* This post is based on a paper I delivered at the CPA 2013 Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Publication is forthcoming.
“but who can fight back against bad blood [?]”
- William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
1. Introductory Notes
In the introduction to Spirit Possession, Modernity, and Power in Africa, Heike Behrend and Ute Luig[1] discuss an unlikely political trend. From Harare, Zimbabwe to Toronto, Canada seizure by passiones[2] is occurring more frequently. Within the University, the inquiries into this theologico-political trend have become just as common as ghostly possession itself.[3] Resurrection was deemed impossible by modernity and yet, “the disappearance of spirits, as foretold by Westerners, has not taken place”.[4]
Walter Benjamin Studies 