Videos by Fabrizio Ferrari
Laurea magistrale in Scienze delle religioni
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Teaching Documents by Fabrizio Ferrari
MA programme in Religious Studies: an academic partnership between the University of Padua (Depar... more MA programme in Religious Studies: an academic partnership between the University of Padua (Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World ) and the Ca'Foscari University of Venice (Department of Asian and North African Studies).
Laurea magistrale interateneo: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità (Di... more Laurea magistrale interateneo: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità (DiSSGeA), Università degli Studi di Padova e Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea (DSAAM), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia.
Books by Fabrizio Ferrari
«Ogni viaggio è la negazione della precedente visione del mondo come della sua geografia fisica e... more «Ogni viaggio è la negazione della precedente visione del mondo come della sua geografia fisica e umana» — afferma Paolo Scarpi in La fuga e il ritorno. Il presente volume intende esserne testimone, attraversando epoche e mondi, i più diversi, per ripensare il presente e le sue traiettorie, ripercorrendone miti e storie. Gli autori dei saggi rendono omaggio al settantesimo compleanno di Paolo Scarpi, testimoniando le tracce dei suoi itinerari di ricerca in amici, allievi e colleghi: storici delle religioni, antropologi e sociologi, archeologi e indologi, sinologi e classicisti, iamatologi e filosofi, che hanno avuto con lui l’occasione di percorrere rotte interdisciplinari.
Sheffield: Equinox, 2016
Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy: Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions investigate... more Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy: Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions investigates the way in which Indian culture has represented inorganic matter and geological formations such as mountains and the earth itself. The volume is divided into four sections, each discussing from different angles the manifold dimensions occupied by minerals, gems and metals in traditions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The various chapters offer a rigorous analysis of a variety of texts from different South Asian regions from a range of perspectives such as history, philology, philosophy, hermeneutics and ethnography. The themes discussed include literature (myth and epics), ritual, ethics, folklore, and sciences such as astrology, medicine, alchemy and cosmetics.
The volume critically reflects on the concept of “inanimate world” and shows how Indian traditions have variously interpreted the concept of embodied life and lifelessness. Ranging from worldviews and disciplines which regard metals, minerals, gems as alive, sentient or inhabited by divine presences and powers to ideas which deny matter possesses life and sentience, the Indian Subcontinent proves to be a challenge for taxonomic investigations but at the same time provides historians of religions and philosophers with stimulating material.
Sheffield: Equinox, Jun 2016
Plant life has figured prominently in Indian culture. Archaeobotanical findings and Vedic texts c... more Plant life has figured prominently in Indian culture. Archaeobotanical findings and Vedic texts confirm that plants have been central not only as a commodity (sources of food; materia medica; sacrificial matter; etc.) but also as powerful and enduring symbols. Roots of Wisdom, Branches of Devotion: Plant Life in South Asian Traditions explores how herbs, trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables have been studied, classified, represented and discussed in a variety of Indian traditions such as Vedism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, indigenous cultures and Islam. Moving from an analysis of the sentience of plants in early Indian philosophies and scientific literature, the various chapters, divided in four thematic sections, explore Indian flora within devotional and mystic literature (bhakti and Sufism), mythological, ritual and sacrificial culture, folklore, medicine, perfumery, botany, floriculture and agriculture. Arboreal and floral motifs are also discussed as an expression of Indian aesthetics since early coinage to figurative arts and literary figures. Finally, the volume reflects current discourses on environmentalism and ecology as well as on the place of indigenous flora as part of an ancient yet still very much alive sacred geography.
London: Bloomsbury Academics, Nov 20, 2014
This volume examines notions of health and illness in North Indian devotional culture, with parti... more This volume examines notions of health and illness in North Indian devotional culture, with particular attention paid to the worship of the goddess Sitala, the Cold Lady. Consistently portrayed in colonial and postcolonial literature as the ambiguous 'smallpox goddess', Sitala is here discussed as a protector of children and women, a portrayal that emerges from textual sources as well as material culture.
The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering.
Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture.
Sheffield: Equinox, 2013
"Discussions on non-human animals, other-than-human persons and religion originally emerged withi... more "Discussions on non-human animals, other-than-human persons and religion originally emerged within the context of Christian theology, eco-theology and Western-based environmentalism. In response to that, and by adhering to post-modern discourses on, for instance, indigeneity, mimicry and hybridity, the volume explores South Asian cultural manifestations and aspects of localised knowledge in relation to the construction and the Otherisation of the concept of body and behaviour in non-human animals. The study of non-human animals as other-than-human persons (actual animals, but also animal-spirits, animal deities, etc.) has marked a significant shift in the ethics/politics of the academic study of religion. The chapters in this book investigate how South Asian religions, with their sacred narratives, ritualised practices and popular performances, bear witness to the active presence of non-human animals as both culture makers/bearers and symbols of spirituality. Further to that, with bourgeoning debates on religion, indigeneity, eco-theology and environmentalism, the volume urges for a consolidation and promotion of an analysis of the twofold epistemic violence exerted towards animals as subaltern to human animals and to animals in Western and Christian traditions.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, each dealing with non-human animals and the concept of animality in different South Asian traditions, or various aspects of the same tradition. The structure of the book reflects that of what is probably the most popular collection of folk tales on animals in South Asia, the Pañcatantra. Like the original text, the volume is divided into five books (tantras) whose single stories (our chapters) act as sub-strings inscribed in larger narrative frames. As in the original Pañcatantra, the principal themes of each book are signalled by key words which provide the link between successive narrative cycles. Such a structural arrangement creates the backbone for the main body of the book allowing for an articulate, clear and reasoned discussion of single themes, such as 1) non-human animals as divine portents in situations of imbalance; 2) non-human animals as restorers of order and symbols of cultural identity; 3) non-human animals as exemplary beings and spiritual teachers in sacred narratives; 4) non-human animals as symbols of love and object of human reverence; 5) non-human animals as portents symbolising the life cycle, including its inevitable end."
London: Routledge, 2012
""Ernesto de Martino was a major critical thinker in the study of vernacular religions, producing... more ""Ernesto de Martino was a major critical thinker in the study of vernacular religions, producing innovative analyses of key concepts such as ‘folklore’, ‘magic’ and ‘ritual’. His methodology stemmed from his training under the philosopher Benedetto Croce whilst his philosophical approach to anthropology borrowed from Marx and Gramsci.
Widely celebrated in continental Europe, de Martino’s contribution to the study of religion has not been fully understood in the Anglophone world though some of his works - Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism - have been translated.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of de Martino’s life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the potential of his methodology for contemporary scholarship.""
London: Routledge, 2011
Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of... more Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of indigenous understandings of disease as possession, and looks at healing rituals in different South Asian cultural contexts. Contributors discuss the meaning of “disease”, “possession” and “healing” in relation to South Asian religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism, and how South Asians deal with the divine in order to negotiate health and wellbeing.
The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full- length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.
Calcutta: Seagull, 2010
Guilty Males and Proud Females is the first complete study on the Bengali gajan festival dedicate... more Guilty Males and Proud Females is the first complete study on the Bengali gajan festival dedicated to Dharmaraj, a village god in the Rarh region of Bengal. The gajan is the dramatic representation of the marriage of a god and goddess, and the recreation of the life-cycle of earth. As Fabrizio Ferrari explains one of the most fascinating aspects of the gajan is its approach to gender. The central deity of the gajan is a goddess identified with the earth. To please such a goddess, male devotees must acknowledge the pain they inflict towards the female world and become “ritual women.” Conversely, as part of the festival, women display their generative power and provoke the jealousy of men by ritually mocking conception and delivery. The outcome of the ritual is that their suffering is acknowledged and transformed into power.
Much more than an ethnography of Bengali popular religion, Guilty Males and Proud Females contributes to new studies on gender transformation in the Bengal region and will be of interest to scholars of South Asian religions, folklore, and gender studies
Milano: Edizioni Ariele, 2001
Simbolo vivente della religiosità popolare del Bengala, i baul manifestano attraverso i loro cant... more Simbolo vivente della religiosità popolare del Bengala, i baul manifestano attraverso i loro canti il desiderio di unione con l'Assoluto che esiste innato in ogni uomo. Essi sono cantori mistici di provenienza sia hindu che musulmana e il loro percorso spirituale è improntato su una filosofia non dualista che affonda le sue radici nelle tre maggiori religioni indiane (induismo, buddhismo e Islam) e nelle scuole esoteriche ad esse collegate. Influenzati dalla produzione lirica propria del sufismo e delle correnti devozionali visnuite, i baul hanno prodotto (e continuano a produrre) mirabili esempi di poesia mistica popolare attraverso l'uso di delicate immagini poetiche.
Papers by Fabrizio Ferrari
Historia Religionum, 2024
Recovering history in premodern India. The debate on sacrifice in the Caitanyacaritāmr̥ta di Kr̥ṣ... more Recovering history in premodern India. The debate on sacrifice in the Caitanyacaritāmr̥ta di Kr̥ṣṇadāsa Kavirāja
G. ZISA (a cura di), La sacra scena, Atti di convegno (Palermo: Edizioni Museo Pasqualino), 2023
L'arte medica. La scuola padovana e la medicina in Europa e nel mondo, edited by Giovanni Silvano, 2022
Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 2022
The article examines maṛā khelā («playing with corpses»), a ritual dance which signals the end of... more The article examines maṛā khelā («playing with corpses»), a ritual dance which signals the end of the Gājan, a major festival of northeastern India. The tradition, which seems limited to a cluster of villages in Pūrba Bardhamān, is dedicated to the gods Dharmarāj or Śiva and requires devotees to dance and play with human heads or with the bodies of children on occasion of the end of the agricultural year and the beginning of Spring. The study is based on an ethnography of maṛā khelā and an analysis of texts in Middle-Bengali. “Playing with corpses” – and more generally the Gājan – is here discussed as a form of Indian Carnival featured by ritual and social inversion. This reading, which moves from a theoretical model applied to the analysis of the crowd in mass festivals, allows a rereading of the Gājan from a little-know, and problematic, ritual performance.
Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 2022
Ricostruire il lessico anatomico dei testi vedici si rivela un lavoro frustrante. Salvo poche ecc... more Ricostruire il lessico anatomico dei testi vedici si rivela un lavoro frustrante. Salvo poche eccezioni, trovare esatte corrispondenze tra il vocabolario utilizzato nel corpus vedico e la terminologia anatomica corrente è spesso impossibile. Il cuore, e la regione cardiaca in generale, sembra meno problematico dal punto di vista filologico. Ciò nonostante, lo studio delle “malattie cardiache”, vagamente raggruppate sotto i sostantivi hṛdrogá e hṛddyotá, presenta grossi problemi interpretativi. In questo articolo discuteremo come l’infarto acuto del miocardio possa essere riscontrato in almeno un inno dell’Atharvaveda, facendone così una delle fonti più antiche in relazione a tale cardiopatia. Oltre al dato storico, proporremo una riconsiderazione dell’esorcismo vedico come un esercizio nosologico definito da una logica rituale interna e da una grammatica legata a canoni poetici e ideologici, anziché come un mero tentativo di raggruppare una serie di sintomi apparentemente senza connessione alcuna.
MYTHOS, 2021
In this article, I will examine the myth of the origin of rice (dhānyer janma) in the texts attri... more In this article, I will examine the myth of the origin of rice (dhānyer janma) in the texts attributed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit, the first priest of the Bengali god Dharmarāj. The myth, which features a form of Śiva as a ploughing god (kr̥ṣak debatā), has long been considered a late interpolation following the spread of the Bengali śaiva culture. In fact, the śaiva (nāth) element is earlier than Dharmarāj mythology and, with all probability, originated in eastern Bengal. This thesis will be discussed along a cross-examination Dharmaite literature, Bengali Nāth texts, epigraphic sources, and a historical study of the hydrogeological shift of the Bengal river complexes. In so doing, the paper offers a unique perspective to appreciate forms of mythopoesis and the dynamics of circulation of narratives and rituals in medieval Bengal with respect to agricultural knowledge and the biodiversity inherent to Bengali cereal culture.
Historia Religionum, 2021
The paper examines how Indian religions have adapted vis-à-vis the insurgence of new pandemics. M... more The paper examines how Indian religions have adapted vis-à-vis the insurgence of new pandemics. Moving from a historical reconstruction of the spread of cholera in the Indian Subcontient and an analysis of the rise of Olā Bibi, the Bengali goddess who protects from cholera, I discuss ritual, mythological and iconographic features amidst colonialism and indigenous medical systems. The study of Olā Bibi is of the utmost importance in that it gives voice to concerns and expectations of both Bengali Hindus and Muslims, and it appears to be the last documented case of a goddess born in time of emergency. The paper then moves to discuss AIDS-amma and Koronā-mātā, the goddesses respectively in charge of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. In both cases, as it will be explained, technology and globalisation impact heavily on the stratification of myth and the definition of ritual practice, and eventually prove how the processes required by mythologisation are challenged by the capillary dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Il corpo della parola. Inni, poemi e performance nell’India antica e contemporanea, a cura di Igor Spanò (Palermo: Edizioni Museo Pasqualino), 2021
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Videos by Fabrizio Ferrari
Teaching Documents by Fabrizio Ferrari
Books by Fabrizio Ferrari
The volume critically reflects on the concept of “inanimate world” and shows how Indian traditions have variously interpreted the concept of embodied life and lifelessness. Ranging from worldviews and disciplines which regard metals, minerals, gems as alive, sentient or inhabited by divine presences and powers to ideas which deny matter possesses life and sentience, the Indian Subcontinent proves to be a challenge for taxonomic investigations but at the same time provides historians of religions and philosophers with stimulating material.
The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering.
Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, each dealing with non-human animals and the concept of animality in different South Asian traditions, or various aspects of the same tradition. The structure of the book reflects that of what is probably the most popular collection of folk tales on animals in South Asia, the Pañcatantra. Like the original text, the volume is divided into five books (tantras) whose single stories (our chapters) act as sub-strings inscribed in larger narrative frames. As in the original Pañcatantra, the principal themes of each book are signalled by key words which provide the link between successive narrative cycles. Such a structural arrangement creates the backbone for the main body of the book allowing for an articulate, clear and reasoned discussion of single themes, such as 1) non-human animals as divine portents in situations of imbalance; 2) non-human animals as restorers of order and symbols of cultural identity; 3) non-human animals as exemplary beings and spiritual teachers in sacred narratives; 4) non-human animals as symbols of love and object of human reverence; 5) non-human animals as portents symbolising the life cycle, including its inevitable end."
Widely celebrated in continental Europe, de Martino’s contribution to the study of religion has not been fully understood in the Anglophone world though some of his works - Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism - have been translated.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of de Martino’s life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the potential of his methodology for contemporary scholarship.""
The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full- length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.
Much more than an ethnography of Bengali popular religion, Guilty Males and Proud Females contributes to new studies on gender transformation in the Bengal region and will be of interest to scholars of South Asian religions, folklore, and gender studies
Papers by Fabrizio Ferrari
The volume critically reflects on the concept of “inanimate world” and shows how Indian traditions have variously interpreted the concept of embodied life and lifelessness. Ranging from worldviews and disciplines which regard metals, minerals, gems as alive, sentient or inhabited by divine presences and powers to ideas which deny matter possesses life and sentience, the Indian Subcontinent proves to be a challenge for taxonomic investigations but at the same time provides historians of religions and philosophers with stimulating material.
The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering.
Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, each dealing with non-human animals and the concept of animality in different South Asian traditions, or various aspects of the same tradition. The structure of the book reflects that of what is probably the most popular collection of folk tales on animals in South Asia, the Pañcatantra. Like the original text, the volume is divided into five books (tantras) whose single stories (our chapters) act as sub-strings inscribed in larger narrative frames. As in the original Pañcatantra, the principal themes of each book are signalled by key words which provide the link between successive narrative cycles. Such a structural arrangement creates the backbone for the main body of the book allowing for an articulate, clear and reasoned discussion of single themes, such as 1) non-human animals as divine portents in situations of imbalance; 2) non-human animals as restorers of order and symbols of cultural identity; 3) non-human animals as exemplary beings and spiritual teachers in sacred narratives; 4) non-human animals as symbols of love and object of human reverence; 5) non-human animals as portents symbolising the life cycle, including its inevitable end."
Widely celebrated in continental Europe, de Martino’s contribution to the study of religion has not been fully understood in the Anglophone world though some of his works - Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism - have been translated.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of de Martino’s life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the potential of his methodology for contemporary scholarship.""
The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full- length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.
Much more than an ethnography of Bengali popular religion, Guilty Males and Proud Females contributes to new studies on gender transformation in the Bengal region and will be of interest to scholars of South Asian religions, folklore, and gender studies