Matteo BENUSSI

Current position

Assistant Professor (RTDB), Humanities Department, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

Training

2014-2018. PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Thesis title: Aspiring Muslims in Russia. Form-of-Life and Political Economy of Virtue in Povolzhye's Halal Movement

Key themes: Islam in Russia; religion and ethics; political economy; Eurasia; Tatars; state-Muslim relations in the post-Soviet world; Agamben; Weber.

2013-2014. MRes in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Dissertation title: Living Cemeteries in the Dead Zone. The Hrobki Rites and Memory Making after Chernobyl

Key themes: Chernobyl catastrophe; ritual, affect, and memory; pilgrimage; vernacular Orthodox religiosity in post-socialist Ukraine.

2009-2012. MA in Cultural Anthropology, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Dissertation title: “Siamo rimasti per vivere”. Etnografia dell’abitare nella Polesia Post-Černobyl’

Key themes: Chernobyl; anthropology of space/place; landscape-making and displacement in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Past academic positions

2022-2023. Marie Curie Plus One Fellow. Department of Humanities, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

2019-2022. Marie-Skłodowska Curie Global Fellow. Department of Anthropology; University of California, Berkeley (2019-2021); Department of Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2021-2022).

2018-2019. Affiliated Lecturer: University of Cambridge (UK); Department of Social Anthropology. Responsibilities: undergraduate supervision; lecture (BA) and seminar (MPhil) series on Anthropology and Religion and Ethnographic Methods.

Publications

Forthcoming 2021, Emancipating Ethics: An Autonomist Reading of Islamic Piety in Russia, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, accepted for publication.

2021, Pietaskscapes of Halal Living: Subjectivity, Striving, and Space-Making in Muslim Russia, Ethnic and Racial Studies, online first 05/01/2020.

2021: Living Halal in the Volga Region: Lifestyle and Civil Society Opportunities, in Christians L.-L., and Yakin A.U. (eds.) Rethinking Halal: Genealogy, Current Trends, and New Interpretations, Leiden: Brill.

2020, Public Spaces and Inner Worlds: Emplaced Askesis and Architecture of the Soul among Tatarstani Muslims, Ethnicities 20 (4), pp. 685-707.

2020, “Sovereign” Islam and Tatar “Aqīdah”: Normative Religious Narratives and Grassroots Criticism amongst Tatarstan’s Muslims, Contemporary Islam 14, pp. 111-134.

2020 (with Katarzyna Sidło), Criticism or Compliance? The Syrian Crisis Viewed by Russia’s Muslims and MENA Christians, in Lovotti C., Ambrosetti E., Hartwell C., Chmielewska A. (eds.), Russia in the Middle East and North Africa: Continuity and Change, London/New York: Routledge.

2020 (with Ruiyi Zhu), Diasporic Cassandras: Time, Space, and Ethos among Transnational Chinese and Italians at the time of COVID-19, Somatosphere, COVID-19 Forum II (ed. Christos Lynteris).

2019, Magic, Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Anthropology (encyclopaedia entry).

2018, Ethnic Muslims and the “Halal Movement” in Tatarstan, Anthropological Journal of European Cultures 27 (1), pp. 88-93.

2017, The Weight of Tradition. “Traditional” vs. “Non-Traditional” Islam in Russia’s Volga Region, in P. Anderson and J. Hargreaves (eds.), Muslims in the UK and Europe III, Cambridge (UK): Centre of Islamic Studies, pp. 9-23.

2016, La Zona di Čornobyl. Abitare il Polessja contaminato, in G. Ligi (ed.), Percezioni di rischio. Pratiche sociali e disastri ambientali in prospettiva antropologica, Padua: Cleup (Etnografie), pp. 107-128.

2014, Il ‘Paradiso perduto’ della Zona di Alienazione. Temi mitopoietici e uso degli spazi funebri nella Polesia post-Chernobyl’, SMSR - Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 80/2, pp. 391-410.

2013, Funeral Rites and Cultural Change in Post-Soviet Tatarstan, in A. Fabris (ed.), Tra quattro paradisi. Esperienze, ideologie e riti relativi alla morte tra Oriente e Occidente, Venice: Ca’ Foscari University Press, pp. 182-198.

2019 (2013), L’uomo della possibilità, sulla cura e sull’alterità, POL.it Psychiatry on Line Italia.

Other academic roles/commitments

2020-2020. Vice-President of the Humanities and Social Sciences Association (University of California, Berkeley). Responsibilities: organization and chairing of HSSA events and activities (Writing Club, Writing Forum, Colloquia, social mixers), coordination, outreach.