Anthropologist Discusses Depictions of Evil at Sept. 29 Sidore Lecture

The 2005-2006 Saul O Sidore Lecture Series at the University of New Hampshire continues Thursday, Sept. 29, at 4 p.m. in Theatre I of the Memorial Union Building with Birgit Meyer, an anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam. This year’s series examines ideas about evil and efforts to combat it in a diversity of places — Nigeria, Ghana, the United States, Great Britain, Egypt and Sudan — and explores how these ideas represent both products of, and resistance against modernity. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Meyer will discuss how evil is depicted and how people respond to those depictions in popular painting and locally-produced films among Pentecostals in Ghana. In her book and in numerous articles, Meyer observes that Christian narratives of the Devil are particularly potent, in part because they appear to confirm rather than contradict traditional witchcraft beliefs. For more information on Meyer and a complete schedule of speakers, visit http://www.unh.edu/humanities-center/sidore/sidore.htm.