audiobook Plain Folk in a Rich Man's War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia by David Williams; Teresa C. Williams; R. David Carlson in History

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“A major empirical contribution to the debate about antirepresentationalism and posthumanism that has been agitating the entire discipline of anthropology in recent years.”—Stephan Palmié; author of The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion “The most provocative and complete portrayal of contemporary Cuban espiritismo available. It underscores the embodied character of espiritista practices and offers a dynamic portrayal of espiritista mediums’ crucial roles within a complex of Afro-Cuban religions that includes ocha; palo monte; and other faiths.”—Reinaldo L. Román; author of Governing Spirits: Religion; Miracles; and Spectacles in Cuba and Puerto Rico; 1898–1956 “To read this book is to enter into an apparently alien world and yet find that it makes complete sense; and for that reason Developing the Dead is a model of the anthropological enterprise.”—Charles Stewart; author of Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece Based on extensive fieldwork among espiritistas and their patrons in Havana; this book makes the surprising claim that Spiritist practices are fundamentally a project of developing the self. When mediums cultivate relationships between the living and the dead; argues Diana Espírito Santo; they develop; learn; sense; dream; and connect to multiple spirits (muertos); expanding the borders of the self. This understanding of selfhood is radically different from Enlightenment ideas of an autonomous; bounded self and holds fascinating implications for prophecy; healing; and self-consciousness. Developing the Dead shows how Espiritismo’s self-making process permeates all aspects of life; not only for its own practitioners but also for those of other Afro-Cuban religions.