A recent episode of First Civilizations interviews UConn Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Dimitris Xygalatas on the role of ritual in the emergence of the first civilizations, religions, and priestly classes. First Civilization is a PBS documentary series that uses “the latest in archaeology, anthropology and genetics” to explore “how and why civilization first sparked into life.”
Religion
Dimitris Xygalatas on Religion, Morality, and Psychology of Rituals
Dimitris Xygalatas’ latest publications focus on the issues of morality and psychology of rituals. Professor Xygalatas is coauthor of a paper in the latest issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review entitled “The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework.” With growing interest among psychologists in rituals and the causal mechanisms of ritual behavior, this paper serves to “provide an organizing framework to understand recent empirical work from social psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.” In a second publication for the online media outlet The Conversation, Dimitris tackles patterns of distrust among religious people toward atheism and irreligious people, and the relationship between religious prejudice, morality, and belief. The Conversation is a not-for-profit media outlet for scientific and academic news, and reports a monthly online audience of 5.2 million users onsite, and reaches around 35 million people through “creative commons republication.” Dimitris Xygalatas is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCONN.
Dimitris Xygalatas’ photo essay in Sapiens
Sapien, the online journal of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, has published a photo essay by Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCONN. The essay entitled “The Perennial Power of Ritual” focuses on the psychological, and cultural significance of ritual behavior, including its role in stress reduction, community building, providing guidance, and aggression management. The photo essay covers examples of ritual practice in Spain, Madagascar, Vietnam, Mauritius, and Guatemala.
Don Seeman lecture “Coffee and the Moral Order”
The Religious Cultures Speakers Series presents a lecture by Don Seeman of Emory University, entitled “Coffee and the Moral Order: Ethiopian Jews and Pentecostals against Culture.”
Please join us on Tuesday, November 1, 11:00-12:20, in Laurel Hall 305.
The Religious Cultures Speakers Series is sponsored by the UConn Humanities Institute, African Studies Institute, Center for Judaic Studies, Department of Anthropology, and the James Barnett Endowment for Humanistic Anthropology.
Stephen Glazier lecture “Demanding Deities & Reluctant Devotees”
The Religious Cultures Speakers Series presents a lecture by Stephen Glazier from University of Nebraska, Lincoln, entitled ” Demanding Deities and Reluctant Devotees: Belief, Unbelief, and Affect among Followers of the Orisa, Rastafari, and Spiritual Baptists Movements in Trinidad.”
Please join us on Thursday, September 22, 11:00-12:20, in Laurel Hall 305.
The Religious Cultures Speakers Series is sponsored by the UConn Humanities Institute, Department of Anthropology, and the James Barnett Endowment for Humanistic Anthropology.
D. Xygalatas was awarded UCONN Humanities fellowship
Dimitris Xygalatas received a fellowship award from University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute for the academic year 2016-17. These residential Fellowships allow scholars to pursue advanced work in the humanities. During his tenure at UCHI, Dr. Xygalatas will pursue work on the social functions of ritual.
Dimitris Xygalatas’s TEDx talk on the power of ritual
From fire-walking to meditation, and from graduation ceremonies to wine toasting, rituals are everywhere. But what purpose do they serve? Dimitris Xygalatas combines anthropology, science, and technology to answer this question.
Jeffrey Schloss’s lecture “Beyond the ‘or Wars’?”
Don’t miss a talk by Jeffrey Schloss (Westmont College) that is part of James Barnett Lecture Series in Humanistic Anthropology. J. Schloss will present this upcoming Monday in Austin Building.
Adam Selingman’s lecture “Living with Difference”
Please join us on February 29, 2016 at 2:15 for a talk by Adam Seligman, Professor of Religion at Boston University entitled: “Living with Difference”. Adam’s talk is the second in the James Barnett Lecture Series in Humanistic Anthropology Religion and Public Discourse.
These talks are sponsored by the Public Discourse Project, UConn Humanities Institute and the James Barnett Lecture Series. For more information on the talk, please follow this link: http://humanities.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/785/2016/02/Seligman-poster.pdf
All lectures are open to the public and will be held at The Humanities Institute (UCHI), Austin Building, Room 301. For more information please contact Richard Sosis (richard.sosis@uconn.edu
New paper about environmental cues and fairness
It Depends Who Is Watching You: 3-D Agent Cues Increase Fairness
Jan Krátký, John J. McGraw, Dimitris Xygalatas, Panagiotis Mitkidis, Paul Reddish
Laboratory and field studies have demonstrated that exposure to cues of intentional agents in the form of eyes can increase prosocial behavior. However, previous research mostly used 2-dimensional depictions as experimental stimuli. Thus far no study has examined the influence of the spatial properties of agency cues on this prosocial effect. To investigate the role of dimensionality of agency cues on fairness, 345 participants engaged in a decision-making task in a naturalistic setting. The experimental treatment included a 3-dimensional pseudo-realistic model of a human head and a 2-dimensional picture of the same object. The control stimuli consisted of a real plant and its 2-D image. Our results partly support the findings of previous studies that cues of intentional agents increase prosocial behavior…..