Kang Youwei and Confucianism in Canada and beyond, 1899–1911

ABSTRACT

Based on the new discovery of two of Kang Youwei’s writings composed in Canada in 1899, this article expands the historical research concerning his Confucian religious thoughts and movement within the Canadian context and the period of his overseas exile in 1899–1911. The article first focuses on Kang’s continual pursuit of Confucian religious cosmopolitism from China to Canada, especially his efforts to disseminate Confucianism overseas and to develop a new utopian vision that called for the removal of religious boundaries among human beings worldwide. Its second focus is on Kang’s use of Canada as both a starting point and a turning point in his search for the Confucian State Religion. He consequently sought to develop a conservative nationalism from traditional Chinese culture and through a utilitarian adoption of Christian institutions and Western cultures. The analysis of both Kang’s pursuit of Confucian religious cosmopolitism and his search for the Confucian State Religion reveals their positive and negative impacts on his reformist movement that affected Canadian Chinatowns and on the broader Chinese diaspora from 1899–1911. Kang’s promotion of Confucianism in Canadian Chinatowns and the Chinese diaspora in addition had implications for the failure of his religious movement in the early Republican Period.     

Recovering the histories of women religious in England in the central Middle Ages: Wilton Abbey and Goscelin of Saint-Bertin

Building upon the efforts made by scholars over the past 20 years to enrich our understanding of the vibrancy and sophistication of the literary cultures fostered within English communities of women religious during the central Middle Ages, this article shows that these women kept their communities' histories and preserved their saints' cults through their own writing. The evidence for this is uncovered through comparative analysis of the two extant versions of the post-mortem miracles of the late Anglo-Saxon saint Edith of Wilton (c.961–c.984): the Vita et translatio Edithe, composed c.1080 by the Flemish hagiographer Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (c.1040–d. after 1107), and the early fifteenth-century Middle English Wilton Chronicle. This analysis reveals that the writer of the Chronicle depended on a collection of Edith's and other Wilton saints' miracles that was maintained by their consorors throughout the late tenth and eleventh centuries, independently of Goscelin's account.     

Political Theology,Religious Diversity and the Nature of Democratic Citizenship

ABSTRACT

Driving this essay is a question central to political theology; that is, how can I keep faith with my distinctive commitments while also forming a common life with neighbors who have a different vision of life to me? My response has four parts. First, I develop a normative definition of politics within which to situate an account of citizenship and the political implications of deep religious plurality in a shared polity. Second, I examine how citizenship is not just a legal status that entails certain rights and duties, but also denotes an identity, a performance of politics, and a shared rationality. Third, I identify the dominant ways in which citizenship is understood in the contemporary context, namely, through either a nationalist or cosmopolitan framework, contrasting these with a consociational conception of citizenship. And lastly, I lay out how a consociational framework provides a more generative basis for conceptualizing religious diversity.     

景颇族传统宗教仪式空间生产的现代性困境研究

少数民族传统宗教与族群历史、文化认同一脉相通，其仪式的强化实践素来为众人认可，透过仪式表象触及深层次的意识结构已成学界共识。研究传统宗教仪式的空间生产不仅对解析其背后的意识形态运动具有指导价值，也能为有关宗教、文化部门提供管控参考。文章从列斐伏尔的空间生产理论入手，探究地处边疆山区的景颇族传统宗教仪式在面对外来宗教的空间解构、现代性引发的空间变迁、族群内部的话语争夺及旅游空间介入调控等背景下，其相应的主体实践及力量博弈，厘清空间生产的主次困境和作用机理，以传统宗教有益价值为导向，引导仪式空间生产朝凝聚族群、强化团结的目标靠拢。     

“An Ægyptian darknesse”: pagan chronologies,historia sacra,and the hieroglyph in England, 1646-1690

ABSTRACT

In this article I consider the depiction of the Egyptian hieroglyph in several seventeenth-century English religio-historiographical works that engage with the problems posed by the Egyptian dynastic records – records that challenged the validity of biblical chronology. Critical tradition has been keen to view the hieroglyph in the context of esoteric European scholarship, while scholarship on the English Enlightenment has tended to overlook the importance of religious motivations in “secular” intellectual projects. I show here, however, that some of the first apparently “secular” approaches to the hieroglyphs in England were not in works that espoused proto-Enlightenment linguistics or other intellectual ideals, but in religiously-motivated projects that, seeking to buttress sacred history and the primacy of the Judaic tradition against the threat of pagan chronologies, aimed to discredit the hieroglyph as an icon of pagan learning.     

“Un-Irish and un-Catholic”: sports,physical education and girls’ schooling

ABSTRACT

This article charts the development of physical education and sports in girls’ schools in Ireland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It notes how early developments were undoubtedly influenced by traditions and practices in English public schools, with games such as hockey and cricket becoming popular in Irish girls’ schools. The “Swedish” gymnastics movement, which became popular the 1870s, led to the introduction of callisthenics and drill in many Irish schools. By the turn of the twentieth century, drill and dance displays had become a highlight in the convent school calendar of events. Official policy following the introduction of the Revised Programme for National Schools (1900) placed unprecedented emphasis on the importance of physical education. While many embraced these developments, others were critical of girls’ involvement in competitive games and sports, particularly those considered “foreign” and “un-Irish”. Drawing on convent school archives, official sources, and newspaper articles, this article provides new insights into the evolution of physical education and sports in Irish girls’ schools.