Visual Memory of the 1911 Revolution,edited by Yang Tianshi and Tan Xufeng

The history of religious societies under the puppet Manchukuo regime has not been studied to a great extent. By examining the historical materials of the Red Swastika Society, an eclectic religious association that blended Daoist and Buddhist practices and notions, this article attempts to delineate the activities of that religious organization in northeast Chinese society, and argues that the apolitical and non-partisan philanthropic activities of the Red Swastika Society were challenged by both nationalism and imperialism. Prior to World War II, collaboration between the Red Swastika Society and a new Japanese religion, ōmotokyō, had been politicized by right-wing Japanese politicians. During the period of Japanese rule in Manchukuo, the Red Swastika Society had to abandon its political neutrality after being politically suppressed. To some extent, it was transformed into a propagandistic society that advocated the legitimacy of the puppet Manchukuo regime, of which it became a vassal.     

Situating banal nationalism,the culture wars,and civil religion: governing localized geographies of national identity in Indiana

Various material forms of national identity have become ubiquitous features of the post-9/11 American cultural landscape. This research specifically examines the ‘In God We Trust’ (IGWT) license plate in the state of Indiana as a material expression and territorialized form of national identity. While conceptually anchored in banal nationalism research, exploring the spatial patterns of adoption or non-adoption of IGWT license plates by Indiana residents is only possible through situating this research through the mediating lens of the culture wars and civil religion. Although the IGWT license plate project legislatively materialized through the localized spatial networks of non-state actors in the context of a new and conservative state–citizen relationship firmly anchored in the culture wars, adoption behavior is also mediated through the much broader influence of civil religion. We conduct a quantitative analysis to determine license plate spatial distribution by county, but more importantly to explore the sociodemographic dimensions of IGWT license plate adoption and non-adoption. While our results generally mirror the sociodemographic findings of social issue-based electoral geography, the imbrication of banal nationalism, the culture wars, and civil religion as materially expressed by the IGWT license plate yields an ideologically different and broader dynamic when compared to culture wars defined by national identity.     

The Character and Influence of Abolitionism: A Sermon that Gripped a Nation and Defined a Man

This article examines Henry Van Dyke's antiabolitionist sermon The Character and Influence of Abolitionism and civilian responses to it. Preached shortly before South Carolina's secession, the sermon's timely appearance led to a wide distribution throughout the nation and stimulated opinions on slavery and abolition in relation to the Bible, clearly revealing a divided citizenry. Van Dyke's preference for conciliation caused some Northerners to question his loyalty, and while he represented himself as apolitical in order to preserve the unity of the church, his famous address contributed to the politicization of religion during the secession crisis and Civil War.     

Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi — Antisemitism on the Stage and in Reality

Abstract

Professor Bernhardi was one of Schnitzler’s most successful plays, and at the same time, a key document in the development of his Austrian-Jewish identity. The central conflict in the play is not, as often assumed, that of science against religion, but rather that between the critically minded individual and those who submit to a political or religious programme. The figure of Bernhardi reflects Schnitzler’s own position on the Jewish identity crisis, which may be termed ‘enlightened apolitical individualism’. In addition to his experiences working in his father’s clinic, Schnitzler drew inspiration for the plot from sources that are cited here for the first time.     

Citizenship and Belonging in the Rural Fringe: A Case Study of a Hindu Temple in Sydney,Australia

Despite Australian multicultural policy that asserts the right of all citizens to maintain and practice their religion, formal citizenship has not guaranteed the welcome or belonging of migrant religious groups at the neighbourhood scale. This is most starkly reflected in contests over the inclusion of minority religious spaces in the Australian landscape, which increasingly take place in the rural–urban fringe of metropolitan areas. This work examines the controversy over a proposed Hindu temple in metropolitan Sydney and reveals insights into the way that rural–urban fringe space is imagined, understood and experienced by land use planners, residents and temple members. Critical discourse analysis of policy documentation along with interviews reveals that land use planners circumscribe belonging in the landscape through the use of zoning ordinances and design controls, local residents mark the boundaries of white privilege through narratives of heritage and cultural difference and temple members claim rights to citizenship based on assertions of sameness.     

El pulso de Centro América a través de la novela

This article offers a new reading of Miguel de Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir. Critics have traditionally focused on the question of the protagonist's supposed lack of faith and sought to relate San Manuel's doubts in the novel to Unamuno's own religious views. Although this novel is very much concerned with religion, eschatology, and social issues, it is also an extremely sophisticated literary narration wherein the use of irony and ambiguity remains perhaps unequalled in Spanish contemporary literature. By considering the principles of linguistic pragmatics, this article shows that in her account of San Manuel's life, the female narrator tells the dramatic story of the love she and San Manuel felt for each other. By means of a complex use of ambiguity, Unamuno writes a novel that can be read in two different ways: the religious novel and the love novel.     

A Review of “Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience: Reading the Mobile City”

In this article, the author analyzes how Salvador Espriu in La pell de brau (re)builds the myth of Sepharad that refers to the Hebrew name of the assembly of the medieval Hispanic kingdoms. La pell de brau is a work that opens the "collective cycle" toward a "we" framed within a specific historical context. The poet criticizes the unified vision of the Spanish nation and of the Catholic religion. The (re)construction of the myth of Sepharad not only reflects the crisis of the subject in search of an identity in an intolerant Spain after the civil war but also subverts the myth of the Spanish nation as created by the doctrine of National Catholicism under Franco.     

When the Past becomes the Present

L'oracle pour les Recabites (Jr 35,18-19 TM // 42,18-19 LXX) presente quelques differences notables suivant qu'on le lit dans sa version massoretique ou dans la LXX. Il s'agit essentiellement du changement de locuteur et de destinataire, de la construction differente des personnages, ainsi que d'insistances differentes d'une version a l'autre. De la sorte, ce texte se revele etre un bon terrain pour verifier a petite echelle que les differences entre les narrations paralleles des deux versions connues du livre de Jeremie impliquent une strategie narrative differente, ce qui a un impact sur le sens du recit lui-meme pour le lecteur. L'article entend montrer tout l'interet qu'il y a a prendre au serieux separement le TM et la LXX, de sorte qu'apparaisse la specificite de chaque texte dans sa confrontation a l'autre. De la comparaison ressortiront des indications quant a la qualite eraire de chaque texte, mais aussi sans doute l'un ou l'autre indice concernant l'histoire textuelle de ce livre biblique.     

On the Supernatural and Extraordinary Experience: Multiple Views and a Call for Synthesis

This review describes four disparate books that relate to the anthropology of religion. Each has a distinctive approach, ranges over a wide subject matter, and makes provocative claims. In summarizing and critiquing them most attention is paid to their perspectives on the natural and the supernatural. This leads to consideration of related work in the anthropology of extraordinary experience. It is argued that while our different approaches to the supernatural may reflect deep epistemological divisions within anthropology and, more broadly, in society, a form of semiotics that takes emergent complexity into consideration does provide opportunities for consensus.     

Rethinking the Anthropology of Religious Change: New Perspectives on Revitalization and Conversion Movements

This article reviews the history of anthropological engagements with religious change. Anthony Wallace made one of the most important contributions to this work by developing the first comprehensive model of revitalization movements. In recent years, contributions to the field have burgeoned in response to a renewed anthropological interest in globalization and transnational religious and social forms. Wallace's work has an ongoing relevance for much of this contemporary writing, in that many of the “new” theorists share many of the concerns that he first explored. However, they differ in their conceptualization of the processes and political contexts of change.