Experimental Pesah or,How do you Eat a Lamb while Holding a Staff in your Hand?

The Passover festival has been the ritual expression of Jewish cultural identity ever since the Old Testament got the form it has today. This article looks at the ways cultural identity was expressed in antiquity, critiques the traditional prioritising of the story of exodus over its biblical ritual expression in understanding ancient Jewish identity and explores various Pesah sacrifice instructions in Exodus 12 as an implicit polemical ritual discourse engaged in constructing a ritual of cultural distinction. The article pays close attention to the tension between the invented and the real of the instructions, and attempts to identify the possible cultural other against whom some of the Exodus instructions were constructed.     

人类学视野下的宗教──中国乡村社会控制中的一种力量

人类社会中的宗教具有多种多样的文化功能,社会控制就是其中之一。本文从人类学的角度论述了宗教在中国乡村社会控制中所起的作用。     

Religious themes in Central European postage stamps, 2006–2010

The countries of Central Europe present a suitable arena for studying the interplay of religion and nationalism. This study explores religious expressions of national identity through the issue of postage stamps, from 2006 to 2010, in seven Central European countries: Austria, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. While the national societies in question exhibit very different religious inclinations, as expressed through a variety of recent, comparable data, quantitative and qualitative analyses of the stamps they issued over a 5-year period enrich our understanding of the religious elements and traditions that form an integral part of Central European identities. As expected, states with higher relative numbers of religious adherents—Poland, Slovakia, and Austria—produce relatively more religiously themed stamps, particularly stamps that depict “living religion.” Protestant or Catholic traditions can also be traced in the relative frequencies of stamp issues. The stamps demonstrate how states employ religious traditions and heritage to perpetuate a sense of national community.     

Reinhold Niebuhr and Richard John Neuhaus

Abstract

The passing of Richard John Neuhaus in 2009 elicited a wave of comparisons to the renowned public intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr. The two men share many interesting biographical similarities and intellectual continuities (to the chagrin of some liberal disciples of Niebuhr). Indeed, during one encounter between them, Niebuhr supposedly dubbed Neuhaus “the next Reinhold Niebuhr.” The comparisons between these two influential figures of twentieth century American life, however, may be less important than their differences. By way of introducing this special issue devoted to the lives and legacies of these two public theologians, this essay considers what contending interpretations of Niebuhr and Neuhaus tell us about religion and American public life in the twenty-first century.     

Book Reviews

John W. Baldwin. Aristocratic Life in Medieval France: the Romances of Jean Renart and Gerbert de Montreuil, 1190-1230. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xvii + 359 pp.

Daniel J. Sherman. The Construction of Memory in Interwar France. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999. xvii + 414 pp.

C. Brian Morris. Son of Andalusia: The Lyrical Landscapes of Federico García Lorca. Vanderbilt University Press, 1997. xiv + 486 pp. $39.95.

Ramón F. Llorens and Jesús Pérez Magallón, eds. Luz vital. Estudios de cultura hispánica en memoria de Victor Ouimette. McGill University and Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, 1999. 227 pp.

Robert Vilain. The Poetry of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and French Symbolism. Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. xii + 376 pp. $85.00.

Janet Pérez. Camilo José Cela Revisited: The Later Novels. New York: Twayne Publishers, 2000. 189 pp.

Catherine G. Bellver. Absence and Presence: Spanish Women Poets of the Twenties and Thirties. Bucknell University Press, 2001. x + 294 pp. $46.50.

Allen Thiher. Fiction Rivals Science: The French Novel From Balzac to Proust. Columbia and London: Universiry of Missouri Press, 2001. 215 pp. $37.50.

Michael R. Finn. Proust: The Body and Literary Form. Cambridge University Press, 1999. xiii + 210 pp.

Melveena McKendrick. Playing the King: Lope de Vega and the Limits of Conformity. London: Tamesis, 2000. 230 pp. $75.00.

Willard Bohn. Modern Visual Poetry. University of Delaware Press, Associated University Presses, 2001. 321 pp. $47.50     

中国制造的伊斯兰幻方瓷器

从16世纪开始,中国开始生产回回文瓷器,外销伊斯兰世界,并延续至19世纪,大约可分为四个阶段。其中的第三阶段生产一种幻方瓷器,多为盘或碗,瓷器的中心由幻方组成,其中填满数字,周围环绕着大段《古兰经》中的诗文及伊斯兰颂词,幻方中的数字不仅仅是作为装饰,它的排列包含着一定的伊斯兰世界的含义。幻方瓷器是作为医疗用的瓷器而生产的,在伊斯兰世界起着很大的作用。     

从考古资料看史前原始宗教的产生和初步发展

原始宗教的产生以灵魂观念的出现为开端,灵魂观念最早出现于旧百器时代中期,此后一直是原始宗教意识的中心内容。     

What Is Religion?

Abstract

This essay considers the question: “What is religion and is it essentially violent?” Rather than answer the question directly, Martin suggests that it is a loaded question and reflects on what might motivate it. Through a comparison of the concepts of “religion” and “child abuse”–as analyzed in Ian Hacking’s work on social constructionism–Martin points to the social or political stakes of defining terms tied to normative discourses and which could be designed to pathologize certain behaviors.     

民族、宗教与20世纪爱尔兰问题

北爱尔兰的民族问题是英国殖民时代留下的遗产。由于历史的原因,爱尔兰两个民族在20世纪爆发了激烈的冲突。其巨大的宗教、化差异,加上英国在爱尔兰问题上的高压政策,使得爱尔兰问题长期得不到解决。     

论道教在越南的传播和影响

道教从中国传人越南后,与本地传统信仰相结合,具有越南的特点。近代时期,越南的道教逐渐衰落。越南道教比儒教和佛教的势力要小一些,但是它却有着多方面的影响。     

A peculiar pluralism

Abstract

In this article, we shall describe the complexity and differentiation that characterizes the state of religion in Italy, beginning with a concise reconstruction of the chief factors that characterize the relationship that Italians experience with their birth religion or the prevailing religion (Catholicism). We shall then describe the level of ethical and religious pluralism (found both within the Catholic universe and, especially, outside of that universe) that Italian society is beginning to experience directly, in part because of the fact that other religious entities (both old and new) are become increasingly visible in the public sphere, adding color and identity to the symphony of voices attempting to speak publicly in religious terms. In conclusion, we shall explore a phenomenon, popular religion, which continues to show extraordinary vitality. The basic hypothesis that we intend to set forth is based on the idea that ordinary Italians consider themselves Catholic but have a variety of different ways of interpreting their practical involvement with the Catholic Church.     

天衣考

以南齐武帝“画天衣”、求天衣的记载为线索,钩沉索隐,详细地考证了中古时期的天人图像和天衣的款式、特点及其观念内涵。     

十六至十八世纪的澳门与东西宗教文化交流

从１６世纪至１８世纪,澳门因其特殊的地理位置和社会背景成了东西文化、宗教交流的基地,对于推动国际间的交流与融合有着特别重要的地位。     

The Sunday morning journey to church considered as a form of ‘micro-pilgrimage’

Using mixed methods data, the social significance and narrative of local journeys to church on a Sunday morning are examined and reframed as a form of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage studies over the last 30 years have criticized the concept proposed by Turner and Turner of pilgrimage as entirely opposite and peripheral to social structures and relation. Recent literature has reinterpreted Turner and Turner’s terminology of ‘liminality’ and ‘communitas’, developing these ideas to identify the continuities that remain between much of everyday life and contemporary pilgrimage. Furthermore, there has been a shift in focus, prompted by interest in mobilities, from pilgrimage centres to recognize the significance of the journey to such centres. This paper advances the discussion further to argue that local scale journeys to church should be considered as a form of micro-pilgrimage: local journeys to church services that can form part of a break from daily social structures to be used to prepare oneself for the act of worship or immersion in the social relations based in the church. The concept of micro-pilgrimages therefore recognizes that these journeys can, like longer pilgrimages, contain qualities of liminality and communitas that combine social and religious significance and meaning for the pilgrim.