Kenneth George, Professor Emeritus, Anthropology The Australian National University to present: “Technophany and the Sacralisation of Infrastructure in India and Thailand”

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Tuesday, March 21 @ 4 PM (MST) in Paleontology Hall at the CU Museum.

The rise of industrial capitalism in South and Southeast Asia since the late 19th century has been accompanied by rites that aim to bring emerging infrastructures, technologies, and objects of manufacture into alignment with the cosmos. Most prominent among these rites are those tied to the worship of the Hindu-Buddhist deity known in India as Vishwakarma, and in Thailand as Witsanukam. This god and his manifestation in ritual do not stand outside of technological practices and assemblage, but occasion a time of “technophany,” a time in which societies of technical ensembles and beings are made visible and wondrous to devotees and their publics. Using the conceptual framework of technophany, and drawing from historical study and team-based ethnographic fieldwork in both India and Thailand (2017-2019, and 2022), this comparative look at Vishwakarma worship calls for a rethinking of frameworks that would treat religion and technology as ontologically distinct domains.

Sponsored by the CU Department of Anthropology, the CU Center for the Humanities and Arts and CU Center for Asian studies.

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