Rock and Roll

So the conference ended yesterday, which means that I've delivered myself into Aviva's hands for the rest of my break in Mexico. There are a ton of things I love about Aviva, but one of the things I especially love is that we skip dull moments and get right to the good part, and she does that better than just about anyone I know. Yesterday, we spontaneously decided to go see the National (who were AWESOME) and Broken Social Scene (who were PRETTY GOOD), and since we didn't get back until 3am, I woke up in Aviva's bed and had to totter back to the Centro Historico with vertical hair to check out of my hotel. We met up again in the afternoon to talk about Israel, gay gentrification, and eugenics over a vegetarian lunch at an Indian place in Polanco, then went out tonight to a barbecue in Santa Fe. (I had a burger, but I also grilled a banana and that was delicious.) The house we were at had an amazing view of Mexico City, and I sort of kicked myself for not having a camera, but only sort of because it was dark and it would have just been a blurry mess. Instead, we just sat back and watched the fireworks that someone was setting off across town, which were lovely. We weren't really sure why there were fireworks, but that made it even better.

Sweet, Delicious Survival Mechanisms

In Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage (which I read in a sitting on the night that I woke up and vomited for a couple of hours, but I'm 99% sure that had nothing to do with the book), there's this part where he gets homesick and splurges on an expensive hotel that's supposed to make him feel like a rockstar. (Leonard Cohen has stayed there, I guess.) He ends up crying himself to sleep, but the point of the story is that I'm a big fan of splurges in those rare instances where it turns out that money can, in fact, buy happiness. (Maybe it's because Let's Go turned me into a die-hard budget traveler who's loathe to spend $5 on a meal, but it's true.)

Anyway, after walking across town, shopping at a labyrinthine market for two and a half hours, and spending an hour searching fruitlessly on 5 de Mayo for a copy of the weekend International Herald Tribune (thanks for nothing and I'll see you in hell for that tip, Rough Guide), I bought myself a good-job Java Chip Frappucino and I'm not going to apologize because it was delicious and magical and even though it cost more than the four-course comidas corridas that I've been having for lunch most days, it was entirely worth it. I'm either reinvigorated or jacked on caffeine, but either way, I'm intrigued by this consumerist self-medication thing.

¡Bad Choices!

I've had my heart set on this vegetarian restaurant that sounded like one of the awesomer parts of my neighborhood in Mexico City, and since I spent yesterday checking out the Palacio Nacional, the Catedral Metropolitana, and the Templo Mayor - where I lived vicariously through Gloria Anzaldua AND got one of the only free admissions I've ever gotten from my ISIC, ever, which still doesn't quite justify spending twenty dollars on it - this was the morning it was going to happen. At least, it was, until I spent the night vomiting in my bathroom. (I take no blame for this, because my dinner yesterday was a cup of mango and a piece of sweet bread from a bakery, and not anything racy or novel.) I woke up tangled in my sheets in a cold sweat with a wastebasket next to me, which didn't really bode well for my presentation this afternoon.

After a shower, I was starting to feel a little bit better, and as I walked to the bakery where I may or may not have gotten malaria from a piece of sweet bread, I was like, um, maybe my stomach doesn't want this. So instead, I went looking for an internet cafe, and accidentally ended up on the street with the vegetarian place. I figured it was probably good to put something in my stomach, and I wasn't going to get any dodgy meats at a vegetarian place, so I hiked upstairs. And being the responsible person I am, I drank black coffee and ordered oatmeal, but then the waiter told me that the oatmeal was kind of small and that I'd be better off with something else, so I got huevos rancheros. And it came with a muffin. And I ate three tortillas full of huevos rancheros. So far, I'm fine, which is good because I present a paper this afternoon. That said, there's a decent chance that I'll spend the night vomiting over my balcony.

Things I Love About Mexico City

1. The ability to show up to things twenty minutes late and still be the first person there.
2. The fact that when I'm on my own, I can eat Mexican pastries for every meal and nobody will judge me.

I like other things about Mexico, too, but I'm going to have to say that my laziness and gluttony pretty much eclipse everything else.

I'm in Mexico!

Historically, my MO for travel has been to show up in a place and blunder my way through it artlessly, while picking up awesome stories because of my own incompetence. I didn't have to do that in Peru and Morocco and Israel, and I remember thinking on all of those trips that they would have been much different if I had been left to my own devices.

Cut to me, in Mexico, being left to my own devices, and recall why I probably shouldn't travel this way. I picked a hotel solely because it was close to the conference site and cost $22 per night, and while it's fine, it's about what you'd expect from a room that costs $22. (Like, light fixtures, flexible mattresses and pillows, and a functioning television cost extra.) I managed to get a full night's sleep, figure out my shower, and make it to a cafe, which were each accomplishments in themselves. Still, since my Spanish is terrible, I accidentally ordered cake for breakfast AGAIN, although it was layered cake in Peru and this time it was cheesecake. (I ate it both times, mostly because I was too embarrassed to do anything else.) I then proceeded to get lost on my way to the conference site, but I did find it, and it turns out that this is basically academic pornography for anyone interested in queer studies.

The highlight of my day was when I finished lunch and the waiter brought over a phone number from a girl who thought I was cute. I may not be competent, but it's nice to know that I've still got it. It's a decent consolation prize.

In the Heights

What would I do with roughly thirty-six hours in the United States between oddly timed vacations? I'm glad you asked!

I was basically dead after not sleeping during my last night in Tel Aviv and then spending all day on planes from Tel Aviv to Istanbul to New York, which put me there around the time that my body believed it was 1am and really wanted to go to bed. So instead, I took my body out for asian chicken salad in Washington Heights with Brady, Pennie, and Emma, which it received graciously before passing out. In the morning, Brady and I got coffee and muffins from Carrot Top, which apparently specializes in baked goods that somehow involve carrots. We had carrot muffins, but I'm pretty sure they left my coffee alone. We paired that with Top Chef and House of Wax, and when I found myself almost throwing up when someone's cheek was ripped off, I went downtown and Emma and Mischa and I spent the afternoon valiantly trying to finish the Saturday NYT crossword and valiantly not doing especially well. (I was mostly embarrassed that I couldn't get the clue about the MTV reality show, because contemporary pop culture is my greatest and/or only strength. I checked today and the answer was Date My Mom, and I felt shame.) We got Tasti-D-Lite, walked around Chelsea Pier and the West Village, checked out the street markets, and then I bowed out to meet Brady and a friend's parents for dinner at Cafeteria, which was AMAZING. (They just happened to be visiting from Fargo for the weekend, and I kid you not, this woman is probably the most fabulous woman I know.) Afterwards, we took them to Magnolia Bakery, and then Brady and I hightailed it to Marie's Crisis and sang showtunes with Mischa and Emma until about 2am. And then I slept for four hours.

On Sunday, I took an early bus to Boston, met up with my brother at the theater where they're putting on the New England premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted (go see it if you're around Boston or feel like a roadtrip), picked up a sandwich at Darwin's and remembered why I love it so, met up with Marcel at his old apartment and went to the Biscuit for cupcakes, saw David's apartment and was duly impressed by its awesomeness (and found an excuse to drop off all of the gifts I picked up in Morocco and Israel, a very heavy book on techno-politics in Egypt, my iPod, and a half-eaten can of vanilla frosting so that I won't have to schlep them to Mexico), and then had dinner at this North African restaurant near Central Square because I've somehow not gotten sick of couscous over the past month and feel empty without it. And then I slept like the dead and hightailed it to the airport, flew to JFK, and finalized all of the stuff for Mexico City, where I'm going in approximately twenty minutes.

After all of that, I did kind of get depressed at Logan this morning, because it's hard to go on a whirlwind tour of your closest friends, family, and confidantes without being like, I wish I didn't have to fly across the Atlantic to see these people and could just take a bus or walk down the street or roll over in bed and have them there. But then I thought about it, and I also felt mini-bursts of nostalgia when I left Oxford this spring, and when I finished in Israel, and probably will when I say goodbye to Aviva in Mexico in about a week. I guess it's particularly strong when it's people who you get along smashingly with, but who also know you better than anyone else. I realized that there are possibly worse things than having too many people in too many places who you really enjoy seeing, and that was enough to kickstart my mood. We'll see if that survives a six hour flight.

The Grand Tour

After scouting the entirety of the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul and almost concluding that it just didn’t have electricity, I finally found an outlet where I can recharge my computer so I can wander around trying to pick up a wireless signal looking like a fool. Granted, I already look like a fool, as we decided to forego sleep yesterday to celebrate Purim as it was meant to be celebrated. My skim café au lait is the only thing keeping me alive, even if it is definitely not non-fat and kind of tastes like it was made with cream. I’m at the point of hangover and/or layover where I don’t really care.

For the first eight days, the fourteen of us on the trip were on a schedule that was grueling, but worth it. The program had us meet with diplomats, soldiers, activists, academics, NGOs, government officials, students, kibbutzniks, settlers, new immigrants, and religious leaders - but we also toured a huge swatch of the country, and in addition to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we went to Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, the Mount of Beatitudes, the Golan Heights, down along the Jordan River, to Massada and the Dead Sea, out to Gush Etzion, to Yad Vashem, to Rehovot, to the border with Gaza, and to Sterot. We spent some quality time together on that bus. But afterwards, a couple of us wanted to check out the West Bank and get a better grasp on the humanitarian side of the conflict, so Genevieve (who’s a rockstar) set up Days 9 and 10 for those of us who wanted to stay behind. On Day 9, four of the fourteen students flew back to London, leaving us with ten students and a sister who joined up at the end of the trip. A couple of us took a cab out to Bethlehem, where we saw the Church of the Nativity and I had the falafel that I had put off for the entire trip because they fed us ridiculously well and I couldn’t justify skipping multicourse Yemeni and Moroccan dinners for a dollar’s worth of roadside falafel. (After trying the falafel, this is no longer the case.) And then we had a giant sleepover! One left for an a capella tour in the middle of the night, and another person and her sister left in the morning to spend another day in Bethlehem. And then there were seven.

The one of us who didn’t live in squalor met up with us that morning, and the eight of us spent Day 10 meeting with an Israeli NGO that works on human rights in the region, and then piling into a bus and touring Hebron and other areas of the West Bank that are being occupied by settlers or blocked off by the IDF. Afterwards, we picked up our stuff in Jerusalem and went to Ramallah, where we met with a negotiating team from the PLO. (We passed the compound where Arafat was under house arrest and it turns out that we all remember it vividly from watching CNN as children because some of us are dorks that way.) And afterwards, three people peeled off to go to Egypt for a week, and then there were five. So those five went out to a bar in Ramallah for dinner and drinks, and then went back to our barely affordable hotel where we narrowly avoided a crisis when they told us we couldn’t have a co-ed triple. (Luckily, the three of us are cousins, and the fact that a fourth person slept in our makeshift giant bed was wholly incidental. We figured that was safer than telling the desk that Genevieve was safely in the hands of two gay men.) Anyway, the highlight of my night was going to our friend’s friend’s birthday party, where I danced to a vaguely Arabic cover of “I Will Survive” and drank a $7 Corona and had an awesome time. I didn’t sleep a lot afterwards, because I kept waking up between two people to find that I was slipping into the crack between the two beds and halfway to the floor, and all I could think about every time was how it was an apt metaphor for borderlands and the Israel-Palestine conflict and then that made it worse.

The weirdest part of all was when I woke up to a text message from a friend in Brussels, saying that our mutual friend told him that I was in Ramallah, and that he was actually in Ramallah. And I was like, whoa, that’s crazy, but I’m leaving in two hours and will probably stay at our hotel for breakfast. And he was like, awesome, I’m downstairs, and so I padded down to the restaurant in my gym pants and socks and had breakfast with a professor I knew from Brussels who happened to be in my hotel. I think that qualifies as the craziest part of the trip, actually.

So then Genevieve and Zak left for Jordan, leaving three of us as Team Day 11 to fend for ourselves. We took a cab from Ramallah to Bethlehem, picked up luggage and falafel, took a cab to the Bethlehem checkpoint and went through very intense, kind of scary border control for Purim (not scary in the frightening sense, but in the disturbing, 1984 sense where you’re taking orders from a disembodied voice), then took a shuttle from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, a cab from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, and I spent the next eight hours having screwdrivers on the beach, wine on the beachfront, tequila and margaritas at a surprisingly awesome Mexican place, and vodka and Red Bull at a pub downtown. (The latter was purely to stay awake, and I only drank it because I got really sleepy and woke up to a girl poking me and asking to take a picture with me because she thought it was cute that I kept nodding off. I was like, um, sure, and now I need a pick-me-up because this is mortifying.) Over the course of eight hours, though, it wasn’t too bad, and we still rolled out at 3:30am, picked up the luggage, and two of us left for New York while our last guy stayed behind in Tel Aviv. And that leaves one person from Team Day 12 in Israel. The bonding was kind of intense, and I'm going through withdrawals. The fact that I’m about to board a twelve hour flight to JFK doesn’t help, probably.

Days 8 and 9, Bethlehem and Ramallah

So my photos aren't working for whatever reason, but I went to Bethlehem yesterday and spent today in Hebron and Ramallah. We're in Ramallah now, but then making a big zig-zag back through the checkpoints tomorrow to Tel Aviv, mostly so that we can celebrate Purim. (Purim sounds like it's just Halloween with alcohol, which basically sounds like any party at Oxford.) This means that I'll be sitting on my suitcase on a beach drinking wine until 2am, but that's not the worst way to conclude my first trip to the Middle East. Or any week, really.

Jerusalem, Days 6 and 7

After going to Yad Vashem, we went to the Gush Etzion settlement (and vineyard!) where we met with a settler who argued that recognizing Israel and Palestine separately is not a two-state solution, it's a "two-state problem." Despite being plied with wine, I'm not sure I was convinced. Especially when he justified his position by invoking the clash of civilizations theory. I draw the line.
On Palm Sunday, we had free time and six of us made an impulsive decision to reenact the march into Jerusalem with about 20,000 pilgrims on the Mount of Olives.
And then we went down again! We linked up with the Spaniards with tambourines, because they were the funnest.
We also went up to the Temple Mount at the crack of dawn, although we didn't go underneath the Al-Aqsa mosque. That woman did, though.
And then we saw the Dome of the Rock and it's hella gorgeous. We also saw the spot where Jesus was tempted three times by the Devil, and I have to say that I'd also probably be able to resist if the sweeping view of Jerusalem actually looked out onto a parking lot and a pile of garbage bags. All this could be mine, indeed.

Jerusalem, Days 4 and 5

So after we got to Jerusalem, this is us walking through the Cardo, which had just closed for Shabbat.
I checked out the place where the crucifix was lodged in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It made all of the Catholicism come rushing back, especially the part where I had to duck and cover from a tide of Franciscans entering the tomb. It literally follows me everywhere.
And the Western Wall, where I wore a paper hat and prayed a little.
We got up at 2am to go to Massada, where we sat on top of the ruins and ate our boxed breakfast. Actually, I ate my boxed breakfast after accidentally thinking that everyone else was doing it, when it turned out that they were waiting until after we got off the mountain. Whatevs, I had some challah and watched the sun come up. And when we got back to the bus, the eggs and cheese were suspiciously warm, so I think I won that round.
And these are the salt flats along the Dead Sea, as seen from the top of Massada. I dunno, they're vast.
We swam in the Dead Sea (and by "swam," I mean "floated," "got salt water where we shaved and screamed a little," and "watched a nun get chewed out by a lifeguard for submerging her head in the Dead Sea twice.")
And with our afternoon off, we went to the Via Dolorosa and walked the stations of the cross. It was pretty, but it turns out that I turn into kind of a bitch when trying to maneuver between market stalls, tractors, and tiny children trying to wipe popsicle on my pants. The moral of the story is that we read the Bible and that was kind of nice, and I also think I need a nap.
So instead, I took graffiti pictures. It's multicultural vandalism, and that is one of my favorite things.

Tel Aviv on Day 2, Jerusalem on Day 3

We had lunch at a dump-cum-recycling center outside Tel Aviv. It smelled delicious, as we had just been atop a mountain of garbage.

Um, so that's a security fence. I learned that it is not a wall, it is a fence, and also learned the useful phrase "man-bombs," which it has apparently reduced by 95%. I'm learning that Israel is a complicated place.

The Sea of Galilee (where I went jogging this morning!) taken from the Mount of Beatitudes (where I rocked the Catholic social teachings this morning!), right after leaving the kibbutz where we spent the night.

A snapshot from the Golan Heights, where we hung out by a minefield and talked about warfare. Good times, everyone.

I woke up in time to see the Bedouin settlements as we rolled into Jerusalem.

I dunno, it seemed pretty until it rained. Given Israel's water shortages, I guess that was pretty too.

I took this from Hebrew University, but we're actually going into the Old City tomorrow. And by "tomorrow," I mean about six hours from now. I'm incredibly sleep-deprived, and pubbling with Israeli students was probably unwise in retrospect.

Day 1 in Tel Aviv

So I'm absolutely fried - our flight out of Heathrow was delayed for three hours yesterday, and then I was seated next to a baby who kept trying to jam her fingers into my hummus, and then one of the guys on our trip was detained at the airport and we didn't get to the hotel until almost 3am. (On the upside, the hotel had a mind-blowing breakfast buffet that I raided with every residual drop of Viking blood in my body.) Today, we got a debrief about the sociology of contemporary Israel, went to a lecture and lunch with some students in Tel Aviv, saw the Hall of Independence where Ben Gurion declared independence in 1948, visited a hospital that does cardiovascular work for underprivileged kids, and then heard a lecture about defense and security over many, many courses of dinner. We were pretty much dead at that point, but we went down to play on the beach and grab a drink anyway. Tel Aviv is gorgeous (and warm!), but they're hustling us off to see the rest of the country tomorrow. (I've already lined my messenger bag with plastic to stockpile pastries at breakfast in preparation, so that should soften the blow.)

Up, Up, and Away (and Away, and Away, and then Back, and then Away)

A bunch of Team Hertford went out for tapas tonight at Kazbar on the Cowley Road, and then I got together with a bunch of Team America to say a quick bon voyage before we all go off for our fairly ridiculous breaks. (I know someone who may or may not be in Shanghai buying art at the moment - I don't know if this is true or not, but it was the highlight of my day.) I know my travel plans are insane, but I spent the better part of the past eight weeks sitting at this desk writing essays, so I refuse to feel bad about that. When you're reading journal articles on Saturday at 11pm and drinking generic, supermarket-brand instant coffee, it turns out that you don't only end up socially stunted, you end up with an awesome balance in your bank account. I think I could grow fond of this working hard and playing hard thing.

Anyway, I'm off to Israel, then Mexico, then the US, then back to Oxford, then to Croatia with Emma. I might not be online a whole lot over the vacation, but I'll at least try to get pictures posted. Photoblogging is my refuge when I'm too lazy to do anything besides snapping photos because I've worn myself out by actually leaving my desk. What can I say, the world is an overwhelming place.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I have four things that I'm ridiculously proud of, as recounted on the phone this morning:

- The essay that I turned around in 60 hours was a huge success - my supervisor seemed to really like it, and it turns out that a passing knowledge of witchcraft beliefs makes for awesome cocktail party conversation. (It's the next best thing to reading something by Michael Pollan, who has an unfair advantage because he writes about food and people like Michael Taussig write about devil worship. If you go to the types of parties that I go to, it's easier to chat about eating lower on the food chain than it is to slip in a few lines about appeasing the Tio.)

- I bought my mom a pair of earrings in Morocco, and it crossed my mind that since I'm naive and bad at French, it's quite possible that they're not actually silver. So I took them to two jewelry stores, and at both places, they were like, "hey, looks like silver." And at the second one, the woman was like, "wow, these are beautiful." I almost jumped the counter to hug her.

- At dinner yesterday, this guy mentioned that he was thinking of watching every episode of the British Queer as Folk in one sitting (and let's be honest, one of my favorite things to do is tackle the entirety of a series while pausing only to eat and pee), so after polishing off my lemon rice, that's exactly what we did. It only took us like seven hours, and now I know everything there is to know about gay life in Britain. Everything. (I only say that because we also watched the bonus features, and they had a panel discussion where one of the panelists was this guy who complained that nothing about the show - the drugs, underage sex, promiscuity, clubbing - represented his life. And I was kind of like, "no, nor mine, but I'd also understand why nobody would want to watch my life, at least not for seven hours in a row.") I've decided to treat QAF like a documentary out of spite.

- I just finished the New York Times' Sunday crossword for the second week IN A ROW. And not the kind of finishing where you shift your eyes and go, "...of course rolp is a word" and pretend you believe that, but the kind of finishing where I actually knew the answers. Either I'm getting smarter or Will Shortz is getting dumber, but whichever it is, I'll take it.

The Marrakesh Express

So two and a half days definitely isn't enough to lose yourself in Marrakesh and really get a knack for the place, but it is enough to go full throttle for the entirety of your trip, completely exhaust yourself, and limp back to the UK feeling totally reinvigorated. I don't really know how to sum up the trip, except that Abby was a fantastic partner for an Amazing Race style vacation and coped really well with my exhaustion on the first day, caffeine migraines on the second day, and impulsive decisions to go to a hammam and take us down very random paths through the souqs on the third day. And because we both went with the flow so well, I think we got a good blend of shopping and wandering, eating until we almost threw up, and sightseeing things that looked fairly cool, which is really all you can ask for during a quick-and-dirty two and a half days in Marrakesh.


Here's the minaret of the Koutoubia at sunset, from the Djemma el-Fna.

I'm eating head meat from a sheep in this picture. Basically, you eat everything but the eyes, and they were nice enough to put it in a bowl for me instead of making me eat it from a skull.

It's the Djemma el-Fna at night!

A fountain at the Jardin Majorelle (which is half-owned by Yves St. Laurent, which is sort of fabulous).

The Kasbah Mosque!

Here, I'm rockin' the kasbah. The captions write themselves.

A shot of an archway at the Saadian Tombs.

A row of stalls outside the Palais El-Badi selling metalwork.

The sunken orange groves at the Palais El-Badi.

The Palais El-Badi looking sort of imperial and imposing.

Tombs, where Abby and I got lost because they apparently just let you wander around down there.

And a view from the roof of the palace, where you can see the skyline of Marrakesh and tons of storks working their magic.

Shopping in the souqs, where we picked up pottery, boxes, jewelry, and a teapot.

The massive piece hanging from the courtyard of the Musee de Marrakech

The courtyard at the Ali ben Youssef Medersa, which was gorgeous.

And our last night in the medina, where everyone decided to start calling me Skinny, except for the guy who called me Tom Cruise and actually offended me. The guy who guessed that Abby and I were Greek was also kind of off-base, since I don't typically see a blond guy and a redheaded woman and think, "yep. Definitely Greek."

The Finish Line

Of everything I've done in the past 23 years, from teething to passing my driver's test on my third try to learning how to make omelets, this is probably my biggest accomplishment so far this year:

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Bohannan, P. 1958. “Extra-Processual Events in Tiv Political Institutions,” American Anthropologist 60, pp. 1-12.
Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff. 1993. “Introduction,” in Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff (eds), Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. xi-xxxvii.
de Sardan, J.P. 1992. “Occultism and the Ethnographic ‘I’: the Exoticizing of Magic from Durkheim to ‘Postmodern’ Anthropology,” Critique of Anthropology 12(1), pp. 5-25.
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Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1976. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Favret-Saada, J. and C. Cullen. 1989. “Unbewitching as Therapy,” American Ethnologist 16(1), pp. 40-56.
Geschiere, P. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa, Charlottesville: University of Virginia.
Ginzburg, C. 1983. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Harding, F. 1990. “Performance as Political Action: the Use of Dramatisation in the Formulation of Tiv Ethnic and National Consciousness,” in Self-Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa, de Moraes Farias, P.F. and K. Barber (eds.), University of Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, pp. 172-195.
Malinowski, B. 1997. “The Role of Magic and Religion” in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, Lessa, W. and E. Vogt (eds.), London: Harper and Row, pp. 102-111.
Masquelier, A. 1993. “Narratives of Power, Images of Wealth: The Ritual Economy of Bori in the Market,” in Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff (eds), Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 3-33.
Masquelier, A. 1997. “Vectors of Witchcraft: Object Transactions and the Materialization of Memory in Niger,” Anthropological Quarterly 70(4), pp. 187-198.
Moore, H.L. and T. Sanders (eds). 2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft, and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa, London: Routledge.
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Rowlands, M. and J.P. Warnier. 1988. “Sorcery, Power, and the Modern State in Cameroon,” Man 23, pp. 118-132.
Shaw, R. 1997. “The Production of Witchcraft/Witchcraft as Production: Memory, Modernity, and the Slave Trade in Sierra Leone,” American Ethnologist 24(4), pp. 856-876.
Smith, D.J. 2001. “Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth: Inequality and the Popular Imagination in Southeastern Nigeria,” American Ethnologist 28(4), pp. 803-826.
Taussig, M. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Taussig, M. 1984. “Culture of Terror, Space of Death: Roger Casement’s Putumayo Report and the Explanation of Torture,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26(3), pp. 467-497.
Turner, V. 1970. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

I'm proofreading as we speak, and then all of my assignments for the term will be done. I just screened Hedwig and Shortbus while putting the finishing touches on the essay (which, incidentally, is about four times longer than it's supposed to be), and I'm actually going to get a solid four hours of sleep before Abby and I catch the bus to Gatwick en route to Morocco. I'm not going to lie, I feel that I've earned it.