Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Society for Cultural Anthropology

Of interest to: Students

Primary Theme: Materiality

Secondary Theme: Technology

(3-1250) The Charismatic Inorganic

This panel brings together ethnographic research that explores the dynamic and compelling pull of socio-techno-scientific objects, from fossils to cameras to clutter. The objects at the center of these papers are not living beings, yet they resemble charismatic life forms in multiple ways, particularly in how they draw human interlocutors into imaginative engagement. Moreover, these objects challenge traditional biological notions of ‘life,’ stretch understandings of time, and expand practices of the self. Such a focus engages questions of affect, vitality, liveliness, dynaminism and meaning in relation to materiality. This panel positions the objects in these papers alongside other charismatic inorganics previously identified by scholars, such as algorithms, ice, buildings, and even compelling data visualizations. The panel builds on work in the anthropology of science and technology that challenges taken-for-granted divisions between life and its others, the human and the nonhuman, and the organic and inorganic.

Organizer(s)

• Elana Shever

  Associate Professor of Anthropology
  Colgate University

Chair(s)

• Elana Shever

  Associate Professor of Anthropology
  Colgate University

Presenter(s)

• Elana Shever

  Associate Professor of Anthropology
  Colgate University

Organizer(s)

• Lisa Messeri

  Yale University

Presenter(s)

• Lisa Messeri

  Yale University

• Sophia Roosth

  Harvard University

• Katie Kilroy-Marac

  Assistant Professor
  University of Toronto, Scarborough

Discussant(s)

• Andrea Ballestero

  Rice University

• Jessica O'Reilly

  Assistant Professor
  Indiana University, Bloomington

Presentations:

• 4:15 PM - 4:30 PM

  Prehistoric Charismatic Megafauna
  Elana Shever – Colgate University
• 4:30 PM - 4:45 PM

  Embodied Omniscience: The 360 Camera as a Charismatic Technology
  Lisa Messeri – Yale University
• 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM

  The Sultan and the Golden Spike
  Sophia Roosth – Harvard University
• 5:00 PM - 5:15 PM

  “Letting go” and the Aspiring Self: A Recipe for Excising People and Things
  Katie Kilroy-Marac – University of Toronto, Scarborough
• 5:15 PM - 5:30 PM

  Discussion
  Jessica L. O'Reilly – Indiana University, Bloomington
• 5:30 PM - 5:45 PM

  Discussion
  Andrea Ballestero – Rice University