Current Joint Projects (2022-2023):
The Books of Jacob Reading and Writing Group
Principal Investigators: Courtney Bender (Religion, Columbia University), Clémence Boulouque (Religion, Columbia University) and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan (Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington)
This Joint Project provides funding for the inaugural year of a multi-year interdisciplinary group project dedicated to reading The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, first published in Polish in October 2014, and subsequently in English translation in November 2021. An epic historical novel set in eighteenth century Eastern Europe, it gives an account of the rise of the movement around Jacob Frank, a Jewish- born, Christian convert messianic leader who both during his life and in his afterlives has been seen as an arch-heretic of modern Jewish history. Moving across genres of writing, memoir, letters, chronicles, sermons, and more, illustrated with maps and charts and other historical images, evoking characters and voices both human and possibly divine, The Books of Jacob is a remarkable achievement. The novel demands much of the reader who is drawn into a wondering, some- times horrified, complicity with Frank and his efforts to sustain his project.
As a virtuoso portrait of a fascinating and significant historical religious personage, community, and event, The Books of Jacob invites attention from scholars of religion. Taking up threads that other readers and reviewers in Europe (and the US) have identified but not explored at great length, this reading and writing group will work together to consider the religiousness of the work. The group will pay particular attention to the registers and projects of writing religion(s) within Tokarczuk’s novel, using it as an occasion for reflecting anew on our own scholarly and interpretive strategies and practices for investigating, representing, and writing religion in the past and present.
Sacred Liberties and Citizenship Practices in Rio de Janeiro’s Candomblé Terreiros
Principle investigators: Ana Paulina Lee (Latin American and Ibreian Cultures, Columbia University),
Ana Luiza de Abreu Cláudio (Instituto Moreira Salles) and Nilce Naira Nascimento and Luiz Fernando Vianna (Instituto Moreira Salles)
This Joint Project aims to create a podcast series titled, “Sacred Liberties and Citizenship Practices in Rio de Janeiro’s Candomblé Terreiros.” In a collaboration between Candomblé matriarch Mãe Nilce de Iansã and Ana Paulina Lee, Assistant Professor of Brazilian Studies, we seek to reconstruct histories about the terreiro as a nexus of citizenship practices. The terreiro is often understood as a sacred space in Candomblé religious ceremonies. This project will demonstrate how religious activities and worship practices at terreiros include political rituals. Religious and sociopolitical realms are interconnected in terreiro’s activities, which include social aid and health care networks, food distribution, environmental and biodiversity advocacy, economic entrepreneurship for women, and legal struggles for Afro-Brazilian religious tolerance. The project outcomes will be a launchpad for educational programming, legal advocacy, and public-facing outreach that will address histories of Candomblé terreiros as central locations for the practice of citizenship and expansion of human rights, which also includes the terreiro’s advocacy in protecting nature as juridical persons.