Based on over five years of ethnographic fieldwork in Syria, Exemplary Life focuses on the life of a Damascus woman, Myrna Nazzour, who serves as an aspirational figure in her community. Myrna is regarded by her followers as an exemplary figure, a living saint, and the messages, apparitions, stigmata, and oil that have marked Myrna since 1982 have corroborated her status as chosen by God.
Exemplary Life probes the power of examples, the modelling of sainthood around Myrna’s figure, and the broader context for Syrian Christians in the changing landscape of the Middle East. The book highlights the social use of examples such as the ones inhabited by Myrna’s devout followers and how they reveal the broader structures of illustration, evidence, and persuasion in social and cultural settings. Andreas Bandak argues that the role of the example should incite us to investigate which trains of thought set local worlds in motion. In doing so, Exemplary Life presents a novel frame for examining how religion comes to matter to people and adds a critical dimension to current anthropological engagements with ethics and morality.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Modelling Sainthood in Christian Syria
1. Closer to Mary
2. Repeated Prayers
3. Exemplary Series
4. Life and Story
5. Signs and Evidence
6. Prophecies of Unity
7. Damascus Speaking
Conclusion
Epilogue
References
Index
"Exemplary Life is indispensable reading for anthropologists of religion, political theorists engaged in debates about charismatic authority and enjoyment, and scholars focused on Christianity more specifically. Combining a deep knowledge of Syria with a keen appreciation of the uncanny and the miraculous, Bandak attends carefully both to the spiritual practices of the followers of Our Lady of Soufanieh and to their felt experiences of worldly precarity. In doing so, he offers important insights into the nature of evidence and its relation to belief, faith, and affective intensities."