Prof. Dr. William S. Sax

BOOKS

• 1991. Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Central Himalayan Pilgrimage. New York: Oxford University Press.
• 1995. The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia. New York: OUP. (edited volume)
• 2002. Dancing the Self: personhood and performance in the pandav lila of Garhwal. New York: OUP. (monograph)
• 2009. God of Justice: ritual healing in the central Himalaya. New York: Oxford University Press. (monograph)
• 2010. The Problem of Ritual Efficacy. New York: Oxford University Press. (edited with Johannes Quack and Jan Weinhold).
• 2015. The Law of Possession: ritual, healing, and the secular state. (Edited with Heléne Basu.) New York: OUP.
• forthcoming: The Movement for Global Mental Health: critical views from South and Southeast Asia (Under contract with Amsterdam University Press)

PLAYS

• 2001. (with Data Ram Purohit.) Shri Nanda Devi Raj Jat (in Hindi).

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES

• 1990. Village Daughter, Village Goddess: Residence, Gender, and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage. American Ethnologist 17 (3):491-512.
• 1990. The Ramnagar Ramlila: Text, Performance, Pilgrimage. History of Religions 30 (2): 129-53. (Reprinted in Singh Rana P. B., ed. 1993. Banaras (Varanasi) Cosmic Order, Sacred City, Hindu Traditions. Varanasi: Tara Book Agency, p. 257-73.)
• 1993. Goddess or goddesses? Politics and Theology in the Study of Hinduism. Sites: a journal for radical perspectives on culture 25:105-117.
• 1995. Introduction. In W. S. Sax, ed, The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia. New York: OUP.
• 1995. Who's Who in Pandav Lila? In W. S. Sax, ed, The Gods at Play: Lila in South Asia. New York: OUP, pp. 131-55.
• 1997. Fathers, Sons, and Rhinoceroses: Masculinity and Violence in the Pandav Lila. Journal of the American Oriental Society 117 (2): 278-94.
• 1998. The Hall of Mirrors: Orientalism, Anthropology, and the Other. American Anthropologist 100 (2): 22-31.
• 1999. State Sovereignty vs. Human Rights: a Reply to Paul Morris. Asia Quarterly July-September 1999: 8-9.
• 2000. In Karna's Realm: an ontology of action. Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (3): 295-324.
• 2000. Conquering the Quarters: Religion and Politics in Hinduism. International Journal of Hindu Studies 4(1): 39-60.
• 2004. Healing Rituals: a critical performative approach. Anthropology and Medicine 11 (3): 293-306.
• 2004. Reply to Reviewers. Review Forum, (Review of W. S. Sax, Dancing the Self: Person-hood and Performance in the Pandav Lila of Garhwal.) Journal of Ritual Studies 18 (3)
• 2005. Introduction (with Stefan Ecks). In Ecks, Stefan and William S. Sax, eds. The Ills of Marginality: new perspectives on subaltern health. Nov. 2005.
• 2009. “I have no one!” Ritual Healing and Family Relationships in Garhwal. In Caterina Guenzi and Ines Zupanov, eds., Purusartha 27, Divins remèdes. Médecine et religion en Inde.
• 2010. Introduction. In The Problem of Ritual Efficacy, ed Johannes Quack, William Sax, and Jan Weinhold. New York: Oxford University Press.
• 2010 (with Johannes Quack). Introduction: The Efficacy of Rituals. The Journal of Ritual Studies 24 (1): 5-12.
• 2010 (with Jan Weinhold and Jochen Schweitzer), “Ritual Healing East and West: a comparison of ritual healing in the Garhwal Himalayas and family constellation in Germany.” The Journal of Ritual Studies 24 (1): 61-77.
• 2011. “Healers.” In Knut Jacobsen and Helene Basu, eds., Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism.
• 2013. “The Reality of 21st Century Islamic Healing – an Interview with a Muslim Healer.” Curare 36 (3): 168-71.
• 2014. “Ritual Healing and Mental Health in India.” Transcultural Psychiatry 51 (3): 829-49.
• 2017 (with Axel Michaels). “Performance and Religion”. In The Oxford Handbook of Religion, ed. Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OTHER ARTICLES

• 1987. Kumbha Mela. In Mircea Eliade, et al, eds., Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan & Co.
• 1991. Ritual and Performance in the Pandavalila of Uttarakhand. In Arvind Sharma, ed., Essays on the Mahabharata, p. 274-95. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• 1992. Pilgrimage Unto Death. In Jim Veitch, ed., To Strive and Not to Yield: Essays in Honour of Colin Brown. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press.
• 1993. Lila. In William Scott Green, ed., Harper's Dictionary of Religion.
• 1994. Gender and Politics in Garhwal. In Nita Kumar, ed., Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories, pp. 172-210. Calcutta
• 1996. Draupadi and Kunti in the Pandav Lila. In The Wild Goddess in South Asia, ed. Axel Michaels and Cornelia Vogelsanger. Zurich: Studia Religiosa Helvetica, Vol. 1, pp. 355-81.
• 1996. Hinduism: Reverence for the Natural Environment. In James Veitch, ed., Can Humanity Survive? The World's Religions and the Environment, p. 51-68. Auckland: Awareness Book Company.
• 1999. Worshiping Epic Villains: A Kaurava Cult in the Central Himalayas. In Beissinger, Margaret, et al, eds. Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World: the Poetics of Community. Berkeley: UCB Press, pp. 169-186.
• 1999. Gender and the Representation of Violence in Pandav Lila. Chapter 10 in I. Julia Leslie, ed., Gender Constructs in Indian Religion and Society. Delhi: Motilal.
• 2000. Residence and Ritual in the Garhwal Himalayas. In Maheshwar P. Joshi and Allen C.
• Fanger and Charles W. Brown, eds., Himalaya: Past and Present, Volume IV, pp. 79-114. Almora, India: Shree Almora Book Depot.
• 2001. The Pandav Lila of Uttarakhand. In Molly Kaushal, ed., Chanted Narratives: the Living "Katha-Vachana" Tradition. Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, pp. 165-174.
• 2002. Heilungsrituale: Ein kritischer performativer Ansatz. Paragrana 12.1-2: 385-404.
• 2002. Pandav Lila. In Peter J. Claus and Margaret A. Mills, eds. South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge.
• 2002. Ram Lila. In Peter J. Claus and Margaret A. Mills, eds. South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge.
• 2003. Divine Kingdoms in the Central Himalayas. In Niels Gutschow, et al, eds., Sacred Landscapes of the Himalaya. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischan Akademie der Wissenschaften.
• 2004. Heilrituale der Dalits im indischen Zentral-Himalaya. In Dietrich Harth und Gerrit Jasper Schenk, Hrg., Ritualdynamik: KulturÜbergreifende Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte rituellen Handelns. Heidelberg: Synchron 2004, 363-380.
• 2004. Addicted to Justice, Ecstatic in Union. Paragrana 13: 62-77.
• 2006a. A Divine Identity-Crisis. In KÖpping, Klaus-Peter and Bernhard Leistle and Michael Rudolph eds. Ritual and Identity: Performative Practices as Effective Transformations of Social Reality/ Hamburg / MÜnster / London: LIT.
• 2006b. At the Borders of Morality: Rituals of Aggression. In Henrik Jungaberle and Rolf Verres, eds.
• 2006c. Agency. In Kreinath, Jens and Jan Snoek and Michael Stausberg, eds., Theorizing Rituals: Classical Topics, Theoretical Approaches, Analytical Concepts, Annotated Bibliography. Leiden: Brill.
• 2009. “Performing God’s Body.” Paragrana 18 (1): 165-187.
• 2009. “Religion, Possession, and the "hysteresis effect": a case study from India.” In Elfriede Hermann, Karin Klenke, Michael Dickhardt, eds.,Form, Macht, Differenz: Motive und Felder ethnologischen Forschens. Goettingen: Universitatsverlag Goettingen, pp. 181-189.
• 2010. (with Jan Weinhold). “Rituals of Possession.” In Brosius, Christiane and Ute Husken, eds. Ritual Matters: the Dynamics of Change and Stability, pp. 236-252. Delhi: Routledge.
• 2010. „Besessenheit, Geste und Ritual: der Fall des muslimischen Dämonen Sayyid.“ In Wulf, C. & E. Fischer-Lichte, eds., Gesten: Inszenierung, Aufführung, Praxis. William Fink
• 2011. “A Himalayan Exorcism.” In Hillary Rodrigues (ed.), Studying Hinduism in Practice. London and New York: Routledge, pp 146-57.
• 2012. “A Himalayan Healer's Reports.” In Carsten Zelle, et al, eds., Der ärztliche Fallbericht: Epistemische Grundlagen und textuelle Strukturen dargestellter Beobachtung, pp. 287-304. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
• 2012. (with Karin Polit). “Moved by God.” In Koch, Sabine et al, eds, Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement. Vadrina, Frankfurt (Oder): John Benjamins.
• 2015. “Oracular Possession, Authenticity, and the Ideology of Absence.” In Helene Basu and William Sax, eds., The Law of Possession.
• 2019. “The Birth of the (Exorcism) Clinic: media, modernity, and the jinn.” In Michaels, Axel and Christoph Wulf, eds.. Routledge.

• “Ritual Healing,” a one-week seminar at Lubjana University in Slovenia, 03/09
• “Shamanic Nosologies”, University of Bochum, 06/09 and University of Arizona, 12/09
• “Demonic Justice: a case from the court of Pokkhu Devta,” Muenster, 05/09
• “A Non-Modern Healing Practice”, University of Iowa, 04/10
• “Religion, Possession, and the “hysteresis effect”: a case study from India”, University of Iowa, 04/10
• “Mental Health in Developing Countries”, Munich, 12/10
• “Power, Control, and Emotion in Garhwali Possession Rituals, Goa, 01/10
• “Mit Ritualen Heilen,” 05/10, Berlin
• “Oracular Possession and the ‘ideology of absence’," Vienna, 11/11; Paris, 02/12; Harvard, 08/12
• “Transcultural Psychiatry,” Paris, 05/11; Ketchikan, Alaska, 08/12
• “Discipline and Ecstasy: The Kandy and Kataragama Festivals in Sri Lanka, Oslo, 06/11
• “Therapeutic Possession as an Expression of Holism,” Heidelberg, 11/11
• “Ritual Healing and Psychiatry in India,” Muenster, 02/12; McGill University 07/12; Harvard University 08/12
• “Divine Kingship and Distributed Agency,” IIAS Shimla, 04/12
• “From Kautilya to Latour: land and people in the Divine Kingdoms of Rawain,” IIAS Shimla, 04/12
• “Performing God’s Body,” Zadar, Croatia, 05/12
• “An Alternative Modernity in the Western Himalayas,” Vienna, 06/12
• “Forgetting how to be Possessed,” Paris, 07/12
• “Family Unity and Ritual Healing,” Lisbon, 07/12
• “Ritual Healing and Psychiatry in India,” Muenster, 02/12; McGill University 07/12; Harvard University 08/12
• “Divine Kingdoms in the Western Himalayas: Oracular Authority and Distributed Agency,” Oxford, 02/13; Stanford 09/15
• “Global Mental Health-Promises and Pitfalls: the view from Ethnology,” Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, 11/13
• “Anthropology meets Psychiatry: the cultural epidemiology of ritual healing” Emory University, Northern Arizona State University University of California at Santa Barbara, April 2014; Freie Universität Berlin and Münster University, May 2014; Tallinn, Estonia, July 2014; Stanford, California 09/15
• Keynote Speech, “The Efficacy of Ritual,” at INTAR conference, Liverpool, June 2014
• “Ritual Healing in the Himalayas,” Budapest, July 2014
• “Do Rituals Heal?”, Budapest, July 2014, Robert Bosch College (Freiburg), January 2016
• “An anthropological critique of psychiatric epidemiology,” Zürich, July 2014
• “The Birth of the (Exorcism) Clinic: media, modernity and the Jinn” Tübingen 07/15; UC San Diego 10/15
• “Divine Kingship in the Western Himalaya,” University of Arizona, 4/17
• “Outsourcing Possession: media, modernity, and the jinn”, JNU (Delhi) 11/15; Durham University 2/16, Columbia University 3/18, Harvard University 3/18
• “The Ontology of the Gods of the Western Himalayas” IUAES conference, Dubrovnik, 5/16
• “Diagnosis by Ritual Healers," MAAH conference Norway, 6/15
• “The Medicalization of Medical Anthropology,” Keynote address to the Association of Social Anthropologists, UK, Durham, 6/15
• “Global Mental Health and the Death of the Gods,” Malta, 12/16
• “Songs of the Gods from the Western Himalayas,” Tel Aviv, 6/16
• “Ontology of the Devtas,” Dubrovnik, 5/16
• “The Efficacy of Ritual Healing,” Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Allegre, Brazil, 6/16; LEEA-CCH, Campos dos Goytacazes, Brasil, 7/13
• “Traditional Healing and Mental Health: an Anthropologists View,” Keynote Address, Global Mental Health Symposium, Munich, 10/17
• “The Gods of the Western Himalaya as Agents and as Intentional Beings,” Marcay, France, 12/17, Harvard University 3/18, City University of New York 3/18

• 2002-2005 SFB 619 Teilprojekt A4
  "Handlungspotential (agency) und territoriale Rituale in Indien"
• 2001-2005 DFG-Projekt SA 930/1-1 & 930/1-2
  "Umstrittene Zentren: Konstruktion und Wandel sozio-kultureller Identitäten in der indischen Region Orissa"
• 2001-2005 DFG-Projekt SA 930/4-1 + 930/4-2
  "Dokumentation eines Heilkultes im Zentral-Himalaya und dessen Analyse im Rahmen der "kritisch-interpretativen Medizinethnologie" und der "Performanz-Theorie"
• 2004 DFG 4850/92-04 Kongress-Zuschuss
  "The Ills of Marginality: New Perspectives on Subaltern Health in South Asia"
• July 2005 - June 2009 SFB 619 Sub-Project A5
  Ritual Healing and its critics
• AROGYAM (Indian-European Research Networking Programme in the Social Sciences (ANR-DFG-ESRC-NOW) EUR €225,600
• Cluster of Excellence Mini-Cluster MC-11, 2012-2017, “Changing Minds: the transcultural production of human kinds” (a study of ritual, history, and the sciences of mind) EUR 829,250.00