The last glaciers in part of the South East Grampians

In an area of 400 sq km in the south east Grampians including Glen Esk, Glen Clova and part of Glen Muick the limits of former corrie glaciers, valley glaciers and a plateau ice‐cap with associated outlet glaciers have been mapped. The limits of the former corrie and valley glaciers are often clearly defined by end moraines, boulder‐strewn ground, the down‐valley termination of hummocky moraines and/or the limits of meltwater channel systems, while in suitable locations outwash terraces usually occur. The glaciers are considered to have formed during the Loch Lomond (pollen zone III) Readvance, when new glaciers developed in upland sources following complete ice‐sheet decay. The readvance was accompanied in granite areas by the formation of large solifluction lobes, these lobes being found only outside the mapped ice limits. The interpretations presented are not in accord with those recently given by D. E. Sugden for the western Cairngorms.     

Folk beliefs,special deposits,and engagement with the environment in early modern northern Finland

It is widely recognized that folk beliefs flourished in early modern Finland which had formally been Christianized for centuries. These folk beliefs seem to propose, in the modern view, that people in the past believed in the existence of non-human beings, such as trolls and spirits, and considered a variety of material things from artefacts to landscape elements to have special properties, such as agency, consciousness, and personality. Folk beliefs, however, may have been misrepresented due to the assumption that they originate in religious-like thinking. This paper reconsiders the nature of folk beliefs, their relationship with religion, and their significance to archaeological interpretation both theoretically and through a case study. It is argued that folk beliefs in early modern northern Finland – and in other similar contexts – can be understood in terms of local perception and engagement with the material world. Folk beliefs, in this view, were embedded in the dynamics of everyday life, and they are, at least in the specific case discussed in this paper, indicative of two-way relatedness between people and various constituents of the material world. The archaeological implications of this view are discussed in the context of the 17th-century town of Tornio on the northern Gulf of Bothnia.     

‘Kingdom Come’: Representing Mormonism through a geopolitical frame

This paper extends the reach of ‘popular geopolitics’ by exploring the geopolitical frame that American popular/news magazines use to portray a major religion in the United States: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the most prominent body known as Mormonism). It asserts that magazines often represent this type of Mormonism as a geopolitical entity, and sometimes even as a geopolitical threat. Prior to the early twentieth century, these portrayals were hegemonic, given the national government's distrust of Mormonism. But echoes of an earlier and more virulent geopolitical discourse have persisted, long after the federal government made its peace with Mormonism. This paper defines and analyzes twentieth-century magazines' geopolitical discourse on Mormonism, particularly in relation to Mormon spatiality. In doing so, it puts forward concepts of geopolitical optic and logic in order to more effectively distinguish between variations in geopolitical language.     

我国宗教立法论要

宗教立法是建设社会主义法治国家的必然要求。本文回顾了中国共产党关于宗教立法的基本历程,阐明了在社会主义中国宗教立法应坚持的根本宗旨及基本原则。     

Post-secular geographies and the problem of pluralism: Religion and everyday life in Istanbul,Turkey

The concept of post-secularism has come to signify a renewed attention to the role of religion within secular, democratic public spheres. Central to the project of post-secularism is the integration of religious ways of being within a public arena shared by others who may practice different faiths, practice the same faith differently, or be non-religious in outlook. As a secular state within which Sunni Islam has played an increasingly public role, Turkey is a prime site for studying new configurations of religion, politics, and public life. Our 2013 research with devout Sunni Muslim women in Istanbul demonstrates how the big questions of post-secularism and the problem of pluralism are posed and navigated within the quotidian geographies of homes, neighborhoods, and city spaces. Women grapple with the demands of a pluralistic public sphere on their own terms and in ways that traverse and call into question the distinction between public and private spaces. While mutual respect mediates relations with diverse others, women often find themselves up against the limits of respect, both in their intimate relations with Alevi friends and neighbors, and in the anonymous spaces of the city where they sometimes find themselves subject to secular hostility. The gendered moral order of public space that positions devout headscarf-wearing women in a particular way within diverse city spaces where others may be consuming alcohol or wearing revealing clothing further complicates the problem of pluralism in the city. We conclude that one does not perhaps arrive at post-secularism so much as struggle with its demands.     

Hans Kohn: the idea of secularized nationalism

More than seventy years after its publication, Hans Kohn's 1944 The Idea of Nationalism is still regarded as a ground‐breaking contribution to the study of nationalism. This essay is aimed to highlight a significant theme in this work which has largely gone unnoticed, namely, the pivotal role of religion and secularism in Kohn's account of nationalism, and especially, in his persistent struggle for a ‘perfect’ nationalism. Kohn's conception – and personal experience – of the relationship of nationalism and religion will be examined through several stages of his turbulent life. First, as a young Zionist in Prague, when he parlayed Martin Buber's Zionist creed into an ethnic concept of nationalism. Then, in Kohn's journalistic writing in the 1920s and in his first theoretical works on nationalism in the years 1929–1942. Finally, Kohn's more mature and crystallized account of nationalism in his 1944 book will be revisited from the perspective of the nationalism–religion relationship.     

青海宗教文化旅游资源开发刍议

以宗教为核心的基本文化构成是青海各少数民族民俗文化体系的重要组成部分,进一步挖掘、深度开发这一旅游资源,对于加强青海各族人民之间的友好往来,促进对外宣传青海,并为青海旅游经济的开发提供优越的旅游资源,最终对青海经济的跨越式发展都具有十分重要的意义。     

On the horns of the terrorist dilemma: syrian christians' response to israeli “Terrorism”

This article examines how the prevailing understanding of “terrorism” and contemporary Israeli military operations against the Palestinians provides different religious groups in Syria with a common ground on which to base their claim to share in the national identity. State‐sponsored nationalism is not the only source for establishing a unified community. Syrian Christians use their political protest against the Israeli operations to reinforce their attempts to reconstruct national history, based on biblical references, with the aim of claiming that their religious history is part of national history. This transformation from religious to secular identity reduces the risks against Christians being set apart from the rest of the population and, hence, serves to insure their position in society as well as maintaining their own group identity.     

The uses and abuses of ‘secular religion’: Jules Monnerot's path from communism to fascism

From starting his intellectual career as a surrealist, communist and co-founder of the Collège de Sociologie in 1937, Jules Monnerot (1911–95) ended it as a candidate for the Front National in 1989. In this article I offer an explanation for the unexpected trajectory of this thinker whose work is little known in the English-speaking world. Without overlooking the idea that the infamous College encouraged such tendencies, I argue that the notion of ‘secular religion’, as Monnerot developed it in his Sociology of Communism (1949), goes some way to explain his gradual radicalization from Cold Warrior to fascist, a path that otherwise seems unlikely for a French intellectual after World War II. In order to emphasize the unusualness of Monnerot's case, I contrast it with that of his erstwhile collaborator, Georges Bataille. I show that accusations of fascism often levelled against Bataille should be more accurately directed at Monnerot, indeed that the fascism inherent within the College of Sociology was brought out not by Bataille but by Monnerot. Monnerot's case is unsettling first because his definition of ‘secular religion’ contributed to his pro-fascist stance; and second, because it forces us to rethink what is meant by ‘philosophy after Auschwitz.’ This term usually brings to mind scholars such as T.W. Adorno, Emil Fackenheim or Emmanuel Levinas. Monnerot provides a rare example of a thinker whose fascism only developed after the Holocaust, a shocking response that demands the attention of all those interested in the relationship between religion and politics.     

Geographies of religion and spirituality: pilgrimage beyond the ‘officially’ sacred

Abstract

The papers in this special issue, Geographies of Religion and Spirituality: Pilgrimage beyond the ‘Officially Sacred,’ are placed in the context of a comprehensive theoretical overview of the role that the sacred plays in shaping, conducting, controlling, and contesting pilgrimage. As scholarship examining the lived experiences of travelers has demonstrated, pilgrimages need not necessarily be religious in nature, nor be officially sanctioned. Rather, if pilgrimages are perceived as ‘hyper-meaningful’ by the practitioner, the authors in this special issue argue that a common denominator of all of these journeys is the perception of sacredness—a quality that is opposed to profane, everyday life. Separating the social category of ‘religion’ from the ‘sacred,’ these articles employ an interdisciplinary approach to theorize sacredness, its variability, and the ways in which it is officially recognized or condemned. Thus, the authors pay particular attention to the authorizing processes that religious and temporal power centers employ to either promote, co-opt, or stave off, such popular manifestations of devotion, focusing on three ways: through tradition, text or institutionalized norms. Referencing examples from across the globe, and linking them to the varied contributions in this special issue, this introduction complexifies the ways in which pilgrims, central authorities, locals and other stakeholders on the ground appropriate, negotiate, shape, contest, or circumvent the powerful forces of the sacred. Delving ‘beyond the officially sacred,’ this collective examination of pilgrimages, both well-established and new; religious and secular; authorized and not; the contributions to this special issue, as well as this Introduction, examines the interplay of a transcendent sacred for pilgrims and tourists so as to provide a blueprint for how work in the geography of religion and the fields of pilgrimage and religious tourism may move forward.