You have free access to this content
The bodily threat of miracles: Security, sacramentality, and the Egyptian politics of public order
Article first published online: 6 FEB 2013
DOI: 10.1111/amet.12011
© 2013 by the American Anthropological Association
Additional Information
How to Cite
HEO, A. (2013), The bodily threat of miracles: Security, sacramentality, and the Egyptian politics of public order. American Ethnologist, 40: 149–164. doi: 10.1111/amet.12011
Publication History
- Issue published online: 6 FEB 2013
- Article first published online: 6 FEB 2013
References cited
- 1985 A Community of Secrets. Signs 10(4):637–657.
- 1998 Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford : Stanford University Press.
- 2010a Ethics, Tradition, Authority: Toward an Anthropology of the Fatwa. American Ethnologist 37(1):2–18. Direct Link:
- 2010b Secularism, Sovereignty, Indeterminacy: Is Egypt a Secular or a Religious State Comparative Studies in Society and History 52(3):495–523.
- Al-Ahram 1990 Citizen of Port Said Claims the Virgin Mary Came and Performed Surgery in Sleep. Al-Ahram, February 21.
- 2006 The Emergence of a “Coptic Question” in Egypt. Middle East Report Online, April 28. http://www.merip.org/mero/mero042806, accessed October 14, 2011.
- 2003 Maddening States. Annual Review of Anthropology 32:393–410.
- 2002 Religion and Folk Cosmology: Scenarios of the Visible and Invisible in Rural Egypt. Westport , CT : Praeger.
- 2010 Interview with Al-Jazeera TV, September 16.
- 1976 The Administration of the Ptólemaic Possessions outside Egypt. Leiden, the Netherlands : Brill.
- 1990[1919] Art and Answerability. Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, eds. Austin : University of Texas Press.
- 1994 Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- 2008[1936] The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, eds. Pp. 19–55. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- N.d. Sacramental Rites in the Coptic Orthodox Church. 2nd edition. Bishop Moussa, trans. http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/thecopticchurch/sacraments/index.html, accessed October 14, 2011.
- 1981 Al-Muslimun wa al-Aqbat fi itar al-jama’a al-wataniyya. Cairo : Al-Hay’a al-Amma al-Misriyyali al-Kitab.
- 1991 Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- 2011 Salafis and Sufis in Egypt. Washington , DC : Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- 1971 The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity. Journal of Roman Studies 61:80–101.
- 2007 Visual Empire. diacritics 37(2–3):171–198.
- 2011 Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe. Cambridge , MA : MIT Press.
- 2012 The Semiotics of Security: Infectious Disease Research and the Biopolitics of Informational Bodies in the United States. Cultural Anthropology 27(2):333–357. Direct Link:
- 2004 The Book of Skin. Ithaca , NY : Cornell University Press.
- 1998 What Can Be a Scientific Object? Reflections on Monsters and Meteors. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 52(2):35–50.
- , and 1998 Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750. New York : Zone Books.
- 2008 Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
- N.d. The Work of Confession in/on the Stage of Mechanical Reproducibility. Unpublished MS, Lisbon University Institute.
- 1966 Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York : Routledge.
- 1982 Loca sanctorum Africae: Le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe au VIIe siècle. Rome : École Française de Rome.
- 2008 The Objects of Evidence. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14(S1):S1–S21. Direct Link:
- 2010 Time for Dialogue. Al-Ahram Weekly Online. September 23–29. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1016/eg8.htm, accessed October 14, 2011.
- 2001 The Underneath of Things: Violence, History, and the Everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- 1998 Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton : Princeton University Press.
- 1922 The Golden Bough; a Study in Comparative Religion. New York : Macmillan.
- 1998 Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
- 2000 Signs of Truth: Enchantment, Modernity and the Dreams of Peasant Women. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6(4):597–615.
- 2012 The Copts and the Egyptian Revolution: Various Attitudes and Dreams. Social Research 79(2):511–530.
- , and 2011 The Emergence of the Modern Coptic Papacy. Cairo : American University of Cairo Press.
- 2003 Christians versus Muslims in Modern Egypt: The Century-Long Struggle for Coptic Equality. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
- 1997 Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York : Routledge.
- 2006 The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York : Columbia University Press.
- 2005 Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt. Columbia : University of South Carolina Press.
- 1904–10[ca. 10th c.] History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church. Vol. 1, pt. 1, ed. and trans. B. Evetts. Paris; Vol. 1, pt. 2, Patrologia Orientalis 1, pt. 2. Paris; Vol. 1, pt. 3, Patrologia Orientalis 5, Paris .
- 1955[ca. 10th c.] Tartīb al-kahanūt (Order of the priesthood). Reprint of Arab text in Die Ordnung des Priestertums: Ein altes liturgisches Handbuch der koptischen Kirche. J. Assfalg. Cairo.
- 2008 Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles Representations 103:1–29.
- 2007 Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- 2008 The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14(1):110–127. Direct Link:
- 1997 The Laity at the Heart of the Coptic Clerical Reform. In Between Desert and City: The Coptic Orthodox Church Today. Kari Vogt and Nelly van Doorn-Harder, eds. Pp. 142–166. Oslo : Novus Forlag.
- 1998 The Political Dynamics of the Copts: Giving the Community an Active Role. In Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Andrea Pacini, ed. Pp. 172–190. Oxford Clarendon Press.
- 2007 Enclosure and Disclosure. Public Culture 19(2):303–305.
- , and , eds. 2002 Iconoclash: Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, Religion and Art. Cambridge , MA : MIT Press.
- 2010 When the Personal Becomes Political. Al-Ahram Weekly Online. June 10–16. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1002/eg8.htm, accessed October 14, 2011.
- 2012 Sectarian Conflict and Family Law in Contemporary Egypt. American Ethnologist 39(1):54–62. Direct Link:
- 2010 Sensitive but Unclassified: Secrecy and the Counter-Terrorist State. Public Culture 22(3):433–463.
- 1998 Saints coptes et saints musulmans de l’Egypte du XXe siècle. Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 215(1):139–186.
- 1990 Difference, Diversity, and the Limits of Toleration. Political Theory 18(3):361–391.
- 1988 Kissing Hands and Knees: Hegemony and Hierarchy in Shari‘a Discourse. Law and Society Review 22(4):637–659.
- 2010 Egypt Church Rule Absolute to Coptic Christians. Washington Times, September 14. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/14/egypt-church-rule-absolute-to-coptic-christians/?page=all, accessed October 14, 2011.
- 2005 The Egyptian Copts: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Definition of Identity for a Religious Minority. In Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies. Maya Shatzmiller, ed. Pp. 58–84. Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press.
- 1986 Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- 2008 (Re)Imagining Space: Dreams and Saint Shrines in Egypt. In Dimensions of Locality: Muslim Saints, Their Place and Space. Georg Stauth and Samuli Schielke, eds. Pp. 47–66. Bielefeld , Germany : Transcript.
- 2011 Dreams That Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- 2000 Iconic Space and the Rule of Lands. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 15(4):55–76.
- 2005 Image, Icon, Economy: The Byzantine Origins of the Contemporary Imaginary. Stanford : Stanford University Press.
- 2000 Conflict and Cooperation between the State and Religious Institutions in Contemporary Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies 32(1):3–22.
- 1973 Walbiri Iconography: Graphic Representation and Cultural Symbolism in a Central Australian Society. Ithaca , NY : Cornell University Press.
- 1996 Excluded Spaces: The Figure in the Australian Aboriginal Landscape. Critical Inquiry 22(3):446–465.
- 2007 Versions of the Dead: Kalunga, Cuban-Kongo Materiality, and Ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 22(4):473–500. Direct Link:
- 1973 Sherpa Purity. American Anthropologist 75(1):49–63. Direct Link:
- , ed. 1998 Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
- 1997 Impasse of the Angels: Scenes from a Moroccan Space of Memory. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- 1996 Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford : Oxford University Press.
- 1977 The Christian Tradition, vol. 2. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- 1982 The Copts in Modern Egypt. Middle Eastern Studies 18(2):158–179.
- 1987 The Problem of the Fetish, II: The Origin of the Fetish. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 13:23–45.
- 2006 The Deification of Humankind, Part One. In New Heresies . Cairo : al-Kuliyah al-Iklirikiyah bi-l-Abbasiya.
- , and 2004 Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance. Cultural Anthropology 19(2):226–249. Direct Link:
- 2008 Policing Ambiguity: Muslim Saints-Day Festivals and the Moral Geography of Public Space in Egypt. American Ethnologist 35(4):539–552. Direct Link:
- 1999 Class Cleavages and Ethnic Conflict: Coptic Christian Communities in Modern Egyptian Politics. Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 10(2):219–235.
- 2011 From Mission to Modernity: Evangelicals, Reformers and Education in Nineteenth Century Egypt. London : I. B. Tauris.
- 1970 Coptic Communal Reform, 1860–1914. Middle Eastern Studies 6(3):247–275.
- 2010 Cultivating Mystery: Miracles and a Coptic Moral Imaginary. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
- 1906 The Sociology of Secrecy and of the Secret Societies. American Journal of Sociology 11:441–498.
- , and 2001 Icons of the Nile Valley. Cairo : Egyptian International.
- 1998 Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- St. John of Damascus 1980 On the Divine Images. Andrew Louth, trans. Crestwood , NY : St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
- St. Theodore the Studite 1981 On the Holy Icons. Catherine Roth, trans. Crestwood , NY : St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
- 2009 Vicissitudes in the Coptic Church-State Entente in Egypt. International Journal of Middle East Studies 41(2):269–287.
- 2011 Sectarianism and Its Discontents in Post-Mubarak Egypt. Middle East Report 259:26–31.
- 1991 Tactility and Distraction. Cultural Anthropology 6(2):147–153. Direct Link:
- 2001 The Anthropology of the State in the Age of Globalization: Close Encounters of the Deceptive Kind. Current Anthropology 42(1):125–138.
- 2007 The Social Skin. In Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life. Margaret Lock and Judith Farquhar, eds. Pp. 83–103. Durham , NC : Duke University Press.
- 2007 Miracles, Science, and Testimony in Post-Tridentine Saint-Making. Science in Context 20(3):481–508.
- 2004 Coptes d’Egypte sous Nasser: Sainteté, miracles, apparitions. Paris : Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).
- 2006 Inside and Outside: Surfaces and Containers. In Handbook of Material Culture. Chris Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Mike Rowlands, and Patricia Spyer, eds. Pp. 186–195. London : Sage Press.
- 1968 On Charisma and Institution Building. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- 1999 The Copts—Equal, Protected or Persecuted? The Impact of Islamization on Muslim-Christian Relations in Modern Egypt. Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations 10(1):53–67.

1548-1425/asset/olbannerleft.gif?v=1&s=ab5e8f6528a156182a369f9b366b8328b5433705)
1548-1425/asset/olbannerright.gif?v=1&s=3c2734fae32548135630ffa21b291e3cfb7bda85)
