Dreams that Matter explores the social and material life of dreams in contemporary Cairo. Amira Mittermaier guides the reader through landscapes of the imagination that feature Muslim dream interpreters who draw on Freud, reformists who dismiss all forms of divination as superstition, a Sufi devotional group that keeps a diary of dreams related to its shaykh, and ordinary believers who speak of moving encounters with the Prophet Muhammad. In close dialogue with her Egyptian interlocutors, Islamic textual traditions, and Western theorists, Mittermaier teases out the dream’s ethical, political, and religious implications. Her book is a provocative examination of how present-day Muslims encounter and engage the Divine that offers a different perspective on the Islamic Revival. Dreams That Matter opens up new spaces for an anthropology of the imagination, inviting us to rethink both the imagined and the real.
Amira Mittermaier is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Toronto.
"This brilliant study presents contemporary anthropology at its best. Whether one's goal is understanding the permeability of traditions and modernities or the changing shape of religious imagination and thought in one of the most pivotal countries of the Middle East, this book is an outstanding point of departure."—Dale F. Eickelman, author of The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed.
"Dreams That Matter is an insightful and well-crafted study of the practice of dreaming in contemporary Egypt. Mittermaier provides a superb analysis of the imaginative repertoires of Islamic traditions and shows how the dream has remained not only a site of Muslim scholarly interest, but an important part of the way ordinary Muslims encounter and engage with the divine."—Charles Hirschkind, author of Powers of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors
"Amira Mittermaier has given us the most complete anthropological study of dream culture in the Middle East—perhaps in any culture. It is a sensitive, intellectually challenging, indeed a courageous, investigation of the psychological, ontological, and ethical assumptions that lie behind dreams, visions, and dream-visitations in contemporary Egypt—where the dream is a vibrant site of political, religious, and interpretive contest. Dreams That Matter will rank among the most important contributions to the anthropology of the imagination for years to come."—Vincent Crapanzano, author of The Harkis: The Wound That Never Heals
328 pp.6 x 9Illus: 10 b/w photographs
9780520258518$29.95|£25.00Paper
Dec 2010