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Imagining the Elephant
Biography of Allan MacLeod Cormack, a physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1979 for his pioneering contributions to the development of the computer-assisted tomography (CAT) scanner, an honour he shared with Godfrey Hounsfield.
From the Khan's Oven
The volume's unifying theme, inspired by the scholarly legacy of Professor Devin DeWeese, and indeed the subject of all the contributions, is the history of religion among the Muslim peoples of Inner and Central Asia, grounded in ignored or hitherto unknown indigenous sources. Individually, and as a whole, the articles pay tribute to DeWeese’s pathbreaking contributions to the disciplines of history and religious studies by exploring new approaches and new sources to build on this legacy. The volume pays particular attention to DeWeese's point d'appui: the centrality of Sufism in the region's religious, social, and literary history. The volume’s focus is thus twofold: to bring a new set of rich, largely unused materials into the scholarly domain among specialists on Central Asia, and to challenge historians of Islam to recognize that understanding the religious history of Central Asia, and Sufism in particular, is crucial in evaluating the Islamic world as a whole. Contributors: Peter B. Golden, Jürgen Paul, Ron Sela, Nicholas Walmsley, Jo-Ann Gross, Daniel Beben, Jeff Eden, Jamal Elias, Michael Kemper, Paolo Sartori, Eren Tasar, Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Allen J. Frank
New Legends of England
In New Legends of England, Catherine Sanok examines a significant, albeit previously unrecognized, phenomenon of fifteenth-century literary culture in England: the sudden fascination with the Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Embodying a variety of literary forms—from elevated Latinate verse, to popular traditions such as the carol, to translations of earlier verse legends into the medium of prose—the Middle English Lives of England's saints are rarely discussed in relation to one another or seen as constituting a distinct literary genre. However, Sanok argues, these legends, when grouped together were an important narrative forum for exploring overlapping forms of ...
Orality and Textuality in the Iranian World
The volume demonstrates the cultural centrality of the oral tradition for Iranian studies. It contains contributions from scholars from various areas of Iranian and comparative studies, among which are the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian tradition with its wide network of influences in late antique Mesopotamia, notably among the Jewish milieu; classical Persian literature in its manifold genres; medieval Persian history; oral history; folklore and more. The essays in this collection embrace both the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, both verbal and visual media, as well as various language communities (Middle Persian, Persian, Tajik, Dari) and geographical spaces (Greater Iran in pre-Islamic and Isla...
The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000-1300)
Mythology is usually reserved for non-Christian religions. However, the adoption of Christianity in Northern and East-Central Europe between c. 1000 and 1300 can be adequately described as a myth-making process: local saints were added to the Christian pantheon in all regions entering Latin Europe. The present collection explores the links between local sanctity and the making of national myths in medieval historical writing. By bringing together specialists in history and literature of the European periphery in question, the case is made that the writing of history and saints lives from this pioneering period should been analysed together as mainly successful attempts at creating cultural foundation myths.
Sufism in Central Asia
Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries brings together ten original studies on historical aspects of Sufism in this region. A central question, of ongoing significance, underlies each contribution: what is the relationship between Sufism as it was manifested in this region prior to the Russian conquest and the Soviet era, on the one hand, and the features of Islamic religious life in the region during the Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras on the other? The authors address multiple aspects of Central Asian religious life rooted in Sufism, examining interpretative strategies, realignments in Sufi communities and sources from the Russian to the post-Soviet period, and social, political and economic perspectives on Sufi communities. Contributors include: Shahzad Bashir, Devin DeWeese, Allen Frank, Jo-Ann Gross, Kawahara Yayoi, Robert McChesney, Ashirbek Muminov, Maria Subtelny, Eren Tasar, and Waleed Ziad.
Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England
This book argues that in order to understand nationalisms, we need a clearer understanding of the types of cultural myths, symbols, and traditions that legitimate them. Myths of origin and election, memories of a greater and purer past, and narratives of persecution and mission are required for the production and maintenance of powerful national sentiments. Through an investigation of how early modern Catholics and Protestants reimagined, reinterpreted, and rewrote the lives of the founder-saints who spread Christianity in England, this book offers a theoretical framework for the study of origin narratives. Analyzing the discursive construction of time and place, the invocation of forces beyond the human to naturalize and authorize, and the role of visual and ritual culture in fabrications of the past, this book provides a case study for how to approach claims about founding figures. Serving as a timely example of the dependence of national identity on key religious resources, Griffin shows how origin narratives – particularly the founding figures that anchor them – function as uniquely powerful rhetorical tools for the cultural production of regional and national identity.
Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?
A sweeping, authoritative, and entertaining history of the Christian cult of the saints from its origin to the Reformation From its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints—the holy dead. This ambitious history tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. Robert Bartlett examines all of the most important aspects of the saints—including miracles, relics, pilgrimages, shrines, and the saints' role in the calendar, literature, and art. The book explores the central role played by the bodies and body parts of saints, and the special treatment these relics received. From the routes, dangers, and rewards of pilgrimage, to the saints' impact on everyday life, Bartlett's account is an unmatched examination of an important and intriguing part of the religious life of the past—as well as the present.
Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia
During the 1990s, there was a general consensus that Central Asia was witnessing an Islamic revival after independence, and that this occurrence would follow similar events throughout the Islamic world in the prior two decades, which had negative effects on both social and political development. Twenty years later, we are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that's evolved through a complex and dynamic process, involving diversity in belief and practice, religious authority, and political intervention. This volume seeks to shed light on these crucial questions by bringing together an international group of scholars to offer a fresh perspective on Centr...
