DISKUS

The two themes of the BASR conference at the Open University 3-5th September were 'Religion, Art and Performance' and 'Cutting Edge'. The papers invited for submission t this edition of Diskus related primarily to the first conference theme.

The first article is a study of three Maori films by Louise Child, titled 'Maori Arts as Film Art: An Analysis of Ritual and Myth in Whale Rider, Once Were Warriors and Te Rua'. The next article by Eva Seegers, 'The Innovative Stūpa Project in Andalusia, Spain', is, as the subtitle indicates, 'A Discussion on Visual Representations of Tibetan Buddhist Art in Europe,' with a particular focus on one on the Costa del Sol in Andalusia. The third leads us to consider 'performance', with the relationship between spirits and the body in Rebeccas Lynch's article 'The Devil in the Details: Materiality and the Spirit in a Trinidadian Village'.

In time we hope to include Leonard Primiano's keynote address, 'The Ethnography of a Liar: The Question of Deception in the Performance of a Religous Life History', about Ann Ameen in Newfoundland, as well as articles by Robert Wallis, on 'Destabilising the universality of art/shamanism – from cave painting to the white cube', and Marion Bowman, on 'Making a Scene: Religion, Art and Performance in the Kraków szopka tradition'.