Helene Basu

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Helene Basu (born 19 October 1954) is a German anthropologist and professor at the University of Münster (WWU). She worked at the intersections of kinship, religion, medicine and media and developed a focus on transcultural psychiatry. Her research focuses on cultural and social theories, ethnology, historical as well as contemporary issues. Her regional competencies are situated in Gujarat/India, a region she takes into perspective from the spaces of the Western Indian Ocean, tracing the multiple links between South Asia and East Africa.

She has been at the forefront in initiating the India Studies Certificate programme at the WWU, besides launching a Master's Programme in Visual Anthropology, Media and Documentary Practices in Muenster as part of the Continuing Education Programme (Professional Development Course). She has been a co-editor (along with Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen, Angelika Malinar, University of Zurich, and Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida) of the six-volume Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism - with the first volume published in 2009 and completed in 2014. This is a thematic encyclopedia, presenting the latest research on all the main aspects of the pluralistic Hindu traditions in original essays written by the world’s foremost scholars on Hinduism. In addition to written publications, she is an ethnographic film-maker and editor of documentaries. Some of her most important works include Ethnology and the Reproduction of Modernity (originally in German, 2012), Spirit and Mind. Mental Health at the Intersection of Religion and Psychiatry (co-edited with Roland Littlewood & Arne Steinforth in 2012), 'Journeys and Dwellings: Indian Ocean Themes in South Asia’ (edited in 2008), Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion at Sufi Shrines (co-edited with Pnina Werbner in 1998) and the film Drugs and Prayers (55mins; 2009).

Career[edit]

Basu studied romance, languages and literatures, philosophy, social and cultural anthropology (ethnology), sociology and religious studies at the Free University of Berlin.

With her thesis entitled ‘Fakirs, Dancers and Clowns: Muslim Saint Worship of Sidi in Western India’, she completed her doctorate (1993) after intensive ethnographic fieldwork in Gujarat. She accomplished her habilitation (2001) with a thesis on ‘The Goddess and Charan – Memory of Kinship, Kingship and Asceticism in Kacch (West India).

In 2001 she was appointed as a senior researcher at the Department of Anthropology at FU Berlin and was guest professor at the University of Iowa. Since 2006 she holds the chair of Ethnology at the University of Münster (WWU).

She has been a Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ in two consecutive phases (2008-2012;2012-2018). Simultaneously, she participated as head of the project ‘Social Practices and Media Narratives of Matrimonial Decision-Making in India’ at the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre / SFB 1150 ‘Cultures of Decision-Making’.

Publications and films[edit]

Monographs

1995. Fakirs, Dancers and Fools: Muslim saint worship among the Sidi in western India (Gujarat). (Dissertation) Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 1995. ISBN 3-86093-065-6.

2004. Of Bards and Kings. Ethnological Studies on the Goddess and Memory in Kacch (India). Peter-Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-631-39579-5.

Selected journal articles

2018. 'Practices of the Financial Market. Resources of decision-making in ethnographic and popular literature on stock market trading'. In Pfister, Ulrich (ed.): Cultures of decision-making: narratives - practices - resources. Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, pp. 119-141.

2017. ‘The Mediality of Voice in Local Islamic Practices'. In: Zehmisch, Philipp et al. (eds.) Social Aesthetics, Atmosphere, Mediality, pp. 127-132.

2014. "Davā and Duā: Negotiating Psychiatry and Ritual Healing of Madness. In Naraindas, Harish et al. (eds.) Asymmetrical Conversations: Contestations, Circumventions, and the Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries. Oxford: Berghan Books, pp. 162-199.

2013. ‘Transformations of Hierarchy’. In Berger, Peter and Heidemann, Frank (eds.): The Modern Anthropology of India: Ethnography, Themes and Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 66-89.

2012.'Ethnology and the Multiplication of Modernity'. In Basu, Helene et al. (eds.): Modernity and Religion: Controversies around Modernity and Secularization. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 379-414.

2009. "Gujarat". In Jacobsen, Knut A. et al. (eds.): Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Leiden: Brill. I, pp. 255-70.

2007. ‘Drumming and Praying: Sidi at the Interface between Spirit Possession and Islam’, in Kresse, Kai and Simpson, Edward (eds.): Struggling with History: Islam and Cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean. London: Hurst, pp. 291-321.

2005. 'Ghosts and Sufis: Translocal Constellations of Islam in the Indian Ocean World'. In Journal of Ethnology 130 (2), pp. 169-193.

2002. 'Conceptions of Time in the Cultural Memory of Rajput Royalty'. In: Falk, Harry (ed.): From rulers to dynasties: the emergence of continuous timekeeping in ancient and oriental cultures. Bremen: Verlag Dr. Ute Hempen, pp. 269-288.

1998. ‘Hierarchy and Emotion: Love, Joy and Sorrow in a Cult of Black Saints in Gujarat, India’. In Werbner, Pnina and Basu, Helene (eds.): Embodying Charisma. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (peer reviewed), pp. 117-139.

1994. ‘The Sacred and the Feminine. Gender constructions in Indo-Muslim Sufism'. In: Journal of Ethnology 119, pp. 215-227. Editorial

2019 with Martina Wagner-Egelhaaf & Bruno Quast (eds.): Myths and Narratives of Decision-Making. Ergon Verlag, Würzburg 2019. ISBN 978-3525360927.

2012 with Roland Littlewood & Arne Steinforth (eds.): Spirit and Mind. Mental Health at the Intersection of Religion and Psychiatry. LIT-Verlag, Münster 2017. ISBN 978-3643907073.

2008. (Ed.) Journeys and Dwellings: Indian Ocean Themes in South Asia. London & Hyderabad: Orient Longman. ISBN 978-8125031413.

1998. (Ed. with Werbner, Pnina) Embodying Charisma. Modernity, Locality and the Performance of Emotion at Sufi Shrines. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Films[edit]

2018. ‘How We Got Here - Decision Matters.’ (English subtitles) 2018. ‘Kabul Kiya - Do you accept?’ (English subtitles; with Julia Koch & Andreas Samland). 2012. ‘Spirits of Envy’ (English subtitles). 2009. ‘Drugs & Prayers: Indian Psychiatry in the Realm of Saints.’ (Hindi, Gujarati with English subtitles).

References[edit]

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