Greg Eghigian, an author focusing on the history and cultural significance of UFO phenomena, dives into the captivating journey of humanity's fascination with unidentified flying objects. He discusses the influence of Cold War tensions on global sightings and the cultural narratives surrounding them. Eghigian highlights the role of pioneering women like Coral Lorenzen in the UFO research community and explores the intriguing intersection of psychiatry with abduction phenomena, revealing how trauma shapes these narratives. It's a fascinating exploration of belief, science, and societal perceptions.

Professor David Zeitlyn’s book offers a major contribution to the study and analysis of divination, based on continuing fieldwork with the Mambila in Cameroon. It seeks to return attention to the details of divinatory practice, using the questions asked and life histories to help understand the perspective of the clients rather than that of the diviners.Drawing on a corpus of more than 600 cases, David Zeitlyn reconsiders theories of divination and compares Mambila spider divination with similar systems in the area. A detailed case study is examined and analysed using conversational analytic principles. The regional comparison considers different kinds of explanation for different features of social organization, leading to a discussion of the continuing utility of moderated functionalism.Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers (Routledge, 2021) will be of interest to area specialists and scholars concerned with religion, rationality, and decision-making from disciplines including anthropology, African studies, and philosophy.Additional links and information mentioned in the recording: Professor Zietlyn’s old spider divination simulations Online spider divination site for consultations and additional information Forthcoming exhibition mentioned in the show: Oracles, Omens and Answers, 6 December 2024 - 27 April 2025, S.T. Lee Gallery, Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford.Related publications from Bodleian Library Publishing Divination: Oracles and Omens, Edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn (5 December)David Zeitlyn has been working with Mambila people in Cameroon since 1985. He taught at the University of Kent, Canterbury, for fifteen years before moving to Oxford as Professor of Social Anthropology in 2010. His recent books include Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers (Routledge, 2020) and An Anthropological Toolkit: Sixty Useful Concepts (Berghan Books, 2022)Gene-George Earle is currently a PhD candidate in Anthropology at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

What makes us human? What, if anything, sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed to our own intrinsic animal nature. Yet the idea that, in one way or another, our humanity is entangled with the non-human has a much longer and more venerable history. In the West, it goes all the way back to classical antiquity. The Trojan Horse and Other Stories: Ten Ancient Creatures That Make Us Human (Cambridge UP, 2024) boldly reveals how the ancient world mobilised concepts of 'the animal' and 'animality' to conceive of the human in a variety of illuminating ways. Through ten stories about marvelous mythical beings - from the Trojan Horse to the Cyclops, and from Androcles' lion to the Minotaur - Julia Kindt unlocks fresh ways of thinking about humanity that extend from antiquity to the present and that ultimately challenge our understanding of who we really are.Julia Kindt is Professor of Ancient History, ARC Future Fellow (2018-22), a member of the Sydney Environment Institute, and elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She is a contributor to TLS, the Australian Book Review, Meanjin, History Today, The Conversation, and other magazines.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

In Japan, a country popularly perceived as highly secularized and technologically advanced, ontological assumptions about spirits (tama or tamashii) seem to be quite deeply ingrained in the cultural fabric. From ancestor cults to anime, spirits, ghosts, and other invisible dimensions of reality appear to be pervasive. In Spirits and Animism in Contemporary Japan (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), international scholars from various backgrounds consider together this “invisible empire” and highlight the “agency of the intangible.”The contributors of this edited volume approach spirits and animism in contemporary Japan from diverse perspectives. Satō Hiroo opens the book with a chapter on the transformation in Japanese visions of the afterlife, the status of the dead, and regional traditions of memorialization. Andrea De Antoni looks further into the ontology of spirits via an investigation into recent cases of spirit possession (tsuki, hyōi) that is treated at the Kenmi Shrine in Shikoku.Jason Josephson-Storm traces both the European and Japanese genealogies of theorizing “primitive” civilizations and their beliefs in spirits, magic, and an animated nature. In Fabio Rambelli’s chapter, a unique type of epistemological system for understanding the existence of spirits is introduced: Minataka Kumagusu’s “Minakata mandala,” which involves Buddhist philosophy, Western science, and an awareness of the Japanese folk tradition all at the same time.In Ellen Van Goethem’s chapter, she explores how and why there were widespread assumptions about how the city of Kyoto was animated by invisible agencies such as guardian spirits and the flow of qi (Jp. Ki). Carina Roth continues the discussion on enchanted landscapes by drawing our attention to “power spots” (pawā supotto) and “healing” forests as recent developments in contemporary Japanese religiosity.Focusing on the role of media in the public perceptions of new religious movements (NRMs) and their animistic positions, Ioannis Gaitanidis shows how the media paradoxically both helps to normalize animism as part of “traditional” Japanese culture while chastising animistic NRM’s egregious behaviors. Concerning spirits in modern Japanese fiction, another type of powerful media in contemporary Japanese society, Rebecca Suter identifies in her chapter a “fantastic hesitation” that authors take on, which opens doors to the “undecidability of reality” that seems to be a main gateway to the spirit world. Centering on the media arts scene in Japan, Mauro Arrighi in his chapter highlights how animism serves as one of the main creative sources for contemporary artists. Then, Jolyon Thomas turns our focus to anime and their depictions of humanity’s connection with nature. In doing so, he invites us to reflect on the term “animism” and how the spirits of anime are really rooted in late capitalist modernity with its attendant pleasures and woes. In the closing chapter, Andrea Castiglioni points out a growing tendency in recent Japanese films to focus on violent spirit entities (araburugami), rather than benign figures. He argues that this perhaps is related to the emergence of a new kind of national identity for Japan as a country that is uniquely able to control the unpredictability of nature and malignant invisible agencies.In this podcast episode, I spoke with the editor of this edited volume, Dr. Fabio Rambelli.Fabio Rambelli is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.Daigengna Duoer is a PhD student at the Religious Studies Department, University of California, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation researches on transnational and transregional Buddhist networks connecting twentieth-century Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Republican China, Tibet, and the Japanese Empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 (University of Wisconsin Press) first appeared in 2015 when it comprised of a hardback book, five CDs, and one DVD. It went on to win the “Best Historical Research in Folk or World Music” award from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Album Notes,” received universally superlative reviews, and sold out within a year. The project has now been re-issued as a paperback, albeit without any accompanying discs; instead the related tracks and film footage are now available for online access care of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library.It’s not hard to fathom why this monumental work received so much acclaim. A groundbreaking multimedia endeavor, Folksongs of Another America is the product of decades of work by the distinguished folklorist, James P. Leary. Leary is, amongst other things, Professor Emeritus of Folklore and Scandinavian Studies and Cofounder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a former editor of the Journal of American Folklore, and a native of rural Wisconsin, which is one of the three states – along with Michigan and Minnesota – whose rich musical bounty is explored in this study.Leary sifted through over 2,000 field recordings, made by fieldworkers Sidney Robertson, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman-Thomas during the 1930s and 40s, to select the 187 tunes and songs that feature here. Together the chosen pieces create the impression of a region populated by immigrants from a host of different lands, as well as by Native Americans, all with their own musical traditions. For every track, Leary offers extensive documentation, information about the performers, and full lyrics (including in the original language with English translation as necessary which, given that the collection includes twenty-five languages, is often the case). The recordings themselves, which have been wonderfully restored and remastered, provide vivid aural experiences.Folksongs of Another America is, as noted by a reviewer for Deutschlandradio Kultur, “an exceptional achievement that demonstrates for the first time the full worth and cultural wealth of the Upper Midwest for music listeners.”Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Nguzunguzu is the traditional figurehead which was formerly affixed to canoes in the Solomon Islands. In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki about his book project on the dragon and the nguzunguzu, namely the relationship between China and the Soloman Islands.The dragon and the nguzunguzu are taken as symbols of, respectively, Chinese and Solomon Islands identity. This essentializing maneuver is complicated by the appreciation of the two faces of both the dragon and the nguzunguzu. Nguzunguzu are traditionally used to adorn canoes: they can be either belligerent or peaceful, depending on the relationship between those who paddle and those who see them coming. Similarly, in Chinese folklore, dragons can bring prosperity or destruction, depending on their relationships with the humans who encounter them. Nguzunguzu and dragons are thus similar as symbols of supernatural forces whose potential can concretize as either propitious or nefarious, depending on their relationships with humans.Maggio encountered a dragon-nguzunguzu hybrid during his fieldwork in 2024. As explicitly phrased by the carver, the hybrid represents his attempt to localize China. This inspires Maggio’s book project, encouraging him to use this hybrid figure as an entry point to offer a grassroot perspective on the interactions between Chinese and Solomon Islanders.Rodolfo Maggio is a social anthropologist of moral and economic values in the Asia-Pacific region. At the University of Helsinki, he is working on an ERC-funded project “properties of units and standards”. Previously, Maggio had an episode on Kiribati in the Chinese Pacific and an episode on Sino-Pacific Relations with Nordic Asia Podcast that might interest listeners.Julie Yu-Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki (Finland) and visiting professor at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia at Mahidol University (Thailand). Since 2023, she has been involved in the EUVIP: The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region, a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe coordination and support action 10107906 (HORIZON-WIDERA-2021-ACCESS-03). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of “service magic.” Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), they were essential to daily life. For people across ages, genders, and social ranks, practical magic was a cherished resource for navigating life's many challenges.In historian Tabitha Stanmore's beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows, dissolute nobles, selfless healers, and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I's astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in a bewildering world, buffeted by forces beyond their control. As Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach about how to accommodate the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.Charming in every sense, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic (Bloombury, 2024) is at once an immersive reconstruction of a bygone era and a thought-provoking commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.Tabitha Stanmore, PhD, is a specialist in medieval and early modern magic.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

According to Vālmīki's Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa (early centuries CE), Śambūka was practicing severe acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these acts as a Śūdra, Śambūka was in violation of class- and caste-based societal norms prescribed exclusively by the ruling and religious elite. Rāma, the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa epic, is dispatched to kill Śambūka, whose transgression is said to be the cause of a young Brahmin's death. The works surveyed in Śambūka's Death Toll: A History of Motives and Motifs in an Evolving Rāmāyaṇa Narrative (Anthem Press, 2023) this study include numerous works originating in Hindu, Jain, Dalit and non-Brahmin communities while spanning the period from Śambūka's first appearance in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa through to the present day. The book follows the Śambūka episode chronologically across its entire history--approximately two millennia--to illuminate the social, religious, legal, and artistic connections that span the entire range of the Rāmāyaṇa's influence and its place throughout various phases of Indian history and social revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Discover everything you’ve ever wondered about the legendary spirits, creatures, and figures of Japanese folklore including how they have found their way into every corner of our pop culture from the creator of the podcast Uncanny Japan.Welcome to The Book of Japanese Folklore: An Encyclopedia of the Spirits, Monsters, and Yokai of Japanese Myth (Adams Media, 2024): a fascinating journey through Japan’s folklore through profiles of the legendary creatures and beings who continue to live on in pop culture today.From the sly kitsune to the orgrish oni and mischievous shape-shifting tanuki, learn all about the origins of these fantastical and mythical creatures. This gorgeous package is complete with stained edges and stunning four-color illustrations. With information on their cultural significance, a retelling of a popular tale tied to that particular yokai, and how it’s been spun into today’s popular culture, this handsome tome teaches you about the stories and histories of the beings that inspired characters in your favorite movies, animes, manga, and games.Thersa Matsuura is an American expat who has lived in Japan for over thirty years. Her fluency in the language allows her to explore her favorite part of Japanese culture: all the myths, legends, folktales, and superstitions. Thersa retells these Japanese folktales and ghost stories on her popular podcast Uncanny Japan. Thersa has also published two short story collections, including A Robe of Feathers and Other Stories and The Carp-Faced Boy and Other Tales, a collection of horror stories inspired by Japanese folktakes, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in 2017.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore

Between 800 and 1700 CE, a plethora of Mahabharatas were created in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, and several other regional South Asian languages. Sohini Pillai's Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative (Oxford UP, 2024) is a comprehensive study of premodern regional Mahabharata retellings. This book argues that Vaishnavas (devotees of the Hindu god Vishnu and his various forms) throughout South Asia turned this epic about an apocalyptic, bloody war into works of ardent bhakti or "devotion" focused on the beloved Hindu deity Krishna.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/folkore