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SUMMARY:Mountain Media: Theologies of the Present in Northern Pakistan - D
 r Timothy Cooper\, Cambridge University
DTSTART:20240126T140000Z
DTEND:20240126T150000Z
UID:TALK211342@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Said Reza Huseini
DESCRIPTION:In Northern Pakistan\, Nizari Isma’ili and Twelver Shi’i c
 ommunities use painted or arranged rocks to write monumental messages on t
 he Karakoram Mountain range. On one side of the Hunza River\, and the Goja
 l Valley\, mountain writing celebrates the continuation of the Imamat\, a 
 supra-national institution led by the forty-ninth Imam. Messages congratul
 ate the Nizari Isma’ili community on experiencing Didar\, an event that 
 puts them in the presence of “Hazar” or present Imam. In Nagar\, on th
 e other side of the river\, Twelver Shi’i communities signal their loyal
 ty to their own system of Imamat\, which paused at the hidden Twelfth Imam
 \, Mahdi\, whose return promises to restore justice to a world bereft of i
 t. Nizari Isma’ili and Twelver Shi’i mountain writing is in direct con
 versation\, continuing a long-standing dialogue between the communities ov
 er the relationship between the temporal present\, presence\, and divinely
  appointed authority.\n\nUsually elided in favour of burdensome pasts or a
 nticipated futures\, the present is an understudied area of the humanities
  and social sciences. Drawn from ongoing ethnographic research\, I test se
 veral ways of understanding the present(s) to which Nizari Isma’ili and 
 Twelver Shi’i mountain writing lay claim. First\, by understanding the m
 ountains themselves as a media form that brings with their contemporaneity
  a sense of precarity and impermanence. Second\, by examining the material
 ity of disclosure and guidance among Nizari Isma’ilis in Gojal. Third\, 
 I look to some of the ways that these Nizari Isma’ili and Twelver Shi’
 i communities distinguish between one another’s present concerns through
  the issue of mourning.\n\n\nAbout the speaker:  \nTimothy P.A. Cooper is 
 an anthropologist studying religion\, ethics\, and comparative media in co
 ntemporary Pakistan. Currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Depar
 tment of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge\, his first bo
 ok\, Moral Atmospheres: Islam and Media in a Pakistani Marketplace is out 
 with Columbia University Press in 2024 and was awarded the Claremont Prize
  in the Study of Religion\n\n
LOCATION:Keynes Lecture Theatre\, King’s College (and online) 
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