Prof. Dr. Peter J. Bräunlein

Samstag, 18. September 2010, 17 - 18:30 Uhr

How virtual are Ghosts? Studying the Supernatural in Movies as a challenge for Anthropology of Religion” (including film material)

In the late 1990s ghost-movies became great box-office hits worldwide. In this context, the evolution of Asian ghost movies is particularly striking. Hideo Nakata's Ringu – The Ring (1998), the biggest Japanese hit of all time, set the trend for a new kind of ghost-film. Frenzy, ghastly homicides, terror attacks, communication with unredeemed (Un)dead, vengeful (female-)ghosts and their terrifying grip on the living - all this is part of popular TV- and film-entertainment.
The lecture dealt with Asian ghost movies and the effects of (pop)cultural experiences on the conception of this world and the afterworld. Ghost-movies always include commentaries on moral issues and the relationship between tradition and change. Ghost-movies offer valuable clues to the condition of modernity and the anxieties of its audience, the aspiring middle class. Why do people like to be scared (and pay for this experience)? How is entertainment related to worldviews and religious convictions of the people? Are the products of the global film industry sources of re-enchantment, or do they simply produce forms of “banal religion”, or do we need different analytical categories, beyond the enchantment-disenchanment metaphor?


Peter J. Bräunlein is currently a visiting professor for anthropology at the University of Heidelberg. He obtained his Master and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Freiburg and his Habilitation in the study of religion from the University of Bremen. Between 1986−1988, he conducted extensive fieldwork among the Alangan-Mangyans on the island of Mindoro (Philippines). In the years 1996−1998, he conducted fieldwork on ‘Philippine passion rituals’.
As a university teacher he worked in Marburg, Munich, Freiburg, Bremen. In Marburg he was also the curator of the University’s ‘Museum of Religions’ (founded 1927 by Rudolf Otto).
Areas of interest: anthropology of Christianity; religious history of Europe and Southeast Asia; museology; media and religion; body and pain; the dark side of modernity. He is presently working on a study of ghosts and modernity.
Publications: (w. Andrea Lauser) Leben in Malula 1993;(as editor) Religion/en im Museum (2004); Passion/Pasyon. Rituale des Schmerzes im europäischen und philippinischen Christentum (Fink Verlag, 2010)