Bruce McCoy Owens:Research Interests and Activities

Bruce McCoy Owens
Research Interests and Activities

Pulling the chariot of Bungadya, Patan, 1991

Much of my research has focused on the various ways that different people participate in and interpret religious ritual and sacred sites in Nepal. One are of this fieldwork has been on the largest of the many religious procession festivals celebrated in Nepal each year, known as Bungaya or the Rato Matsyendranathko Rath Jatra.

I am particularly interested in issues of identity in the context of ritual practice, and in the ways in which religious practices and beliefs articulate with political change.

I have also been studying the rapid construction, restoration, and transformation of religious shrines in the Kathmandu valley that have come about since democratization in 1991. I am particularly interested in the implications of these transformations for the many different groups who are interested in cultural preservation in Nepal.

Most recently Prof. Owens has been collaborating with filmaker Kesang Tseten in several film projects related to his work on Bungaya.

Fifty-one foot cement Buddha at Swayambhu, 2000

Selected Publications:
”Monumentality, Identity, and the State: Local Practice, World Heritage, and Heterotopia at Swayambhu, Nepal,: Anthropological Quarterly, 75:2, 2002, pp. 269-316.

“Personal Theory: Towards a satisfactory explanation for why I study Newar culture; or, Dyah Wa_ (“God Crazy”), Newah Vijnana, The Journal of Newar Studies, vol. 4, 2000/01, pp. 1-21.

"Envisioning Identity: Deity, Person, and Practice in the Kathmandu Valley," American Ethnologist, 27:3, 2000, pp. 702-735.

"Unruly Readings: Neofetishes, Paradoxical Singularities, and the Violence of Authentic Value," Ethnos, vol. 64:2, 1999, pp. 250-262.

"Human Agency and Divine Power: Transforming Images and Recreating Gods among the Newar," History of Religions, 34(3), 1995, pp. 201-240.

"The Himalaya as Anti-Area," Himalayan Research Bulletin, 15 (1), 1994, p.3.

"Blood and Bodhisattvas: Sacrifice among the Newar Buddhists of Nepal," In Ramble, Chalrles and Martin Brauen, (eds.).The Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas, University of Zurich, (Zurich: 1993), pp. 258-269.

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