Michael Oppitz

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Michael Oppitz (born August 20, 1942 in Arnsdorf , Lower Silesia Province ) is a German ethnologist . Until his retirement he was a professor at the University of Zurich and head of the Zurich Ethnographic Museum.

Life

Michael Oppitz became known worldwide through his field research in the field of shamanism .

He traveled to Nepal for the first time in 1965 , where he spent seven years exploring the small hill tribe of the northern Magar in the 1970s . This resulted in the almost four-hour film Shamans in the Blind Land (1980) and the "picture book" of the same name (1981).

It was not until the age of 50 that the traveling ethnographer became “settled” himself: in Zurich as professor for ethnology and as head of the ethnographic museum affiliated with the university .

Fonts (selection)

  • History and social order of the Sherpa . Contributions to Sherpa research, part 1. Wagner (Khumbu Himal 8), Innsbruck 1968
  • Necessary relationships. Outline of structural anthropology . Suhrkamp (stw 101), Frankfurt am Main 1975
  • Shamans in the Blind Land. A picture book from the Himalayas . Syndicate, Frankfurt am Main 1981
  • Wife for fron. The triple alliance among the Magar of West Nepal . Suhrkamp (stw 731), Frankfurt am Main 1988
  • The male arrow through the female jewelry. The winter solstice festival and the myth of the honey harvest among the Magar of West Nepal. In: Anthropos, Volume 83, Issue 1/3, 1988, pp. 1-16
  • Art of accuracy. Word and image in ethnography . Trickster, Munich 1989
  • Uncle's daughter, no other. Marriage alliance and way of thinking in a local Himalayan culture . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991
  • Drawings on Shamanic Drums. In: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics , No. 22, Fall 1992, pp. 62-81
  • Where does ethnology drive someone who practices it? Inaugural lecture . VMZ, Zurich 1993
  • A shaman's armor from the Himalayas . Völkerkundemuseum, Zurich 1997
  • Naxi . Things, myths, pictograms . Völkerkundemuseum, Zurich 1997
  • Semiology of an image myth. The Shangri-La pinball machine . Ethnological Museum, Zurich 2000
  • Ritual Objects of the Qiang Shamans. In: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics , No. 45, Spring 2004, pp. 10-46
  • Shaman's drums . Völkerkundemuseum, Zurich 2007
  • Shaman's drum morphology . 2 volumes. Edition Voldemeer, Springer, Zurich / Vienna / New York 2013, ISBN 978-3709115923

Movie

  • Shamans in the Blind Land . Documentary (actor, director), 1978–80. New edition 2017, 5 DVDs + 2 CDs, 384 minutes.

Exhibitions

  • Michael Oppitz: Moving Myths. Kolumba Art Museum , June 21 - December 3, 2018.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oppitz, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnsdorf , Province of Lower Silesia