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Dynamics of Religion
Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.
Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity
This study explores the prevalence in German culture of myths about ancient matriarchal societies, discussing their presence in left and right wing politics, feminist and antifeminist writing, sociology, psychoanalysis and literary production. By tracing the influence of the works of the Swiss jurist and theorist of matriarchy, Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887), and the controversies about the reception and interpretation of his work, this study shows how debate about the matriarchal origins of culture was inextricably linked with anxieties about modernity and gender identities at the turn of the twentieth century. By moving beyond the discussion of canonical authors and taking seriously the scope of the discussion, it becomes clear that it is not possible to reduce matriarchal theories to any particular political ideology; instead, they function as a mythic counterdiscourse to a modernity conceived as oppressive, rational and masculine. Writers considered include Ludwig Klages, Hofmannsthal, Kafka, Hauptmann, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sir Galahad, Clara Viebig, Mathilde Vaerting, Thomas Mann, Elisabeth Langgässer, Ilse Langner, Otto Gross, Franz Werfel, and many others.
Sound and Communication
In Hindu India both orality and sonality have enjoyed great cultural significance since earliest times. They have a distinct influence on how people approach texts. The importance of sound and its perception has led to rites, models of cosmic order, and abstract formulas. Sound serves both to stimulate religious feelings and to give them a sensory form. Starting from the perception and interpretation of sound, the authors chart an unorthodox cultural history of India, turning their attention to an important, but often neglected aspect of daily religious life. They provide a stimulating contribution to the study of cultural systems of perception that also adds new aspects to the debate on orality and literality.
Political Demonology
"The structural core problem of the Gnostic dualism between the god of creation and the god of redemption governs not only every religion of salvation and redemption. It is immanently given in every world in need of change and renewal, inescapably and ineradicably. The lord of a world in need of change, that is, a misconceived world and the liberator, the creator of a transformed, new world cannot be good friends. They are, so to speak, enemies by definition." Whether Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, or Erich Auerbach and Hans Blumenberg, Ernst Bloch and Jacob Taubes, or Carl Schmitt (cited above)--all of them have been more or less fascinated or awed by the dualistic theology of St. Paul's disciple Marcion, and have as prominently and as differently referred to him. Already Adolf von Harnack, author of the Marcion monograph that even today sets the standard, was aware of the timeliness of his research object, in view of a modern Marcionism, right after the First World War.
Beyond the Racial State
A fundamental reassessment of the ways that racial policy worked and was understood under the Third Reich. Leading scholars explore race's function, content, and power in relation to society and nation, and above all, in relation to the extraordinary violence unleashed by the Nazis.
Religions in Play
Often dismissed as "not serious", the notion of play has nevertheless been at the centre of classical theories of religion and ritual (Huizinga, Caillois, Turner, Staal, etc.). What can be retained of those theories for the contemporary study of religions? Can a study of "play" or "game" bring new perspectives for the study of religions? The book deals with the history of games and their relation to religions, the links between divination and games, the relations between sport and ritual, the pedagogical functions of games in religious education, and the interaction between games, media and religions. Richly illustrated, the book contributes to the study of religions, to ritual, game and media studies, and addresses an academic as well as a general public. Philippe Bornet, Dr. Phil., born in 1977, is Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the Faculty of Lettres of the University of Lausanne, with focus on the history of interrelations between India and Europe. Maya Burger is Professor of Indian Studies and History of Religions at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lausanne, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations.
Contemporary Jewish Reality in Germany and Its Reflection in Film
The notion of “self” and “other” and its representation in artwork and literature is an important theme in current cultural sciences as well as in our everyday life in contemporary Western societies. Moreover, the concept of “self” and “other” and its imaginary dichotomy is gaining more and more political impact in a world of resurfacing ideology-ridden conflicts. The essays deal with Jewish reality in contemporary Germany and its reflection in movies from the special point of view of cultural sciences, political sciences, and religious studies. This anthology presents challengingly new insights into topics rarely covered, such as youth culture or humor, and finally discusses the images of Jewish life as realities still to be constructed.
Norse Revival
Norse Revival offers a thorough investigation of Germanic Neopaganism (Asatru) through an international and comprehensive historical perspective. It traces Germanic Neopaganism’s genesis in German ultra-nationalist and occultist movements around 1900. Based on ethnographic research of contemporary groups in Germany, Scandinavia and North America, the book examines this alternative Neopagan religion’s transformations towards respectability and mainstream thought after the 1970s. It asks which regressive and progressive elements of a National Romantic discourse on Norse myth have shaped Germanic Neopaganism. It demonstrates how these ambiguous ideas about Nordic myth permeate general discourses on race, religion, gender, sexuality, and aesthetics. Ultimately, Norse Revival raises the question whether Norse mythology can be freed from its reactionary ideological baggage.
Aesthetics of Religion
This volume is the first English language presentation of the innovative approaches developed in the aesthetics of religion. The chapters present diverse material and detailed analysis on descriptive, methodological and theoretical concepts that together explore the potential of an aesthetic approach for investigating religion as a sensory and mediated practice. In dialogue with, yet different from, other major movements in the field (material culture, anthropology of the senses, for instance), it is the specific intent of this approach to create a framework for understanding the interplay between sensory, cognitive and socio-cultural aspects of world-construction. The volume demonstrates th...
