Dr. Doris is the author of the award-winning book, Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-Aesthetics, and the Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria (University of Washington Press, 2011), which addresses the moral, ethical, and aesthetic roles of assemblages of useless and discarded objects in contemporary Yoruba culture.  This lecture will focus on Dr. Doris’s ongoing research related to Yoruba arts of the Ogboni Society, a group of elders who represent the interests of the populace before their ruler.  The Ogboni not only represent a meritocratic counterbalance to the inherited authority of the ruler, but they also are associated with the spiritual power of the earth.  The Ogboni are composed of both men and women who as a collective have the power to remove an ineffectual ruler from power, in essence commanding him to commit suicide.