The interrelationship of ideology, ecology and self-healing will be the focus of a two-day program presented by the Spring Symposia series in the Humanities Center.
HC Dissertation Fellow Daniel Cheifer will host medical anthropologist Joseph Alter in a public lecture on Thursday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in 214 Slocum Hall. The following day, they will participate in an HC Mini-Seminar at 9 a.m. in 304 Tolley Humanities Building.
Joseph Alter
Both events are free and open to the public; however, registration is required for the HC Mini-Seminar. For more information or to RSVP, contact the Humanities Center at 315-443-7192 or humcenter@syr.edu.
Alter’s visit is co-sponsored by the Department of Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and the South Asia Center in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
“Much of Alter’s work focuses on ideology, religion and the body,” says Gerald Greenberg, a senior associate dean in A&S and interim director of the Humanities Center. “At Syracuse, he will discuss how ‘asana’ [yoga posture] and ‘pranayama’ [breath control] are understood in context of Nature Cure in modern India. Special emphasis will be placed on purification and embodied perfection and the role they play in achieving proper health and transcendent consciousness.” Nature Cure refers to various methods of self-healing, including fasting, dieting, rest and hydrotherapy.
Alter is based at the University of Pittsburgh, where he serves as professor of anthropology, a research professor of international studies and the academic director of the Pitt in the Himalayas program. His current research projects involve the relationship among Nature Cure, ecology and worldview in contemporary India; and the impact of biosemiotics on ecologically grounded social theory.
The author of more than a half-dozen books (including a forthcoming one on Nature Cure and bio-ecology in India), Alter earned a Ph.D. in social and cultural anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Cheifer is a Ph.D. candidate in Syracuse’s religion department. His research spans South Asian religion and philosophy, globalization, multiculturalism, ethnography and Sanskrit language and literature. He earned an M.A. in religion from Columbia University.
“HC Fellows bring their research into conversation with students and faculty from across campus, while engaging with colleagues and experts from around the country,” Greenberg adds. “The series also sets the stage for Syracuse Symposium, which the Humanities Center presents every fall for the College of Arts and Sciences.”
