Religious Studies

Pan-Islamic Networks of the Apocalypse: Mobilizing Diasporic Muslim Youth on Facebook

by David Drissel

Breaking Up with Bad Stories by Sarah Sentilles

by Feminism and Religion

Posted on the Feminism and Religion project - - -
Note: This post is part of  a Religion Roundtable where the authors of three prominent faith memoirs were asked to write about their views on—and experience of—female spirituality. Check http://www.patheos.com to read the discussion between Jana Riess, Lauren Winner, and Sarah Sentilles on the unique religious questions facing women today.

Writing a memoir meant denying stories about myself that are no longer true.

Dear Jana and Lauren,
more Writing a memoir meant denying stories about myself that are no longer true.

Dear Jana and Lauren,

Jana writes that “Mormon women don’t yet have the luxury of taking their own voices for granted,” and while I recognize that Mormon women are in a different political/theological position than other women, especially in denominations that ordain women, I would like to expand her statement: No woman—anywhere, in any tradition, or on the outside of any tradition—has the luxury of taking her own voice for granted.

Jana worries that writing with a political agenda in mind could make our work smack of propaganda, and I think she is right, but I want to propose that all language is propaganda. Especially theological language. Our words about God are shot through with intentions and agendas; they convey people’s purposes and hopes and fears; and they have real effects.

Recent Scholarship on Islamic Origins: A Brief Survey (Spanish)

by Carlos Segovia

Religious Tolerance and the Critical Study of Islamic Origins (Spanish)

by Carlos Segovia

”Mircea Eliade e Julius Evola. Un rapporto difficile” (Nuova Storia Contemporanea, Firenze, XVI, no. 2, marzo-aprile 2012)

by Liviu Bordas

La reflexión sobre la inmortalidad en la obra de Unamno: Filosofía de la existencia, epistemología y pensamiento religioso

by Santiago Juan-Navarro

Published in Cuadernos de ALDEEU 14 (1998): 111-26.

La interrogante sobre la inmortalidad del ser humano ocupa un lugar central en el pensamiento de Unamuno. Alrededor de... more La interrogante sobre la inmortalidad del ser humano ocupa un lugar central en el pensamiento de Unamuno. Alrededor de esta cuestión giran los temas esenciales de su obra: las disquisiciones sobre el ser del hombre (mosofía de la existencia), las reflexiones acerca del conocimiento y la verdad (epistemología), su incursiones ocasionales en la crítica literaria y, muy especialmente, su pensamiento religioso. En todos estos casos, el ansia de inmortalidad, la superación del fenómeno de la muerte se manifiesta como el motivo estructural tanto de sus ensayos como de sus obras de ficción.

Religion and National Identity

by Gordon Graham

Sōka Gakkai in Japan

by Levi McLaughlin

Tokyo Governor Says Tsunami is Divine Punishment—Religious Groups Ignore Him

by Levi McLaughlin

Published on www.religiondispatches.org on March 17, 2011

"What No Longer Serves Us: Resisting Ableism and Anti-Judaism in New Testament Healing Narratives"

by Julia Watts Belser

Julia Watts Belser and Melanie S. Morrison, co-authors. Published in the 'Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion' 27.2 (2011) : 153-170.

When feminists preach on the Gospel healing narratives, they often encounter a double bind. Efforts to resist the... more When feminists preach on the Gospel healing narratives, they often encounter a double bind. Efforts to resist the oppression of people with disabilities by deemphasizing literal acts of healing tend to highlight Jesus's structural critique against unjust institutions, often represented in the Gospels by the Jewish leaders. Yet that message of structural critique and social transformation can easily lead to anti-Jewish readings of the Gospel narratives. The authors model a method of interrogating a previously published sermon, alongside the practice of situating people with disabilities at "the speaking center" of Gospel narratives and exegesis. The article concludes with five homeletic tools that Christian feminist preachers might employ to better undermine both ableism and anti-Judaism

Participatory Psychedelia: Transpersonal Theory, Religious Studies, and Chemically-Altered (Alchemical) Consciousness

by Matthew David Segall

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

Ultimele interviuri românești ale lui Eliade și "felix culpa" (Europa, Novi Sad, nr. 9, mai 2012)

by Liviu Bordas

Secțiunea ”Eliade în Serbia iugoslavă” are câteva completări față de versiunea din România literară (16 decembrie 2011).

În Addendum - primul interviu cu Petru Cârdu (tradus din limba sârbă de Adrian Costea) in versiune completa. In România literară a apărut fără partea introductivă și fără notele de subsol.

Religious and political discourse in Argentina: the case of reconciliation

by Juan Eduardo Bonnin

Discourse and Society, 20 (3), 327-343, 2009.

This article analyzes the nominalization 'reconciliation' as a grammar metaphor that allows for the understanding of... more This article analyzes the nominalization 'reconciliation' as a grammar metaphor that allows for the understanding of the historical relationships between religious and political discourse in Argentina. In order to do this, we will analyze the case of the publication of the Final Document of the Military Junta on the Fight against Terrorism and Subversion, in 1983, and its subsequent interpretations made by political and religious actors in terms of its adequacy or inadequacy to the Catholic proposal of reconciliation, which would later become a legal argument in the penal trials sustained against human rights violators. We will observe two relevant features: (a) a struggle about the experiential meaning concealed by the nominalization that legitimates or, on the contrary, de-legitimates the repressive action of the Military Junta; (b) an implicit consensus that attributes to Catholic discourse the power to dictate the rules of political life, which has severely restrained the autonomy of political democratic actors.

Der involvierte Leser. Immersive Lektürepraktiken in der spätmittelalterlichen Mystik-Rezeption, in: Immersion im Mittelalter, hg. von Hartmut Bleumer (Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 167, 2012) (in Druckvorbereitung)

by Balázs J. Nemes

The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader... more The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader from his role as a spectator and turning him into a participant, something which has frequently been claimed by the new German medieval studies. This particular kind of recipient is, certainly, an ideal-typical reader, a literary construct with the function to display the strategies of persuasion in “Fließendes Licht“ and the special literacy or the functional inclusion of the text. It should be all the more interesting to have a look at a specific historical recipient as this allows making the text's calculated aesthetic impacts plausible or outlining them with regard to the history of receptions. The instructions by Heinrich von Nördlingen from the first half of the 14th century, addressed to Margareta Ebner and the Dominican nuns of Maria Medingen near Dillingen, which told them how to incorporate and read „Fließendes Licht“ will be the centre of my analysis. This particular example and the recourse to circulating thoughts about the phenomenology of immersion shall show which requirements have to be fulfilled in a special religious context of reception to obtain the effect of immersion. Heinrich's directives are perfectly suitable for this line of questioning as they create the model of an involved reader, amounting to the requirement to get into the diegesis of the text and to identify with the literary figure.

Im Beitrag geht es um das in der neueren germanistisch-mediävistischen Forschung vielfach behauptete immersive Potential des „Fließenden Lichts“ Mechthilds von Magdeburg, den Leser seiner Rolle als Beobachter (spectator) zu entbinden und ihn zu einem Teilnehmer (participant) der textuell entworfenen virtuellen Realität zu machen. Freilich handelt es sich bei diesem Typ vom Rezipienten um einen idealtypischen Leser, ein literaturwissenschaftliches Figurenkonstrukt also, dessen Funktion darin besteht, die im „Fließenden Licht“ verfolgten Persuasionsstrategien und damit die besondere Literarizität bzw. funktionale Einbindung des Textes sichtbar zu machen. Umso interessanter dürfte es sein, den Blick auf einen konkreten historischen Rezipienten zu lenken, ermöglicht er doch, die von der Forschung beobachteten kalkuliert wirkungsästhetischen Effekte des Textes zu plausibilisieren bzw. rezeptionsgeschichtlich zu perspektivieren. Im Mittelpunkt meiner Untersuchung stehen die an Margareta Ebner und die Dominikanerinnen von Maria Medingen bei Dillingen gerichteten Anweisungen von Heinrich von Nördlingen aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, wie sie das „Fließende Licht“ aufnehmen und lesen sollen. An diesem Fallbeispiel und im Rückgriff auf die kursierenden Überlegungen zur Phänomenologie der Immersion gilt es zu zeigen, welche Voraussetzungen speziell in einem religiösen Rezeptionskontext erfüllt werden müssen, damit es überhaupt zum Effekt der Immersion kommt. Heinrichs Direktiven eignen sich für diese Fragestellung insofern bestens, als sie das Modell des involvierten Lesers entwerfen, laufen sie doch auf die Forderung hinaus, sich in die Diegese des Textes zu begeben und sich mit der Textfigur zu identifizieren

The Logic of Religious Studies and Kathleen Flake

by Blair Hodges

Missionaria o in pericolo di apostasia? Donne cattoliche e matrimoni misti nei dibattiti del Sant’Ufficio, in: Famiglia e religione nella prima eta` moderna. Saggi in onore di Silvana Seidel Menchi, Hg. Ciappelli, G., Luzzi, S., Rospocher, M. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011), 175-186.

by Cecilia Cristellon

IGLESIA Y FAMILIA EN LA ESPAÑA MODERNA.

by Arturo Morgado García

Spanish Church in Early Modern Times, specially secular clergy, always kept its familiar relations. Family was very... more Spanish Church in Early Modern Times, specially secular clergy, always kept its familiar relations. Family was very important for getting the clerical condition (capellanías had a great importance) and for getting many ecclesiastical benefices. So, clergy always promoted their family as much as possible.

EL CLERO EN LA ESPAÑA DE LOS SIGLOS XVI Y XVII. ESTADO DE LA CUESTION Y ULTIMAS TENDENCIAS.

by Arturo Morgado García

We describe the investigations made about the Spanish clergy of XVI and XVII centuries, starting off of from... more We describe the investigations made about the Spanish clergy of XVI and XVII centuries, starting off of from pioneering work of Domínguez Ortiz, and pointing the different phases from the
investigation, that will not have its great impulse until the Nineties of the last century. We indicate the aspects more treated by the historiography, like the impact of the catholic Reformation, the sociological aspects, the means of doctrinal diffusion used by the Church, and the answer of the people towards this propagandistical campaign.

LOS MANUALES DE CONFESORES EN LA ESPAÑA DEL SIGLO XVIII.

by Arturo Morgado García

The manuels of confesión were a very important genre to the formation of clergy during the Old Regime. In this article... more The manuels of confesión were a very important genre to the formation of clergy during the Old Regime. In this article we offer a vision of this litterature in Spain at XVIIIth century, we analyze the main characters of its contents, and its cuantitative dimension too.