2010 Whelen Visiting Lecture

Margaret Visser, Internationally best-selling historian and anthropologist

I SWEAR: Oaths, Curses and Modernity

Margaret Visser’s most recent work explores the rituals surrounding oaths and how the changing solemnity of the process affects trust in the modern world. The following synopsis provides an indication of the connections she will be examining:

"By ‘swearing’ many people today most easily mean ‘using rude words.’ Angry expletives are usually glancing references to swearing in the full sense, where a solemn declaration is accompanied by rituals designed to engender trust in what is being said. How do – or did – such words and actions operate? "

"Trust – or rather, the lack of it – has become a serious modern problem. Confidence is said to be what economies are built on. It is something to be maintained or recreated at all costs should mistrust take its place. The concrete rituals of swearing can help us understand our requirements for and the deep origins of trust."

Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 7:00pm
Neatby Timlin Theatre 241 Arts
University of Saskatchewan
FREE ADMISSION

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