Headshot of Dr.Edward Abse

Dr. Edward Abse

Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology
  • Profile

    Dr. Abse is a cultural anthropologist, with primary interests in the comparative study of religion and the ethnography of indigenous peoples of the Americas. His practical research experience has been in Latin America, including group projects in the Dominican Republic and Colombia as well as individual fieldwork with native Mesoamerican societies in the highlands of southern Mexico, specifically with the linguistically and culturally related Mazatecs and Mixtecs living in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Dr. Abse has previously taught at the University of Richmond, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

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    • Presentations

      2017  “Pursuing the Blessing of the Saints: Transformations of Mazatec Subjectivity and Shamanic Prayer in the Context of Modernity.” Paper presented at the 116th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.

      2017  “Timely Innovations/Divergent Futures: Shifting Temporal Modalities of Shamanic Visionary Experience in Mazatec Indian Religious Life,” Paper presented at the Society for the Anthropology of Religion Biennial Conference, New Orleans, La. 

      2016  “Generative Incoherence: Beyond ‘Hybridity’ in Modelling Issues of Social Change, Irreconcilable Values, and Shamanic Ritual Innovations in Contemporary Mazatec Indian Life.” Paper presented at the 2016 American Ethnological Society annual spring conference, Washington, D.C. 

      2014  “Ontological Hybridity and Dissonance in Transformations of Contemporary Mazatec Religious Life.” Paper presented at the 113th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.

      2013  “Seeing Double in Mazatec Shamanic Visions: Schismogenetic Transformations of Syncretism in a Catholicized Mesoamerican Religion.” Paper presented at the Society for the Anthropological Study of Religion Bienniel Conference, Pasadena, Ca.

      2013  “Espejos del Yo en el Pensamiento Religioso de los Mazatecos” [“Mirrors of the Self in Mazatec Religious Thought”]. Paper presented at at the Decimo Simposio Bienal de Estudios Oaxaqueños, Instituto Welte para Estudios Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, México.

      2013  “Theory and Models of Social and Religious Change in the Mazatec Sierra of Mexico” presented as contribution to Anthropology program Speakers Series, Virginia Commonwealth University.

      2012  “Surveying a Shamanic Landscape: Anthropological Fieldwork with the Mazatec Indians of Southern Mexico” presented as contribution to Anthropology program Speakers Series, Virginia Commonwealth University.

      2003  “Conviviality and its Discontents: Predicaments of Social Life and Transformations of the Moral Imagination among the Mazatec Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico.” Paper presented at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Il.

      2002  “Giving Voice to Visions: Problems in the Ethnography and Aesthetics of Mazatec Indian Ritual Experience.” Paper presented at 101st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, La. 

      2001  “What Do Natives Want? Desire and the Politics of Intersubjectivity in Fieldwork and the Production of Ethnographic Knowledge.” Paper presented at 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. 

      2001  “Paradoxes of Authority, Authenticity, and Ambivalence in Interethnic Encounters with Mazatec Shamanism in Oaxaca, Mexico.” Paper presented at the Joint Annual Meetings of the American Ethnological Society, the Societe canadienne d’anthropologie, and the Society for Cultural Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec.

      2001  “Encounters with Evil: The Rise of Sorcery and Transformations of the Mazatec Religious Imagination.” Lecture presented as contribution to the University of Virginia Department of Anthropology Proseminar Lecture Series, Charlottesville, Va. 

      2000  “Selling out the Shaman: Betrayal and the Ethics of Fieldwork/Ethnography.” Paper presented at 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, Ca.

      2000  “Fieldwork as Discovery Process: Methods and Experience among the Mazatecs.” Paper presented at UC Davis Native American Studies Department Summer-Session Program “Ethnohistory of Native Peoples in Mexico and Central America,” Instituto Cultural Oaxaca, Oaxaca, México.
       
      2000  “Hacia donde se oculta el sol: la brujería y el surgimiento de un nuevo motivo dominante en el imaginario religioso de los mazatecos” [“Toward where the sun hides: witchcraft and the emergence of a new dominant motif in the religious imagination of the Mazatecs”]. Paper presented at the Cuarto Simposio Bienal de Estudios Oaxaqueños, Instituto Welte para Estudios Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, México.
       
      1999  “Intimations of the Apocalypse: Entropic Discourse, Prophecy, and Ritual Gestures toward the Endtime in Contemporary Mazatec Shamanism.” Paper presented at 98th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Il. 

      1998  “Exploring Mazatec Power and Identity: A Case Study towards Rethinking Social Justice in ‘México Profundo’.” Paper presented at the XXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, Il.

    • Professional Experience

      Assistant Professor, Anthropology Program, School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia (2008-2021)

      Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia (2007-2008)

      Instructor in Anthropology (part time), Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia (2006-2007)

      Visiting Instructor of Anthropology (full time), Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia (2003-2006)

      Instructor (summer session), Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia (2002)

      Instructor (summer session), Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia (1995)

  • Selected Publications
    Books

    Where the Sun Hides: Shamanism, the Rise of Sorcery, and Transformations of Mazatec Religious Life(under advance contract pre-publication agreement with University of New Mexico Press).

    Book Chapters

    “Don Patricio’s Dream: Shamanism and the Torments of Secrecy in Fieldwork among the Mazatec Indians,” in Jean-Guy Goulet and Bruce Miller (eds.), Extraordinary Anthropology: Transformations in the Field. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.

    “María Sabina.” Biographical article about Mazatec shaman, in Davíd Carrasco (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.