Phillips Stevens, Jr.
Associate Professor |
Office: 171 Spaulding, Bldg 3 Phone: (716) 645-0416 Email: pstevens@buffalo.edu |
Office Hours
Research Interests
Cultural anthropology, religion, cultural change; West Africa, Caribbean
Selected Recent Publications
2008c Articles on “Esu,” “Mangu,” “Spirits and Spirit Possession,” “Vodou,” and “Witchcraft,” for F. Abiola Irele and Biodun Jeyifo, eds., Encyclopedia of African Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, in press.2008b Play and Liminality in Rites of Passage: From Elder to Ancestor in West Africa (see 2004a) In Richard L. Warms, James F. Garber, and R. Jon McGee, eds., Sacred Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief, and Society. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw- Hill, pp. 175-185.
2008a Universal Cultural Elements in the Satanic Demonology. In James R. Lewis and Jesper A. Petersen, eds., Encyclopedic Sourcebook of Satanism. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 264-273.
2006b Women’s Aggressive Use of Genital Power in Africa. Transcultural Psychiatry, special issue in honor of Raymond Prince. Vol. 43, No. 4, December, 592-599.
2006a Articles on "Magic" (pp. 1512-1518), "Mana" (1525-1526), "Sorcery" (2117-2120), "Symboling" (2148-2150), "Taboos" (2153-2154), "Witch Doctor" (2317-2318), and 'Witchcraft" (2319-2324). In Encyclopedia of Anthropology . H. James Birx, ed. Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage Publications. 2005 "Witches." In Anand Prahlad, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African-American Folklore . Westport , CT : Greenwood Press, pp. 1375-1381.
2005 Articles on "Magic, Sorcery and Witchcraft in Africa" (pp. 684-688) and "Magic,
Sorcery and Witchcraft in the Americas" (688-690), in K. Anthony Appiah and Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American
Experience, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
2004b Articles on "Divination" (pp. 114-118), "Exorcism" (132-138), "Magic" (223-228),
and "Sorcery" (406-411), in Frank A. Salamone, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Rites,
Rituals, and Festivals. New York: Routledge.
2004a Play and Liminality in Rites of Passage: From Elder to Ancestor in West Africa
(see 1991). In Richard L. Warms, James F. Garber, and R. Jon McGee, eds., Sacred
Realms: Essays in Religion, Belief, and Society. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 185-195.
2003 A Magical Death? Skeptical Briefs, 13, 3, September, pp. 4-5, 15.
2001 Magical Thinking in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The Skeptical
Inquirer, Vol. 25, No. 6, Nov.-Dec., pp. 32-37.
2000 Some Implications of Urban Witchcraft Beliefs. In Arthur C. Lehmann and James
E. Myers, eds., Magic, Witchcraft and Religion, 5th Edition. Palo Alto and London:
Mayfield, pp. 215-223.
2000 Further Thoughts on the Star of Bethlehem. The Skeptical Inquirer 24, 2, pp. 61, 63.
1999 Magic, Sorcery and Witchcraft in the Americas. K. Anthony Appiah and Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Encarta Africana (CD-ROM), Cambridge, MA:
Afropaedia/Microsoft.
1999 The Agbeni Shango Shrine: The Missing Chapter. African Arts XXXII, 1, Spring,
pp. 12, 87.
1997 Review of Robert Parkin, The Dark Side of Humanity: The Work of Robert Hertz
and its Legacy (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996). American
Anthropologist 99, 2, June, pp. 422-423.
1997 Children, Witches, Demons and Cultural Reality. Review Essay, on Hans Sebald,
Witch-Children (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995). Free Inquiry 17, Spring, pp.
49-52.
1996 Traditional Sport in Africa: Wrestling among the Bachama of Nigeria. In Tsuneo
Sogawa, ed., Traditional Sport in the Twenty-First Century. Proceedings of the
International Conference on Traditional Sport, Waseda University, Tokyo, March 1993.
Tokyo: Taishukun- Shoten, pp. 83-114 (published in Japanese).
1996 Articles on "Magic" (pp. 721-726), "Religion" (1088-- 1100), and "Sorcery and
Witchcraft" (1225-1232). In David Levinson and Melvin Ember, eds., Encyclopedia of
Cultural Anthropology. New York: Henry Holt.
1996 Satanism: Where are the Folklorists? In Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith, eds. New
Perspectives on Contemporary Leqend: A Reader. New York: Garland, pp. 341-362.
1996 Articles on "Black Magic" (pp. 129-134), "Evil Eye" (235-241), "Satan and
Satanism" (657-670), and "Zombies" (845-851). In Gordon Stein, ed., Encyclopedia of
the Paranormal. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
Courses Offered
APY 369 | Peoples and Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa
APY 377 | Magic, Sorcery and Witchcraft
APY 393 | The Anthropology of Religion
APY 410 | Senior Seminar: Anthropological Approaches to Contemporary Social Issues
APY 513 | Cultural Change
APY 555 | Advanced Ethnology: Africa
APY 556 | Seminar in Religion and Society