Papers by Jean M Langford
Routledge Handbook of Religion, Medicine, and Health, 2021
Postcolonial Animalities, 2020
Alternate version of "Wilder Powers: Morality and Animality in Tales of War and Terror" previousl... more Alternate version of "Wilder Powers: Morality and Animality in Tales of War and Terror" previously published in Hau.
Environmental Humanities, 2017
At an urban parrot sanctuary in the Midwestern USA, humans care for eightysome
parrots from more... more At an urban parrot sanctuary in the Midwestern USA, humans care for eightysome
parrots from more than a dozen species. Many of these parrots have personal histories
that include various forms of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. The article explores the
forms of interspecies communication through which human caretakers interpret and respond
to the psychic lives of these parrots—psychic lives that are marked by troubles ranging
from social withdrawal to self-destructive behavior. These interspecies communications
include body language, gesture, nonverbal vocalizations, and human-language phrases. While
biosemiotic theory offers a provocative starting point for understanding these communications,
sanctuary interactions destabilize certain semiotic distinctions, drawing attention to
ambiguities between semantic and nonsemantic vocalization, vocalization and body language,
informative speech and expletive, and communication and symptom. Building on ideas about
metacommunication in animal play, I suggest that both psychic trouble and interactions to
ease that trouble might be considered forms of biosemiotic creativity. By loosening and opening
up the distinctions frequently drawn between human and other-than-human semiosis, it
is possible to develop subtler accounts of the semiotic improvisations that emerge in uniquely
configured multispecies communities such as the sanctuary.
RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, 2017
Global Modernities and the (Re)Emergence of Ghosts - Voices from around the World, 2017
Medical Anthropology, 2016
If much has been written of the forms of bodiliness reinforced by hospitals,
less attention has ... more If much has been written of the forms of bodiliness reinforced by hospitals,
less attention has been paid to the medicalization of the soul. The medical
management of death institutionalizes divisions between body and soul,
and matter and spirit, infusing end-of-life care with latent Christian theological
presumptions. The invisibility of these presumptions is partly sustained
by projecting religiosity on those who endorse other cosmologies, while
retaining for medicine a mask of secular science. Stories of conflict with
non-Christian patients force these presumptions into visibility, suggesting
alternative ethics of care and mourning rooted in other understandings.
In this article, I explore one such story. Considering the story as an allegory
for how matter and spirit figure in contemporary postmortem disciplines,
I suggest that it exposes both the operation of a taboo against mixing
material and spiritual agendas, and an assumption that appropriate mourning
is oriented toward symbolic homage, rather than concern for the
material welfare of the dead.
Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2013
Among the figures of animality evoked in narratives of violence are the “beast” who
perpetrates ... more Among the figures of animality evoked in narratives of violence are the “beast” who
perpetrates acts of brutality and the debased creature who is subjected to captivity, forced labor, or slaughter. Yet a third figure of animality appears in the stories of animistically inclined emigrants who survived war and terror in Laos or Cambodia: the wild animal as transmigrated ancestor or capriciously sympathetic spirit who offers a powerful if unpredictable source of protection. Encounters with fantastic animals implicitly question the relationship between humanity and animality that often prevails in accounts of violence, opening possibilities for a zoopolitics of morality and animality.
Les Nouveaux Guérisseurs: Le Néo-traditionalisme Thérapeutique en Biographies. , 2013
Au début des années 1990, durant la saison touristique, le D r Vijayan exerçait dans la chambre d... more Au début des années 1990, durant la saison touristique, le D r Vijayan exerçait dans la chambre d'hôtel d'un complexe balnéaire populaire du Kerala, dans le sud de l'Inde, où il pratiquait le pañcakarma, un régime de purification par l'âyurveda 1 . La porte de cette chambre était tapissée d'un poster technicolor grandeur nature figurant une déesse indienne. Bien que ce poster fasse partie du décor de l'hôtel, il remplissait son rôle à merveille en suggérant un lien entre la pratique du D r Vijyan et un imaginaire culturel indien spécifiquement hindou et facilement accessible au regard du touriste. Seuls les touristes mêlant leur quête de guérison à leurs vacances recevaient leurs traitements dans cette chambre. Pour eux, une publicité de société pharmaceutique montrant un couple citadin, d'apparence aisée, vantant les mérites de quelque tonique ayurvédique, comme on en trouve dans certains magazines indiens, n'aurait pas eu le même impact. D'un autre côté, pour le consommateur indien de classe moyenne, un tirage brillant représentant une déesse aurait été, pour reprendre le slogan d'une agence de publicité, véritablement downmarket (Mazzarella, 2003, p. 121), c'est-à-dire bas de gamme. Comme l'a remarqué cet auteur, dans les années 1990, l'émergence de la marchandisation de la culture indienne à l'attention des consommateurs indiens a nécessité une gestion particulière des images, autant pour évoquer une culture nationale que pour véhiculer une esthétique d'une « classe mondiale » aux « aspirations occidentales ». Ainsi, des images peu attrayantes pour les consommateurs indiens peuvent-elles être perçues comme couleur locale par des touristes moins poussés par une quête de l'Occident que par la satiété ou la fuite de cet Occident. Pour les patients européens, la médecine ayurvédique n'offre pas tant la promesse d'une vitalité sexuelle et corporelle, comme c'est le cas pour l'élite masculine indienne urbaine (Cohen, 1995), qu'une 1. Tous les noms sont des pseudonymes. Afin de faciliter la lecture, l'écriture diacritique n'a pas été utilisée pour les termes sanskrits.
Cultural Anthropology, 2009
I was sitting with Lt. Somsy and an interpreter in a small, spare room at a community center in a... more I was sitting with Lt. Somsy and an interpreter in a small, spare room at a community center in a U.S. city. 1 A tape recorder sat on the beige formica-topped table between us. The lieutenant was describing how he and his unit in the Royal Lao Army handled the bodies of those killed in combat during the wars of the 1960s and 1970s.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East: Special Issue on Mourning and Memory, 2005
Cultural Anthropology, 2003
American Ethnologist, 1999
Drawing on recent insights into mimesis, I address the question of authenticity in
indigenous me... more Drawing on recent insights into mimesis, I address the question of authenticity in
indigenous medicine through an ethnography of an Ayurvedic pulse reader. I trace
the conflicting rhetorics of authenticity spun by the doctor, the colleagues who
consider him a quack, and myself. Ultimately I question the rituals of signification
by which distinctions are drawn between medicine and placebo, doctor and quack,
expertise and gimmickry, and between authentic cultural object and consumer-oriented
copy,
Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 1998
I am sitting around a table in an Ayurvedic hospital in North India with a psychologist, a doctor... more I am sitting around a table in an Ayurvedic hospital in North India with a psychologist, a doctor, the office gopher and a patient, a student in her early twenties. The patient, who has been here before, complains of pain in her lower back. The psychologist inquires after her sister and explains to the doctor that the sister has many mental problems. The psychologist, doctor and gopher take several minutes to discuss anxiety and depression while the patient sits silently. The psychologist talks about the need for a counseling and guidance center for students. Then the psychologist examines the patient's case form and comments that she is extremely "sensitive," using the English word ("bahut zyada sensitif). The young woman says she is sleeping fitfully. The psychologist suggests that she have a positive outlook and tell herself that everything will be okay. She reassures her that the physical pain she is experiencing will go away. They discuss the patient's career plans. She would like to get a job and live alone; then, she says, she would feel happy and peaceful. The psychologist tells her that remaining unmarried is out of the question for Indian women. You will be harassed by men, she says; you have to compromise. If you don't marry who will you talk to? They discuss the placement of planets in the patient's birth chart. Mars is poorly positioned (kharab). The conversation turns then to the young woman's stomach problems. The psychologist and gopher launch into a long discussion of the patient's diet. They recommend pomegranate and milk with cardamom. The young woman tells us of her fantasy of living in a village. The psychologist tells her she wouldn't be able to adjust; villagers, she says, are very "orthodox," using the English word. They discuss further details of the young woman's diet. After she leaves the psychologist comments, "bahut emotional hai," i.e. she is very emotional. She diagnoses the young woman with "secondary depression" due to physical problems.
Cultural Anthropology, 1995
Books by Jean M Langford
in loving memory c o n t e n t ≤ Acknowledgments ix
The book draws on Southeast Asian emigrants' stories and theories of death as these emerge in eth... more The book draws on Southeast Asian emigrants' stories and theories of death as these emerge in ethnographic conversations, folklore, memoir, and poetry, in order to engage several questions. What latent Christian cosmologies inform biopolitics? How does haunting interrogate the temporal premises of historicism, traumatology, and memorialization? How might we respond to the aftereffects of violence in a performative rather than narrative register? How do ghosts elude the distinction between literality and metaphor often deployed to control them? How might we reconfigure the relationship between animality and violence by evoking a beast that is not predator, prey, or livestock, but moral ally? How might we reimagine the death drive as a desire, not to return to inanimacy, but rather to reanimate the dead and the other-than-human?
Talks by Jean M Langford
Conference Presentations by Jean M Langford
Reviews and Comments by Jean M Langford
Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2015
Uploads
Papers by Jean M Langford
parrots from more than a dozen species. Many of these parrots have personal histories
that include various forms of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. The article explores the
forms of interspecies communication through which human caretakers interpret and respond
to the psychic lives of these parrots—psychic lives that are marked by troubles ranging
from social withdrawal to self-destructive behavior. These interspecies communications
include body language, gesture, nonverbal vocalizations, and human-language phrases. While
biosemiotic theory offers a provocative starting point for understanding these communications,
sanctuary interactions destabilize certain semiotic distinctions, drawing attention to
ambiguities between semantic and nonsemantic vocalization, vocalization and body language,
informative speech and expletive, and communication and symptom. Building on ideas about
metacommunication in animal play, I suggest that both psychic trouble and interactions to
ease that trouble might be considered forms of biosemiotic creativity. By loosening and opening
up the distinctions frequently drawn between human and other-than-human semiosis, it
is possible to develop subtler accounts of the semiotic improvisations that emerge in uniquely
configured multispecies communities such as the sanctuary.
less attention has been paid to the medicalization of the soul. The medical
management of death institutionalizes divisions between body and soul,
and matter and spirit, infusing end-of-life care with latent Christian theological
presumptions. The invisibility of these presumptions is partly sustained
by projecting religiosity on those who endorse other cosmologies, while
retaining for medicine a mask of secular science. Stories of conflict with
non-Christian patients force these presumptions into visibility, suggesting
alternative ethics of care and mourning rooted in other understandings.
In this article, I explore one such story. Considering the story as an allegory
for how matter and spirit figure in contemporary postmortem disciplines,
I suggest that it exposes both the operation of a taboo against mixing
material and spiritual agendas, and an assumption that appropriate mourning
is oriented toward symbolic homage, rather than concern for the
material welfare of the dead.
perpetrates acts of brutality and the debased creature who is subjected to captivity, forced labor, or slaughter. Yet a third figure of animality appears in the stories of animistically inclined emigrants who survived war and terror in Laos or Cambodia: the wild animal as transmigrated ancestor or capriciously sympathetic spirit who offers a powerful if unpredictable source of protection. Encounters with fantastic animals implicitly question the relationship between humanity and animality that often prevails in accounts of violence, opening possibilities for a zoopolitics of morality and animality.
indigenous medicine through an ethnography of an Ayurvedic pulse reader. I trace
the conflicting rhetorics of authenticity spun by the doctor, the colleagues who
consider him a quack, and myself. Ultimately I question the rituals of signification
by which distinctions are drawn between medicine and placebo, doctor and quack,
expertise and gimmickry, and between authentic cultural object and consumer-oriented
copy,
Books by Jean M Langford
Talks by Jean M Langford
Conference Presentations by Jean M Langford
Reviews and Comments by Jean M Langford
parrots from more than a dozen species. Many of these parrots have personal histories
that include various forms of neglect, abuse, and abandonment. The article explores the
forms of interspecies communication through which human caretakers interpret and respond
to the psychic lives of these parrots—psychic lives that are marked by troubles ranging
from social withdrawal to self-destructive behavior. These interspecies communications
include body language, gesture, nonverbal vocalizations, and human-language phrases. While
biosemiotic theory offers a provocative starting point for understanding these communications,
sanctuary interactions destabilize certain semiotic distinctions, drawing attention to
ambiguities between semantic and nonsemantic vocalization, vocalization and body language,
informative speech and expletive, and communication and symptom. Building on ideas about
metacommunication in animal play, I suggest that both psychic trouble and interactions to
ease that trouble might be considered forms of biosemiotic creativity. By loosening and opening
up the distinctions frequently drawn between human and other-than-human semiosis, it
is possible to develop subtler accounts of the semiotic improvisations that emerge in uniquely
configured multispecies communities such as the sanctuary.
less attention has been paid to the medicalization of the soul. The medical
management of death institutionalizes divisions between body and soul,
and matter and spirit, infusing end-of-life care with latent Christian theological
presumptions. The invisibility of these presumptions is partly sustained
by projecting religiosity on those who endorse other cosmologies, while
retaining for medicine a mask of secular science. Stories of conflict with
non-Christian patients force these presumptions into visibility, suggesting
alternative ethics of care and mourning rooted in other understandings.
In this article, I explore one such story. Considering the story as an allegory
for how matter and spirit figure in contemporary postmortem disciplines,
I suggest that it exposes both the operation of a taboo against mixing
material and spiritual agendas, and an assumption that appropriate mourning
is oriented toward symbolic homage, rather than concern for the
material welfare of the dead.
perpetrates acts of brutality and the debased creature who is subjected to captivity, forced labor, or slaughter. Yet a third figure of animality appears in the stories of animistically inclined emigrants who survived war and terror in Laos or Cambodia: the wild animal as transmigrated ancestor or capriciously sympathetic spirit who offers a powerful if unpredictable source of protection. Encounters with fantastic animals implicitly question the relationship between humanity and animality that often prevails in accounts of violence, opening possibilities for a zoopolitics of morality and animality.
indigenous medicine through an ethnography of an Ayurvedic pulse reader. I trace
the conflicting rhetorics of authenticity spun by the doctor, the colleagues who
consider him a quack, and myself. Ultimately I question the rituals of signification
by which distinctions are drawn between medicine and placebo, doctor and quack,
expertise and gimmickry, and between authentic cultural object and consumer-oriented
copy,