Bruce Owens
Chair, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Office: Knapton 105
Office Hours: Fall '09 Tuesdays, 5:00-6:00, Wednesdays, 2:00-4:00
Phone: 508-286-3659
Email: bowens@wheatoncollege.edu Personal web page
Degrees
Ph.D., M. Phil., M.A., Columbia University
B.A., McGill University
Research Interests
Politics of ritual, sacrifice, religion and the state; hermeneutic contestation; social and cultural theory; monumentality, identity, and material culture; Nepal, Himalaya, South Asia
Teaching Interests
Anthropology of Art, South Asia, Theory in Anthropology, Religion, Psychological Anthropology, Festivals, Human Evolution, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology of the Himalaya
Student Projects
I have been collaborating with students (Maura Mae Deedy ('03)Christopher O'Keeffe ('05), Tenzing Norzom ('05), and Delilah Griswold ('08)) in creating a digital archive and web-site on the recent transformations of one of Nepal's most significant Buddhist sites, Swayambhu. And I have been collaborated with Kerry Teamey ('04) on the sacred sites project and long term research that I have been conducting on religious festivity in the Kathmandu Valley.
During the summer of 2006, I accompanied a group of students and Prof. Jeffrey Timm of the Religion Department on a study tour of Bhutan as part of his Engaged Buddhism Course.
Creative Work
I have been collaborating with the filmaker, Kesang Tseten, of Nepal, on making a series of films on the largest religious festival of Nepal, Bungaya, in Newari, or Rato Matsyendranathko Rath Jatra, in Nepali. I presented one of these films, "On the Road with the Red God: Machhendranath," at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in November of 2006, and it has been shown at numerous other festivals in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances
"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
"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.