hand. Other organizing questions include: What are the resources in Indigenous traditions for understanding materiality and human relationships with nonhuman worlds? How do religious ways of thinking and knowing influence broader social, political, and environmental spheres?

More-than-human Religion: Indigeneity, Objects, and Ecologies
Florida State University
April 25-28, 2024

Thursday (April 25)

5 pm – 6:30 pm Welcoming remarks and the Bartholomeusz keynote lecture
Globe Auditorium, Center for Global Engagement

Remarks from Elizabeth Cecil, Sonia Hazard, and Martin Kavka, chair of the FSU Religion Department

Radhika Govindrajan (Washington): “‘The Two Wives of Masan’: On Haunting, Ritual, and Interspecies Kinship in Himalayan India”

6:30 pm – 7:15 pm Public reception
Globe Auditorium foyer

7:30 pm Dinner for invited speakers

Friday (April 26)

9 am – 10:30 am Indigenous ontologies and ethics in the Americas
Student Union, room 2211

Natalie Avalos (UC Boulder): “A Native Teleology: Stewardship and the Sovereignty of Plant Medicines”

Rebecca J. Mendoza (Harvard): “Resisting Objectification: Relational Possibilities Among More-than-human Materials in the Museum”

James Waters (Villanova): “Vignettes of Lakota Ecological Ethics: Historical, Ethical, and Contemporary Perspectives on More-than-Human Persons”

Moderated by Martin Kavka (FSU Religion)

10:45 am – 12:15 pm Modern Languages and Linguistics plenary lecture, with support from the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
Student Union, room 2213 – Flannery Student Life Project Room

Wai Chee Dimock (Yale): “A Long History of Pandemics.” This talk explores the community-based science of the Cherokees and Navajos as a new form of more-than-human spirituality.

12:15 pm – 1 pm Catered vegetarian lunch for all conference attendees
Student Union, Ballrooms A & B (across the hall from 2213)

1 pm – 2:30 pm Panel discussion with Wai Chee Dimock
Student Union, room 2213 – Flannery Student Life Project Room

Panelists:
Andrew Frank (FSU History)
Amitav Ghosh
Franz Prichard (FSU Modern Languages and Linguistics)
Antje Muntendam (FSU Modern Languages and Linguistics)

Moderated by Elizabeth Cecil (FSU Religion)

3 pm – 4:30 pm Enchantments, materialities, agencies
Student Union, room 2211

Paul Christopher Johnson (Michigan): “‘My Mutilated Gods’: Rodin and the Modes of Statuary Life”

Sonia Hazard (FSU Religion): “Theory From Religion: Living in Joseph Smith’s World”

Nathanael Stein (FSU Philosophy): “Divinities and Disenchantment: Explaining the Natural World in Ancient Greek Philosophy”

Moderated by Alison Sperling (FSU English)

5 pm – 6:45 pm Keynote lecture featuring Amitav Ghosh
William Johnston Building Auditorium, room 2005

Welcoming remarks by Andrew Frank, Director of FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center

Amitav Ghosh: “Deadly Simplifications: Imagining the Future in a Warming World”

6:45 pm Public reception and book signing

7:30 pm Dinner for invited speakers

Saturday (April 27)

9 am – 10:30 am Ecologies of word & image in Indigenous art
Student Union, room 3010 – Senate Chambers

Kristin Dowell (FSU Art History): “Fite Fuaite, Interwoven: Relationality within Irish Language and Art”

Elizabeth Cecil (FSU Religion): “The Living Rock: Lithic Media, Indigenous Ecologies, and the Building of Hinduism in Southeast Asia”

Michael Carrasco (FSU Art History): “Images, Agency, and the Organization of Matter in Mesoamerica”

Moderated by Sonia Hazard (FSU Religion)

11 am – 12:45 pm Landscapes, objects, and animality
Student Union, room 3010 – Senate Chambers

Daniela De Simone (Ghent): “Ritual Landscapes and Ceremonial Objects of Premodern South Indian Upland Forest-Dwellers”

Jayur Mehta (FSU Anthropology): “Indigenous Fisheries, Shell Middens, and Monumentality: Describing the Longue Duree of Floodplain Landscapes in the Atchafalaya”

Joseph Hellweg (FSU Religion): “Ecology as Eschatology: Indigenous Hunting, Song & Sacrifice in Islamic West Africa”

Arya Adityan (FSU Religion): “Bonds Beyond Human: Human-Boar Relationships in the Early Skandapurāṇa and Tulu Paddhanas”

Moderated by Amee Parikh (FSU Religion)

12:45 pm – 1:45 pm Catered vegetarian lunch for all conference attendees
Student Union, Ballrooms A & B (downstairs from the Senate Chambers)

1:45 pm – 3:15 pm Plenary panel with museum professionals from the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum, Seminole Tribe of Florida
Student Union, room 3010 – Senate Chambers

Panelists:
Gordon (Ollie) Wareham
Cypress Billie
Chandler Demayo
Tara Backhouse
Joseph Gilbert

Moderated by Arya Adityan (FSU Religion) and Michael Carrasco (FSU Art History)

3:45 pm – 5:15 pm Institutions, spaces, and the state
Student Union, room 3010 – Senate Chambers

Talia Burnside (FSU Religion): “Un/Queer Ecology: Statecraft and the Religions of Animal Husbandry”

Tyler McCreary (FSU Geography) and Rebecca Hall: “Settler-Colonial Psychiatric Care and the Confinement of the Senile Indigenous Subject”

Ian MacCormack (Hebrew University of Jerusalem/FSU Religion): “Primordial Perfection and World Transformation: Buddhist Politics in Early Modern Tibet”

Moderated by Radhika Govindrajan (Washington)

6 pm Dinner for invited speakers

Sunday (April 28)

9 am – 10:30 am Graduate student workshop 1: Ecologies
Student Union, room 2214 – Student Affairs Development Council Meeting Room

Haylee Glasel (FSU Art History): “‘Let the River Live’: Contemporary Sámi Environmental Action and Artistic Practice”

Amee Parikh (FSU Religion): “Aviral Godavari: Where Religion and River Revival Meet”

Sheila Scoville (FSU Art History): “Full of Sweet Magueys: Agave–Human Symbiosis in Colonial Nahua Codices”

Moderated by Talia Burnside (FSU Religion)

11 am – 12:30 pm Graduate student workshop 2: Spirits and ethics
Student Union, room 2214 – Student Affairs Development Council Meeting Room

Amanda Brown (FSU Religion): “Tibetan Buddhist Rituals Invoking the Fierce Deity Yamāntaka: Material and Immaterial Actors of the Macabre”

Ajiththa Suganthan (FSU Religion): Serpent Deities (Nagas) in Ancient Sri Lanka: Evidence from the Kaddukarai Excavation

Kaitlynn Balmer (FSU Religion): “Beyond Anthropocentrism: Posthumanist Reflections on Technology, Plants, and Animals”

Moderated by Bryan Cuevas (FSU Religion)

12:30 pm Catered vegetarian lunch for all conference attendees and goodbyes