Interview with Tanya Luhrmann

Abstract

Professor Tanya Luhrmann visited Finland in September 2016 as the keynote speaker of the conference ‘Wild or Domesticated: Uncanny in Historical and Contemporary Perspectives to Mind’ organized by the Academy of Finland Project ‘Mind and Other’. As one of the founders of the anthropology of mind, Professor Luhrmann has made a remarkable contribution to the creation of this significant field of research. In addition to her contribution to anthropological theory, she has opened several avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration with philosophy, theology and, currently, with cognitive science. Professor Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. Focusing her research work on the edge of experience and at the cultural borderlines of what is considered real and true, she has worked in several fields: among homeless psychotic women and with people who hear voices or have unusual sensory experiences, as well as on modern psychiatry. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the mind, the phenomenology of experience, and the way they are shaped by cross-cultural ideas about intersubjectivity, persons, and science. Marja-Liisa Honkasalo had a unique opportunity to conduct an interview with Professor Luhrmann during her stay at the University of Stanford, which we publish here. During the interview Professor Luhrmann discussed themes and unique interests that have informed her research career.