La virtud sospechosa: Teresa de Jesús y su condición femenina

ABSTRACT

Teresa de Jesús (1515–1582) lives in a patriarchal society opposed to the intellectual and spiritual development of women, something that she will not only not accept but also fight against, claiming a series of rights (the right to life, to expression, to autonomy, to the free development of her abilities, to have an active role in the Church, to relate to God through prayer, etc.) in spite of the restrictions of censorship and the cloud of suspicion that hung over her for being a mystic, the founder of convents, and the daughter and granddaughter of a converso. Furthermore, Teresa, with her reforms, would present an alternative life for women, as her convents would be spaces for freedom and women's solidarity.     

The Rise in Power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is moving across the international stage as the future King of Saudi Arabia. He has the support of his father, Saudi royals, and the oil income of his country. He also has 10‐year plan he agreed upon with the King called Vision 2030. The three components of the Vision are to diversify the oil‐based economy to include technology and tourism, to make the country the heart of Islam and Arab culture and to become the economic and geographic hub of Asia/Europe and Africa. His rise in power will depend upon his skill in expanding the religious tolerance of Saudi people, the current economic structure of the country, and the education of the youth. He is simultaneously addressing all these challenges in order to cement the country's future sustainability. Suggestions for enhancing his multifaceted impact on his country are provided.     

The Thomas Souls Ministry – Onto‐praxis,Dividualism, and Charismatic Catholicism at Lake Chambri,Papua New Guinea

The Thomas Souls Ministry is a prayer group founded by Catholics from the middle Sepik. It is led by a spirit of the dead called Thomas who takes possession of a Nyaura (West Iatmul) woman to preach, prophesy, counsel, and heal. While a prominent debate within the Anthropology of Christianity argues for radical change and rupture with the pre‐Christian self and society, I suggest that continuity within change is found in the way my interlocutors have made Christianity their own. I argue that the local concept of the person defined by aspects of dividualism and reflecting ontological premises of people's lifeworld has strongly influenced the way Christianity was appropriated. In current religious practices people put these premises into action and reinforce them in intersubjective encounters with the divine other. Analysing people's ‘onto‐praxis’, I argue that the Thomas Souls Ministry can be understood as part of a re‐empowerment process that re‐appropriates local meanings, spirits, and practices despite, and in fact against, the influence of the Catholic mission proselytizing in the region.     

史前先民的头饰习俗

依据考古发掘和文献资料,认为史前先民对头部的装饰手法多种多样,这在一定程度上反映了早期人类审美意识及淳朴的原始宗教信仰的多样化,同时也说明了古人对美的追求并非有了丰厚的物质条件才萌生的。     

“Catching the Yellow Ghost”: A Case Study of Popular Religious Activities and Social Transformation in Rural North China

This article studies the relationship between local society and social change in rural north China from the late Qing dynasty to the People’s Republic of China period through the activity of “Zhuo huanggui” (literally, “Catching the Yellow Ghost”). “Catching the Yellow Ghost” is a ritual activity in Guyi village, Wu’an county, Hebei province. According to villagers there, “Catching the Yellow Ghost” has been celebrated since the late Qing dynasty. However, due to political pressures in the 1950s, it was not until the 1980s that “Catching the Yellow Ghost” began to be revitalized. Since that time, “Catching the Yellow Ghost” has gained rapid popularity and fame in north China. Through the lens of the “Catching the Yellow Ghost” ritual, this article explores social transformation in China from the late 19th to the early 21st century. By analyzing the continuity and discontinuity of “Catching the Yellow Ghost,” this article offers a new understanding of the relationship between local society and social change in rural north China.     

Conceptual Debts: Modern Architecture and Neo-Thomism in Postwar America

This article analyzes the formative role of medieval theology and aesthetics in the development of postwar American architecture by focusing on the architectural theory and practice of Mies van der Rohe and Jean Labatut, both of whom became actively interested in Neo-Thomism from the late 1940s. More specifically, a closer look at their reliance on the work of Jacques Maritain, the preeminent promotor of Neo-Thomism, sheds light on the transmission and circulation of old and new concepts within twentieth-century architectural theory. By revealing how Maritain’s ideas helped to codify the latter and thus exposed the premodern ideas at the heart of modern architecture, I argue that modernist aesthetics should be re-evaluated with regards to its definition of “the new” and its emphasis on the breakdown or mutation of premodern frames of reference.     

Colonialism in the periphery: Spanish linguistic policy in New Granada,c. 1574–1625

This article examines how the Spanish Crown's attempt to implement a systematic linguistic policy across the New World from the last quarter of the sixteenth century failed in the New Kingdom of Granada. Based on the ambiguous and problematic idea of ‘general languages’ that had arisen in Mexico and Peru, this one-size-fits-all policy was wholly unsuited to even the Muisca heartlands of the archdiocese of Santa Fe. Instead, local authorities settled on the use of bespoke translations of catechetical and pastoral texts into individual local languages, even at parish level, thereby reinforcing linguistic particularism—but availing themselves of the disciplinary and procedural framework of the legislation to support their strategy. In doing so, the article seeks to challenge established assumptions about the treatment of indigenous languages in New Granada in this period, and to throw new light on unanswered questions about the Spanish response to the region's linguistic heterogeneity.     

The patron function in eighteenth-century book dedications: the case of Croatian religious writing

This paper analyses book dedications in a specific genre, religious writing, in a linguistically small and peripheral region of the Habsburg Empire, endeavouring thereby to open up new comparative perspectives in the understanding of the system of patronage. After a review of the most frequent problems encompassed by recent research, the specific features of the concrete original research corpus are elaborated, with an emphasis on problems hitherto less investigated: the correlation of the dedication and other paratextual parts of the book; the practice of dedicating works to saints of the Catholic Church, which relativises the understanding of the dedication as a form of the exchange of authorial work for material benefits; and the functionalisation of the name of the patron, which enables the creation of the concept of the patron function. The analysis supports the understanding of patronage as a dynamic system that rested upon the human interactions possible in the given and specific spatial and temporal contexts.     

From English to British liberty, 1550–1800

This essay was written for a symposium on Dutch conceptual history in a comparative European perspective. The concept in question here is liberty, and the context first English and then (following the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707) British. What follows primarily addresses two themes, both challenging. First, what role did the concept of liberty play over an exceptionally long and turbulent period of English history punctuated by two revolutions? Second, what relationship existed during this period between English and Dutch understandings and experience of this concept?