{"title":"Martien E. Brinkman: The Non-Western Jesus: Jesus as Boddhisattva, Avatara, Guru, Prophet, Ancestor or Healer?","authors":"Jyri Komulainen","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.5155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.5155","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2011-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69646511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"John Bowen: Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State.","authors":"Per-Erik Nilsson","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.5156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.5156","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2011-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69646558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent decades memory studies have gained great popularity in the humanities and social sciences, and not without cause. At least since the 1980s we have witnessed something which has been called an international memory boom. The article first looks at some explanations as to why memory fascinates people of our own time; it then focuses on questions as to how we can study religion from the point of view of social memory. The discussion is based on ideas derived from the French sociologists Maurice Halbwachs and Daniele Hervieu-Leger, and is structured in terms of recollection, events, narratives, communities and tradition. Finally, I reflect upon the criticism directed against the theory of religion as a chain of memory in the study of world religions, the latter of course being one of the main tasks of our discipline. In the concluding remarks, I comment on the simultaneous rise during recent decades of religion and of a worldwide interest in memory: both address the need to belong to and be part of something larger.
{"title":"Religion and the Study of Social Memory","authors":"Tuula Sakaranaho","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.5151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.5151","url":null,"abstract":"In recent decades memory studies have gained great popularity in the humanities and social sciences, and not without cause. At least since the 1980s we have witnessed something which has been called an international memory boom. The article first looks at some explanations as to why memory fascinates people of our own time; it then focuses on questions as to how we can study religion from the point of view of social memory. The discussion is based on ideas derived from the French sociologists Maurice Halbwachs and Daniele Hervieu-Leger, and is structured in terms of recollection, events, narratives, communities and tradition. Finally, I reflect upon the criticism directed against the theory of religion as a chain of memory in the study of world religions, the latter of course being one of the main tasks of our discipline. In the concluding remarks, I comment on the simultaneous rise during recent decades of religion and of a worldwide interest in memory: both address the need to belong to and be part of something larger.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2011-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69646250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article builds on ethnographic fieldwork within the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) milieu of Istanbul. It is based on material collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with people who at the same time selfidentify as practicing Muslims and have romantic and sexual relations with people of their own sex. The protagonist of the article is a pious Muslim woman who can be placed in the category of LGBTQ Muslims who do not seek coherence and are not involved in a reinterpretation of their Islamic tradition. The article explores the complex ways in which this woman handles the potential conflicts between her sex life and her religious beliefs, and points specifically to the way she supports herself on the firm belief that Allah loves and protects her.
{"title":"Especially Loved by Allah: Muslim and LGBTQ in Istanbul","authors":"Ann af Burén","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.4617","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.4617","url":null,"abstract":"The article builds on ethnographic fieldwork within the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) milieu of Istanbul. It is based on material collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with people who at the same time selfidentify as practicing Muslims and have romantic and sexual relations with people of their own sex. The protagonist of the article is a pious Muslim woman who can be placed in the category of LGBTQ Muslims who do not seek coherence and are not involved in a reinterpretation of their Islamic tradition. The article explores the complex ways in which this woman handles the potential conflicts between her sex life and her religious beliefs, and points specifically to the way she supports herself on the firm belief that Allah loves and protects her.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69641685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Researchers from different fields of study agree on the importance of comparison, but debate over how to compare. Rather than comparing globally, on the basis of secondary literature and looking for similari ties alone, the article argues for a limitative approach that restricts itself to just a few cultures, is based on local sources, and takes both resemblances and differences into account. In contrast to the idea of a uniform and transcultural bear ceremonial in North Eurasia, it focuses on plurality and diversity in discussing and comparing the bear rituals found among the southern Khanty (about 1900) and the southern Sami (about 1750).
{"title":"The ‘Bear Ceremonial’ and Bear Rituals among the Khanty and the Sami","authors":"Håkan Rydving","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.6940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.6940","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers from different fields of study agree on the importance of comparison, but debate over how to compare. Rather than comparing globally, on the basis of secondary literature and looking for similari ties alone, the article argues for a limitative approach that restricts itself to just a few cultures, is based on local sources, and takes both resemblances and differences into account. In contrast to the idea of a uniform and transcultural bear ceremonial in North Eurasia, it focuses on plurality and diversity in discussing and comparing the bear rituals found among the southern Khanty (about 1900) and the southern Sami (about 1750).","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2010-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For tourists travelling to the northernmost parts of Europe, the tour includes not only experiences of wild nature, Midnight Sun, and Aurora Borealis, but also encounters with the indigenous Sami people who populate the area. Emblematically represented in tourist guidebooks as reindeer herders, the Sami stand out as representatives of a life lived in close contact with nature, and as carriers of an indigenous spirituality that reflects a deep concern for the environment and for the powers found in nature. How can this insight be represented or performed in tourism? The article discusses the representation of this image of the Sami in a theme park in the village of Karasjohka, Norway. Transposed to the stage of the experience industry in the Sapmi Magic Theatre, a virtual Sami shaman narrates to tourists the story of an ancient indigenous wise man. This narrative is on the one hand deeply embedded in Western imaginaries about the Noble Savage and about a prelapsarian, pre-colonial past. On the other hand, this myth is represented as something belonging to a more glorious past, and not as part of present-day indigenous life. From the point of view of ethno-politics, such narratives may support Sami claims of representing a unique culture, while at the same time constituting a threat to the fight for an equal position in contemporary society.
{"title":"Indigenous Spirituality in the Touristic Borderzone: Virtual Performances of Sámi Shamanism in Sápmi Park","authors":"Stein R. Mathisen","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.6941","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.6941","url":null,"abstract":"For tourists travelling to the northernmost parts of Europe, the tour includes not only experiences of wild nature, Midnight Sun, and Aurora Borealis, but also encounters with the indigenous Sami people who populate the area. Emblematically represented in tourist guidebooks as reindeer herders, the Sami stand out as representatives of a life lived in close contact with nature, and as carriers of an indigenous spirituality that reflects a deep concern for the environment and for the powers found in nature. How can this insight be represented or performed in tourism? The article discusses the representation of this image of the Sami in a theme park in the village of Karasjohka, Norway. Transposed to the stage of the experience industry in the Sapmi Magic Theatre, a virtual Sami shaman narrates to tourists the story of an ancient indigenous wise man. This narrative is on the one hand deeply embedded in Western imaginaries about the Noble Savage and about a prelapsarian, pre-colonial past. On the other hand, this myth is represented as something belonging to a more glorious past, and not as part of present-day indigenous life. From the point of view of ethno-politics, such narratives may support Sami claims of representing a unique culture, while at the same time constituting a threat to the fight for an equal position in contemporary society.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2010-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Among the Indian female gurus active today, Māte Mahādēvi from the Li ṅ gāyat tradition in Karnataka (Southern India) is one of those attracting an increasing number of followers. Li ṅ gāyatism is a reform movement which according to certain views was founded by Basava in the twelfth century. The movement arose as a protest against the caste system, against a priesthood that was considered corrupt, and against discrimination against women. In the following paper, I provide a portrait of this religious revitalizer and mystic. I describe Māte Mahādēvi’s background in the light of the Li ṅ gāyat tradition, discussed briefly here. I also provide an account of some of her central contributions to the renewal of Li ṅ gāyatism, and of the resistance her work has met with. In addition to providing a cogent introduction to a hitherto relatively unknown religious tradition, my purpose, through giving voice to Māte Mahādēvi’s life and activities, is also to add to previous research by drawing attention to one of India’s contemporary female spiritual masters, largely unknown to westerners.
{"title":"Māte Mahādēvi: a Progressive Female Mystic in Today’s India","authors":"Marie-Thérèse Charpentier","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.6943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.6943","url":null,"abstract":"Among the Indian female gurus active today, Māte Mahādēvi from the Li ṅ gāyat tradition in Karnataka (Southern India) is one of those attracting an increasing number of followers. Li ṅ gāyatism is a reform movement which according to certain views was founded by Basava in the twelfth century. The movement arose as a protest against the caste system, against a priesthood that was considered corrupt, and against discrimination against women. In the following paper, I provide a portrait of this religious revitalizer and mystic. I describe Māte Mahādēvi’s background in the light of the Li ṅ gāyat tradition, discussed briefly here. I also provide an account of some of her central contributions to the renewal of Li ṅ gāyatism, and of the resistance her work has met with. In addition to providing a cogent introduction to a hitherto relatively unknown religious tradition, my purpose, through giving voice to Māte Mahādēvi’s life and activities, is also to add to previous research by drawing attention to one of India’s contemporary female spiritual masters, largely unknown to westerners.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2010-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article sets out to trace possible influences of Emanuel Sweden borg, the Swedish theosophist and spirit-seer, in the production of the Finnish national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. We argue that the influence of Swedenborgianism on nineteenth-century culture in Finland was greater than has generally been suggested by literary scholars. The first part of the article provides a historical background of Swedenborgianism in the country. The latter part indicates a larger epistemic and religious accord between Swedenborg and Runeberg, to be accounted for in greater detail in terms of influence. Both au thors subscribed to an emblematic worldview within the Classical discourse of nature as a book, ultimately supported by a framework of logocentrism and theism. Runeberg’s discussion of words and things,and his use of the metaphor of light, places him within a mainstream nineteenth-century spirituality, which may be juxtaposed, in addition to general Romantic views, also with Swedenborgian sources.
{"title":"Remarks on Swedenborgian Elements in the Literary Production of Johan Ludvig Runeberg","authors":"Tiina Mahlamäki, Tomas Mansikka","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.6942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.6942","url":null,"abstract":"This article sets out to trace possible influences of Emanuel Sweden borg, the Swedish theosophist and spirit-seer, in the production of the Finnish national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. We argue that the influence of Swedenborgianism on nineteenth-century culture in Finland was greater than has generally been suggested by literary scholars. The first part of the article provides a historical background of Swedenborgianism in the country. The latter part indicates a larger epistemic and religious accord between Swedenborg and Runeberg, to be accounted for in greater detail in terms of influence. Both au thors subscribed to an emblematic worldview within the Classical discourse of nature as a book, ultimately supported by a framework of logocentrism and theism. Runeberg’s discussion of words and things,and his use of the metaphor of light, places him within a mainstream nineteenth-century spirituality, which may be juxtaposed, in addition to general Romantic views, also with Swedenborgian sources.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2010-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Academics usually think of religion as legitimating other social institutions. However, one often finds apologists appealing to the authority of science as a strategy for supporting the truths of their particular tradition. In a social environment where diverse religious claims compete with each other, it is probably inevitable that different groups seek alternate sources of legitimacy. Science is an attractive legitimator because of its prestige and because of the popular view of science as an objective arbiter of ‘truth’. After examining the notion of ‘legitimation strategies’ derived from Max Weber’s discussion of the legitimation of authority, the article analyzes the specific ways in which religious groups appeal to the authority of science.
{"title":"The Science Canopy: Religion, Legitimacy, and the Charisma of Science","authors":"James R. Lewis","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.6939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.6939","url":null,"abstract":"Academics usually think of religion as legitimating other social institutions. However, one often finds apologists appealing to the authority of science as a strategy for supporting the truths of their particular tradition. In a social environment where diverse religious claims compete with each other, it is probably inevitable that different groups seek alternate sources of legitimacy. Science is an attractive legitimator because of its prestige and because of the popular view of science as an objective arbiter of ‘truth’. After examining the notion of ‘legitimation strategies’ derived from Max Weber’s discussion of the legitimation of authority, the article analyzes the specific ways in which religious groups appeal to the authority of science.","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2010-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In March 2008, the university library in Tromso celebrated the opening of what they referred to as an ‘indigenous room’. A collection of Sami literature was moved from its previous geographical and cultural context to what is today considered the more relevant company of American Indians, Australian aborigines and African peoples. Indicative of the increasing institutionalisation of the Sami as an indigenous people, the debate over what it means to be ‘indigenous’ is today important to Sami research, political strategies, cultural activities and religious creativity. In an attempt to take such innovations seriously, the article discusses some of the religious dimensions of Sami nation-building resulting from the ongoing processes of indigenisation. More specifically, I deal with a project structured by the international grammar of nation-building, which shares in the qualities of a civil religion and is at the same time shaped by ‘indigenous spirituality’. Although a fairly recent construct, what I refer to as ‘indigenous spirituality’ is nevertheless a significant global discourse, developed primarily through the UN and international law. According to this perspective, indigenous peoples are the children of Mother Earth, and as such are opposed to and differentiated from the religions and worldviews of the ‘western’ world. Keywords: Sami, nation-building, indigenous, nature spirituality, Mother Earth
{"title":"Sami Indigenous Spirituality: Religion and Nation-building in Norwegian Sápmi","authors":"Siv Ellen Kraft","doi":"10.33356/TEMENOS.7900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.33356/TEMENOS.7900","url":null,"abstract":"In March 2008, the university library in Tromso celebrated the opening of what they referred to as an ‘indigenous room’. A collection of Sami literature was moved from its previous geographical and cultural context to what is today considered the more relevant company of American Indians, Australian aborigines and African peoples. Indicative of the increasing institutionalisation of the Sami as an indigenous people, the debate over what it means to be ‘indigenous’ is today important to Sami research, political strategies, cultural activities and religious creativity. In an attempt to take such innovations seriously, the article discusses some of the religious dimensions of Sami nation-building resulting from the ongoing processes of indigenisation. More specifically, I deal with a project structured by the international grammar of nation-building, which shares in the qualities of a civil religion and is at the same time shaped by ‘indigenous spirituality’. Although a fairly recent construct, what I refer to as ‘indigenous spirituality’ is nevertheless a significant global discourse, developed primarily through the UN and international law. According to this perspective, indigenous peoples are the children of Mother Earth, and as such are opposed to and differentiated from the religions and worldviews of the ‘western’ world. Keywords: Sami, nation-building, indigenous, nature spirituality, Mother Earth","PeriodicalId":43012,"journal":{"name":"TEMENOS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2009-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}