Marieke Wilson

Johns Hopkins University, Anthropology, Graduate Student

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My research is based on fieldwork conducted in southwestern Nigeria between 2008 and 2011. I am interested in the relationship between Pentecostal Megachurches and the Nigerian state, specifically in the context of film and other media produced under the supervision of church leaders. Some of the many questions I seek address in my writing: 1) Do these media present an alternative vision of the contemporary Nigerian social and political landscape? If so, how? 2) When we consider ongoing political and economic instability and religious conflicts between North and South, how do these media play a role in shaping the relationship between the religious individual and what they perceive as the Nigerian state? 3) What is at stake for Pentecostal churches in the production of media content, and what kinds of messages do they emphasize? 4) How do they envisage the reception of these messages?
I am currently writing my dissertation, and will teach a course entitled "The Anthropology of Belief" in the Fall semester.
Supervisors: Jane Guyer, Deborah Poole, and Anand Pandian

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Claudia Chang

Sweet Briar College

Annelies Moors

University of Amsterdam

Jeanette S. Jouili

Syracuse University

David Kloos

KITLV

Daan Beekers

Netherlands Institute for Social Research

Maynooth University

University of Oregon

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McMaster University

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Papers by Marieke Wilson

Sterile Bodies and Perverse Spectatorship: A Case Study in Gunther Von Hagens' Body Worlds Exhibit"

In recent and massively popular “anatomical” exhibits such as Gunther Von Hagens’ “Bodyworlds”, t... more In recent and massively popular “anatomical” exhibits such as Gunther Von Hagens’ “Bodyworlds”, the standard Western medical “ethos of detachment” is not called into question- it is reinforced in the enactment of an affective neutrality and clinical gaze as the proper “mode” within which to assess the wonders of human anatomy. This kind of discourse infiltrates the literature accompanying the exhibit as well as the design of the display, but the contagious and enthusiastic curiosity that characterizes most modern spectators’ reactions to the bodies demands that we pay critical attention to the sharp dichotomy between working understandings of the “insides” of the body and the ways in which these are operationalized in the museum “trenches”, in relation to cadavers (often of unknown origin) which stand before the viewer demanding appraisal on the basis of appearance, health, and “unusual”, “diseased” or “pathological” characteristics.

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Virtual Pedagogy: New Media for the Anthropological Classroom

Anthropology News, 2009

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Commodified Cadavers and the Political Economy of the Spectacle1: Commodified Cadavers and the Political Economy of the Spectacle

International Political Sociology, 2010

Traveling anatomy exhibitions import plasticized, posed human cadavers and place them on display.... more Traveling anatomy exhibitions import plasticized, posed human cadavers and place them on display. We explore the current industry, its history, and the spectacle of anatomy exhibits. The commodification of cadavers is examined as a problem in global political economy. The absence of global rules identifying plastinated cadavers as human remains allows a globalized plastination and exhibition industry. The spectacle of the exhibitions themselves divert attention away from important moral questions about the proper use of human remains and about the provenance of the cadavers used to create plastinates. The absence of global norms and the distraction of spectacle results in a global regime permitting commodification of cadavers.

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