Universität Wien
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010101 VU Introducing Siberian Shamanism (2025S)

Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Monday 02.06. 08:00 - 11:15 Seminarraum 3 (Kath) Schenkenstraße EG
  • Tuesday 03.06. 08:00 - 11:15 Seminarraum 1 (Kath) Schenkenstraße EG
  • Wednesday 04.06. 08:00 - 11:15 Seminarraum 3 (Kath) Schenkenstraße EG
  • Thursday 05.06. 08:00 - 11:15 Seminarraum 3 (Kath) Schenkenstraße EG
  • Friday 06.06. 08:00 - 14:45 Seminarraum 3 (Kath) Schenkenstraße EG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

The course "Introducing Siberian Shamanism” consists of twelve lectures covering the most important aspects of Siberian traditional religions viewed through the prism of the ecology of religion, anthropology of ritual and religious studies. Materials will be given to students during the first lecture.

The main topics are the following:

The primordial religion of humanity or a specifically Siberian phenomenon? Shamanism or shamanisms? The problem of definition.
Peculiarities of the shamanism in Siberia in comparison with other cultural-geographical areas;
Trance, spirit possession, and altered states of consciousness (on the example of the Yukaghir shaman ritual)
Yakut religion: shamanic initiation, rituals, myths, gods;
Shamanism, and clan warfare;
Evenki shamanism as a mass phenomenon; shaman as a 'safety valve'
Paleo-Siberians: Ket, Yukaghirs, Chukchi, Koryak;
The problem of shamanic transvestism.

Assessment and permitted materials

The course assessment comprises of attendance (30%), participation in class (30 %) and a written contribution (40%).

In the case of suspicion of non-transparent use of AI (e.g. through citation or indication of the type of use), the course instructor has the right to conduct a “grade-relevant discussion".

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

You may be absent without excuse for two units.

Examination topics

The topics covered in the lectures. The main theme has to relate a problem addressed in the lecture to the topic you are most interested in. E.g.

If you're interested in Judaism: "Shamanic traces in Jewish Kabbalah".

Or maybe you study the history of art? "The artist-painter as the informational channel. The paintings of Francis Bacon".

Historical studies? "Jesus was a shaman and I will prove it".

Economy? "What feature of capitalism blocks the emergence of shamanism in contemporary Western society?"

Cultural Anthropology? "Vodou houngan is a shaman. The comparison between shamanism and vodou as a possession cult".

Reading list

Findeisen, Hans. 1957. Schamanentum: dargestellt am Beispiel der Besessenheitspriester nordeurasiatischer Völker. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag.

Forsyth, James. 1992. A History of the Peoples of Siberia. Russia’s North Asian Colony 1581-1990. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hamayon, Roberte N. 2012. “The Three Duties of Good Fortune: ‘Luck’ as a Relational Process among Hunting Peoples of the Siberian Forest in Pre-Soviet Times.” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology 56 (1): 99-116.

Lindgren, Ethel J. 1938. “An Example of Culture Contact without Conflict: Reindeer Tungus and Cossacks of Northwestern Manchuria.” American Anthropologist 40 (4): 605–621.

Sem, T. (ed.), Шаманизм народов Сибири. Этнографические материалы XVIII-ХХвв.: Хрестоматия [Shamanism of the Siberian People. Ethnographic Materials of the XVIII-XX centuries: Chrestomathy], Saint Petersburg: St. Petersburg: Philological Faculty of St. Petersburg State University 2006.

Shirokogoroff, Sergei M. 1999. Psychomental Complex of the Tungus. Berlin: Reinhold Schletzer Verlag.

Siikala, Anna-Leena. 1992. “Siberian and Inner Asian Shamanism.” In Studies on Shamanism, edited by Anna-Leena Siikala and Mihály Hoppal, 1-13. Helsinki and Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

Stépanoff, Charles. 2019. Voyager dans l'invisible: techniques chamaniques de l'imagination. Paris: La Découverte.

Suslov, Innokenty M. 1983. Materialen zum Schamanismus der Ewenki-Tungusen an der Mittleren und Unteren Tunguska. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Vasilevich, Glafira. 1971. “Дошаманские и шаманские верования эвенков”. Sovetskaja ètnografija, 5: 53–60.

Association in the course directory

066 800 M2.7, M15, M 18, BRP 09rwb (statt VO zu Afroamerikanischen Religionen), BRP 17rwb

Last modified: Sa 31.05.2025 20:25