Fall 2011 Events

15-17 December 2011, 9:00 am- 6:00 pm, 216 Anderson Hall

Plants and Religion: Multidisciplinary Approaches

The UF Working Group on Plants and Religion was  established to fill a gap in the current academic discourse, a systematic and holistic study of the ways in which cultures uses plants for sacred purposes. The inaugural conference of the working group will bring experts from various disciplines to discuss  new questions and methodologies in the interplay of plants and religion. 

For more information about this event and the Plants and Religion Working Group, visit plants-and-religion.org.

For a poster of this event, please click here.

The inaugural conference will consist of six sessions:

Healing Plants

This session will cover shamanism and the ritual uses of plants for healing, focusing on indigenous religious systems. Plants discussed will include Parika (Virola spp), Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis Caapi), Chacruna (Psychotria Viridis), Tobacco (Nicotiana spp), and others. Traditions ranging from Amazonian healing systems to Traditional Chinese and Indian (Asian) Medicine will be considered.

Movement & Destinations: Trajectories of Plants and Religion

This session will look at the ritual uses of plants and movement, especially in terms of pilgrimage, tourism, and the cultural migration, appropriation, and transformation of symbols. Ayahuasca tourism, the Huichol Peyote Hunt, and New Age uses of these plants will feature prominently in this session.

Plants, Cosmology, and Art

This sessions begins with a discussion of Biophilia as a vehicle to understanding the long-term relationship of humans and flora. Plants will be discussed in terms of their cosmological positions as “world trees,” forms of axis mundi, and sources of food and knowledge. In addition, this session will look at petroglyphs and other forms of shamanic art as they have been informed by the ritual use of plants.

Environmentalism and Ethnobotany

This session will attempt to bridge the gap between indigenous and mainstream discourses on plants especially in terms of ethnobotany and to discuss the role of plants in environmentalism, religion and nature.

Religious Nature of Plants: Plants in Agriculture, Medicine and Astrology

This session will address the religious nature of plants in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Further, it will also include presentations on religion and ariculture in India and plants as a link to explore the interactions of systems of knowledge (religion, medicine and astrology) in India.

Political and Legal Intersections of Plants and Religion

This session will look at questions of legality, policy and procedure surrounding the ritual use of plants. Cannabis, ayahuasca, peyote, coca, and many other plants face strict prohibitionist  agendas and rhetorical strategies, much of which is placed unquestioningly in terms of addiction and harm prevention. This session will aim to treat the subject beyond these common patterns of discourse.

• This event is free and open to the public
• Co-sponsored by the University of Florida Department of Religion, Office of the Dean of CLAS, The Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of Anthropology, the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and private donors. 
• Special thanks to: Dr. Beatriz Labate, founder & coordinator of the NEIP (Center for Studies and Research on Psychoactives, Brazil) and Dr. Edward MacRae, Professor of Anthropology, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil.

• For more information, contact  Robin Wright

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