Presidential address given to the Folklore society,March 2004[1]

Glastonbury, a small town in the south‐west of England, is considered significant by a variety of religious groups and spiritual seekers. While there is a large degree of peaceful co‐existence between people holding radically different worldviews, the contested nature of Glastonbury as a spiritual centre is occasionally played out by means of public displays of religiosity, the most obvious example of which is the procession. This paper compares Christian and Goddess‐oriented processions as case studies in the use of traditional means to assert historical, spatial and spiritual claims in contemporary Glastonbury.     

Performing identities: music and dance in the Irishcommunities of Coventry and Liverpool

This article will examine how British-born second- and third-generation Irish people use Irish music and dance in the production of an Irish cultural identity. The article draws on research undertaken with members of the Irish communities in the English cities of Coventry and Liverpool. The research was conducted with music and dance practitioners in Liverpool who strongly identify as Irish and also with schoolchildren in Coventry whose parents or grandparents were born in Ireland. The paper first explores the comments of the Liverpool respondents and points to how music and dance can offer a space in which different generations can mark out their affiliation or embody their Irishness. Secondly, the paper considers interview work with schoolchildren in Coventry, concentrating on their responses as listeners to Irish traditional music. Their comments point to the capacity of this music to resonate with multiple, even conflicting, productions of Irishness. The comments of all the respondents raise key debates about authenticity and the construction of identity.     

Teens and territory in contested spaces: Negotiating sectarian interfaces in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this article is to examine children's experiences of territory in one location in Northern Ireland. The research draws on stories, maps and focus group interviews with 80 children aged between 14–15 years of age, living in one of the most contested interface areas in Northern Ireland. Interface areas are locations where Catholics and Protestants live side by side in segregated communities divided by peace walls and other symbolic boundaries. Within these spaces, children made distinctions between place and territory. Place was referred to in relation to physical features of the surrounding landscape but more importantly as spaces where family and friendship ties were paramount. Territory on the other hand was referred to in terms of Protestant and Catholic identity.     

Leo Strauss and the Defense of Western Civilization

To Father Ernest Fortin:

[The] highest achievement … of theology's handmaiden is to show that the arguments leveled against divine revelation are not compelling or demonstrably true.1 1.?Father Ernest Fortin, The Birth of Philosophic Christianity, Collected Essays, 4 vols. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996): I: 230. View all notes

To the extent that we are now in the midst of the so-called “clash of civilizations,” it may be noteworthy that a major controversy—scholarly and journalistic––has emerged over the bearing of Leo Strauss on the defense of the West. This article explores the roots of the controversy as found in his “The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” which raises and answers two questions: what is Western Civilization and is it worthy of defense? It is claimed that the very foundation of Western Civilization is constituted at its core by the twin pillars of revelation and Socratic philosophizing; and that the West merits life only if both of its pillars are defendable by reason against rational attack. In what follows, I attempt to trace Strauss's dialectical defense of the West by means of his demonstration of the irrefutability of revelation by reason and the theological-political bearing of this defense. I come to a dual conclusion: the existence of the monotheistic God of revelation is irrefutable by philosophy; yet, the human relevance of revelation, as the guide for a way of life—politically and individually—remains open to challenge by philosophy. Along the way, I also treat the recent research that is in conflict over Strauss's views.     

Cultural Factors in U.S.-India Relations

Book reviewed in this article:
Andrew J. Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India, 1947–1964