http://www.aarweb.org/meetings/annual_meeting/Past_and_Future_Meetings/2005/abstracts.asp
AAR Abstracts
November 19-22, 2005
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
A18-1
Chairs Workshop - Enlarging the Pie: Strategies for Managing and Growing Departmental Resources
The workshop will include plenary sessions with invited panelists with expertise and experience in developing physical, financial, faculty and student resources. Also, there will be breakout sessions for participants seeking help with budgets and financial management, and with growing links to other departments.
A18-3
Religion and Media Workshop - "Spinning" God: Teaching, Researching, and Reporting on Politics and Religion
This day-long workshop brings together prominent journalists and scholars of religion and media to the AAR who are concerned with the interrelation of politics and religion. The day’s events will include lectures, a film screening, and plenty of time for questions, answers, and further conversation. Topics covered include: Teaching about politics in the religious studies classroom; reporting on the religious dimension of politics; and up to date research on the field.
Questions about the workshop should be directed to S. Brent Plate, Texas Christian University, b.plate@tcu.edu.
A18-4
Women’s Caucus Workshop - Using Feminist Pedagogies in the Classroom
The Women's Caucus is presenting a workshop on teaching feminist pedagogies.
Scholars including Vasudha Narayanan, Melissa C. Stewart, Karma Lekshe
Tsomo, Julie Kilmer, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, and Victoria Rue will
present on teaching their fields. Paula Trimble Familetti, Harriet Luckman,
and Laurie Wright Garry will preside.
A18-101
Arts Series/Films: Peaceable Kingdom
In Peaceable Kingdom, we hear the riveting stories of people struggling with their conscience around some of our society’s most fundamental assumptions. An inspiring story of personal redemption, compassion, healing and hope, Peaceable Kingdom is described by many of its viewers as “a life changing experience.”
Directed by Jenny Stein, 2005, 70 minutes (color, USA).
A18-102
EIS Center Orientation
The EIS Center orientation features a short presentation which includes an overview of the Center, an explanation of how best to utilize the Center, and a question and answer session. After the presentation, the Center will be open for use, with the exception of the Interview Hall. Employers will be able to review candidate credentials, leave messages for registered candidates, and make reservations for booth space. Candidates can pick up their copy of the Annual Meetings Special Edition of Openings, as well as leave messages for employers. The Center will also be accepting onsite registrations at this time. Employers and candidates are encouraged to participate in orientation but are not required to attend.
A18-103
Arts Series/Films: Mana: Beyond Belief
The central idea behind the new motion picture Mana: Beyond Belief is that the way people behave in the presence of power objects reveals a process of the human mind which is fundamental and universal: belief. By filming power objects around the world--things that are precious because people believe they are--and revealing the myriad activities and behaviors that take place around them, this film presents an exciting new way of looking at what is happening all around us, all the time. Belief is not just religion; it drives the stock market, it determines how we deal with history and our personal memories, it underlies racism and war. Bringing together diverse cultures, characters, visual styles, music and fascinating objects, Mana helps us see the essential, invisible element underlying them all.
Directed by Peter Friedman and Roger Manley, 2004, 92 minutes (color, USA).
A19-3
Status of Women in the Profession Committee: Conversation about Gender Issues with Program Unit Chairs
The Status of Women in the Profession of the AAR invites chairs, conveners, committee members and friends of AAR and SBL groups, sections, seminars, caucuses, and committees who do work on gender issues to take part in an early morning conversation to facilitate dialogue among our various groups and generate program ideas for future meetings.
A19-6
Publications Committee Meeting
The Publications Committee will hold its usual business meeting on the Saturday morning of the annual meeting.
A19-7
Barnes Museum Bus Tour
The Barnes Foundation art collection is unsurpassed in breadth, quality and depth in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. It is enhanced by Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, Chinese painting, African sculpture, retablos from New Mexico, Native American works, and American decorative arts. Juxtapositions of objects from different cultures, periods and media are intentional and provide exciting resources for teaching and viewing the world from a diverse perspective. Self-guided audio tours can be purchased upon arrival at the museum.
A19-8
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Popularizing Our Scholarship: Its Pleasures and Pitfalls
According to the 2004 NEH study Reading at Risk, religion books are the healthiest segment of adult publishing. In this panel, we will discuss the pleasures and pitfalls of publishing religion and spirituality books for the larger marketplace, as well as the tensions that may arise when one tries to balance academic writing and teaching with "pop" publishing. All panelists have published books with trade houses, and each will consider how and why they got into trade publishing, as well as the response from academic colleagues and communities to these broader scholarly pursuits. The panel, comprising both senior and junior, tenure-track and nontenure-track scholars, who will address a variety of questions about the impact, good and bad, of writing popular books while remaining in academia. This panel will interest AAR members who seek to write for the broadest possible audience and who are also concerned with the professional consequences that accompany this choice.
A19-9
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Quo Vadis Eastern Europe?
The session raises the question of the direction in which contemporary Eastern Europe (a term which we use to include former socialist countries of Europe, including the Soviet Union) is developing. Connecting the roots with the present, the presenters are exploring the relationship of nationalism, religion, and civil society as well as ecumenical and interreligious relationships.
The Basilian Monks of Grottaferrata and the Pursuit of Christian Unity
Ines A. Murzaku, Seton Hall University
The paper will articulate the intricate religious and political circumstances that gave rise to the movement of the Orthodox faithful of mid and southern Albania to unite with the Catholic Church during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. This occurred at a time when the return or an exclusivist ecclesiology was ruling in the West. Special attention will be given to the Basilian missions to revive the country's Byzantine Catholic tradition.
Teaching about the Other: Inter-Church Dialogue for Russian/Ukrainian Christianity
Walter Sawatsky, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary
The paper will examine the conflicts between Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant communities in Russia and Ukraine since 1988 in light of what the schools and press appear to be teaching about the other churches; comparing it with the rise of global Christian consciousness in the West.
Cordoba and Sarajevo: Contrasts in Religious Separation and Tolerance
N. Gerald Shenk, Eastern Mennonite Seminary
Recent studies of Medieval Spain (Menocal) and of contemporary Bosnia (Velikonja) invite comparisons between two very different chapters of strong Muslim influence in Europe. The interpretation of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity in various combinations, including both political power and disenfranchisement, suggest that conditions of toleration are more complex than merely external constraints of a strenuous secularism.
Turkish Millet, Religious Nationalism, and Civil Society
James R. Payton, Redeemer University College
The paper will examine the close interrelationship between nationality and religion, nurtured and fomented over centuries, in the southern regions of former Yugoslavia and the challenges faced in developing civil society in the present.
A19-10
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section and Hinduism Group
Theme: Teaching Hinduism in a Survey Course
The participants in this roundtable will present a range of approaches to the problem of how to cover “Hinduism” in an introductory survey course. Such a course involves us either in teaching a single “Hinduism,” or perhaps teaching Hinduism as a dialogue among a narrow range of alternate values. At the same time, research on religion in South Asia increasingly stresses the ways we need to view “Hinduisms” as multiple, contextualized and contested. The courses we teach range from multi-religion introductory surveys to more methodologically focused introductory courses that deal with Hinduism as one of one or two case studies. Our goal is not to try to “solve” the problem of how to address Hinduism in the introductory survey course. Rather, our goal by presenting a range of approaches is to open a conversation that will allow for collective reflection on the issue.
A19-11
Christian Systematic Theology Section
Theme: Music and the Holy Spirit
This session will explore the Christian understanding of how the Holy Spirit shape the human experience of music, as well as how Christian pneumatology might be reformulated in light of that experience. Our expectation is that most presenters will offer audio or audio-visual examples of their subject-matter.
Messiaen, Meaning, and the Transmission of Tradition
Nicholas Adams, University of Edinburgh
An analysis of Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecôte (1951). This paper explores how meaning is constructed in music (the question of so-called 'absolute' music) and also the kinds of preparation required of the listener in order for the music to appear as theology, rather than merely as sound. The paper draws on Messiaen's own reflections in Traité de Rythme, de Couleur, et d’Ornithologie, Tome IV (1997) as well as topics in German philosophy that relate to music. The thesis presented here is that Messiaen's theology is best understood as a refraction of tradition of music, which is at the same time a model of the presentation of God's address and human response: heard as music.
Music as the Apocalyptic Transfiguration of History, with Special Reference to Adorno and the Fate of Spirit in the Viennese Tradition
J. David Franks, Boston College
The richness of the Viennese musical tradition seemed to shipwreck with Schoenberg, and yet the brilliant critical theorist Adorno insisted on defending him.
Why? I suggest the problem can be traced to the deficiencies of Hegel's pneumatology.
The spirit at work in music is not above the material, but works through it, incarnationally. Failing to understand the analogy of spirit, Hegel misses even the fullness of the properly human spirit, which seeks embodiment, to express life, to express the vitality of a culture.
The greatest music shows an unbounded fecundity due to the vertical downward irruption of beauty (the truth of the “spiritual” view of music), which intersects with the horizontal pursuit of a beauty to be found in fragments (the truth of the “materialist” view), gathering history up into the ever-greater vitality of the divine life whose glory shines forth in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Rhythmicity and the Eternal Creative Act of the Holy Spirit
Loye Ashton, Millsaps College
This paper outlines a theological interpretation of rhythm that offers a postmodern aesthetic approach for understanding how musical concepts of rhythm, particularly the character of pulse, can help identify the Holy Spirit as the eternal creative act that unites power and meaning in the actualization of life. Looking at medieval descriptions of the Holy Spirit (Abelard, Bernard, and Bonaventure), as well as more recent theologians (Tillich, Neville, Begbie), in light of a contemporary relational metaphysics known as “rhythmicity,” I will explore how rhythm, and especially the manifestation of rhythm in music, helps us to deeply appreciate, rather than destructively deny, the finite beauty of time as salvific. The rhythmic element of pulse allows us to know and feel the Holy Spirit as the unity of mystery and truth, power and meaning, whirlwind and wisdom, cognition and emotion, actualized under the conditions of existence as life.
A19-12
Comparative Studies in Religion Section and Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Theme: Beyond Freud and Jung: New Psychological Approaches to Comparative Religious Studies
Our panel will present four new perspectives that afford insight into the psychological aspects of various religions. To understand better discourses of the self expressed in literature, ethics, mystical experience, and philosophy, we will draw upon social and self psychologies, concepts of discourse and the body, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. As we discuss our approaches, we will cover a range of religious traditions (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity) and a variety of cultural contexts (i.e., ancient Greece and India, classical China, late antique Roman Palestine, and turn-of-the-twentieth-century Europe). We will thus demonstrate that psychological theories continue to be useful to scholars of comparative religion.
A19-13
History of Christianity Section
Theme: Reviewing History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn, by Elizabeth A. Clark (Harvard University Press)
What does it mean to engage in the practice of history when studying the history of Christianity? How do we turn events and ideas of the past into history? In History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Harvard University Press, 2004), Elizabeth A. Clark has written a major study of how historians have grappled with the relationship between the past and the work of creating history, and in so doing, she challenges historians of Christianity to learn from and contribute to continuing debates informed by contemporary theory. This panel will feature four prominent scholars who will discuss the book, as well as a response by Professor Clark.
A19-14
Philosophy of Religion Section
Theme: Technology, Religion, and the Human in Question
All "Dollied" Up: Why Bans on Human Cloning Are Dressed in the Garb of Human Dignity
Leslie Meltzer, University of Virginia
Public opinion polls demonstrate that the vast majority of people find the idea of human reproductive cloning abhorrent because they believe it will destroy the meaning of what it means to be a person. National and international regulations have banned such cloning on the ground that it threatens 'human dignity.' But just how does cloning endanger our personhood, and what does human dignity mean in this context? Can human dignity be diminshed by cloning, or is human dignity inviolable? This paper briefly examines the regulatory framework surrounding human cloning before exploring various meanings of 'human dignity' and their import in the cloning controversy.
Islamic Philosophy and the Challenge of Cloning
Mohammad Motahari Farimani, Regis College, University of Toronto
Recent advancements in cloning have, courtesy of modern mass media, come to wide public attention—raising some important questions about the role of God in creation. They have made some believers feel distrustful about their understanding of God's creation. Are these new advances and their underlying philosophy tantamount to a serious rival for creation by Divine decree? Or can they be easily brushed aside and explained away? According to Muslim philosophers, especially the followers of Mulla Sadra, this vacillation or feeling of doubt on the part of some believers is due to their failure in understanding the profound meaning of creation. This paper will put forth the argument that cloning is completely compatible with the notion of creation as it is expounded in rational and intellectual terms by traditional Islamic philosophy and shows that modern biological reproductive methods and God's creative act are of two totally different natures.
Exceeding the Eye: The Nodular Subject and the Dislocation of the Philosophy of Religion
Anais Spitzer, Pacifica Graduate Institute
Modern technology and science are transforming the human subject in two key ways. First, subjectivity is no longer discrete and self-contained; rather, it emerges within a distributed matrix, in a complex system wherein the rigid distinction between subject/object is undone. Secondly, this new technological network or cosmos exceeds the individual. To a greater degree, technology creates the subject even more than the subject creates technology. In this way there is always an unanticipatable aspect, a “non-foundational foundation” which cannot be accounted for by the system it founds, thus exposing an openness and incompleteness that is always already in the system itself. Such a “moment of complexity” where the boundaries have been unsettled, challenges philosophy itself by revealing that the calculating subject and the founding distinction between subject and object are untenable. Thinking now requires a new architecture through which to philosophize the irreducibly collective and distributed subject.
A Better Life through Information Technology? The Posthuman Person in Contemporary Speculative Science
Michael DeLashmutt, University of Aberdeen
The depiction of human identity in the pop-science futurology of engineer/inventor Ray Kurzweil, the speculative-robotics of Carnegie Mellon researcher Hans Moravec and the theories of Tulane University mathematics professor Frank Tipler reflect an implied reductionistic philosophical anthropology which regards identity as a system of patterns able to be decoded and re-embodied in whatever substrate technology provides. Although Moravec’s vision of intelligent robots, Kurzweil’s hope for immanent human immorality, and Tipler’s description of human-like von Neumann machines colonising the very material fabric of the universe,may all appear to be nothing more than science fictional musings, they raise genuine questions as to the relationship between science, technology, and religion as regards issues of personhood. In an attempt to correct what I see as the ‘cybernetic-totalism’ inherent in these ‘techno-theologies’, I will argue for a narrative understanding of identity explored under the rubric of a theology of technology.
A19-15
Study of Islam Section
Theme: Women, Agency, and Islam
The panel explores a number of topics that place gender at the heart of any society. The papers of this panel deal specifically with reproduction, sexual prescriptions, polygyny, and Islamist gender constructions. The first two papers analyze gender issues from an Islamic historical perspective from both early Islamic literature and the life of Muhammad that still have relevance. The last two papers analyze how contemporary understandings of gender constructions are today dynamic and fluid constructions. The four papers demonstrate that much insight can be gained from studying Islamic discourses on women either via an analysis of the early period of Muslim community and literature or via an analysis of contemporary perspectives, both providing new light on the complex issues faced by women in Islamic societies.
Reproductive Discourse in Early Islamic Literature
Kathryn M. Kueny, Fordham University
This paper examines early Islamic discourses on female reproduction. Since females are critical agents in the production of new life, they stand at the crossroads of natural and divine law. Because God animates the inanimate in the womb, early Muslim physicians, scholars, and literati debate how to separate God’s role in the reproductive process from the mother’s. I will explore such debates over reproductive agency in early Muslim tibb, tafsir, hadith, and adab works. Through their elaborate discussions of female fertility, gestation, delivery, and postpartum health, I will suggest that while these works acknowledge divine control over reproductive events, they also portray women as having tremendous influence over their birthing outcomes. This influence, however, is only cast positively if the pregnancy turns out well. If not, a woman’s mind and body stand in violation of natural and divine law, and are subject to social, political, biological, and religious stigmatization.
Sexual Prescriptions and the Legacy of Mariyah the Copt
Aysha Hidayatullah, University of California, Santa Barbara
This paper traces the legacy of Muhammad’s umm walad Māriyah al-Qibtiyah in Muslim historical memory, with particular attention to its role in producing the discourses of sex in early Islam that continue to frame Muslim communal values and sexual mores today. A major concern is Māriyah’s status as consort of the Prophet, a designation on which historical literature is ambiguous, offering different treatments of Māriyah as milk al-yamīn or wife of the Prophet. Also of interest is the historical record of the Prophet’s overwhelming desire for Māriyah, an attraction which sparks bitter jealousy and grievances among his wives and incites the domestic crisis to which the Qur’an refers in Surah al-Tahrīm. That Māriyah gives birth to the Prophet’s son Ibrāhīm is also of crucial significance, both for the consequent elevation of her legal status, as well as the reverence she assumes as the mother of the Prophet’s potential male heir.
Polygyny in the Identity of African American Muslims
Debra Mubashshir Majeed, Beloit College
In both academic and popular attempts to “size up and then pare down” a more covenantal, and some say “honorable” form of Audrey Chapman’s man-sharing, scholars and others routinely overlook critical explorations of polygyny that take into account the subtle levels of complexity inherent in a phenomenon that has currency for an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Americans in 30 states. Such an approach in regards to African American Muslims who practice this form of plural marriage means we fail to engage in discourse at the nexus between received and revealed “law” and communal identity and power. This paper seeks to encourage such dialogue. By considering specific and related claims that African American Muslims make in regards to the practice of polygyny in the U.S., I will demonstrate the relationship between praxis, identity, and interpretation as well as the power of personal experience with a polygynous husband and/or a “co-wife.”
An Islamist Gender Discourse
Roxanne D. Marcotte, University of Queensland
This paper will attempt to provide an analysis of the gender discourse that underlies the discourse of Islamists and argue that, contrary to common perceptions, modernity is influencing the Islamist discourse on gender. Ezzat’s gender discourse will be shown to be indebted to two different kinds of gender discourses, each with its own sets of principles: the traditional and patriarchal religious conception of women’s nature, role and rights and the new modern understanding of Muslim women’s social and political roles influenced by modernity. The Islamist discourse on gender is a modern construct that is constantly being redefined, as attempts are made to bridge the gap between tradition and modernity and to reconcile two sets of principles. This, however, may well account for tensions and inconsistencies that are found in Ezzat’s works that the Islamist discourse cannot easily dismiss.
A19-16
Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: Violence and God-Images, "After Girard"
The papers in this session explore resources for a discussion of violence and God-images, 'beyond Girard.'
Liberating Religion from Social Conflict: A Critical Examination of Three Evasive Strategies
Hugh Reynolds Nicholson, Coe College
This paper critically examines three strategies by which theologians have sought to dissociate their traditions from social conflict and violence. The first, characteristic of the liberal tradition in modern theology, appeals to a utopian, non-exclusionary form of community; the second, characteristic of orthodox and conservative models of theology, appeals to the concept of legitimate authority established on a metaphysical basis; the third seeks to minimize religious violence through a retrieval of localized, relationally (as opposed to ideologically) based forms of community. I shall argue that while none of these approaches succeeds in dissociating “religion” from social conflict, each offers valuable insights that can be incorporated into an effective theological and practical response to the problem of religious violence.
Honesty about God: God’s Violence/ Violence in God’s Name in Wink, Jung, and Luther
Charlene Burns, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Jill Carroll’s daring critique of all political theologies as doomed to failure unless and until they are “honest, and ever-vigilant against the temptation either to ascribe to nature traits...that are foreign to it, or to excise from it...violence and indifference to suffering—that do not suit our desires or political” goals sets the agenda for my paper (Carroll, 116). In an attempt to “reclaim violent models of God” and “be honest about the universe (Carroll, 116),” I bring Jung’s distinction between God-in-Godself / images of God and Wink’s (Jungian) writings on the “Domination System” into conversation with Luther’s God Hidden/God Revealed in order to suggest a more honest—albeit uncomfortable—appraisal of humanity’s plight.
The Non-Necessity of God’s Violence, or the Possibility of an Iconic Monotheism
Thomas E. Reynolds, St. Norbert College
Our fragile interreligious context requires that we come to terms with the ambiguous witness to violence in monotheistic traditions. Neither denying the prevalence of violent images of God in Abrahamic scriptures nor ceding the hope-filled prospect of non-violence and dialogue between religions, this paper seeks to move beyond Rene Girard’s theory of religious violence by exploring the iconic grammar of the monotheistic imagination. Drawing from the work of Leo Lefebure, Jean-Luc Marion and Paul Ricoeur, the paper develops a double-visioned hermeneutic of the icon that critiques and displaces the violence of idolatry. This has value in that it opens up the polyphonic character of Abrahamic scriptures and, further, engenders the moral disposition of hospitality. It makes it possible to read various images of God against themselves, resisting violence-of-God traditions by giving voice to the universal—and hence, interreligious—God of justice, compassion and mercy. Violence and monotheism are not necessary correlates.
Violence, Fear, and God: Eugen Drewermann's Interdisciplinary Analysis of Christian Violence
Matthias Beier, Drew University
Fear is the source of violence in the name of God. This is the thesis of Eugen Drewermann, who has been the single-most important theologian to bring the issue of religion and violence to the attention of the public in continental Europe. A key question he has addressed is why Christianity, against its professed will for peace, has again and again been used to commit atrocious violence in the name of God? This paper will explicate Drewermann's thesis, apply it to current instances of religio-political uses of 'God' to justify violence, and outline some methodological implications for theological reflection if theology wants to avoid fanning the flames of violence.
A19-17
Anthropology of Religion Group
Theme: Transplanting Religion: Rethinking Authenticity
Transplanted Authenticity: The Jewishness of Eastern Europe and the Revival of Klezmer
Stuart Charme, Rutgers University
The image of the Eastern European shtetl Jew, which entered American popular culture in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, offered a model of Jewish authenticity to an increasingly assimilated and intermarried post-holocaust generation of American Jews. More recently, the revival of Klezmer, the musical folk tradition of Eastern European Jewish culture, has raised the issue of Jewish authenticity in a context apart from customary debates between Orthodox and non-Orthodox forms of Judaism. This paper will analyze several different approaches to understanding issues of Jewish authenticity in the revival of Klezmer. It will describe the implications of locating Klezmer’s authenticity in a reclamation of elements of Jewish folk culture in danger of being lost, in the celebration of on-going innovation and change, and in a focus on an experiential dimension to Jewish spirituality.
Macedonian-Bulgarian Diaspora in Toronto and the Orthodox Christian Church
Mariana Mastagar, Trinity College, University of Toronto
This paper is a study of the South Slavonic diaspora in Toronto with respect to the role of the Easter Orthodox Church. By comparing church functions in the new land with that of the homeland and the attitudes of Church attendees in both places the study will argue that the church role is transformed. The guiding questions are a) how do resettling immigrants perceive and for that matter make use of the Church? and b) what are the differences between the church’s role in the homeland and in the new land? The data collected shows that the church appears to be less of a sacramental space and more of a location for social and cultural activities, and hence is polyfunctional. Is this change a maker of secularization or modern expressions of religiosity and thus a reversal of secularization theory?
Becoming a New Religion the Old-Fashioned Way: Perspectives from a Transnational Hindu Movement
Hanna Kim, New York, NY
This paper looks at the efforts of the Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (Swaminarayan), a Hindu devotional movement, to transform itself into and become recognised as a religion in dominantly non-Hindu places. In charting this transformation, from an indigenous devotional tradition originating in Western India into a diasporic socio-religious movement whose transnational activities now influence the shape of religious experience both within and beyond India, this paper suggests that Swaminarayan devotionalism is thriving in part to its interpretation of “religion”. This paper makes two connected arguments: that the dominant Western and American discourses on religion sustain a persistent epistemic framework, one that situates religion as sui generis and classifies other religions and behaviours according to given standards of morality and religious practice; and, that Swaminarayan leaders and followers are responding to this episteme in ways that appear to securely anchor their devotional tradition into the dominant discourses.
Place, Space, and the “Healing Dao": Practicing Popular Daoism in the U.S., Thailand, and China
Elijah Siegler, College of Charleston
The Healing Tao, founded in 1981 by a Thai-born Chinese named Mantak Chia is one of the largest Western Daoist groups, teaching a popularized form of Chinese internal alchemy as a series of modular practices . This papers examines, through participant observation, three sites where Healing Tao practices are taught: at weekend seminars in Asheville, N.C., at month-long retreats in Thailand, and as part of a three week guided tour of sacred sites of China. These locations for religious practice force us to reconsider the traditional religious categories of worship, retreat, and pilgrimage, respectively. Those categories involve bodies traveling to a place in order to experience “the sacred.” For bodies learning Healing Tao exercises, on the other hand, their own practices produce the sacred. Healing Tao practitioners have less interest in local religious “place” than they do an abstract Daoist/energetic field of “space.”
A19-18
Bioethics and Religion Group
Theme: Religion, Ethics, and Access to Health Care
Conscientious Objection and Access to Reproductive Health Care Services: Gender, Justice, and Shame
Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center
This paper will examine the use of conscientious objection by health care professionals, with specific attention to its impact on access to reproductive health care services in the United States, and with some attention to U.S. policies that may restrict access to reproductive health care services globally. The paper will focus on the relationship between conscientious objection and professional ethics, exploring the extent to which a professional’s refusal to deliver a health care service may conflict with the ethical obligations and standards of that profession. The paper will explore recent cases involving conscientious objection, existing and evolving “conscience clause” legislation, and the tactical use of conscientious objection in grassroots activism. In focusing on access to reproductive health care services and the ways in which conscientious objection may be enacted, the paper will highlight the special implications of these political and cultural trends for women and for women’s health.
Christian Medical Sharing Plans: An Ethical Review
Charlene A. Galarneau, Wellesley College
Christian medical sharing plans have operated in the US for just over a decade. These health-insurance look-alike plans claim to offer a biblically principled alternative to conventional health care and health insurance. Motivated by inadequate financial access to health care and a desire to live according to particular Christian values, these non-profit, self-regulated ministries organize the voluntary sharing of medical expenses among certain Christian individuals and families. While attending to the spiritual and financial needs of a small and select group of Christians, these plans also replicate ethically problematic elements of current health care and the conventional health insurance system. This paper identifies and critically examines the theo-ethical values embodied in these plans: in particular, the nature and scope of Christian community, care, responsibility (individual and communal), stewardship, and justice (distributive and participatory).
A Theological Ethics of Solidarity: Toward Global Health Care Access
Marie J. Giblin, Xavier University
The first part of this paper examines the lack of access to health care that currently exists for so many people in the Two-Thirds World--using the east African nations of Kenya and Tanzania as examples. Despite efforts in practice to alleviate it, the lack of access has worsened and been made more enduring by policies exported from the U.S. and by corruption within these countries. The second part of the paper considers the concept and practice of religiously motivated “solidarity” as a constructive response to the problem of global health care access and as a means of resistance to the social and economic ideology that shrugs off responsibility for so much ill health and suffering. The roots of “solidarity” within Western Christianity, African Christianity, and African traditional religions will be mined to enrich the concept and make more viable its practice in a globalized world.
Access to Drugs in a New Global Environment: A New Challenge for the African Church
Elias Kifon Bongmba, Rice University
In this paper I argue that the church in Africa should scale up its fight against HIV/AIDS by joing the global campaign for access to drugs by people who are living with HIV/AIDS. I also argue that the church could play a mediating role in negotiationg ethical standards for trial of new drugs and therapies.
A19-19
Eastern Orthodox Studies Group
Theme: Patristic and Byzantine Hymnography
The Feet That Eve Heard in Paradise and Was Afraid: The Christology of Byzantine Festal Hymns
Bogdan G. Bucur, Marquette University
The paper will focus on the Christology of a number Byzantine festal hymns that have taken over, virtually unmodified, older hymnographic material, going back to fifth-century Jerusalem, but which are still used in the services of the Eastern Orthodox Church. After a brief historical survey, the paper will propose a theological analysis of selected hymns [handouts provided], highlighting their Christological bearing. It seems that these hymns avoid the vocabulary of their contemporary dogmatic debates, and offer an alternative poetic theology deeply rooted in OT imagery, yet surprisingly precise and effective in conveying the very same message about Christ. This finding opens up the discussion of theological method, namely the question of how these hymns could be taken into account more seriously, as direct sources for theology, on par with the data provided by the ecumenical councils, and the subsequent patristic and medieval theology.
The Vindication of Eve: Romanus' Second Kontakion on Christ's Nativity
Verna E. F. Harrison, Saint Paul School of Theology
Romanus the Melodist’s second kontakion On the Nativity of Christ is less renowned than the first but holds considerable theological interest. It is structured as a dialogue among four persons, Adam, Eve, the Mother of God and her newborn Son. The main characters are the women, who take the initiative and move the conversation forward; Adam and Christ respond to them. The poem is not alone but is exemplary among early Christian texts in portraying Eve and women positively. It shows fallen Adam’s misogyny as overcome by Eve’s forthrightness, Mary’s compassion, and Christ’s saving work. Mary represents all human persons before God.
Romanus combines the narrative character of his native Syriac hymnography with the antinomical rhetoric and technical vocabulary of Greek patristic theology. His works epitomize the festal dimension of Byzantine theology and spirituality: anamnesis of past saving events, participation in the eschaton, and hope in God’s love and saving plan.
Cleansed by the Fire of a Mystic Vision
Elijah Mueller, Marquette University
The canons of John Damascene clearly represent a high form of speech. His poetry interprets not only the Feast-day remembrance of the saving works of Christ, but also wraps these events in a rich vestment of images from the Old Testament. In interpreting the Old Testament as a poet, the Damascene reflects on and often identifies with the experience of the inspired prophets whose odes lie behind his hymns. In this identification between poet and prophet, temple and Church, Old Testament and New Testament are fused. This paper will assert that the liturgical enactment of this poetry is an iconic transmission of Old Testament theophanic imagery which is mediated not by the language of Greek metaphysics, but rather by a common, continuing sense of temple liturgy which fuses Tabernacle, Temple, Church and heavenly liturgy. My focus will be primarily on The Damscene’s canons for Theophany, Pascha, Transfiguration and Dormition.
Tradition and Change - Liturgical Chant and Music in the Greek Orthodox Christian Experience in America: Early European Origins
Constantine J. Terss, Heathrow, FL
This paper presents part of the findings of research presently in progress on the traditional chant and music in the Greek Orthodox Churches in America. Specifically addressed in this paper are the early, European origins of the introduction of polyphony and instrumental accompaniment into some Greek Orthodox parishes followed by a discussion of the implications and challenges social change has had on the sacred music and worship in the Greek Orthodox inheritance within the American experience in a postmodern world.
A19-20
Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Group
Theme: Rituals of Reading
Making One's Mark: Writing, Reading, and the Authorization of Marginal Religious Practices in Ancient Greece
Sarah Iles Johnston, Ohio State University, Columbus
The religions of ancient Greece, in contrast to Judaism and Christianity, had no sacred texts. I will start by arguing that this is because the Greeks preferred not to ascribe their practices to specific human authorities—they chose not to have a Moses or a Paul—because 1) their religions were built on the assumption that all mortals were equally qualified (and expected) to carry on 'ta patria', the ancestral rites and 2) they liked to ponder, and ponder again, the origin of their rites, creating ever-changing mythic aitia for them. I will then observe that the few cases where Greek religions did incorporate reading and writing of what might be called sacred texts—including 'Orphic' gold tablets and 'magical' instances such as curse tablets—were associated with marginalized practitioners. These practitioners could not draw authority from 'ta patria'. Incorporating writing and reading into their rituals provided a different, literally tangible, authority.
Ritualizing the Book in Ancient Judaism
Michael D. Swartz, Ohio State University, Columbus
Reading and memorization are inseparable from ritual in Judaism in late antiquity. As a result of this, systems of ritual that lie outside the conventional practices for holy books have emerged around the margins of Rabbinic Judaism. In addition, David Frankfurter and others have shown that the written word has a special valence in magical systems. This significance complements the power of the spoken word in the same ritual systems. This paper will explore some of those ritual practices in Rabbinic culture, Hekhalot literature, and related corpora. Several manifestations of ritualization of the book will be explored. These include mantic practices involving scripture, such as bibliomancy and the practice of inquiring schoolchildren; and rituals for conjuration of angels and divine beings in which books are instrumental. These will be studied for their implications for the idea of rabbinic logocentrism.
Readers in Syriac Texts: Who, What, When, and Where
Catherine Burris, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This paper will examine the role of readers and reading in Syriac texts. Hagiographic texts depict an assortment of readers and reading material, often implicitly linking holiness and literacy. Using an assortment of Syriac saints’ Lives, I will discuss the frequency of the association between holiness and literacy, and consider the ways that gender, location, and social status complicate the issue. Was a male saint more likely than a female saint to be portrayed as literate? When a female saint is shown reading, in what context does she read? Syriac texts depict both private, contemplative reading and public, didactic reading; the discussion of the relationship between gender and literacy in these texts will also consider whether gender determines the type and location of any reading in which a saint engages.
Miniature Books and Rituals of Private Reading in Late Antiquity
Kim Haines-Eitzen, Cornell University
To what extent can the form of ancient books tell us about rituals of reading? Or, to put it differently, what clues might the physical features of literary papyri tell us about how, where, and by whom texts were read? The questions are at the fore of this paper, which focuses on miniature codices and the use of books for private reading in late ancient Christianity. A preliminary listing of miniature codices from late antiquity offers physical some clues to reading practices; alongside this material evidence the literary evidence for private reading will be addressed. Although much attention has been given to the idea that all reading in antiquity was in some senses a public act, this paper will suggest that the form of miniature codices (their size, physical features, contents), particularly when read alongside literary evidence, may shed light on the ancient “solitary reader.”
A19-21
Theology and Continental Philosophy Group and Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group
Theme: Gender, Politics, and the Return to Religion
The recent ‘return to religion’ in the humanities demarcates a vital theoretical space for re-examining constructions of gender and the political. For example, is it possible, within the matrix of the return to the religious (or theological), that constructions of gender can finally outflank the reductions and limitations of “identity politics”? Does Paul's radical assertion in Galatians that “there is no longer...male nor female” provide new possibilities for a trans-gendered political subject that transcends the religious? Or does this cry for the dissolution of sexual difference neutralize a real politic? This panel marks a rare moment in which gender is an explicit focus of discussion within this recent and influential debate of religion and the political.
A19-22
Indigenous Religious Traditions Group and Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group
Theme: The Works and Scholarship of David Carrasco
>Joint panel sponsored by Indigenous Religions
> >Group and Latin American Religions Group
> >AAR Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, November 2005
> >
> >
> >Panel on the work of Davíd Carrasco
> >
> >>>Commemorating the 15th anniversary of
> >>>Religions of Mesoamerica this panel will focus
> >>>on the work of Davíd Carrasco, the Historian
> >>>of Religion who has brought interpretive tools
> >>>from the academic study of religion into
> >>>Mesoamerican Studies through the development
> >>>of the Mesoamerican Archive and Research
> >>>Project.
A19-23
Religion and Science Group
Theme: The Future of Emergence: Should Theology Mind Emergence?
This panel will explore the implications of the concept of emergence for theological thought, focusing on Philip Clayton’s book – Mind and Emergence. Clayton argues that emergence suggests a new approach to the problem of consciousness--and thus human agency--and that it is consistent with “emergentist panentheism.” In considering the viability of this position, and the theological future of emergence, we attempt to build on this work, suggesting correctives such as model of God as the body of the world, a greater emphasis on human agency, the work of Terrence Deacon and Timothy O’Conner, the limits of human distinctiveness and the overall value (or lack thereof) of evolutionary explanations. We will conclude with a response from Clayton, and a discussion of the future of emergence in theological discourse.
God Embodied in, God Bodying Forth the World: Emergence and Christian Theology
Steven D. Crain, University of St. Francis
Philip Clayton offers a theologically fruitful proposal in wedding the concept of emergent monism to a panentheistic model of God's relationship to the world. I affirm its fruitfulness especially for Christian anthropology. However, I argue that the pantentheistic model should be complemented by the notion that God is the body of the world as a way of sheding more light on the fact that the divine creative act empowers human free agency, and as a way of reminding the theologian that theological models are just that: models that only have some purchase on reality and which need to be combined according to rules that respect the 'grammar' of the doctrine of creation.
Finding Middle Ground: Clayton on Mind and Emergence
James Haag, Graduate Theological Union
Philip Clayton’s work on emergence is a valuable contribution to the fields of religion, science, and philosophy. Three topics will be explored: 1) Clayton differentiates between a number of supervenience theories, finally advocating what he calls emergentist supervenience. Can Clayton’s form of emergentist supervenience do the work of preventing the causal reduction of consciousness while preventing the ominous title of epiphenomenalism and Searleian causal reduction? 2) Clayton pays primary attention to ‘emergents’ in the world and emphasizes their irreducible novelty. Terrence Deacon focuses on the actual course of moving from different types of processes. Do so many types of ‘emergents’ reduce the meaning and utility of the term? Can Deacon provide Clayton a structure from which to work? 3) Like Clayton, philosopher Timothy O’Connor gives attention to agent causation and the emergence of the mind. What are the similarities and differences between the work of O’Connor and Clayton?
A19-24
Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group
Theme: Loves Herself. Regardless: Womanist Discourse on the Black Woman's Body
The papers in this session lift up issues of misogyny and sexism in rap music and videos as well as issues of sexuality and the black woman while weaving together the common theme of the black woman's body.
Black Bodies Moving in Sacred Space: African American Liturgical Dance
Kimberleigh Jordan, New York University
In this paper, I examine liturgical dance as a church-based form of popular and concert dance at the intersection of Black arts, culture and religion and that the historical roots of liturgical dance are simultaneously Africanist, Pentecostal and American modern dance. While liturgical dance in African American faith communities has developed through the artistic and spiritual leadership of women, it is also as a crucial site for contemporary controversies regarding women’s bodies. The final section of the paper is a brief case study of the Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry, founded in 1978 in Jamaica, Queens, New York. It is a richly generative site for the analysis of contemporary women’s artistic and religious leadership and for liturgical dance production.
Black Woman's Drag
Gayle R. Baldwin, University of North Dakota
Although central to the mandate of the womanist is “to love women, both sexually or not,” and African American scholars in sociology and theology have taken note of the need to confront homophobia when discussing the continued oppression of the black body, the black lesbian religious experience has remained invisible. This paper examines and compares three varieties of black lesbian religious experience: the lesbian who remains closeted within the traditional black church, maintaining a peculiar kind of 'double consciousness,' acceptable only “in drag” in order to pass the strict black church dress code, the black lesbian who chooses a non-traditional black church where she can be herself; and the black lesbian who is in the process of creating her own “faith,” exercising a creative agency in response to black lesbian rejection and murder. The paper is the result of research on religious responses to the murder of Sakia Gunn.
Give Me Body! Black Female Body as Icon in Hip-Hop and Religious Culture
Melva L. Sampson, Spelman College
Give Me Body! Black Female Body as Icon in Hip-Hop and Religious Culture
This paper will address how both hip-hop and Black religious culture have inundated both the pews and global airwaves with negative iconolatry of the Black female body. The focus is on the Black church as a point of departure for Black women’s understanding of body as positive or negative iconography and/or iconolatry. The portrayal of women, most of them African American, as sex objects in rap videos continues to be one of the most contentious aspects of the hip-hop music industry. Spelman College is a case study for womanist approaches to activism and healthy acceptance of the Black female body. The Black church, hip-hop culture, or the rap music industry cannot continue to ignore what has been and is so devastating to Black life and well being.
Are There Any Hip-Hop Womanists in the House? Womanist Theology, Political Activism, and the Hip-Hop Generation
Pamela Y. Cook, University of Chicago
From the 1980’s protests of C. Delores Tucker to this year’s Essence magazine ”Take Back the Music” campaign, older generations of African American women are clearly critical of the prevalence of misogyny and sexism in hip hop lyrics and videos. However, is this womanist agenda relevant to the politics of the hip hop generation? While a few young activists consider themselves as hip hop feminists, many other young black women are still resistant to the label “feminist.” Instead, womanist may be a more appropriate moniker for rallying a new generation of women. Consequently, I will examine whether hip-hop generation black women possess a womanist identity with womanist principles and whether there is a relationship between their womanist theology and their political activism with special attention to activism and the treatment of black women’s bodies.
Icons of Injustice: Gendered and Hyper-Sexualized Black Women's Bodies in U.S. Culture
S'thembile West, Western Illinois University
Historical readings of African American bodies as icons provides a reflective look at intersections of ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in the U.S. The market economy of enslavement profited as much from the
forced-labor and sale of black bodies as it did from institutionalized images and attitudes that framed discourse about race, skin color and gender. Gendered and hyper-sexualized assumptions and images of Black
women's bodies were critical not only to devaluation of black womanhood during the plantation economy of enslavement, but also sustains inequities among U.S. women. This presentation seeks to illuminate the critical
relationsips between hyper-sexualized assumptions and images, ineqality and the lives of contemporary African American women.
Alice Walker, The Color Purple, and a Womanist Gospel of Resistance
Sallie Cuffee, Medgar Evers College
“Alice Walker, The Color Purple and a Womanist Gospel of Resistance”
An increasing body of literature produced by such womanist scholars as Delores Williams, Katie Cannon, Emilie Townes, Clarice Martin, and Jacquelyn Grant has underscored the important womanist objective of valorizing the sacred in black women's ordinary lives as a critical introduction into any substantive discourses about God as it relates to producing life-affirming survival and quality of life theology or ethics. This paper focuses on how this body of literature recognized can be directly traced to the influence of Alice Walker and her book, The Color Purple. It also focuses on how Walker produced a cultural epistle that claimed the epistemological privilege of centering black women’s experience in talking about “Dear God.” Lastly, it seeks to underscore Walker's engagement in a womanist gospel of resistance, empowering black women to understand their role as co-creators in church and society.
A19-26
Religion and Sexuality Consultation
Theme: Regulating Desire: Christian and Buddhist Sexuality Debates in America and Beyond
The Religion and Sexuality consultation, inaugurated this year, endeavors to advance a conversation about religion and sexuality in diverse religious contexts across time and place. This session's papers analyze sundry religious claims for regulating sexual desire and providing a justification, method, and praxis for such regulation. Presenters will explore systems of regulating identity formation, procedures of punishment/censure for failing to undertake such regulation, and the consequences of using religious discourse to regulate desire and sexuality. Papers will be posted online at http://www.as.ua.edu/rel (advance reading optional, not required), and each speaker will have 15 minutes to present. The respondent will expand upon and beyond the specific themes of the papers in order to generate a broader set of ideas pertaining to religion and sexuality. We will allow ample time for a full participatory discussion, and the business meeting will focus on topics suggested by the audience for future sessions.
Being Christian and Having Sex, Too: The Historical Context and Contemporary Application of the Regulation of Sexual Desire as Part of the Practice of Christian Faith
Wil Brant, Chicago Theological Seminary
Contemporary Christian discussions on sex (e.g. same-sex sexual desire and abstinence) are done in the framework of what it means “to be Christian”—a concept which involves a self-regulation of sexual desire. Early Christian writers negotiated a concept of being Christian in relation to a celibate model of spiritual purity and a monogamous model of procreative citizen. These models and negotiations between them can be seen in contemporary Christian discussions about sex. After briefly overviewing these writers and relating how their models of sexual regulation are still a part of contemporary Christian discussions about sex, this paper will conclude by proposing that for self-identified Christians in a context of a contemporary pluralistic society, the regulation of sexual desire might better be engaged in as a dynamic practice of Christian faith, akin to spiritual practices of Late Antiquity, rather than a static following of rules of what is it to be Christian.
Anthony Comstock, Free-Lovers, and the Censorship of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: Defining the Terms of Protestant Toleration in Late Nineteenth-Century New England
Paul C. Kemeny, Grove City College
In the spring of 1882, the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice persuaded the Boston district attorney that the recently published seventh edition Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass violated the state’s obscenity law, which the Society had helped revise two years earlier. Wanting to avoid prosecution, the publisher withdrew the volume from circulation. In response, Whitman launched a campaign, with assistance from Free-Love advocates like Ezra Heywood, to discredit the anti-vice society. But when moral reformers prosecuted Heywood and his allies, Whitman refused to come to their defense. This study not only recovers a surprising incident in the history of late nineteenth-century censorship–Whitman’s silence–but also recovers how and why a mainline Protestant moral reform organization enjoyed the cultural power to enforce conventional Protestant attitudes toward sexuality, marriage, and literature. It also demonstrates that the dominant Protestant views were fiercely contested by advocates of Free-Love.
Finding Safe Harbor: Buddhist Sexual Ethics in America
Stephanie Kaza, University of Vermont
From a Buddhist perspective, working with sexuality is working with attachment and the inflation of egocentric views. The third Buddhist precept prohibits sexual misconduct because it can generate so much suffering. In the 1980s and 90s, the rash of sexual affairs and betrayals in modern American Buddhist centers raised concerns about organizational viability, catalyzing several important initiatives in sexual ethics policy. The paper analyzes the extensive work of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and San Francisco Zen Center in establishing guidelines for responding to cases of inappropriate sexual behavior. This ethical effort reflects American Buddhism in evolution, going beyond the traditional submission to authoriarian power to helping the community learn to take ethical care of itself. By struggling through such a legal process, these Buddhist sanghas laid a useful foundation for future conflicts.
The Opposite of Gay: Ex-Gay Ministries, Identity, and Desire
Lynne Gerber, Graduate Theological Union
The current generation of ex-gay ministries attempt to navigate difficult waters. In response to increasing evidence of, and popular familiarity with happy, healthy homosexual people, these ministries are having to pay more precise attention to defining the moral problem of homosexuality and to claims about the possibility of change. This paper will look at the current state of the conversation in ex-gay ministries about these issues. Using content analysis, participant observation and interview data, I will demonstrate the various tensions in the ex-gay movement and how leaders attempt to resolve them. In conversation with Anthony Giddens’ work on modernity and self creation I will argue that ex-gay ministries are involved in a project of identity formation that both utilizes and challenges post-modern and other contemporary understandings of the body and the self in order to create obedient Christian agents.
A19-30
Religion and Ecology Tour: Eco-Justice and Chester, Pennsylvania
Please join the Religion and Ecology Group for an on-site Eco-Justice discussion in the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Eco-Justice or Environmental Justice analyzes how ecological ills are disproportionately shared based upon race, class, and the environment. Chester is an impoverished, predominantly African-American community just west of Philadelphia. Chester has the highest infant mortality rate and percentage of low-weight births in the state. Five waste treatment plants have been built on a concentrated site surrounded by homes and parks in a low-income, largely African-American neighborhood in Chester. One hundred percent of all municipal solid waste in Delaware County is burned at the American Ref-Fuel incinerator; 90% of all sewage is treated at the Delcora plant; and, until recently, close to a hundred tons of hospital waste from a half-dozen nearby states was being sterilized each day at the Thermal Pure plant.
A19-29
Mother Bethel Church Bus Tour
Mother Bethel is the “mother church” of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and “stands on the oldest piece of land continuously owned by African Americans in the United States.” It is located on a section of Sixth Street renamed Richard Allen Avenue in tribute to the former slave and founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The present sanctuary was erected in 1889 and underwent major renovation in 1987. Of special note and significance are its stained glass windows. Located in the basement of Mother Bethel is the Richard Allen Museum Collection which holds numerous documents, photographs, paintings, and artifacts related to the history of Mother Bethel and the AME denomination. Additional information related to Mother Bethel and the Richard Allen Museum can be found at www.motherbethel.org.
A19-27
Plenary Address
Theme: A Life Biography of Wolfhart Pannenberg
Born in 1928 in Stettin, Germany, Pannenberg began his theological studies at the University of Berlin after World War II and also studied at the University of Göttingen and the University of Basel. He completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Heidleberg. He studied under theologians Karl Barth and Edmund Schlink, among others. Pannenberg has drawn together religion and science through much of his life. Wolfhart Pannenberg published his magnum opus, the three-volume Systematic Theology, in the 1990s. He has also contributed substantially to the philosophy of history and the philosophy of science. He has been called an “eschatological realist" and a great interdisciplinary thinker.
A19-28
Special Topics Forum
Theme: AAR Student Luncheon and Panel Discussion: Career Alternatives for Doctoral Students in Religion and Theology
The skills and knowledge students acquire in doctoral studies in religion and theology prepare them for a wide array of career alternatives, not just the role of classroom professor. Today, PhDs in religion and theology are working in venues such as: nonprofit organizations; publishing and other media; theological libraries and archives; offices of campus life, both administrative and auxiliary; foundations specializing in religion; parish or diocesan ministry; providing programming for clergy and laity renewal or for retreat houses; religious high schools; nongovernmental organizations providing human and other services; institutes, religious think-tanks, centers of inquiry, etc.; government; and business. Work in these career alternatives often carries different, sometimes greater financial and psychological rewards than comparable academic positions, as well as different challenges and opportunities for personal development and for influencing others. Panelists will discuss some of these challenges and opportunities and share their own personal experiences in career alternatives. Separate registration is required.
A19-50
Arts Series/Films: Alambrista
Robert M. Young's critically acclaimed 110-minute film Alambrista (1977) depicts the harsh realities of Mexican life on both sides of the border. Following the birth of his first child, a young Mexican slips across the border into the United States in search of the American dream for himself and his family. He finds heartbreak, exploitation, and disappointment, but also friendship, affection, and help along the way.
When first released, Alambrista received critical praise and a number of awards, including a Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. For the University of New Mexico Press release, a distinguished group of scholars has packaged a new director's cut of the film with a book of essays devoted to immigration and the U.S.–Mexican borderlands.
Directed by Robert Young, 1977, 110 minutes (color, Mexico; Spanish with English subtitles).
A19-51
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Imagining Religion in the Postcolony: Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism
Postcolonial practices and ways of imagining religion challenge our existing notions and understanding of religion. Is the study of religion still trapped in the binary of occidentalist and orientalist notions of religion? This special topics forum will explore the multiple experiences and practices of religion in postcolonial contexts and scholarly responses to them.
A19-52
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Supreme Court and Religion
As Chief Justice Rehnquist's tenure on the Court draws to a close, this panel looks back on the legacy of the “Rehnquist Court” with respect to religion. We will also discuss some of the “hot topics” of the preceding term, including the religious rights of prisoners and the display of the Ten Commandments on government property.
A19-53
Special Topics Forum
Theme: AAR Excellence in Teaching Forum: A Conversation about Teaching with the 2005 Excellence in Teaching Award Winner
This interactive session will focus on discussion of issues raised by the teaching materials posted by Professor Zayn Kassam at the AAR's Virtual Teaching and Learning Center. They can be accessed after October 15 at http://www.aarweb.org/teaching/default.asp.
A19-54
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Angels in America: Theatre, Film, Literature
Shifting Contexts for Grief and Rage: Watching Angels in America, Then and Now
Kent Brintnall, Emory University
In Antigone’s Claim, Judith Butler poses the question of who owns the grief stemming from the AIDS epidemic. Using contemporary work on the politics of mourning, as well as reviews of HBO’s film Angels in America, this paper will explore what it means to watch a televised adaptation of Tony Kushner’s 1987 play in 2004. Given that Kushner’s play was about a very specific coalescence of historial circumstances and was written and presented in the midst of those events, what does the adaptation mean when wrenched from the historical context on which the work is based? Questions about the work of memory and mourning with respect to Angels in America will be related to larger questions about remembering and representing historical tragedies generally as well as the nature of religious rituals as tools for remembering.
co-presenter with Victoria Rue
Craig S. Strobel, ConSpiritu: A Center for Cultural Creativity
This presentation will examine the play Angels in America by means of performance. A selected scene will be enacted by two actor-scholars, with a mid-scene character switch. This gendered character switch will provide the impetus for participants in the session to reflect critically and creatively upon the nature of audience perceptions, culturally-constructed expectations concerning characterization and performance, as well as the nature of the performance event itself vis-à-vis the cultural embeddedness of any performance. All these themes are found in Tony Kushner’s work, and a performance presentation is particularly adept at opening these up for discussion and examination.
Angels in America: Performing Gender Construction
Victoria Rue, San Jose State University
This presentation will examine the play Angels in America by means of performance. A selected scene will be enacted by two actor-scholars, with a mid-scene character switch. This gendered character switch will provide the impetus for participants in the session to reflect critically and creatively upon the nature of audience perceptions, culturally-constructed expectations concerning characterization and performance, as well as the nature of the performance event itself vis-à-vis the cultural embeddedness of any performance. All these themes are found in Tony Kushner’s work, and a performance presentation is particularly adept at opening these up for discussion and examination.
Of Ghosts and Angels: Derrida and Kushner on the Impossibility of Forgiveness
Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Columbia University
In a number of essays and lectures written toward the end of his life, Jacques Derrida sets forth the controversial proposition that, insofar as forgiveness can only forgive the unforgivable, the very possibility of forgiveness lies in its impossibility. This paper will sketch the aporia of forgiveness in Derrida's work, offer a critique of his one sustained attempt to imagine a concrete “scene” of forgiveness as onto-economic, and finally re-imagine the problematic of conditional and unconditional forgiveness through two scenes toward the end of Tony Kushner's _Angels in America_. It will be suggested that something like the forgiveness of which Derrida “dreams”--an interruption refractory to all historical or subjective re-appropriation--might be glimpsed in a particularly haunting sequence in this play, in which temporality, identity, understanding, and forgiveness itself suddenly become utterly impossible.
Angels, Witches, and Goats, Oh My! Otherworldly Creatures on Broadway
Dugan McGinley, Temple University
Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is notable for its mystical sensibility. It is populated with creatures who do not quite fit in this world but also do not seem to fit into other worlds made available to them through traditional religion or even the human imagination; yet they ultimately possess a wisdom that is lacking both on earth and in the heavens. This paper will put Angels in America in conversation with other Broadway shows that appeared between its appearance as a play and as a film. I will discuss the overlapping strategies each of these dramas uses to critique the inability of religion and society to come to terms with difference and to identify the “real” enemies to human fulfillment as seen through the eyes of these playwrights.
A19-55
Buddhism Section and Japanese Religions Group
Theme: Buddhism in the Southern Capital: Heian and Kamakura Developments of Nara Buddhism
During the Nara period (710-794), several Buddhist schools were transmitted from China and became established in the major temples of Nara, the capital of Japan. These schools, the so-called 'Six Schools of the Southern Capital,' were extremely important in introducing Buddhist thought to Japan. In recent years, under the influence of Kuroda Toshio's kenmitsu taisei theory (which holds that, along with the Tendai and Shingon schools, the Nara schools continued to dominate Japan until well into the Muromachi period), scholars have begun to emphasize that these schools continued to play an important role in the Japanese religious scene even after the capital was moved to Kyoto, ending the Nara period. This panel explores the ways in which the Nara Buddhist sects continued into the Heian (794-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods, changing in response to new conditions.
The Miraculous Jizos of Nara
Sarah Horton, Macalester College
Miraculous Jizos of Nara is a category mentioned by the Shasekishu, a late thirteenth-century collection of Buddhist stories. Numerous monks in Nara, the center of 'old Buddhism,' resisted the movement toward single-practice Buddhism by emphasizing a combination of practices. In doing so, they included a focus on Jizo, a figure of relatively new importance. I will briefly discuss several Nara Jizo images, three of which are listed in the Shasekishu. Two others, “naked Jizo” images, illustrate a desire to relate to Jizo in a highly realistic manner. My goal in this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which this bodhisattva that is generally considered to belong more to “folk religion” than to orthodox Buddhism played a crucial role in Nara.
Creating Bodhisattvas: Eison, Manjusri, and Kamakura-Period Buddhism Revisited
David Quinter, Stanford University
One of the most significant new Buddhist movements in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) was the Shingon Ritsu school founded by Eison (1201-90). This paper first examines historiographical issues in the study of Kamakura-period Buddhism that still inhibit balanced analysis of Shingon Ritsu and the other Nara schools, even in recent “revisionist” studies. I will then translate and analyze two devotional Manjusri texts that Eison authored in conjunction with the restoration of Hannyaji. These texts are rich for understanding Eison’s views on outcasts (hinin) as well as Manjusri’s role in the proliferation of Mahayana schools, an issue receiving little previous attention. I argue that to properly understand the Shingon Ritsu Manjusri cult, we must recognize the significance of the Shingon and Hossô transmissions portrayed here and Eison’s will both to make himself into a living bodhisattva and to create bodhisattvas out of his followers, including monastics, lay sponsors, and outcasts.
Zen and the Precepts in Medieval Nara Buddhism: As Seen in Ensho Shonin Gyojo
Kenryo Minowa, Aichi-gakuin University
The Ensho Shonin Gyojoki is a biography of Ensho (1221-1277), a Kamakura period monk who lived in Nara. From this text, we can learn much about the activities Ensho and the monks who had gathered around him. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Ensho and his circle were interested in both the vinaya and meditation. In their study of the precepts, they were influenced by the monks of Sennyuji, a temple in Kyoto which transmitted a different school of Vinaya than that found in Nara. In the case of meditation, they were especially influenced by the new Zen teachings being propagated by Enni Ben'en at Tofukuji in Kyoto. Hence Ensho and his group were linked both to the Vinaya revival movement, which was one of the central concerns of the Nara monks, and the new Zen teachings.
Towards a New Understanding of the Formation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Susumu Uejima, Kyoto Prefectural University
The publication of Kuroda Toshio's 'Development of the Kenmitsu Taisei System in Medieval Japan' in 1975 was a major turning point in the study of medieval Japanese Buddhism. However, his 'kenmitsu taisei' theory is not without problems. In my paper, I will first discuss some problems with his theory. Then, I will critically appropriate Kuroda's theory to develop my own interpretation of medieval Buddhism, using examples taken from the Buddhist school of Nara. To be more specific, I will take up new developments in Buddhist rituals, new forms of shinbutsu shugo practices and the fusion of esoteric and exoteric forms of Buddhism, to illustrate what I see as distinctive features of medieval Japanese Buddhism.
A19-56
Ethics Section
Theme: Spheres of (In)Justice: Terrorism, Turmoil, and the Resort to Torture
Ethical analyses of the conditions that give rise to, and the ethical arguments that give justification to, the restriction of human rights and the resort to torture.
When Disaster Looms: Terrorism and Supreme Emergency in the Arguments of Michael Walzer and Osama bin Ladin
Elizabeth Barre, Florida State University
In his 1977 classic _Just and Unjust Wars_, Michael Walzer argues that situations of “supreme emergency” may provide justification for terrorist acts. Nonetheless, he has condemned the terrorist attacks of September 11th, believing that these attacks were motivated by a desire for political advantage alone. In this essay, I show that this condemnation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Usama bin Ladin’s motivations. A careful analysis of his public statements reveals the extent to which bin Ladin believes Islamic civilization to be in a state of supreme emergency. Furthermore, I show that bin Ladin’s justification for terrorism is strikingly similar to the justification Walzer provides in his chapter on supreme emergency. In light of these similarities, it seems that Walzer is left with two options. He can either approve of Al-Qaeda’s tactics or disapprove of his own doctrine of supreme emergency. This essay argues for the latter.
When the Subject Is Torture(d): Torture, Terror, Religion, and Research Ethics
Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center
This paper will examine torture with reference to the ethics of human subjects research, through a discussion of a recently announced research project that will involve the deliberate infliction of pain on subjects to measure the effects of religious belief on pain responses. Media coverage of this British study has suggested such research may be of use in fighting religiously motivated terrorism. The paper will describe the characteristic goals of torture, and how, as a subject of research, it differs fundamentally from the study of pain. The paper will also explore the long association of religion and torture, with special attention to the ethical implications both of using the deliberate infliction of pain as a means of quantifying religious belief, and of approaching belief in terms of its utility in reducing pain. The paper will also include observations concerning the ethics of research involving survivors of torture and terrorism.
Walzer and Ignatieff on the Evils of the War on Terror
Bradley L. Herling, Boston University
Michael Walzer and Michael Ignatieff are two of our most reasonable commentators on the 'war on terror.' It may be surprising, then, to discern the prominence the discourse of evil in their ethical reflections. That many contemporary intellectuals have chosen to invoke this moral concept, often in order to contest its vague deployment in public, political discourse, is not a bad thing. But Walzer and Ignatieff both use the concept to construct terrorism as an extreme limit of moral deliberation and response, invoking a logic of justification that necessarily leads to a slippery slope, especially when it comes to the status of civil liberties. To this extent, the paper raises the possibility that contemporary ethical theory, as represented by these two prominent authorities, has little traction in response to dominant public and political forms of ideological justification for extreme measures within the war on terror.
When Is Torture Right?
Douglas McCready, Kutztown, PA
Practiced since the dawn of human history, torture remains a tool for interrogation, intimidation, and punishment. This is so despite international treaties and declarations prohibiting torture absolutely. Even many who abhor torture are willing to consider its use in emergency situations. Both the deontological prohibition of torture and the utilitarian acceptance of torture are inadequate ethics to address the issue. Dershowitz, Walzer, and Elshtain, among others, have attempted to redress the problem with more finely-tuned approaches. Confronting the practice of torture is also difficult because there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes torture. Not all coercion is torture, and some coercion is both legal and ethical. Torture, however, remains a wrongful act.
A19-57
History of Christianity Section
Theme: Silk Hoods, Deaconess Bonnets, and Nuns’ Habits: Debating Women’s Dress in American Christianity
Throughout American Christian history, what women wear and how they present themselves have been high-stakes issues, debated in civil courts, from the pulpit, in church periodicals, and among laywomen and men. Scholars have demonstrated that dress has long been invested with moral values, leading to prescriptions for proper attire that religious leaders have applied more often to women, historically associated with the body, vanity, and fashion, than to men. However, women have used fashion and dress to serve as nonverbal, often indirect but sometimes blatant, means to challenge authority and reconfigure personal and group identities. This session will address the contested meanings of women’s dress in three distinct time periods and communities. Each case reveals Protestant or Catholic American women playing on the ambiguities of prescribed dress to accomplish their own goals of religious self-expression.
“Between Two Extreams”: Female Self-Fashioning in Early New England
Martha L. Finch, Missouri State University
Female dress constellated critical theological and social concerns in early New England. Beginning in 1634 colonial General Courts periodically noted that there was “much complaint” about “excessive” apparel and developed elaborate regulations of dress and hairstyles according to social rank, economic status, and “godly modesty.” Although sumptuary legislation explicitly applied to both genders, women most often appeared in court accused of wearing extravagant fashions. After the final sumptuary laws of 1676 ministers continued to bemoan their female congregants’ “proud rayment” and explicate scriptural reasons for dressing oneself with sobriety. The “rules” for modest apparel lay within a hazy area between the two extremes of “affected plainness” and “worldly excess,” which allowed for personal discretion in one’s fashion choices. Thus, as court and church records and period portraits reveal, both upper- and lower-class women regularly wore clothing that challenged colonial male authority, eventually provoking the demise of sumptuary legislation.
Deaconess Garb: A Bad Habit or Good Fashion Sense?
Jenny Wiley Legath, Princeton University
At the end of the nineteenth century, while Easter bonnet sales burgeoned and Thorstein Veblen critiqued conspicuous consumption, a group of Protestant women called deaconesses created their own distinctive dress, naming it the garb. I argue that the garb lies at the nexus of deaconesses’ contested relationship with Catholicism and ideas of Protestant womanhood. Through a close examination of publicity materials and private writings, I argue that what deaconesses and their supporters said about the garb discloses their ambivalence toward Catholicism and the ideal of the Christian middle-class woman. In defending their garb against charges of “Romanism,” deaconesses reveal their participation in the popular prejudice against Roman Catholicism, but tempered with their own personal experiences of individual nuns and Catholics. In promoting their garb as “becoming” and “womanly,” deaconesses strove to fit the model of Christian femininity while also calling into question certain assumptions about woman’s role.
Hard Habit to Break: The Work of Mapping Postconciliar Catholicism on Nuns’ Bodies
Stephanie Stillman, University of California, Santa Barbara
As Catholics in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council were intentionally and creatively working to reconstruct Catholic identity, nuns' bodies became the landscape upon which Catholics in the United States mapped new and old identities. Images of the nun in full habit, secluded and bitter, represented a relic of a preconciliar world while images of nuns without veils, in everyday clothing, who were actively engaged in social and political movements were construed as emblematic of the postconciliar future of Catholicism. As Catholics laid claim to nuns' identities through the tailoring of habits they were more broadly engaged in the project of defining postconciliar Catholicism. This work is an attempt to explore the ways that both nuns and lay Catholics in the United States understood alterations of nuns' clothing in the 1960s in an attempt to unpack the underlying hopes and anxieties that were about far more than textiles.
A19-58
North American Religions Section
Theme: Metaphysical/Occult Traditions and the Imagination of America: Critical and Historical Perspectives
This session will analyze modern American metaphysical/occult movements as the 'mimetic rivals' or 'doubles' of Anglo-Protestant national culture. Nineteenth-century Spiritualism is analyzed as both a model for and model of a burgeoning American imperial culture. Spirit mediums make visible the invisible bonds of 'sympathy' in antebellum society, articulate a polygenetic cosmogony in postbellum America, and regulate the freedoms of newly liberated Anglo-Protestant citizens. The classification of 'occultism' is further problematized as legitimizing the belief systems of hegemonic Enlightenment culture, and sanctioning the violence directed towards allegedly 'occultist' communities contesting the social origins of the American nation.
Marginalizing the Mainstream of Religion, the Occult, and the Otherworldly
D. Michael Quinn, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Despite the complicating fact that marginalized, underprivileged groups have their own competing elites and opinion makers, a larger dynamic operates between a society's elites and non-elites. The belief systems of a society's elites and its non-elites can be seen as parallel, or as symbiotic, or as parasitic, or as antagonistic, or as competitive, or as complimentary, or as similar, or (occasionally) as identical. But the primary dynamic involves the power of a society's elites to privilege their belief systems against those of non-elites. Thus, irrespective of other denominators of social class, a person's beliefs become a litmus test for whether the person is mainstream or marginal, intelligent or unintelligent, rational or irrational, respectful or disreputable. In the western tradition of Enlightenment values, these patterns are particularly evident in beliefs in religion, the occult, and the otherworldly.
The Metaphysics of Empire and the Government of Souls
John H. Lardas, Haverford College
In 1854 the United States Congress received a petition with over fifteen thousand signatures seeking to convene an investigation into “the power and intelligence of departed spirits operating on and through the subtile [sic] and imponderable elements which pervade and permeate all material forms.” As Spiritualism spread across the country, leaders were confident that “spiritual science” might ascertain “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Congress, however, thought otherwise, rejecting the petition with the wry suggestion that “it be referred to the committee on foreign relations.” The question posed to the government went unanswered: what exactly was haunting antebellum America? This paper will explore this question by contextualizing Spiritualism in light of violent incursions into Mexico and Indian lands. It will analyze how spirits not only blurred the boundary between life and death but also enabled individuals to resolve the tensions of a burgeoning American empire.
Race, Nation, and the Topography of Spiritualist Emotion
Robert S. Cox, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
A reformer, Socialist, and satirist, William Denton was among the most widely read Spiritualist writers of the mid-nineteenth century, and one of the most interesting figures for understanding the roles of race and religion in the imaginary community called nation. In this talk, I will explore a new mental science, Psychometry, that Denton developed to explore the deep history of the planet and the races that inhabit it. Steeped in photographic theory and the culture of sympathy that informed Spiritualist praxis, Psychometry permitted the psychically sensitive individual to read the past directly from natural objects, just as one reads the visual past from a photograph. What Denton discovered about the (polygenetic) origins and history of relations of human races, I will suggest, is a bellwether for charting the trajectory of Spiritualist sympathy in the post-Civil War years, and more generally for understanding the transformation of American race relations.
The Dark Sublime: Occult Heresies and the American Nation
Darryl Victor Caterine, Grinnell College
This paper seeks to analyze the perennial struggle between evangelical Protestantism, modern science, and various metaphysical/occult traditions to define the social contours and sacred origins of the United States. Inspired by the scholarship on the witch trials, I will document the sensationalized and/or demonized 'otherness' of Freemasonry, Mormonism, and Ufology in American history. Guided by the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault and and Rene Girard, I will argue that the scandals surrounding the metaphysical/occult tradition reflect an oftentimes violent rivalry between closely related factions of Anglo-Protestant culture to articulate the nation's religious and social boundaries.
A19-59
Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: Evangelical Religion and Social Change
The four papers in this section examine resources in American evangelicalism for addressing contemporary social and cultural currents.
Honesty, Conflict, and a New Vision of the Reign of God as a Basis for Social Change among Latino/a Evangélicos/as
Nora Lozano, Baptist University of the Americas
This paper challenges traditional theological views that have slowed the process of social change among Latino/a evangélicos/as. First, many evangélicos/as promote a spiritualized theology that ignores/minimizes oppression. This position has generated a passivity that needs to be challenged with the idea that God’s Reign is present today on earth, and evangélicos/as need to act accordingly. Second, since Latino Protestantism was shaped over against Catholicism, since the beginning it has harbored an anti-Catholic feeling that pressure's evangélicos/as to hide their problems in order to be good witnesses of Jesus. The issue here is that a person cannot engage in social changes, if she/he does not acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be changed. Third, there is a misconception about the term “conflict” that presents that it is always destructive/negative. This idea needs to be reevaluated because often a person/group must engage in healthy conflicts to generate social changes.
Asian-American Evangelicals and the Value of Diversity
Kathleen Garces-Foley, California State University, Northridge
Asian Americans have increasingly entered into the evangelical subculture through such organizations as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Promise Keepers. As they move into the mainstream, they bring distinctive values, religious styles, and social concerns with them. This paper will explore how Asian Americans are changing the face of American evangelicalism in regard to race relations. It will present findings from a year-long study of Asian American pastors who are leading their congregations to become multiethnic. The goal of this study was to understand the racial attitudes of Asian American evangelicals whose “value for diversity” has compelled them to create multiethnic churches. Since the development of multiethnic churches has become a prominent cause for many evangelicals, this is an important arena in which to consider the influence of Asian Americans on evangelical ethics and values.
Cultivating the Affections, Lakewood Church Style: Insights for Contemporary Religious and Moral Reflection
Ki Joo Choi, Boston College
Lakewood Church, the largest church in the United States, has been the object of intense fascination and criticism in recent times. This paper provides a critical interpretation of the Lakewood phenomenon and the theology of Lakewood’s senior pastor Joel Osteen. While Osteen’s message is subject to a number of shortcomings, his emphasis on the theological and moral significance of the positive affections compliments a number of important thinkers within the Christian tradition. As such, Osteen’s theology or, more broadly, Lakewood’s message, can, if given serious consideration, provoke dialogue on the often neglected issue of the role of celebration in the religious and moral life.
"Thus Sayeth the Lord...": Prophetic Voice, Evangelical Theology, and Social Change
Chris Boesel, Drew University
Evangelical theology and preaching is fundamentally constituted by the prophetic. The implication for the question of Evangelicalism’s relationship to social change is that a prophetic understanding of the Word of God offers resistance to cooptation by the cultural status quo. The life and witness of Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842-1919) provides a concrete example of an Evangelical witness that was both fundamentally prophetic and deeply counter-cultural. For Blumhardt, all forms of political action stand under the judgment of God’s Word and the inbreaking Kingdom of God. Simultaneously, Blumhardt remained committed to prophetic social change as a relative and limited witness or parable of the coming Kingdom of God. This commitment allowed for flexibility in dealing with issues of social and political change, retaining a revolutionary orientation, but all the while not allowing the Kingdom of God to be directly identified with any particular political program.
A19-60
Women and Religion Section and Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation
Theme: Children, Women, War, and Politics
Child Soldiers, Militarism, and Theology: An Ethical Challenge
Kristin Herzog, Independent Scholars' Association
P. W. Singer's 'Children at War' (2005) provides a comprehensive study of child soldiering the world over. It describes almost unimaginable cruelties against and by child recruits. We often overlook, however, that the tendency to militarize children's lives is not limited to the 'Third World.' Child soldiers are a grotesque representation of an increasing global militarization. Cynthia Enloe has described this process in women's lives. There is a tendency to provide more U.S. recruits through children's programs like the 'Young Marines' and advertising on School TV. Recruiting videos are hardly distinguishable from violent video games. Only 2.8 cents of every federal dollar is spent on education, while the defense budget is increasing astronomically, also in other countries. Chris Hedges has written about the myths of war that fuel this development. Even a non-pacifist theology can resist the militarization of children's lives and thereby support the movement to abolish child soldiering.
“Slaughter of the Innocents”: Children in Ancient and Modern War
Honora Chapman, Stanford University
Do we share recognizable cultural values that condemn the murder of innocent women and children? Why? What makes a particular act “barbaric”? I shall show that since the beginning of western historiography in antiquity, authors such as Thucydides have used the reality of women and children dying during warfare—especially sieges— not only as a literary device for increasing pathos in their texts but also in order to comment on the very nature of “civilization” itself, its disintegration at key moments, and what attempts are made to avenge or rectify the wrong done. I shall examine King Herod’s supposed “slaughter of the innocents” as well as the activities of the Romans in Judea in the first century CE., including the siege of Jerusalem in 70. The literary interpretations of these events from two thousand years ago still influence reactions to events nowadays such as the massacre at Beslan.
Living and Partly Living: Childhood under Occupation
Raymond J. Webb, University of St. Mary of the Lake
This paper is based on interviews with ten Palestinian women – five Muslim and five Christian – now ages 16 to 23, who have spent significant parts of their childhood years under military occupation. Their religious understanding and patterns of religious practice are described. The possible effects of social location, opportunities for enrichment activities, success in school, experience of other family members, attitudes toward those who fled and those who resisted, attitudes toward the occupiers, nationalistic, religious, and family motivations, and perceptions about the future are examined. How the women have been strengthened, perceptions of loss, spiritual dimensions, inter-religious attitudes, and analogies to material in sacred texts are elaborated. The functioning of, assistance of, and possible difficulties caused by religion to persons under military occupation also are examined, leading to the exploration of theoretical implications and tentative prescriptions for persons in similar circumstances and for religious bodies so located.
A19-61
Black Theology Group
Theme: The Nature of Black Religious Experience
What is black about black religious experience? And, what is religious about black religious experience? These questions, while seldom discussed in explicit terms, have theoretical importance for the study of black religion. In fact, the growth of black theology and other modes of academic inquiry is dependent on critical attention to such questions. This panel brings together various perspectives on these two queries.
The Nature of African American Religious Experience: A Postmodern/Post-structuralist Analysis
Torin Alexander, Rice University
It is my contention that contemporary black theology offers a rather anemic understanding of African American religious experience. Additionally, I maintain that this weakness stems from a lack of attention to theory and methodology within the discipline. Moreover, I believe that methodologies associated with postmodern social theory might be employed to great effect to the study of black religion and black religious experience. Specifically, I intend to show in this paper that the methodologies of Niklas Luhmann and Michel de Certeau demonstrate that African American religious experience is best understood as “oppositional.” By oppositional, I mean that which resistances, circumvents, evades, or opposes oppressive dimensions of power, particular in relation to the construction of society. Such an understanding subsumes while going beyond descriptions of African American religious experience as liberative, such as found in the work of James Hal Cone.
Theoretically Essential: Postmodernism and Approaches to Liberation
CL Nash, University of Edinburgh
Two of the most hotly debated theoretical paradigms in liberation theology are: postmodernism and postcolonialism. Postmodernism often succeeds in decentering the authority of liberationist scholars, while postcolonialism, among other things, cannot tell us when colonialism actually ended. Additionally, does complex theoretical jargon simply serve as a gatekeeper, maintaining the very hegemonic order it critiques?
Due to time constraints, I would like to identify and engage the following points: 1) postmodernism levies challenges of ahistoricism and essentialism – which often subverts the Black experience and allows groups to maintain fixity; 2) postcolonialism allows Black identity to become vulnerable, often subsumed in difference and instability; 3) the commodification of cultural production facilitates non-Blacks becoming the experts of our narratives and history; 4) this commodification simultaneously diminishes our authority to become experts of our own histories and narratives.
Toward a Tradition of African-American Pragmatic Religious Naturalism
Jonathon Samuel Kahn, Vassar College
What does it mean when writers who for the most part spend their careers rejecting normative religious commitments find their literary and political imaginations inhabited by religious rhetoric, concepts, and experiences? This paper argues that the rich twentieth century tradition of African American writers—Du Bois, Hurston, and Ellison among them—whose writings contain this ambiguous religious valence makes up a tradition of African American pragmatic religious naturalism. African American pragmatic religious naturalism is coordinate with the larger tradition of pragmatic religious naturalism; both read religion not for truth value but for effects on human life. But the African American tradition uses religion to thickly explore the vicissitudes of racial identity, going against the normative tradition’s resistance to analyzing specific social categories. To make this explicit, Ellison’s Invisible Man is positioned as a paradigmatic text. Ellison finds a religious dispensation—what he calls “soul”—in living with racial ambiguities.
A19-62
Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group
Theme: War as Responsible Action? The Uses and Abuses of Bonhoeffer's Ethics
"Bush, Bloggers, and Bonhoeffer" is one title in this session, yet it is indicative not only of larger themes of this session but the general purpose of this group. The mission of the Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group is to explore the historical and contemporary interface between theology and public life within the context of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological legacy. The two sessions scheduled for this year's AAR meetings are deliberately constructed to embody this mission as well as to complement each other; both address dimensions of the ways Bonhoeffer is interpreted today. This session explores, but is not limited to, the explicit use of Bonhoeffer both in support of and in opposition to war, specifically the current U.S. war in Iraq. Questions about context, interpretation, and discernment in regard to Bonhoeffer's life and work are central concerns of these papers.
“Telling the Truth”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Context
Susan Ford Wiltshire, Vanderbilt University
In his prison essay, “Telling the Truth,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer states that “the truthful word” is not itself constant, but depends on who is asking the question and to whom the answer is addressed. It depends on the context. From his earliest decisions in 1933 forward, including his return to Germany from New York in 1939, his assistance in helping Jews emigrate from Germany, and his 'spoke in the wheel' reflections on the bomb plot against Hitler, Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and actions always addressed the government of his own country. Bonhoeffer’s historical legacy is applicable to modern life, but only with the proviso that we understand the context in which Bonhoeffer’s faith intersected with politics and avoid simplistic or naive equations between his context and our own. This paper will trace Bonhoeffer's thinking in 'Telling the Truth' to explore how truth-telling even about his legacy itself is possible across contexts.
Bonhoeffer, Bloggers, and Bush: Uses of a “Protestant Saint” in the Fog of War
Robert O. Smith, Baylor University
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it seems, has never been more relevant to American life. In theologically-infused speech emanating from bloggers to George W. Bush, western discourse surrounding the U.S. war in Iraq repeatedly utilized the 20th century German theologian and pastor. Primary sources such as Internet entries, sermons, letters to the editor and political speeches will be presented to demonstrate the contradictory and sometimes problematic ways in which Bonhoeffer is used. By no means limited to the church, the materials presented validate the reality of what has been called the “Bonhoeffer phenomenon.” The discourse, however, most often employs Bonhoeffer to justify a given position rather than welcoming him as a faithful companion for ethical discernment; the “phenomenon” thus leads to Bonhoeffer’s domestication. With special reference to the new edition of Bonhoeffer’s _Ethics_, the presentation will provide an historical and theological framework with which to evaluate competing claims on this “Protestant saint.”
“Neither Defiant nor Despairing, but Humble and Confident”: In Conversation with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Beyers Naudé on Discernment
Robert Vosloo, University of Stellenbosch
Bonhoeffer’s ethic of responsibility has been used by different individuals and groups to justify competing claims and actions, raising serious questions with regard to wise discernment. With this in mind, my paper will look more closely at the manuscript “God’s Love and the Disintegration of the World” in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics in which the notion of discernment plays a pivotal role. Moreover, this paper will also introduce some aspects of the remarkable life and work of the South African icon of reconciliation, Beyers Naudé. Both Bonhoeffer and Naudé struggled to discern the will of God for their lives. In the final part of the paper the need for discernment in our complex, globalized and polarized world is highlighted against the backdrop of the legacies of Bonhoeffer and Naudé, calling the attention to the need for an ethical optics which focuses on obedience, solitude, solidarity and economic justice.
A19-63
Confucian Traditions Group
Theme: A Gentleman and His Money: Confucian Attitudes Toward the Creation and Transmission of Wealth
According to the classical Ru philosophers, a gentleman should be concerned with doing what is right, rather than what is profitable. In the 1980s, though, many social scientists argued that it was precisely Confucian values that allowed East Asian economies to soar. What accounts for this discrepancy? This panel seeks to answer the following questions: What were Confucian attitudes towards the creation and transmission of wealth? How did Confucians regard and react to commercial growth? By examining how Confucians at different times grappled with reconciling profit with righteousness, this panel tries to look at how Confucian views changed over the longue durée, from the Han dynasty to the present. The papers conclude that generally Confucians viewed the creation of wealth positively; however, they were distressed by commercialization, which threatened to make people value money more than morality.
Ritual and Non-Ritual Exchange in Early China
Michael Puett, Harvard University
This essay will explore notions of exchange in early ritual texts from early China, particularly the Liji, Yili, and Zhouli, as well as the commentarial tradition that developed on these texts over the course of the Han. My goal will be to analyze how and why these texts conceptualized exchange, and how they consequently conceptualized the issues of wealth accumulation and transmission.
The Subtle Art of Avoiding Profit: The Mercantile Adventures of a Fifth-Century Confucian Exemplar
Keith Knapp, The Citadel
China's economy often experienced spurts of tremendous growth during which mercantile activity flourished. How did Confucians react to such times in which most people esteemed the pursuit of wealth? This paper answers this question by examining the economic activities a commoner who was put forward as a Confucian exemplar. His biography indicates that, if one is a commoner, it is perfectly acceptable to engage in commerce and earn money. However, a good Confucian should not strive to get rich or benefit himself in any manner. Even though one does not disavow money-making, one should still live in relative poverty. This stress on voluntary poverty reflects the importance of the early medieval value known as qing 'purity', which meant that one was uncorrupted by self interests. In an era in which everyone was motivated by lure of the market, a good Confucian was one who remained untouched by it.
Female Virtue, Neo-Confucian Views of Commerce in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century China
Peter Ditmanson, Colby College
This paper explores Neo-Confucian views of the commercial order in Song (960-1279) and Yuan China (1371-1368) and the ways in which anxieties about economic changed manifested themselves in Neo-Confucian discourse on female virtue. While scholars have long argued that the spread of Neo-Confucian doctrine led to the circumscription of female social and economic roles, I argue that these policies were in turn driven by Neo-Confucian concerns with the broad commodification of women that was typified by the courtesan market and the marriage market that had expanded in the commercial world of the 13th and 14th centuries. These concerns manifested themselves not only in biographies and writings on women from this period, but in plays and other literary forms that valorized female resistance to the pressures and temptations of the market place, an enduring trope that dominated Neo-Confucian moral discourse in the centuries that followed.
“Confucian” Views on Wealth Creation from a Modern Interpretive Community: Social Scientists
Christian Jochim, San Jose State University
The paper concerns itself not only with modern Confucian attitudes on the creation of wealth but also with the question: What allows us to identify certain attitudes today as “Confucian” ones? The views under investigation are those of late twentieth century social scientists, who offered their interpretations of Confucian scripture and history in a debate over the role of traditional values in “economic development,” modern code words for the creation of wealth. The paper will contribute to the study of Confucian hermeneutics, in general, as well as to efforts to examine how over the centuries interpreters have appealed to Confucian scripture and history in developing their views on wealth. It aims to make its contribution by analyzing the intellectual context of the interpretive community in question, looking at its interpretive strategies, and examining its interpretations as well as the effect they might have on the broader modern discourse on Confucianism.
A19-64
Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group and Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group
Theme: Taking Risks: The Rhetorical Challenges in Deconstructing the Radical Religious Right
Panelists will address the increasingly frigid atmosphere in the U.S. for sexual minority discourse and the risks of doing queer scholarship in the current political and religious climate. Strategies for countering the religious right will also be addressed.
A19-65
Islamic Mysticism Group
Theme: Reading Texts, Reading Lives: Historical and Theoretical Revaluations of Sufi Sources
This panel is aimed at rethinking the way we read medieval Sufi texts to reflect on their subjects and the lives of their authors. The papers are concerned with eastern Islamic societies circa 1000-1500, though the general points we wish to raise are relevant beyond this geographical and chronological focus. One half of the panel deals with the use of hagiographical literature as a source for social history and the other half appraises the relationships between Sufi discourse and questions of law and ethics. By concentrating on thematic issues, we wish to integrate the study of Sufism and Islam more thoroughly in scholarship on religion in general. Our hope is to present to an audience that includes not only specialists in Islam and Sufism but also scholars who deal with other religious contexts and would like to compare their work to discussions of Islamic history, hagiography, law, and ethics.
Corpses in the Hands of Morticians: Pursuing the Social Logic of Disciple-Master Relationships in Hagiographical Narratives
Shahzad Bashir, Carleton College
This paper’s title refers to a Sufi dictum that uses a highly corporeal metaphor to advocate total voluntary submission of a disciple to the Sufi master. Such metaphors, and the extended stories that exemplify them in narrative form, abound in hagiographical literature produced in Persianate societies in the Timurid period (ca. 1350-1500). An interpretive approach to this material, which pays attention to the social context of the production and use of this literature, allows us to reconstitute the social and religious imaginary of the period. This is significant for understanding the social history of Sufi communities since corporeal contact between masters and disciples lay at the base of the development of large-scale networks that eventually came to assume self-conscious corporate identities in the form of the various Sufi orders. The paper will explore these themes by focusing on texts ascribed to Kubravi, Khwajagani-Naqshbandi, and Ni‘matullahi circles.
Reading the Labels: Corporate Names of Sufi Communities in Timurid-Era Sources
Devin DeWeese, Indiana University, Bloomington
This paper will examine the problem of corporate labels applied to Sufi communities of Central Asia and Iran during the 14th and 15th centuries, as reflected in sources (chiefly hagiographical) of the Timurid era, with the aim of highlighting the diversity of the foundations on which communal identities were based (i.e., locality, initiatic transmission, modes of practice, current leadership), before the principle of silsilah-links with a 'founding saint' became firmly established. The particular focus will be on three communal labels -- Khalvati, Ishqi, and Shattari -- that evoke a mode of practice or spiritual experience rather than a personal or corporate initiatic relationship, and appear to overlap, moreover, in their social referents during the earliest phases of their use.
From Intertextuality to Interdiscursivity: Sufi Texts and Fiqh Texts in Medieval South Asia
Amina Steinfels, Mount Holyoke College
I propose to examine the relationship of Sufi texts from pre-Mughal South Asia with works on fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and fatawa (legal decisions). The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were not only a time of rapid expansion for various Sufi orders but also one in which the study and codification of Islamic law was a flourishing enterprise. While Sufism and fiqh constituted two distinct discursive traditions, some Sufi texts of the period contain significant amounts of material quoted from legal works. This inclusion of legal material may be an acknowledgement of, and submission to, the claim to hegemonic Islamic authority made by the Shari'a and its interpreters. Or this may be an appropriation of legalistic authority by Sufi writers. That is, through the inclusion of fiqh and fatawa within a Sufi text, a claim is being made for the all-encompassing authority of the Sufi tradition.
Wise Servants and Virtuous Kings: Sufi Writings as a Source of Islamic Ethics
Elias Jamal, Amherst College
This paper analyses moral and ethical Sufi writings by Sayyid ‘Ali-yi Hamadani, Najm al-din Daya and others. It contends that certain genres of Sufi writings are crucial for the nature and development of Islamic ethics, especially normative and meta-ethics. In arguing for the crucial ethical role of Sufi instruction, the paper also critiques how the almost exclusive emphasis on the experiential dimension of Sufism has caused all supposedly ‘Sufi’ writings to be seen as reflecting a pre-occupation with ‘mystical experience’.
A19-66
Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: Kierkegaard and Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Kierkegaard after Hauerwas: Christian Courage and Fortunate Fallibility in Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Jason A. Mahn, Duke University
In this paper I put the Christian character ethics of Stanley Hauerwas and Søren Kierkegaard in conversation. In particular, I employ Hauerwas's conception of sin, vulnerability, and the way courage “makes the world more dangerous” in order to forward Kierkegaard's conception of Christian courage and fortunate fallibility. Kierkegaard commends his reader to shape courageous faith by cultivating and overcoming dispositions to sin. If existentialism largely disconnects act from disposition, while classical virtue ethics directly connects them, Kierkegaard’s “existential virtue ethics' (Davenport) understands the act of faith to negatively depend on the disposition that it overcomes. I question the extent to which this negative, dialectical relationship between disposition and act might still belong to “the virtue tradition.” I also suggest that those concerned with a new form of Christendom in America might look to Kierkegaard to retrieve the virtue of Christian fallibility.
Kierkegaard and the Virtues of Weakness
W. Glenn Kirkconnell, Santa Fe Community College
This paper discusses the virtue ethic inherent in Kierkegaard's 'upbuilding discourses' in the light of Alasdair MacIntyre's writings on tradition-based virtue ethics. While MacIntyre presents Kierkegaard as something of the arch-liberal ethical absurdist, it is pretty clear that his signed works conform to MacIntyre's description of the Augustinian tradition. An examination of the epistemological comments of J. G. Hamman shows that Kierkegaard's ethical comments in the discourses are based on philosophical concerns as much as on theological ones, and that these constitute an Augustinian reaction to the breakdown of the Enlightenment project of establishing universally accepted, rationally based ethics. This leaves three unanswered questions: Does Kierkegaard offer reasons why his alternative should be adopted over any other? Does his alternative have anything to offer to the non-theist? And finally, is Kierkegaard better understood as speaking to the Augustinian tradition, or to the universal human condition as finite knowers?
A19-67
Korean Religions Group
Theme: Religion and Politics in Korean History
Though forbidden conversation topics at a dinner party, religion and politics have long been fused in the Korean experience. This session will focus on the way that religions and religious personalities in Korea have historically used political means to achieve religious and political ends, and how dominant political groups have used religions for political purposes.
Buddhist Monks and Political Power in Late Koryô-Early Chosôn: The Trajectory and Strategy of Muhak Chach'o
Patrick Uhlmann, University of California, Los Angeles
The monk Muhak Chach'o (1327-1405) was a prominent figure in Korean Buddhism during the period of dynastic transition from Koryô to Chosôn. Scholars have suggested that his connections with Yi Sông-gye, the founder of the Chosôn dynasty, and his involvement in the selection of present-day Seoul as the new capital, resulted from his expertise in geomancy.
However, as geomancy belonged to the common repertoire of monks, this only partially explains how Muhak obtained and preserved his access to political power.
This paper argues that Muhak was of low social origin, that he did not take or pass monk-examinations, and that he thus lacked support from the Buddhist establishment.
Muhak gained legitimacy by associating himself with the charismatic monks Zhikong and Naong, promoting their cultic worship, and coining fictive Dharma-lineages. This, rather than his geomantic skills, enabled him to build up connections with the power groups of the Chosôn dynasty.
The Korean Use of Religious "Orthodoxy" as a Political Weapon: The Parallel between the Seventeenth-Century Confucian Ritual Controversy and the Twentieth-Century Christian Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
Weon Chu, Brookline, MA
This paper attempts to highlight the political nature of the doctrinal disputes commonly manifested in both of the Korean Neo-Confucian and Korean Presbyterian fundamentalisms by using Max Weber's notion of 'elective affinities' between the claim of orthodoxy and factional interests. This paper first details the ritual controversy between Song Si-yôl and Yun Hyu. In their fight for power, Song had successfully established himself as the guardian of orthodoxy, using it as a weapon to kill the opponent Yun. This paper also details the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the Korean Presbyterian Church between Hyung Nong Park and Chai Choon Kim. Park reiterated the pattern of factional strife in Chosôn Neo-Confucianism where the ideological stigma of heterodoxy was used to win over the political enemy or opposing faction. This parallel shows us that Park unconsciously showed the cultural “habitus” in using religious orthodoxy as a political weapon.
Shinto Religion, Politics, and Christian Response in Korea
Wi Jo Kang, Wartburg Theological Seminary
This paper discusses how the Japanese colonial government in Korea used Shinto religion for political purposes. Shinto religion was made the state religion of the Japanese Empire at the time of the Meiji restoration and it was closely identified with Japanese polity and politics until 1945 in Korea. The Imperial Diet of Japan, in 1919, passed a resolution to build a 'National shrine' for Shinto religion in Seoul. Eventually the government spent a considerable amount of money to establish Shinto shrines throughout the country. The government explained that the participation in the Shinto shrine activities were not religious acts but patriotic civil activities. Christian communities in Korea strongly opposed Shinto worship and believed that the worship of the Japanese imperial spirits was idolatry. However, eventually all major Christian denominations in Korea accepted the Japanese explanation that Shinto worship was not religious. Those who opposed were imprisoned and suffered martyrdom.
Deconstructing Religions: Religions in the Age of Nukes and Anti-Americanism
Yun Cho, Claremont Graduate University
This paper discusses and evaluates the relation between politics and religions, focusing on Protestant churches in South Korea. International politics is one of the most determining factors which have influenced South Korea today. Nations like North Korea and the United States of America have challenged South Korean politics. Korea was the fastest growing Christian country in Asia during the last century and has the largest Protestant population in Asia today. However, Korean Christianity has been challenged internally and externally. On the one hand, the churches are challenged by their own corruption, and on the other hand, the churches confront the challenges from other religions like Islam. Furthermore, the North Korean nuclear policies and anti-Americanism influence the Korean’s perception of the churches. Analyzing the relation between politics and religion in South Korea, this paper will argue that religions and politics are inseparable factors that have formulated South Korea today.
A19-68
Nineteenth-Century Theology Group and Mysticism Group
Theme: Late Nineteenth/Early Twentieth-Century Approaches to Mysticism, East and West
Buddha-Nature as the Unity of the Two Truths in Mi-pham’s (’Ju Mi Pham Rgya Mtsho, 1842-1912) Interpretation
Douglas S. Duckworth, Florida State University
Buddha-nature, an innate quality of beings in the world, is a central theme in Mi-pham’s (’ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846-1912) exegesis of his Nying-ma Buddhist tradition of Tibet. Mi-pham's affirmation of the presence of Buddha-nature as intrinsic within the ground of existence depicts a narrative of discovery that is a central theme within the esoteric discourses of his Nying-ma tradition. This paper explores how Mi-pham formulates Buddha-nature within a systematic representation of the relationship between the denials and affirmations of Buddha-nature. His interpretation represents a synthesis of esoteric and exoteric doctrinal exegesis that has accompanied an institutional transformation of the Nying-ma tradition from a non-monastic community into a monastic one. I discuss Mi-pham’s description of Buddha-nature within his depiction of two models of the Buddhist doctrine of two-truths—a formulation of truth that draws from a synthesis of negative dialectics and foundational truth—a synthesis at the heart of Tibetan scholasticism.
Maurice Blondel: Philosophy, Prayer, and the Mystical
Michael J. Kerlin, LaSalle University
Maurice Blondel: Philosophy, Prayer and the Mystical
The central document for understanding Blondel's thought about what he calls 'la mystique' (as distinct from 'le mysticisme') is 'Le Probleme de la Mystique,' the opening piece of a set of essays 'Qu'est-ce que la Mystique?' 'Le Probleme de la Mystique' concerns mainly the relationship between philosophy and the mystical. Since it extends its critical reflection to the whole of human experience, philosophy should be able to consider the conditions for even those experiences that depend upon gifts beyond all natural human powers. But Blondel's comments about philosophy and prayer in 'L'Action' (1893) and 'La Pensee' (1934) lead one to the conclusion that, beyond being critical reflection on experience, philosophy itself is prayer with its fulfillment in the mystical. The purpose of the paper will be a critical development of these connections beyond the explicit argument of 'Le Probleme de la Mystique.'
The Modernist and the Mystic: Albert Houtin's Une Grande Mystique
Charles J. T. Talar, University of Saint Thomas
In the second third of the 19th century the Abbey of Solesmes, under the leadership of Dom Gueranger, assumed leadership in the movement in Catholicism for liturgical reform and restoration. In the last third, however, it was marked by a turning inward toward mysticism and contemplation. This was accompanied by considerable controversy, which centered on Mere Cecile Bruyere, superior of the women's abbey, and Dom Delatte, third abbot of Solesmes.
In 1925 Albert Houtin published a memorandum that had been confided to him years earlier by one of the monks, Dom Sauton, with instructions that it be published after the author's death. It details the controversies and divisions within the monasteries, centering on the role played by Mere Cecile and evaluating her claims to mystical experience. By then Houtin had renounced Catholicism and embraced freethought. Sauton's text resonated with his own sensibilities regarding mysticism and religious experience more generally.
Particular and Universal: Problems Posed by Shaku Sōen’s “Zen”
John M. Thompson, Christopher Newport University
Shaku Sōen (1859-1919) was a tremendously important figure who has been virtually ignored by students of mysticism. Focusing on Sōen’s writings I will sketch out a rough theory of “mysticism” that Sōen seems to hold, pointing out resonances with views espoused by major scholars of mysticism (James, Stace). When we consider such material in conjunction with details of Sōen’s life, he emerges as a complex man. While not an original thinker, Sōen was quite extraordinary — a man disciplined in a traditional Zen style but with a modern scholarly background, whose outlook was staunchly Japanese yet very cosmopolitan. Indeed, Sōen embodies the paradoxes that we see in several of his contemporaries (e.g. Vivekananda, Dharmapala). This creative tension combined with his personal charisma and missionary zeal make Sōen an intriguing figure. Simply put, scholars of mysticism cannot afford to ignore him.
May Sinclair: Mystic Modern
James H. Thrall, Duke University
Recognized in her day not only as an innovative writer of fiction, but also as a philosopher, British author May Sinclair (1863-1946) drew on a largely self-directed immersion in nineteenth century thought to shape a mystic sensibility outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. Against the backdrop of a crisis of meaning defined largely in terms of mortality, and sharpened by the outbreak of the First World War, she advocated a new idealism, seeking a self-authenticating spiritual orthodoxy apart from the old orthodoxy of establishment Christianity on the one hand, and the extreme heterodoxy of occultism on the other. Her complex representation of mystic experience, with its simultaneous emphases on both an idealistic transcendence and a pantheistic immanence, was, in the end, her method of establishing herself as a modern women.
A19-69
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and U.S. Culture
A relationship with the Haudenosaunee “People of the Longhouse” (i.e., Iroquois) has persisted over the entirety of United States history. For example, the Longhouse system was an inspiration to the founding fathers and nineteenth-century feminists; thanksgivings which ceremonially address the whole of creation and decision making with the Seventh Generation in mind, have been an inspiration to transcendentalists, environmentalists, and ecologists; Haudenosaunee leaders like Oren Lyons, have inspired indigenous people around the world to fight together for their rights through institutions like the United Nations. The Haudenosaunee today remain among the last sovereign Native American nations completely separate from the federal government, which continue to govern themselves within the Longhouse clan system. The Haudenosaunee legacy is of profound importance and yet the legacy of this relationship is largely hidden from view. This panel will explore the legacy of the Haudenosaunee and the ongoing challenges to their cultural survival.
Misplaced Origins and Debts Ignored: Democracy Isn't Free
Schuyler Shawn, Syracuse University
A heated debate exists over Haudenosaunee contributions to U.S. democracy. Sources suggest that the controversy is primarily political: tenured 'experts' react negatively to challenges to their authority, incursions into 'their' ideological/economic territory. The History of Religions suggests other interpretations for this reaction, centering on stories of origin and ways of relating to land. 'Democracy'--in the Euro-American imagination--is founded in a temporal tale: the colonists broke free of their places of origin and took up a classical Western (Greek) tradition, attempting a return to that time. This utopian orientation to origin can be contrasted with the origin story of the Haudenosaunee confederacy, a way of governance intrinsically linked to the place(s) from which it came, and expressing an obligation to those places. The Euro-American story conceals debts to place and to the people of that place. This both obscures Haudenosaunee contributions and influences the equation of 'democracy' to 'freedom' (vs. 'responsibility').
What the American Founders Did Not Learn from the Haudenosaunee
Chris Jocks, Arizona State University
Rather than looking at the influence of the Haudenosaunee on the governmental system of the United States, this presentation will focus on six indispensable dimensions of Longhouse practice that are conspicuously absent from it. These six principles can be named as follows:
1. Consensus: government based on persuasion rather than coercion
2. The Good Mind: the source of real consensus
3. Women: cultivators of the future
4. Condolence: healing has to come first
5. Nationhood: the ground we walk on
6. Leadership: listening and voicing
In local contexts of small-scale change, principles like these may have real promise: in schools, and in humanly-scaled workplaces and organizations of all kinds. Where such re-thinking works, it will be a result not of imitation but of thoughtful reflection upon Longhouse practice and experience in ways that respect both the original soil and the new.
Clan Mothers: The Role of Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers in Survival of the Iroquois Confederacy
Nancy Napierala, State University of New York, Buffalo
Clan Mothers: The Role of Haudenosaunee Clan Mothers in the survival of the Iroquois Confederacy.
An historical outline of the unique role of female leaders of clans in the Iroquois Confederacy and their importance in the survival and revival of the culture.
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists
Sally Roesch Wagner, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation
I will explore how the woman’s rights movement took form in the territory of the Iroquois confederacy, where women have always lived with considerable status and authority. I will share research on how Haudenosaunee women fired the revolutionary vision of early feminists by providing a model of freedom for women at a time when EuroAmerican women experienced few rights. The thought of Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was shaped by their involvement with their indigenous women neighbors in upstate New York. Having no legal existence, once married, EuroAmerican women learned and were inspired by the decisive political power, control of their bodies and property, religious voice, custody of their children, satisfying work, and absence of rape and domestic violence women experienced in Haudenosaunee nations. Supporting treaty rights and native sovereignty, Matilda Joslyn Gage was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation.
A19-70
New Religious Movements Group and Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation
Theme: Neo-Pagan Religions in Central and Eastern Europe: Identity, Community, and Challenge
This session will examine the resurgence of pre-Christian and Pagan religions in Central and Eastern Europe. It will be particularly focused on Slavic and Baltic forms of Neo-Paganism, with reference as well to Neo-Shamanic practices. Participants will include scholars from and with expertise on Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. The presenters will probe the motivations of Neo-Pagan adherents and relate them to broader developments of the post-Soviet/post-Socialist world, including the rise of environmentalism, especially in the immediate years following the Chernobyl nuclear accident; the upsurge of ethnic nationalism and ethnic identity movements from the 1980s until the present; and processes of 'westernization' and globalization, along with the growth of anti-western and anti-globalist reactions.
A19-71
Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Group
Theme: Perspectives from the Post-Analytic Philosophy of Language in the Study of Religion
Post-analytic philosophy is revolutionizing debates about the relations between mind, language, and world. This panel will consider the prospects and problems of applying the insights of this movement to the study of religion. Whether one wishes to construct or deconstruct the category of religion, we argue that a fundamental prerequisite for doing so is a proper understanding of language and its embodiment in the world. Scholars of religion utilizing post-analytic philosophy believe that religion requires no special theory of language to account for it apart from a well developed theory of ordinary language, and that religion is not a representational scheme through which one sees the world. By taking semantic conflict and material difference seriously, while at the same time recognizing the holistic basis of communication, this strategy caters both to cultural diversities and epistemic unity, which are the basis of comparative and general studies of religion.
A19-72
Reformed Theology and History Group
Theme: Reformed Perspectives on Genetic Engineering
Conversion, Grace, and Illumination: The Contribution of Jonathan Edwards’ Virtue to Debates about Personhood in Bioethics
Elizabeth Agnew, University of Notre Dame
Recent discussions within secular bioethics demonstrate an interest in considering the views of personhood articulated in different religious traditions. This essay develops one such view by retrieving Jonathan Edwards’s understanding of humanity as the basis for developing a Reformed account of personhood. Relying primarily on the Two Dissertations and the Treatise on Religious Affections, I show that Edwards’s account of human nature is connected to a notion of virtue that effectively challenges the concerns with technology raised by many bioethicists. In contrast to other virtue ethics, Edwards rejects the link between virtue and habituation and emphasizes a view of virtue as something achieved only through conversion and illumination.
Image and Substitute: The Vicarious Humanity of Christ in a World of Genetic Engineering
Christian D. Kettler, Friends University
'At some stage in the future we will have to decide how human we wish to remain ...' The words of the biologist Edward O. Wilson are troubling to hear. What is to become of Reformed theology in such a world of spectacular exhibitions of human will? The image of God based on the vicarious humanity of Christ in the theology of T.F.Torrance proposes a way in which our ideas of humanity, not just God, are replaced by Christ, the unique substitute. Christ both critiques capricious adventures in genetics, yet embraces a ministry of healing through genetic therapy. Implications of Christ as the unique substitute, as the vicarious image of God in relation with the Father, and as the vicarious healer affirm the uniqueness of the human being created by God (vs. a clone of a human),yet promotes the imperative of genetic therapy as a healing ministry of Christ.
Genetic Determinism and the "Freedom of the Gaps": A Compatibilist Response
Jesse Couenhoven, Villanova University
Does genetic knowledge of ourselves affect our understanding of human freedom? I argue that it does, particularly when we take the possibility of genetic determinism seriously, avoiding a 'freedom of the gaps' that presumes scientific progress will not bring to light further evidence for genetic determinism. An approach that enables us to avoid this mistake is the compatibilist view that we are responsible for states or actions of our intellects and wills. This view implies that--because we own them, and they make us who we are--we can be responsible for genetically based traits, or actions that we perform because of those traits, even though we did not choose those traits prior to having them. I defend this view in my paper, and explore along the way whether genetic determinism might have different implications for freedom than determinisms of other kinds.
Still Being Human: The Image of God and Embodiment after the Genome
Robert A. Pyne, Dallas Theological Seminary
A Reformed understanding of the image of God is here applied to the concepts of freedom, responsibility, and purpose in a technological age.
A19-73
Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group
Theme: Religion and Activism in Latin America and the Caribbean: In Honor of Oscar Romero
This panel is dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero on the 20th year of his death. Monseñor Romero was one of the most active and exemplar radical Christians in the Twentieth Century. His work and peaceful struggle for justice in El Salvador openly defied support of war and indifference to genocide. He became champion of the poor and defender of the oppressed. His legacy of a decolonizing spirituality and activism continues alive today and will forever be a source of inspiration to all those who oppose the misery of poverty and the violence of war in its many gazes and expressions.
Romero's Legacy in Context
John A. Donaghy, St. Thomas Aquinas Church
Oscar Romero has assumed mythic dimensions since his 1980 assassination. Central to the Romero mythology is his alleged “road to Damascus” conversion on the way to Aguilares after the assassination of Rutilio Grande. However, Romero’s emergence as the voice of the Salvadoran poor and oppressed is rooted in his own predilection for the poor and the sick and his loyalty to the church, as well as in the history of a San Salvador archdiocesan pastoral model which he inherited from his predecessor. A series of events, several connected to some of his close friends, had been moving Romero to a more direct and liberating style of pastoral leadership. The death of Grande brought Romero to the point of some critical decisions that set the tone for the archdiocese in the late 1970s. The conditions that were present to make Romero’s legacy significant reveal the roots of liberating pastoral praxis.
Oscar Romero's Commitment to Liberation and Reconciliation
David Tombs, Trinity College, Dublin
Much of the literature on Oscar Romero’s life and work as Archbishop of San Salvador (1977-80) draws attention to his solidarity with the poor in his pastoral work, and the role of liberation theology in his understanding of Christian faith. This paper argues that whilst Romero’s concern for liberation was certainly a central dimension to his work and thought, his commitment to reconciliation was an equally important influence on what he said and did, even though this side of his life is often overlooked. Romero’s prophetic witness as archbishop needs to be set in the wider context of his desire for reconciliation and unity in both Salvadoran society and in the church. It was his ecclesiological and Christological commitment to reconciliation that facilitated and guided his transition from political conservatism to social radicalism during his time as archbishop.
Resistance and Liberation Struggles among Caribbean Coolies: The Religious Imagination of Bechu - "Bound Coolie'"Radical
Michael Jagessar, Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education
This paper will explore the nature of the resistance and subversion of Indo-Caribbeans by examining the role of religions and the religious imagination on Bechu during the period 1894 -1901. Bechu, a 'bound coolie', was a subversive and oppositional voice against the English colonial and Plantocracy in British Guiana (now Guyana). This is a contribution, from an Indo-Caribbean perspective, to the discourse on liberation, resistance and subversion in the region.
Still Struggling toward a New Earth: The Integration of Faith and Practice within Centro de Estudos e Ação Social
Thia Cooper, Gustavus Adolphus College
This talk explores the integration of theological reflection with post-development work and advocacy in Centro de Estudos e Ação Social, a Jesuit-founded civil society organization based in Salvador, Brazil.
Stemming from liberation theology, they continue to use the methodology of action and reflection, the hermeneutical circle. This circle critically reflects in community on reality and spirituality, each in the light of the other. In their analysis of reality, CEAS rejects economic development and globalization, and instead focuses on the political realm, encouraging the poorest communities to struggle with the local government, building their capacity as citizens. From this reality, theological themes emerge: the poor as the starting point for theology, sinful structures, conscientization to share power, and the Eucharist as a potential model for life in community. Finally, CEAS considers this hermeneutical circle to be a multifaith process, a crucial theme for CSOs today.
A19-74
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Group and Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Theme: Interrogating Ontotheology: Tillich, Heidegger, Marion, and Caputo
Beyond Being: Tillich, Marion, and Caputo on Why God Does Not Exist
Russell Manning, University of Cambridge
This paper defends Paul Tillich’s non-realist understanding of God as consistent with yet supplementary to contemporary theological non-realism. Tillich’s view is considered alongside the conservative theological positivism of Jean-Luc Marion’s ‘crossing of being’ and John D. Caputo’s radical postsecular claim that God is ‘without being.’ However, in contrast to both predominant contemporary non-realist positions, which in effect enact a theological acceptance of the validity of Heidegger and Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ of the philosophical basis of Christianity, this paper argues that for Tillich’s Christian NeoPlatonism the assertion that God is ‘beyond being’ is the starting point for a philosophical theology. It argues that Tillich’s understanding of God as the unconditioned ground and abyss of meaning and being that is itself beyond being enables a constructive philosophical theology of engagement with the divine through the correlative relation of revelation and the contemplative discernment of the traces of the divine within and through culture.
Tillich and Heidegger on Being
Martin Gallagher, University of Kansas
This paper considers the intersections between Paul Tillich and Martin Heidegger on the thought of Being. I don't argue that Tillich was influenced by Heidegger as much as that they shared influences from German romanticism, idealism, and Kantianism. Both thinkers wanted to snatch existence away from the dominance of metaphysical theism, in order to interpret it on its own terms. This required a disposition of courageous resolution to confront das Nichts, both as a yawning abyss and a dialectical no, which enable more positive affirmation. Both thinkers lie within the ontological tradition, and overcoming self-estrangement is to Tillich what overcoming homelessness from oneself is to Heidegger. In the end, I suggest that Heidegger’s positive affirmations remain more firmly connected to his negations, which is why he is not able to affirm a concrete religious expression, while Tillich is able to affirm historical Christianity, albeit outside the boundaries of traditional theism.
God-Less Thinking: The Question of Onto-Theology in Heidegger and Tillich
Mario Costa, Drew University
This paper engages the thought of Martin Heidegger and Paul Tillich on the question of onto-theology. Perhaps no theologian has so explicitly engaged in onto-theology than Paul Tillich. Unlike his contemporary, Martin Heidegger, Tillich seems untroubled by the identification of God with being (or being-itself). It is nevertheless striking that Tillich should make such theological moves (if such moves are indeed theological) at roughly the same time that Heidegger is speaking and writing so forcefully against onto-theology. While much attention has been given to the Heideggerian formulation of the problem of onto-theology, and much attention has been given to Tillich’s ontology and conception of God as being-itself, the seemingly contradictory views of these towering figures have yet to be explored. In conducting just such an exploration, this paper ultimately offers a critique both of Tillich’s ontology (doctrine of being) and his theology (doctrine of God).
A19-75
Augustine and Augustinianisms Consultation
Theme: Augustine and Community
Augustine’s Image of the Ascension: Medieval Monastic Receptions
Andrea J. Dickens, United Theological Seminary
Augustine says that God descends in order to meet fallen humanity and raise it up. The Resurrection and Ascension become not only Jesus of Nazareth’s Resurrection and Ascension but the Ascension of the Totus Christus. The Ascension is really the Ascension of the Mystical Body of Christ with Jesus of Nazareth as its head. This image appears frequently in the writings of medieval Cistercians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries such as William of Saint-Thierry, Isaac of Stella, Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Gertrude of Helfta. These Cistercians use the Ascension as a basis for their understanding of how the Incarnation saves humans. They also use this image to centralize the importance of the virtue of humility. This image grounds various beliefs, sometimes quite limited, among these Cistercians as to what constitutes community and the Mystical Body of Christ.
Sin and the City: Augustine, Sin, and Life Together
Matt Jenson, University of St. Andrews
1000 years before Luther’s famous description of sinful humanity as homo incurvatus in se, Augustine wrote of homo inclinatus ad se. The primal pair’s Edenic sin resulted from and was itself an inclining towards self, a defection from right relation with God and one another which brought them ‘nearer to nothingness’. This paper will detail various aspects of Augustine’s treatment of sinful inclinatus ad se as a model for understanding sin through engagement with Book XIV of City of God. Particularly, we will consider how his description of sin as inclining towards oneself leads to a relational view of theological anthropology which finds men and women constituted by their relationships to God and to one another.
Christian Identity and Imperial Participation: Tensions in Augustine's Ideal of Community Life
Paul R. Kolbet, Boston College
The legalization of Christianity in the fourth century accompanied by the Theodosian myth of a Christian empire created a great deal of confusion in the North African Church about its own identity in relation to a Roman imperial culture where being a Christian had become respectable. This paper examines the way Augustine, in his thirty-nine years of public preaching, sought to define the identity of his congregation in Hippo. It argues that one finds in Augustine's rhetoric a sophisticated struggle to form in his hearers a vital Christian identity that could sustain involvement with Roman governmental and civic affairs without compromising itself or diminishing its critical edge.
The Wise Master Builder: Paul as a Model for Building Community in Augustine's Commentary on Galatians
Eric Plumer, University of Scranton
Since the publication of Krister Stendahl’s seminal essay “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” there has been a growing consensus that the tradition of Pauline interpretation running from Luther to modern Lutheran scholars, with its enormous emphasis on justification by faith as the solution to the predicament of the guilty conscience experienced by every individual, had its real origins not in Paul but in Augustine. Yet what is often overlooked is that Augustine as a pastor and monk was deeply concerned with the communal aspects of Paul’s teaching as well. Indeed, in his Commentary on Galatians -- his only complete Pauline commentary -- these communal aspects are paramount, so that the dominant image of Paul is that of the master builder of Christian communities: preaching the gospel, upholding its truth, defending the dignity of Gentile believers, and striving to secure peace and unity in Christ.
A19-76
Foucault Consultation
Theme: Bodies and Spaces: Foucault and Philosophy of Religion
How might philosophies of religion proceed after a serious encounter with the work of Foucault? This session will examine ways in which bodies and spaces figure in such thinking, with the aim of moving critical thought about religion forward--both through and beyond Foucault.
Heterotopic Theology: Toward a Liminal Foucauldian Space of Thought
John McSweeney, University of Limerick
Contemporary Christian theology is confronted with the problem of articulating its specific ‘theological’ identity and recognising how that identity is nonetheless constituted only in relation to other discourses. This paper argues that Foucault’s notion of heterotopia offers a means of conceptualising this problem beyond the problematic dichotomies typical of modern and postmodern thought. In particular, it proposes that Foucault’s later practice of thought can be usefully refigured in spatialised and heterotopic terms. It is argued, that the multiplicity of what Foucault calls the 'emplacements' within heterotopia supports the idea of identity as specific rather than diffused, yet multiple and dynamic. A heterotopic theology is invited to a ‘liminal’ practice which uncovers the complex multiplicity of its identity, and the ethical potential represented by the self-displacement implied in the complexity.
Scratching the Surface: Making Meaning on the Screen of The Pillow Book and the Skin of the Incorporeal God
Jenna Tiitsman, Union Theological Seminary
Foucault’s interrogations of interiority locate meaning-making on the skin. However the danger in superficial sites of signification is the implied visual accessibility to meaning. Cultural code becomes flattened into a text to be deciphered; we lose that which we cannot see. Ascription to superficiality calls for a confrontation in any Christian address of post-structuralism: how can we conceive theologically of the skin as a site of signification when constructions of God refuse a topical boundary upon which meaning can be enacted or inscribed? What are strategies for recovering the boundlessness of the skin as a site of signification? The proliferation of inscribed surfaces in Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (1996) foregrounds, or only-grounds, the surface while dislodging any singular or stable meaning. The unreadability of the body-texts in this film can be read with the complicated surfaces emerging in the philosophies of Deleuze and Guattari and Catherine Keller.
The Preponderance of Objectivity: Foucault, Adorno, and the Politicization of Melancholia
Matthew S. Waggoner, University of California, Santa Cruz
In this climate of theory it is unfashionable, but still requisite, to recall not only the repudiations of reason within traditions of criticism we admire, but also their concerns about abandoning certain political fantasies. In Foucault and Adorno one finds, amidst contradictory claims, the presentiment that in light of reason’s failures what must be sought is not alternative sources of emancipation, but the politicization of loss and failure, of impossibility as such. This is the melancholic imperative implicit in the preponderance of the objective, which I shall argue is implicit throughout the work of Foucault and Adorno. In sum, this paper suggests that one of the vital contributions of Religious Studies is not merely to affirm religion in any case, but to register the ambivalence with which religion on one hand, and secularity on the other, figure into histories of social critique in the West.
A19-77
Religion, Media, and Culture Consultation
Theme: Mediating Transcendence in the New Millennium
Altered States: Travel, Transcendence, and Technology in Contemporary Vodou Practice
Alexandra Boutros, McGill University
In North America, where media and commodity cultures often shape religiosity, the distinction between producer and consumer can be difficult to make—consumers transform themselves into producers and producers become clearly signified audiences. Ethnographic research into Haitian Vodou communities and networks shows a practice of “production” and dissemination of Haitian Vodou in multiple forms. Vodouists generate their own media around the Vodou religion. These production practices allow for a mediation of Vodou on a global scale in ways that seem innovative and unprecedented. However, this production is commensurate with the discourses and cosmology of Vodou. Possession performance, one of the central rituals of Vodou, can be understood as a form of media. In the performances of possession practitioners, and the gods or goddesses that inhabit them, disseminate the cosmology and history of the religion and generate a discursive space for incorporation of new material into the religious compendium.
September 12, Madrid, and Kabul Kaboom! Shockwave Gaming and the Construction of Muslim Identity
Jill Gorman, Rollins College
This paper will explore the construction of Islam in three online videogames produced in conjunction with newsgaming.com. Described by MIT as “a new form of political expression,” newsgaming.com specifically designs games to provoke in its players critical thinking about political issues such as war and terrorism. However, through a close examination of three games-- Madrid, September 12, and Kabul Kaboom!-- this paper argues that the presentation of Islam within these shockwave games should be embraced with more ambivalence. Although they do provide a forum in which to think, the games also construct problems consistent with the representation of Islam in other forms of Western public discourse. It will also be argued that the videogames can be used pedagogically to illustrate how these constructions of Islam are consistent with those produced in other forms of Western public discourse. For the presentation, examples of each game will be presented to the audience.
Tactical Heterotopias and the Space of Religious Performance
Annie Blakeney-Glazer, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This paper stems from my work on a performance ethnography of North Carolinian noise performer Scotty Irving, known as “The Clang Quartet.” Irving enacts the life of Jesus Christ through use of his homemade instruments and percussion. His performances generally occur in secular, independent music venues, representing a displacement of religious activity. My paper employs Michel Foucault’s concept of the heterotopia and Michel de Certeau’s analysis of everyday practices to reread Irving’s performance and engage larger questions of religious performativity. The heterotopia, as a space of inversion, provides an analytical tool for understanding the dynamics of religious performance in non-religious spaces. I will argue that heterotopias can be tactical, used to sidestep and evade socio-cultural norms. By reading religious performance in this way, a theorist is able to take seriously the subject, the performance, the space, and the bodies involved.
Digital Ecstasy: Simulating Religious Experiences in Cyberspace
Alison R. Marshall, Brandon University
This paper discusses a project to create a virtual temple (lingji.brandonu.ca) to stimulate individuals in cyberspace to have religious experiences and to provide a teaching tool for communicating the details of Lingji religious practice.
Lingji are Taiwanese mediums who enter trance when they are moved by a spirit. They often describe the possession experience using words that emphasize the flow of media. Moreover, when mediums or their assistants explain what mediums do they often refer to them as television sets or stations that transmit spiritual messages. Summarizing the debates about cyber-spirituality, the paper concludes that the biggest obstacle to cyber-spirituality is transforming ordinary cyberspace into something sacred. According to lingji beliefs, cyberspace can be sacred because ling can exist and cause one to be moved or possessed by it anywhere—in a park, in a temple, in an ice cream parlour, and as one Taiwanese medium remarked, “why not through the Internet.”
A19-129
JAAR International Reception
This reception is for all participants in the “Contesting Religions/Religions Contested Project” and the Board and friends of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
A19-100
Arts Series/Films: Sharon O'Brien - Readings from The Family Silver
Sharon O’Brien will give a talk and lead a workshop on the creative and spiritual meanings of memoir, including a reading from The Family Silver: A Memoir of Depression and Inheritance. Her memoir records the story of her struggle with depression (“a rude houseguest”) and her search to understand her family’s past. She uses biographers methods to weave together the scattered pieces of the past – a mother’s memo books, a father’s reading journal, family photographs, hospital records, dance cards – into a narrative of redemption. She will go “backstage” about the craft of memoir, giving examples from her own creative process to show how writing can be a journey full of dead ends and side roads as well as open spaces. She will give suggestions for ways to begin writing life stories in a personal narrative workshop. Participants will work in small groups. No experience necessary; bring a pen and a notebook.
A19-101
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Responding to Political Targeting of Religion Scholars in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education
This workshop consists of four presentations by the panel followed by discussion with the audience. Part One: The Big Picture: Recognizing a Systematic Approach to Silencing Dissent and Demonizing Critique in the Academic Study of religion; Part Two: Disparate Cases: Connecting the Dots to reveal a Common Agenda behind Regional Cases; Part Three: Mobilizing Effective Institutional and legal response: When to Call a Lawyer; Part Four: Protecting Open Inquiry in the Academic Study of Religion: Strategies with Administrations, media, and Regional Response and Support.
A19-102
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Storming the Ivory Tower: Conflict, Complicity, and Social Change
This special topics forum discusses the complex issues of identity, vocation, and multiple obligations of racial and ethnic minorities in the academy: How to deal with conflictual situations in the workplace? How to balance obligations to communities of origin and to the academy? In what ways have racial and ethnic minorities been complicit with the various -isms? How can we be accountable to a wider public and challenge the academy to be a place for social change? How can institutions attract and retain minority scholars? Panelists include Miguel Da La Torre, Hope College; Joan M. Martin, Episcopal Divinity School; John J. Thatamanil, Vanderbilt University; Andrea Smith, University of Michigan; and Debra Mubashshir Majeed, Beloit College. The AAR Career Guide for Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession will be introduced.
A reception hosted by the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee directly follows.
A19-103
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section
Theme: Ethics, Art, and Drama: Teaching Purpose and Performance
Members of this panel will address a wide range of topics related to, for example, how to: use film when teaching ethics; foster critical thinking in emotionally and politically charged contexts through the use of feminist pedagogy; use theatre to introduce students to religious experience; teach Religious Studies in a general education or core curriculum; use a spectrum approach to introduce the full range (spectrum) of Christianity’s position on ethical issues including identifying positions deemed incompatible with Christian morality. A wide variety of pedagogical approaches will be included such as experiential, contract, and cooperative learning; and issues related to diverse learning styles will be recognized.
Hitmen and Whistleblowers: Using Films to Teach Ethics
Helen Benet-Goodman, Charlottesville, VA
Films allow students to rehearse the skills composing moral reflection, including perception, moral imagination, and deliberation. In an increasingly visual culture, students are often more sophisticated visually than they are verbally, allowing them to focus on applying concepts, rather than the difficulties of the text. The presentation reviews how I prepare the class to discuss the films: preparing a study guide for the class; supervising a panel of students who plan the format and content of the class, and evaluating the final results. I draw on the films Crimes and Misdemeanors, Crimson Tide, The Insider, startup.com, and Grosse Pointe Blank to illustrate this process. I also discuss alternative ways of using film in a class: on-line discussion groups, Roger Ebert’s “democracy in the dark” method, and using short films for the final exam. Finally, I review the advantages and drawbacks of these methods.
Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies and Theology
Victoria Rue, San Jose State University
Paper: Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies and Theology
The fields of religious studies and theology are in need of fresh pedagogy.
In this presentation, I will map new approaches using theatre to introduce students to religious experience. My book, Acting Religious: Theatre as Pedagogy in Religious Studies will be published by Pilgrim Press in September 2005. My presentation will feature methodology offered in the book and approaches I use in my teaching. Theatre makes ideas palatable, visceral, available. Theatre incarnates ideas. Theatre embodies experience. It is somatic learning. Using theatre in the religious studies or theology classroom links the imagination to cognition, visceral connectivity to understanding. I will show video and photographic documentation from two introductory courses to religion.
A Spectrum Approach to Christian Ethics: Respecting Difference without Resorting to Relativism
Joel Heim, National-Louis University
While some courses educate students about “the correct” Christian position on ethical issues, others introduce students to “both sides” so that students will make up their own minds. In this paper we argue that neither approach is adequate because actual moral disagreements within Christianity reveal far more than two positions.
This paper introduces “A Spectrum Approach,” an alternative pedagogical approach to teaching Christian ethics. Rather than focusing on one or two positions, a spectrum approach presents the full range (spectrum) of Christianity’s position on ethical issues including identifying positions deemed incompatible with Christian morality. After introducing the spectrum approach, the paper describes a Christian ethics course that uses it and concludes by reviewing some practical benefits its use.
Negotiating Transformative Education through Feminist Pedagogy: Challenging Perspectives from Ethics and Art
Kathlyn A. Breazeale, Pacific Lutheran University
Negotiating Transformative Education through Feminist Pedagogy: Challenging Perspectives from Ethics and Art
Marit A. Trelstad and Kathlyn A. Breazeale
Pacific Lutheran University
This presentation examines how to foster critical thinking in emotionally and politically charged contexts through the use of feminist pedagogy. The two presenters converse with each other to model the dialogical nature of feminist pedagogy as they respond to the question: When dealing with “combustible issues” in the field of religion, how can we develop a truly democratic classroom of critical inquiry? One presenter analyzes how critical thinking skill development is enhanced when feminist pedagogy is supplemented with the theories for teaching art developed by Corita Kent. The other presenter raises questions regarding the ethics of encouraging learning that may dismantle or realign a student’s identity, personal relationships, vocational understanding and meaning structures.
Promoting Freedom, Responsibility, and Learning in a General Education Religious Studies Course: The Learning Covenant a Decade Later
Fred Glennon, Le Moyne College
This presentation discusses an approach to teaching Religious Studies in a general education or core curriculum which I call the 'learning covenant.' The learning covenant brings together various pedagogical theories, including experiential, contract, and cooperative learning, in attempts to address diverse learning styles, multiple intelligences, and student learning assessment. In this way, it has some advantages over more traditional methods of evaluation, including meeting student resistance to “required” courses head-on by inviting them to identify learning needs they have regardless of chosen vocation and engages them in meeting their needs in the context of a religious studies course; recognizing the multiple ways in which students learn and providing a variety of opportunities for students to express their learning; and allowing students an opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. The session will be interactive and provide participants with materials to incorporate this approach into their own classrooms.
A19-104
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Russian Orthodoxy in Literature and Modern Life
The session is focused on Russian Orthodoxy as it is represented in Russian Literature, Aesthetics and modern religious communities. All the participants represent the Center for the Study of Religion, Literature and Culture of Moscow State University. Elena Volkova, a presider, analyses Russian literary characters of Pushkin, Goncharov, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in their reference to two Russian Orthodox types of saints – Holy Fools and Bearers of Suffering. Oleg Komkov, a panelist, deals with the conceptions of the poetic form and contemplation in the theoretical writings of the 20th century Russian religious philosopher Ivan Iljin. He explores the iconological background as it is revealed in Iljin’s metaphysically oriented “multi-layer” model of the poetic work. Irina Karatsuba, a panelist, introduces the post-communist church phenomenon of “inventing the tradition” seen through the conflict of modernist and fundamentalist trends within the Orthodox community.
A19-105
Buddhism Section
Theme: Building Buddhism in the Neighborhood: Individual Papers on Place and Social Space
Individual papers on the relation of place and social space to the establishment of Buddhism, in four cases: the early Tibetan empire, Heian and Kamakura Japan, contemporary China, and contemporary Sri Lanka.
The papers will be followed by the business meeting of the Buddhism Section
Spirits under the Ground: The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism and the Notion of the "Dark Period"
Jacob Dalton, McMaster University
This paper focuses on an unstudied manuscript from Dunhuang and what it tells us about the Tibetan assimilation of Indian tantric Buddhism that took place during the so-called “dark period” of Tibetan history. IOL Tib J 931 is a fragmentary manuscript containing our earliest evidence of a site ritual that became popular in later Tibet. Closer examination reveals that this particular version of the rite is unique. Unlike the later versions of the rite, the Dunhuang version has been adapted for specifically Tibetan concerns. This early period saw Buddhism spread at the popular level, and if the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts tell us anything, the world of the native Tibetan land spirits were central to this assimilation process.
Sutoku and Saigyo: Centripetal and Centrifugal Religious Orientations to Heiankyo
Jonathan Stockdale, University of Puget Sound
As important as narratives of exile may be for understanding the prestige of the Heian courtly center, an equally important drive was the trend toward renunciation, with its centrifugal movement that was at once political, religious, and aesthetic. At times, in fact, the two figures could overlap and intertwine, as can be glimpsed in the poetic pilgrimage taken by the renunciant Saigyô to the exiled Emperor Sutoku’s grave far from the capital, a visit recorded in the Hôgen monogatari and picked up in the later medieval imagination in both monogatari and Noh drama. In this paper, I analyze the entwined figures of Sutoku and Saigyo as providing two models of religious orientation toward the Yamato courtly center, one “locative” and the other “utopic.”
The Spiritual Land Rush: Morality, Power, and Place in New Chinese Buddhist Temple Construction
Gareth Fisher, University of Virginia
This presentation will examine the (re)construction of Buddhist temples in rural areas and small towns in contemporary mainland China. Over the past decade, favorable government regulations on the possession of land for temple construction and the availability of money from overseas donors have led to a boom in new temple construction. This has been followed with a feverish rush by prominent and not-so-prominent Chinese monks and nuns to acquire land and construct temples with the aim of independence from the Buddhist hierarchy and financial security through their old age. While several recent studies have focused on the role of temple reconstruction in the revival of local traditions in the post-Mao era, my discussion will address the building of grandiose temple complexes as potlatches between monks and their patrons on a national and global scale.
Saving the Buddhist Religion: Caste Discrimination and the Establishment of New Temples in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Sri Lanka
Jeffrey Samuels, Western Kentucky University
Articles and monographs published during the last thirty years examining the place of caste in Sinhalese Buddhism have explored how the experiences of caste-restrictions (and perceptions of decline in the monastic order) led lay people and monastics to establish new lineages during the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Despite the fact that the establishment of these new Nikāyas opened the door of the sangha to all castes seeking ordination, caste divisions (kulabheda) continue to play a role in the experience of Buddhism in contemporary Sri Lanka. Grounded within an historical context and drawing on interviews conducted with lay people and monastics, this paper considers how attitudes toward caste serve as an impetus for low caste members to establish new temples, as well as how the laity have innovatively understood their decision to establish new temples as a means of assuaging what they perceive as the sangha's decline.
A19-106
Christian Systematic Theology Section
Theme: Revealed Beauty: The Revelation of God's Beauty in Particular Cultural Forms
Papers in this session will explore how the Christian doctrines of revelation, redemption, and bodily resurrection, as well as the vision of God that emerges from these doctrines, are shaped by differing cultural understandings of the beautiful.
The Vicarious Beauty of Christ: The Aesthetics of the Atonement
Christian D. Kettler, Friends University
Aesthetics haunts Christian theology. It both promises (David Bentley Hart) and troubles. Can the doctrine of the atonement shed new light on theological aesthetics? T.F. Torrance's doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ presents Christ as 'the perfect Eucharistic being' (Schmemann) who lives the life of thanksgiving, faith, obedience, worship, and service that becomes the basis for Christian existence and a critique of our ideas of beauty. This paper seeks to explore the implications of the vicarious beauty of Christ for the beauty of God, creation, and redemption, and the unity of the true, the beautiful, and the good. What we discover is Christ as the one who possesses the vision of God, so that humanity may share in that vision. His atoning act is not only death on the cross, but also a life of wholeness and harmony, that is, of beauty. Our ideas of beauty fail in comparison.
Mathematics, Beauty, and Theology
Karen Kilby, University of Nottingham
Theological reflection on beauty usually focuses on paintings, perhaps music. We should also attend to beauty in the less familiar context of mathematics.Of the potentially infinite amount of mathematics that could be done, mathematicians choose what is of worth, largely on aesthetic grounds.
Considerations of beauty and theology usually focus on some way in which theology is or should be about beauty, but consideration of mathematical beauty opens up the question of whether theology ought to be beautiful.
The analogy with mathematical aesthetics is easy to see in the case of the work of a thinker like Anselm, but one can also see a concern for theological beauty in Aquinas’ discussions of ‘fittingness’, and elsewhere.
The beauty of theology is important not just because it gives intellectual satisfaction, but because it intimates the beauty of God; a theology which fails to be beautiful falls into performative self-contradiction.
“A Broken Beauty”: Cultural Trajectories in Barth’s Theology of Divine Beauty
Amy Pauw, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Karl Barth locates divine beauty in the Trinitarian glory of God; this beauty finds its visible form in the incarnate Christ. Acknowledging the inevitable role that cultural understandings play in theological work, I chart a possible trajectory within Barth’s theology of Trinitarian beauty to forms of human existence and artistic production. After rejecting a cultural understanding of beauty based on an unchanging complementarity and ordered equilibrium within male-female relationships, I turn to an exhibit of contemporary art entitled A Broken Beauty. There I find both contemporary cultural understandings of the pathos and contingency of earthly beauty and a fitting analogy to the beauty of the incarnate Christ.
A19-107
Comparative Studies in Religion Section
Theme: Secrecy, Politics, and Privacy: Rethinking Religious Secrecy, Pre- and Post-September 11
This panel addresses the role of religious secrecy, in both historical and contemporary contexts. The focus is twofold, examining both the personal and the socio-political dimensions of religious secrecy, its implications both for individual religious identity and for the status of religious groups within their larger cultural contexts. As the papers on this panel suggest, the problem of religious secrecy has become particularly relevant in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the current war on terror. Not only is there the widespread fear of secretive extremist groups such as al-Qaeda operating clandestinely to spread terror; but perhaps more importantly, there is the fear that American citizens may be forced to sacrifice basic rights to privacy and freedom of religious expression in the face of increasing government surveillance, as we see in new measures like the USA PATRIOT Act.
Public Secret Religion and the Apotheosis of Duvalier, Loa 22-Os
Paul Christopher Johnson, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
This paper asks how a secretive religious group once persecuted within a state becomes 'indigenized' as iconic of the State, yet without official recognition. How does a secret society become 'public', a network everyone knows about even though its existence remains unspoken? How do secrets move from being a source of resistance to a source of oppression? I investigate the rise to power of François Duvalier, who became President of Haiti in 1957, in part through his public but secret relationship to the religion of Vodou. 'Public but secret' because he maintained, and strong-armed, Catholicism as state religion even as he circulated the knowledge of his patronage and practice of Vodou. This latter I will call a public secret religion. I argue that this tactic was successful because it drew on Vodou's cachet as a national and noiriste religion expressing resistance within an elitist and neo-colonial State.
Secrecy and Selfhood in Early Arabo-Islamic Canons
Ruqayya Yasmine Khan, Trinity University
In casting an eye on the Qur’an and early Arabo-Islamic belles-lettres (9th to 13th centuries, C.E.), one is struck by a disparity: while the scripture emphasizes a transparency of the self, a self that ought not and cannot keep secrets, the literatures promote the interiority of the self. The Qur'an seeks to forge a subjectivity, a definitive trait of which is its complete transparency vis-à-vis God. In contrast, the belles-lettres set forth the idea that a self without secrets is no self at all. In part, this disparity is explained by the fact that the scripture is concerned with the vertical God-human relation while the non-scriptural sources address relations between human beings. But is this a sufficient explanation for the disparity? What else may the disparity imply for understanding the religious and psychological significance of the secret in these canons?
Religion and Secrecy in the Bush Administration: Gentleman, Prince, and Prodigal Son
Hugh B. Urban, Ohio State University, Columbus
The current Bush administration presents the scholar of religion with a fundamental paradox. On the one hand, this is arguably the most outspokenly religious president in U.S. history, a man who claims not only to have been saved, but called by God to lead our country. Yet at the same time, this is also by many accounts the most secretive administration in U.S. history, displaying an intense preoccupation with information-control. To help make sense of this apparent contradiction, I suggest twe examine Bush through the lenses of three key metaphors: the Biblical Prodigal Son, Leo Strauss' concept of the Gentleman, and Niccolo Machiavelli's ideal of the Prince. These in turn correspond to three of the most powerful forces at work in this administration: the Christian Right; the Neoconservative movement; and the aggressive political agendas of figures like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Neoconservative theorist Michael Ledeen.
Religious Privacy after September 11
Michael Barkun, Syracuse University
'Privacy' and 'secrecy' are related but not identical concepts, particularly where religion is concerned. In American practice, 'free exercise' of religion effectively took the place of a concept of religious privacy. The latitude given to religious observance has, however, occasionally been withdrawn on the grounds that some religions subverted social and political values through their secret conduct. Such suspicion about religious secrecy has re-emerged since September 11th, along with claims that religious observance should be subject to state surveillance. This has resulted in a broadened set of FBI investigative guidelines, promulgated by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, that effectively recast church-state relations.
A19-108
Ritual Studies Group and Ethics Section
Theme: Intersections of Ritual and Ethics: Rites Shaping Ethics, Ethics Shaping Rites
Organ Donation as, or Versus, Death Ritual: A Comparative Analysis, U.S.-Japan
Ann Mongoven, Indiana University, Bloomington
This presentation explores how 'cadaveric' organ donation may be understood either as a death ritual, or as an impediment to proper death ritual. The paper addresses two cultural contexts in which organ donation has elicited very different cultural responses, political rhetorics, and public policies: the U.S. and Japan. The presentation makes a dual-pronged argument, with the two prongs in deliberate conceptual tension: (1) Ritual understandings help to explain different cultural interpretations of organ donation in the U.S. and Japan. But(2) relevant common death rituals are multi-valent, embodying internal tensions, in both cultural contexts. Deliberate transformation of death rituals can potentially change attitudes about organ donation.
Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts: The Anxious Bench as a Ritual for Freedom
Ted A. Smith, Vanderbilt University
In this paper I seek to replace philosophical caricatures of “autonomy” and “freedom” with thick, precise, limited descriptions of one core practice of democracy as it actually exists in the United States. I consider the “anxious bench” as a ritual for the formation of people free to choose. The anxious bench served as a center of revivals in the United States in the 1820’s and 1830’s. I borrow resources from Hegel and Adorno to describe the anxious bench as enacting a kind of “ideological freedom.” On the one hand, the anxious bench limited freedom in important ways. It forced people to make choices, and itt sharply limited testimonies. But on the other hand, the anxious bench created a kind of freedom relative to existing social structures. I also argue that the story of the anxious bench shows how democracy requires habits and rituals, not just structural changes.
A Double-Movement Model of Forgiveness in Buddhist and Christian Rituals
Paul Reasoner, Bethel University
A Double-Movement Model of Forgiveness in Buddhist and Christian Rituals
From the perspective of ethical analysis, we offer a double-movement model of forgiveness. In brief, the model defends an analysis of forgiveness which requires both the one seeking forgiveness and the one offering forgiveness to perform a double-movement in terms of each person’s (respective) self-identification.
We explore the viability of this double-movement model of forgiveness by examining confession and forgiveness rituals in Buddhism and Christianity. Selected confession and forgiveness rituals in each religious context provide not only test cases for the analysis, but from the ritual side also suggest ways in which the forgiveness model needs to be altered.
We end with brief comments on analogies and dissimilarities with confession, repentance, and absolution in various Buddhist and Christian traditions and an assessment of the viability of the double-movement model of forgiveness.
Concealing the Body, Concealing the Sacred: The Decline of Ritual Nudity in Mormon Temples
John-Charles Duffy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
This paper recounts the gradual decline of nudity in a Mormon temple ritual called the initiatory and interprets that decline by setting it against intersecting Mormon discourses about the body and the sacred. Mormon discourse that figures the body as a temple produces an imperative to conceal the body, as Mormons conceal temple rituals in the interest of sacred secrecy. The decline of ritual nudity in the initiatory extends the imperative to conceal the body into a realm where the imperative had formerly been held in suspension. By concealing initiates’ bodies, the revised initiatory also conceals the church’s institutional power over members’ bodies. Being an initiate myself, I examine the ethical complexities of discussing Mormon temple rituals in scholarly settings and the competing theoretical imperatives I must negotiate as I use scholarly tools to interpret a ritual in which I am religiously invested.
A19-109
Philosophy of Religion Section
Theme: Religion and German Idealism: Confronting Naturalism and Critical Reason
The German Idealists sought to articulate conceptions of religion compatible with the goal of understanding the phenomenal world without appeals to faith, tradition, or a creator. While the differences among these figures are significant, they confronted common challenges. In so doing, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and G. W. F. Hegel charted modern Western religious thought’s most influential strategies for responding to naturalism and rational criticism. This panel explores these responses, focusing on their resulting views of the nature and significance of religion.
Kant on Beauty as a Religious Symbol
Andrew Chignell, Cornell University
This paper discusses an important role that “symbolization” plays in Kant’s account of religious thought and discourse. In the first Critique, Kant famously denies that the “transcendental Ideas” of religion and speculative metaphysics have the sort of content that would allow them to figure into cognitive attitudes (knowledge, cognition, opinion etc.). He also claims that we can legitimately employ such Ideas in “faith” attitudes that are accepted on the basis of moral considerations. But he worries about whether these Ideas are “empty” or “lacking in content” given that they have no connection to possible experience. His solution appeals to the “symbolization” of Ideas that obtains during certain kinds of aesthetic experience. In religious and secular art, as well as in beautiful nature, we encounter symbols which provide a kind of ersatz content to the Ideas, and thus make them available for legitimate (though still in some important way non-cognitive) use.
Schleiermacher’s Theological Anti-Realism
Andrew C. Dole, Amherst College
Schleiermacher is sometimes described as a Kantian, convinced that knowledge of God is impossible, or as holding that religion is ‘non-cognitive.’ Against these interpretations, I argue that Schleiermacher embraces a carefully qualified form of anti-realism in the area of theology. His reasons for embracing this anti-realism are primarily strategic, and have to do with his desire to render religion compatible with the advance of scientific knowledge. The details of his position regarding the place of truth-claims within theology stem from his desire to distinguish sharply between the activities of religion on the one hand and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake on the other. His position is thus neither that religion is a non-cognitive phenomenon nor that no claims about God or other metaphysical entities can amount to truth, but that religion can and should make do with many fewer claims to truth than it typically contains.
Critical Reason, Idealism, and Religion in Hegel
Thomas A. Lewis, Harvard University
Stressing Hegel’s debt to Kant, I argue that Hegel’s philosophy of religion is fundamentally shaped by his response to Kant’s account of the spontaneity of thought. This response underlies Hegel’s claim that while philosophy and religion share a common object, philosophical concepts provide a more adequate account of this object than religious representations do. This view of the relation between religion and philosophy opens the way to appreciating what Hegel views as the enduring significance of religion: cultivating basic commitments toward others, political institutions, and the absolute, as well as expressing these commitments in narratives, images, and practices. Thus, attending to the Kantian background reveals the distinctiveness of Hegel’s defense of religion and highlights its relevance to contemporary theorizing of religion that stresses narratives and practices.
A19-110
Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Theme: Religious Discourse and Participation in the Public Sphere: Social Scientific Analyses
Sacred Visions and the Social Good: Religious Practice and Discourse toward a Just, Sustainable, Pluralistic Democracy
Larry Golemon, Dominican University of California
In this paper/presentation, I will share results from a year-long program entitled Sacred Visions and the Social Good, co-sponsored by Dominican University and the Graduate Theological Union, and funded by a community foundation in the Bay Area. The program is committed to bringing community-based scholars and reflective practitioners in faith communities together for purposes of shared research and programming in the ways that faith practices and language contribute to public practices and discourse around the social good. I share the results of three community based studies: one a faith-based community organizing project with youth, the second an interfaith collaboration between Sufis and Buddhist on sustainability, and the last on Native American perspectives on the environment in public education. I will target, specifically how faith-based practices and discourse migrate to the public sphere, to enrich public discourse.
Remembering Equality: Moral Values, Taxes, and the Contemporary American Religious Left
Robert P. Jones, People for the American Way Foundation
This paper presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork among elite activists on the contemporary American Religious Left. The research project examines the growing movement, in the wake of the 2004 presidential elections, to reclaim the term “moral values” and reconnect it to progressive conceptions of equality. Drawing from a data set of nine interviews, this paper focuses on a particular conception of equality as the unifying distinctive in liberal moral values, and I demonstrate the implications of this difference specifically for tax codes, which the Religious Left conceives as “moral documents” that convey commitments, or lack thereof, to the poor. I argue that the Religious Left has a coherent, if under-articulated, position and that this position becomes more cohesive when put into conversation with Michael Walzer’s concept of “complex equality” developed in :Spheres of Justice' (1983) and 'Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism' (2005).
Beyond Belief Alone: The Discursive Shape of the Religion and Society Debate
John Senior, Emory University
This paper offers an analysis of discourse about the place of religion in the context of American democracy. I analyze the ways in which that discourse is constrained and conducted in the contexts of politics, the media, and the academy. At each of these levels, the discourse about religion and society is guided by assumptions about the structure of religious belief, its priority in determining religious and political behavior and practice, and its priority as an identifier of identity. Following Bourdieu, I argue that this discursive pattern is best understood as a reflection of settled “relations of symbolic power” which privilege cognitive acts over embodied practices. Finally, I suggest that a more intentional analysis of the relationship between religious and democratic practices, backed by an integrative epistemological model of the reflexive relationship between belief and practice, would provide a more fruitful approach to understanding the place of religion in democracy.
The Last Cathedral: Simmel, Sacred Music, and the Market
David Horace Perkins, Vanderbilt University
This paper uses Simmel’s writings on money, metropolitan life, culture and crisis, fashion, and prostitution as a lens to explore the irony, dynamics and motives behind the production, sale, and public consumption of Praise and Worship music, which, in some varieties of contemporary Christian worship, is at the epicenter of worshippers’ experience of spiritual community and the presence of God. Simmel’s understanding of modernity, religion, and the bifurcation of culture into the objective and subjective facilitate a discussion of the negotiation of often-conflicting cultural and religious identities through cultural artifacts and the marketplace. Certain consumer culture theorists have claimed that the market is the final arbiter of cultural legitimacy. Does the increasing quantity of Christian pop culture commodities signify that the marketplace is becoming the definitive giver and taker of cultural value to religious worldview and practice? Is the market, as such, destined to become the last cathedral?
A19-111
Religion in South Asia Section
Theme: Rethinking Religion and Aesthetics in South Asia
'Religion' and 'aesthetics' are generally constructed as separate categories, but in South Asia they are often not conceptually distinct. Our panel explores this problem from the vantage point of three kinds of South Asian materials: those in which the aesthetic 1) is integral to religion; 2) is 'theologized' through specific historical processes; and 3) is abstracted complexly in modern formulations. We focus on a number of regions (Kashmir, Bengal, the Tamil country), discursive traditions (epic, analytical theory, vernacular poetry, performance), and eras (modern and premodern) as well as various redeployments of aesthetic theory. The richness of these empirical studies provides an opportunity to critically think through our received understanding about the categories, religion and aesthetics, a rethinking all the more imperative given the wide diffusion of these categories not only in the modern West, but also in colonial and post-colonial South Asia.
The Aesthetics of the Abandoned Wife: Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Dicing Scene of the Mahabharata
Emily Hudson, Emory University
The dicing scene in the Mahabharata contains one of the most poignant images of affliction in Indian literature: Draupadi’s violation at the hands of the Kauravas. What does the motif of the abandoned wife, pervasive in the Mahabharata, teach us about suffering and about dharma? This paper considers this scene through the epic’s narrative strategies, that is through the skillful manipulation of what I argue are the text’s literary and therefore aesthetic features. Through these strategies, I contend that the Mahabharata makes a specific argument about the existence of suffering and the forces that cause it. This focus is embedded in a larger argument about the relationship between religion and aesthetics in the Mahabharata. I conclude, therefore, by discussing how the problem of suffering belongs to the sphere of the “religious,” how this sphere is defined, and how the Mahabharata conveys its religious messages through its aesthetic elements.
Rama as King, Rama as God: Valmiki's Epic in Courtly and Temple Spheres
Ajay Rao, University of Chicago
The term, 'theologization,' may be used to describe the implementation of Rama worship and its relationship to the commentaries, poetic retellings, and devotional hymns composed in the Srivaisnava community of South India from 1250 to 1600. In his late sixteenth-century commentary, Govindaraja asserts that the Ramayana is not only a work of literary culture, but also a work of tradition (smrti) which explicates the meaning of the revealed Veda. In my analysis, Govindaraja thereby makes an implicit argument about the text's marked religious character. I also focus on evidence from the Vijayanagar empire to isolate the diverse interests of royal and sectarian agents in the construction of temples, instillation of Rama images, and development of a distinctive liturgy. Finally, I explore how this process of 'theologization' does not enatil a delimiting of religion from power as per modern theories of religion.
Casting Bhakti Rasa in an Ethical Role: Performed Aesthetics and the Disruption of Religious Categories in Bharata Natyam
Katherine C. Zubko, Emory University
Contemporary exponents of the traditionally Hindu dance form of bharata natyam reshape the aesthetic category of rasa, particularly bhakti rasa, through performance. This embodied conceptualization of rasa stands in contrast to philosophical and literary rasa theories, religio-aesthetic applications of rasa as found in Gaudiya Vaisnavism, and even the discussions on rasa delineated in Sanskrit dance manuals, including the Natyasastra. The fluid definitions of bhakti rasa formed by the dancers create space for the inclusion of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and other non-Hindu themes in their choreography. I contend that the reworked aesthetics of bharata natyam not only facilitates this crossing of religious boundaries, but gives precedence to shifting devotional, cultural, political, and ethical categories. Utilizing performance analysis of the danced narrative of a Biblical adulteress, I demonstrate how corporeal dimensions of an ethically framed bhakti rasa disrupt circumscribed religious traditions and religious-secular dichotomies, revealing the inadequacy of prevalent scholarly religious categorization.
Cosmic Drama and Dramatic Cosmos: Tracing the Rapprochement between Saivism and Aesthetics in Medieval Kashmir
Guy Leavitt, University of Chicago
This paper addresses the remarkably consequential convergence of aesthetics and Saiva metaphysics in medieval Kashmir. It is chiefly concerned with the central text (the Natya-sastra of Bharatamuni) through which Saiva metaphysics was entextualized in aesthetics. I argue that this work--the canonical authority for the drama and its signal aesthetic of emotive response (rasa)--was reinscribed as a Saiva text. In order to make sense of this textual reframing, I situate it in relation to the twin interrelated processes which transformed literary culture in Kashmir beginning in the 9th century: the aestheticization of Saiva ritual and philosophy and what I provisionally call the `theologization' of the drama and its aesthetic awareness. While the categories foregrounded in these processes appear to replicate dichotomies of the modern West (the secular and the sacred, for example), I argue that this apparent opposition instead illuminates a distinctively South Asian set of complementary relations.
Emotion Thrice-Abstracted: The "Vaisnava" Poetry of Rabindranath
Tony K. Stewart, North Carolina State University
At thirteen, Rabindranath Tagore published his first lyrics on the agonies of Radha’s starved love for Krsna. Published pseudonymously, the songs were hailed as an important discovery of ancient Vaisnava piety. Tagore didn't admit to the poems for a decade, until he circulated a biography of the author in a mocking european scholastic style. Later he would adamantly castigate critics’ Vaisnava intepretations under the pretext that he was no Vaisnava, rendering the poems inauthentic. Yet the aesthetic manipulation of this emotional landscape was explicitly one of devotional rasa. A technical analysis shows severe flaws by the standards of the Gaudiya tradition, including a non-Vaisnava sensibility regarding a wish for death. Yet his technique abstracted the expressly devotional rasa back into the realm of universal emotion, but not as Bharata might have enjoined. The result: an intensely personal aesthetic of love; his muse, maner manus, the “man within the heart.”
A19-112
Study of Islam Section
Theme: Contemporary Muslim Intellectuals and Islamic Thought
The Humanization of Islam or the Islamization of Knowledge?
Clinton Bennett, Birmingham, U.K.
This paper analyses contemporary or recent contributions to the debate about whether there is a distinctive Islamic epistemology which can either challenge the West’s, replace it or help to reinvigorate scientific enquiry and excellence within the Muslim world, widely regarded as in deficit. It compares and contrasts the approaches of Ismail al-Faruqi, Ziauddin Sardar and S.H. Nasr with Bassam Tibi and Abdulkarim Soroush. It argues that al-Faruqi and Nasr want to place all knowledge at the service of Islam, that Tibi and Soroush place Islam’s contribution at the service of humanity, while Sardar occupies a middle position that stresses the pragmatic purpose of knowledge. Three understandings of Islamic epistemology emerge: knowledge rooted in Islam is superior to all others; Muslims have a valid contribution to offer alongside other valid contributions; there is a firm distinction between science as neutral and religious knowledge as rooted in personal conviction
Jamal al-Banna, Mohammad Hashim Kamali, and Khaled Abou El Fadl: An Evolving Theology of Justice and Democracy
David L. Johnston, Yale University
This paper looks at the issue of justice and how it relates theologically to the application of Islamic law in our increasingly pluralistic societies. Three contemporary Muslim authors are examined on this issue: Egyptian union activist and Islamic reformist Jamal al-Banna, legal theorist Muhammad Hashim Kamali, and UCLA Islamic law scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl. All three authors argue that the message of justice at the heart of the Islamic revelation naturally leads to a democratic context under the rule of law. However, the paper argues that Abou El Fadl’s vision of shari’a and democracy is the kind of rationale that will likely attract a greater following in the long run. Bringing together theology and law, ethics and philosophy, he develops a theology of creation that empowers humankind to build on its innate sense of justice and mercy in a society that always makes room for the “other.”
"The Way and the Community": Modern Re-conceptualizations of Social Order in Indonesian Islam
R. Michael Feener, University of California, Riverside
This paper explores the intellectual and ideological lineages of contemporary Indonesian Islamist understandings of Shari’a and society, with a focus on the writings of M. Natsir and Anwar Harjono. These first two chairmen of the National Council for Islamic Da’wah (Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia/ DDII) developed their agendas for the Islamization of Indonesian society upon a foundation of radical reconceptualizations of Muslim historical understandings of ‘the Way’ (al-sunna) and ‘The Community’ (al-jama`a). Central to these developments were their appropriations of certain elements of natural law theory and politically populist conceptions of a majoritarian mandate. Through the selective adaptation of such legal and political ideas, these post-colonial religious leaders helped to forge new models for the assertion of Islamic identity and the implementation of a self-consciously Islamic conception of social order in the country’s evolving public sphere.
An Iranian Perspective on Islamic Hermeneutics
Roxanne D. Marcotte, University of Queensland
The purpose of this paper is to show how the work of an Iranian theologian can question traditional Islamic understandings of religious interpretation. Shabestari’s novel exegetical understanding provides a number of arguments for the rejection of any type of religious absolutism that would seek to impose dogmatic “official” interpretations of Islam. His critique is nourished by contemporary (Western) exegetical and hermeneutical discussions which provide him with means to defend values associated with (Western) modernity (e.g., human rights) and have not been articulated in traditional religious interpretations (Shabestari, 1999). Shabestari demonstrates that Iranian theologians can be shown be very much engaged with modernity, attempting to reconcile the Islamic tradition with elements coming from modern social sciences/religious exegesis/philosophy. The idea that Islamic religious knowledge is impermeable to intellectual development in other parts of the world is a false idea.
The Notion of a Common Language and Quietism in Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani
Mark Lazenby, West Hartford, CT
In this paper, I examine the notion of a common language and a concomitant quietism in Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In short, Sistani uses a common language of divine revelation to come to quietism about the form of government and who heads it.
In fatwas in June and November 2003 and January 2004, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani can be read as limiting himself to the common language of revelation (the Qur’an and the hadith). This common language is also for Sistani, I argue, the language of the state, and success in the affairs of the state is Allah’s. Insofar as success is Allah’s, the people of the land who submit themselves to Allah must decide the affairs of the state. Sistani himself, as the Grand Ayatollah, cannot interfere; hence his quietism.
The Problem of Orthodoxy in Islamic Studies
Michael Brett Wilson, Duke University
Scholars who study “religious” phenomena have a need for a concept of normativity to describe, compare, and contrast discourses within their field of inquiry. In Islam studies, the term orthodoxy performs this function. However, like all concepts, orthodoxy has a history and is subject to a variety of usages whose meanings are often not self-evident: semiotic slippage plagues the term.
Here I examine the problems surrounding the term in works by various scholars (W.C Smith, S. Jackson, M. Watt, P. Bourdieu). I analyze their usages and suggest a means of reconciling the conceptual problems and opportunities presented by normative language in religous studies. Additionally, the paper examines the use of normative language in several contemporary Islamic discourses and examines their link to institutions of symbolic production.
A19-113
Women and Religion Section
Theme: Innovative Methodologies in the Study of Goddess
A Method of Studying Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia: The Mytho-HistoricThealogy of Magoism
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Loyola Marymount University
In this paper I delineate a method of studying Mago, the Great Goddess, from East Asia. I have reconstructed Magoism based on my feminist analyses and hermeneutics of primary sources, which abound in myths, folklore, and toponyms including historical, literary, and religious texts from Korea, China, and Japan besides the two newly rediscovered texts--the Budoji (Epic of the Emblematic City) and the Handan Gogi (Archaic Chronicles of Han and Dan)--from Korea. Magism refers to the pre-patriarchal and trans-patriarchal tradition of East Asian peoples, which derives from the veneration of Mago as Creator, Progenitor, and Sovereign. Methodologically I name this study an East Asian feminist mytho-historic-thealogy. Magoist mytho-historic-thealogy not only incorporates Euro-American studies on Goddess religions presented by Marija Gimbutas, Carol P. Christ, and Melissa Raphaels to name a few among many but also clarifies some unsettling issues in the study of Goddess religions.
Creative and Arts-Based Methodologies in the Study of the Goddesses
Dawn Work-MaKinne, Union Institute and University
This presentation explores arts-based research methods in research into the Matronen Goddesses of the Celtic, Germanic and Roman-Era Rhineland of 2,000 years ago. In addition to religious historiography and linguistics, I also use arts-based, creative, and embodied methodologies. In arts-based methodologies, the creative practices of making, performing, viewing, participating in and thinking about art (visual, monumental, performance, musical, verbal, craft) are in themselves ways of apprehension and knowing. We can examine artistic expressions for information about women, Goddesses and religion. Equally important is the artwork and embodied creative process of the researcher. Ideally, the arts and creative activities should be able to form part of our research presentation in addition to the currently-prized written documents. Such is current practice in many feminist Goddess communities. In the academy, there is scholarly discourse about embodiment, but not much actual art or dancing or movement. How might we begin?
Partial Truths: Narrated Scholarship and the Personal Voice
Patricia Monaghan, DePaul University
Most scholarly writing is doubly non-narrative: firstly, authors present findings detached from the journey towards those findings; secondly, the resources of narrative (characterization, suspense, dynamic action, conflict) are avoided. “Narrated scholarship” offers an alternative voice for the scholar, especially for those working at the boundaries or intersections of disciplines, as scholars of goddess religion frequently are. In addition, narrated scholarship often employs a first-person voice that permits consideration of experientially-achieved knowledge. Such formally transgressive scholarship challenges the implicit Platonism of the traditional scholarly voice and instead embraces what Clifford Geertz calls “partial truths.” This paper explores strategies for effective practice of narrated scholarship in goddess studies, examining and critiquing two methodological approaches, autoethnography and heuristics. Finally, two frameworks for creation of narratives, the odyssey and the quest, are presented and discussed.
Feminist Theology and Backlash Fundamentalism: Re-Imagining Reconsidered
Lauve H. Steenhuisen, Georgetown University
The dynamic interplay between the 1993 feminist theology Re-Imagining Conference and fundamentalist forces within Protestant denominations stands as a watershed event in the history of feminist theology. The conference attempted to create a theology 'through the lens of women's experience' and encountered controversy immediately after closing: convenors received death threats and the primary conference organizer was successfully pressured to resign.
This paper creates a unique methodology to analyze the conference and its backlash: Sociotheology. The methodology is applied to feminist and fundamentalist conceptions of gender, to the use of 'Sophia' in ritual, and to the feminist creation of new rituals-all trigger issues for 'cultural fundamentalists' embedded in Protestant denominations.
The agency to imagine the divine on one's own terms and to claim liturgical autonomy threaten traditional understandings of religious power. Such clashes illustrate the need for a cross-disciplinary engagement to illumine the complexities of the theo-political motivations of gendered social movements.
A19-114
African Religions Group
Theme: African Religions and the Neo-Diaspora
Multi-Dimensional Conceptualization of the African Diaspora
Isabel Mukonyora, Western Kentucky University
With questions about the fragmentation of Shona culture, colonialism and post-coloniality in Zimbabwe, this paper shows that there are at least three layers of meaning given to the term diaspora in the African Christian thought of Masowe (Wilderness) Apostles. Case study
material from inter-disciplinary work on the Apostles, is used to highlight the connection being made between different experiences of marginality at the social and religious level where the religious imagination that makes it possible to go beyond see other ways of understanding the diasporic condition. This paper draws attention to a popular African Initiated Christian Churches whose members are scattered throughout southern and central Africa since the 1930s. The conclusion drawn is that there are more dimensions to the African diaspora than the socio-political and cultural aspects commonly associated with the history of slavery in the Americas.
West African Sufis in the Americas
Yushau Sodiq, Texas Christian University
This paper explores the emergence of West African Sufism, the Qadiriyyah and the Mouridiyyah Sufi orders in the Americas. These orders were established in Senegal by Shaykh Ibrahim Niansse Kaolaq and Shaykh Ahmad Bamba, respectively. They have millions of followers in West Africa since their emergence. In 1970s, they established their branches in the USA and Europe. In this work, I will analyze how these orders are founded in the USA, explain the methodology they employ to win and train their disciples (the muridis). I will discuss their relationship with one another both in America and Senegal. I will argue that the African Sufi orders in the USA contribute financially to their home countries through their chains of networks; they also enrich religious pluralism in the USA. Their American centers become safe havens for their disciples in solving their social, economic and spiritual problems.
Up, Up Jesus! Down, Down Satan! African Religiosity in the Former Soviet Bloc: The Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations
Afe Adogame, University of Bayreuth
African religions are increasingly engaging the diaspora as new abodes and promising “mission fields”. Two genres of Christian movements can be clearly mapped: branches of mother churches headquartered in Africa; and those founded by new immigrants with headquarters in diaspora, from where they are expanding within and back to Africa. The paper deals with the second category, the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations founded in Ukraine. While virtually all new African churches in diaspora are dominated by migrants, “Embassy” is an exception with non-African membership majority. The paper examines to what extent their beliefs, rituals appeal to a population that was until recently home to essentially communist ideas and worldview. It demonstrates how the church is gradually inserting itself in new contexts; reconfiguring their public role. It shows how the leader’s complex peregrination demonstrate one instance of religious transnationalization of African churches in diaspora.
A19-115
Chinese Religions Group and Daoist Studies Consultation
Theme: Ritual, Temple, and Power in Later Daoism
This panel brings together three papers on Daoist hagiography, ritual, and institutional patronage, which together share refrains of exorcism and exercise of power that bear on Daoist interactions with the broader, diversified field of religious entities and options in China. Taking the papers as their point of departure, the two respondents will comment on overarching themes with an eye toward highlighting fruitful prospects for collaborative research and discussion in the fields of Chinese religions and Daoist studies.
The Divine Empyrean Palace Temple Network and the Court of Song Huizong
Shin-yi Chao, Rutgers University -- Camden
The apex of Huizong’s (r. 1101-1125) promotion of Daoism undoubtedly was the project of developing the Divine Empyrean ritual movement into a new school, a school in which he was the leader and the cultic ideal. To promote the Divine Empyrean order, Huizong established a temple network across the country, formally called the Divine Empyrean Jade Purity Longevity Palaces but usually abbreviated as Divine Empyrean Palaces as the infrastructure of the campaign. This essay explores this temple network and shows that, as a result of the collaboration between the monarch and courtiers, the Divine Empyrean temples functioned as a manifestation of emperorship to commoners as well as to officials.
How to Become a God: Ritual Transformation into Deities by Contemporary Daoist Priests
David Mozina, Harvard University
Exorcizing demonic forces that cause illness and agricultural failure is a central responsibility of Daoist priests in the contemporary religious culture of southern China. Since at least Song times, Daoists have summoned fierce martial deities associated with thunder who reside in a celestial bureau called the Thunder Department (leibu). Once invoked, these dangerous deities may quell demons blamed for individual illnesses, irregular rainfall, and epidemic outbreaks. But in order to marshal the powers of thunder, Daoist priests must first ritually transform themselves into deities who are able to wield power and influence in the Thunder Department. Using audio and video, this presentation will provide a short but detailed glimpse of how contemporary Daoist priests in Hunan use a sophisticated medley of written talismans, spoken incantations, hand mudras, and dance to transform themselves into deities who are able to mobilize fearsome Thunder deities to exorcise demons and protect the community.
A19-116
Christian Spirituality Group
Theme: Varied Voices: Theory and Practice of Christian Spiritual Guidance
Reading Voices: A Bakhtinian Model for Literature, Spirituality, and Vocation
Anita Houck, Saint Mary's College
In his notion of polyvocalism, Russian literary critic M. M. Bakhtin proposes that language is “a living mix of varied and opposing voices, developing and renewing itself” in a process of mutual critique and illumination. This concept can provide a model for spirituality as both a field and a practice: both attend to a plurality of voices, including the diversity of lived experience and the variety of cultural realities—from the Buddha to Bridget Jones—that shape individuals’ sense of their own spirituality. In this sense, polyvocalism might even help distinguish spirituality from religion, which is often seen as univocal. Polyvocalism can also shed light on literary texts, which often employ several kinds of language as they address religious questions (e.g., Mark Salzman’s “Lying Awake,” Alice McDermott’s “At Weddings and Wakes”). Finally, polyvocalism can question univocal understandings of vocation and point toward more complex alternatives.
“Good Frendys of þe Spiritualte”: “Holi Dalywance” as a Model of Spiritual Guidance in The Book of Margery Kempe
Elizabeth Drescher, Graduate Theological Union
This paper argues that the elite, clerical orientation of models and methods of spiritual direction deprives the Christian tradition of important alternative approaches to spiritual guidance which contribute to traditional devaluing of lay authority and spiritual contributions in the larger Christian tradition. The paper seeks to balance the picture of spiritual guidance in Christian spiritual history as it may be applied to contemporary spiritual direction by offering the example of late medieval laywoman, Margery Kempe. The paper discusses Kempe’s spiritual development, her articulation of “holi dalyawnce”--defined here as “intimate mystical and/or interpersonal spiritual engagement”--as a primary mode of spiritual guidance, and the use of “holi dalyawnce” in contemporary spiritual direction. The paper considers its own discussion of Kempe’s spirituality as a process of respectful engagement with lay-generated spiritualities that is essential to the continuing development and practice of spiritual guidance and to the discipline of Christian Spirituality more broadly.
The Counsel of Patience: Prisoners as Spiritual Directors in Early Modern England
W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago
The letter from prison was a flourishing genre of religious literature in early modern England, and it figured prominently in the development of the devotional literature of the age as well as in practices of spiritual guidance. This paper will focus on a particular category of prison letters: correspondence between prisoners who knew that they were likely to be executed for heresy or treason. The paper will argue that the offering of spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners struggling with despair or rage raised difficult moral dilemmas for the letter writer and that these dilemmas were resolved through theological reflection on the virtue of patience.
Anthony Benezet: A Philadelphia Quaker’s Testament to the Love of God
Carole Dale Spencer, George Fox University
Anthony Benezet, 18th century Quaker educator, writer, reformer, friend and advocate of slaves, American Indians, women, children of all races, and poor and oppressed people everywhere, exemplified Quaker values and principles of the “Peaceable kingdom” to a degree not matched by any other single individual of his era, except perhaps his fellow Quaker, John Woolman. But Benezet’s influence surpassed even Woolman’s in his day because he impacted political and religious leaders internationally through his influential correspondence and his pioneering pamphleteering. Benezet’s contributions to the elimination of slavery among Quakers, and to the slave trade in England, has been well-documented, but this paper sheds new light on the spiritual influences that enabled Benezet to become a true “contemplative in action” in eighteenth century Philadelphia.
Quaker Clearness Committees: An Interdisciplinary and Spiritual Process
Stanford J. Searl, The Union Institute
This paper examines the Quaker Clearness committee process as a form of interdisciplinary application of spiritual and personal guidance in a communal framework. The paper focuses upon a distinctive integration as between theory and practice in the Clearness process. The paper explores how this interdisciplinary integration brings together the theology of a Divine Source, a socially constructed body and a psychology of submission, all in the service of a search for clarity and direction, under the influence of the Spirit or God.
A19-117
Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group
Theme: Religion, Science, and Political Discourse: Transfers and Interactions
Religion, science, and politics have often been conceptualized as different cultural domains. Over against a tendency to rhetorically differentiate these three cultural systems, this session engages their mutual dependency and interlacing. The role of religion in the US project of 'Remaking Iraq' and the tension between George W. Bush's theological determination of faith and the public fascination with forensic exactitude demonstrate the complex interweavings of political, scientific, and religious discourses. That the differentiation of science and religion is a result of (Western) rhetorical strategies of identity formation, rather than of historical necessity, is further exemplified with regard to the role of astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah that are culturally located between religion and science, as well as with regard to the 'medicalization' of religious controversy.
As a result, the discursive transfers between seemingly different cultural domains are moved to the center of scrutiny.
Discourses on Religion, Islam, and the Remaking of Iraq
Caleb Elfenbein, University of California, Santa Barbara
The United States has embarked on a project to remake Iraq. This paper analyzes the role that American public discourses on modernization, religion and Islam have had in this project. Of particular interest is how US policymakers in Iraq have deployed common elements of American public discourse on these matters in their effort to 'modernize' Iraq, especially as these assumptions show themselves in the controversey surrounding the drafting of the interim Iraqi constitution. Attention is also given to how events in Iraq are integrated into American public discourse, reinforcing existing assumptions about Islam's 'anti-modern' tendancies and the universal validity of European and American principles of modernization.
Looking for What You Cannot See: Fascination with Forensic Drama and the Blind Faith of Bush
Jenna Tiitsman, Union Theological Seminary
Mainstream media prior to the 2004 presidential election described the faith of George W. Bush as a study in conviction. On the surface, Bush’s theological determination to trust faith over facts seems to stand at odds with recent fascination with forensic crime drama (e.g. C.S.I.), a genre in which heroism is rooted in the obsessive examination of empirical evidence. However, the cultural imagination expressed in the speeches of George W. Bush and in the workings of forensic crime drama share a singular obsession with seeking and finding that which is all but impossible to see, whether a subterranean weapons store or a drop of blood absorbed by a carpet. It is my intention in this paper to explore the way such searching sight negotiates the blind faith demanded by Bush’s theological certainty. In the complicated crossbeams of our vigilant peering, are there sites of resistance to imperial conviction?
On the Interface of Cultures: Astrology, Chymistry, and Kabbalah between Science and Religion
Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Amsterdam
The rhetorical differentiation between 'science' and 'religion' as two mutually exclusive forms of knowledge about nature and the world reflects identities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Questioning the suitability of this differentiation for earlier periods of western culture, the paper explores the influence of astrology, Chymistry, and Kabbalah, and argues that these disciplines stand on the intersection of 'scientific' and 'religious' forms of knowledge. At the same time, they seem to question the very legitimacy of the boundaries between these categories. Consequently, the paper argues that scholars should acknowledge the fact that there always have been dividing lines between ways of attaining knowledge of the world, but that these lines were not between 'natural science' and 'religion.' The scholar's task, then, is the scrutiny of discourses of separation and the construction of boundaries that fostered identities in a clearly describable context of culture.
Meaning and Implications of Medicalization for the Study of Religion
Titus Hjelm, University of Helsinki
In their now-classic treatise Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness (1980), Conrad and Schneider coined the term medicalization and argued that in modern societies more and more of everyday phenomena are interpreted through the lens of medicine. In the area of social problems, for example, medicalization has signified a move away from considering social problems as moral problems to treating them as medical problems instead, as has been the case with alcoholism. In this paper my aim is to take a look at two different phenomena where medicalization affects the field of religion. Firstly, medicalization is increasingly used to label alternative religions as deviant. Instead of moral and religious arguments, deviance is created by labelling religions as 'unhealthy.' Secondly, issues of health are increasingly on the agenda of religious and spiritual groups and movements themselves. In this case religion and spirituality are presented primarily in the context of well-being.
A19-118
Evangelical Theology Group
Theme: Remembering the Life and Works of Stan Grenz
Stan Grenz, Evangelical Theologian and former chair and steering committee member of Evangelical Theology, passed away in March 2005. This session is to honor his memory, and to discuss his contributions to both Evangelical Theology and the Emergent Church discusssion.
A19-119
Religion and Disability Studies Group
Theme: Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas's Essays on Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology
Since the 1970’s Stanley Hauerwas has advocated for people with disabilities and their families. Hauerwas has consistently (if not systematically) produced a significant critique of those practices, attitudes and philosophical positions within liberal society which implicitly and explicitly dehumanise and ultimately seek to eliminate people with intellectual disabilities. Hauerwas’ perspective on disability is not without its critics. Like all good theologians, his talent lies not simply in what he says, but equally in what he challenges others to say. In this session, in conversation with Stanley Hauerwas, we will critically examine his thinking on intellectual disability as it is presented in a new book of his essays edited by John Swinton of the University of Aberdeen (Critical Reflections on Stanley Hauerwas’ Essays on Disability: Disabling Society, Enabling Theology (2005). New York: Haworth Press). We will also reflect on the impact of Hauerwas’ thinking for contemporary disability theology and ethics.
A19-120
Religion and Ecology Group
Theme: Evolution, Ecology, and Other Religious Animals
Work in religion and ecology thrives when it is literate about evolution, and yet few understand the basic workings of evolution, natural selection, and the immense life processes of the earth. The re-emergence of creationism, from biblical literalism to intelligent design, needs to be challenged on scientific and religious grounds. Our respondent will reflect upon the following topics presented by the panelists: 1) discussion of the centrality of evolution for in-depth religious responses to the ecological crisis; 2) whether graduate religion and ecology degrees should presuppose basic scientific literary in evolutionary theory, regardless of personal beliefs; 3) when “ecological theology” passes unawares as creationism, weakening its power to form vital alliances; and 4) the theme of kinship -- the ultimate in evolutionary connection -- links our species to all life, yet some religious leaders deny that humans belong in the categories of mammal, primate or, perish the thought, ape.
A19-121
Religion and Popular Culture Group
Theme: Religion and the Politics of Parody
The Fockerized Jew? Questioning Jewishness as Cool in American Popular Entertainment
Samantha Baskind, Cleveland State University
In the past few years, various critics have asserted that the proliferation and openness of Jewish characters, figures, and references in popular entertainment indicates that the Jew is now cool. Certainly, unashamedly Jewish Jews appear in multiple and increasing numbers of venues, but are they necessarily cool? When one thinks of cool, Michael Jordon, an icon of charisma, comes to mind. James Bond’s assertiveness and grace under pressure also epitomizes coolness. These personages possess a quality that transcends gender, age, race, and ethnicity. Can the same be said for the Jew? What accounts for the recent rise of obvious Jewishness, and especially religious elements of Judaism, in the entertainment world? Looking at the wildly successful film “Meet the Fockers” (2004), as well as other current pop culture representations of Jews, this paper questions what about Jewishness is cool and how viewer subjectivities influence the perception of coolness.
Pleasure Temples and Gambling Nuns: The Rhetoric of Las Vegas Religion in the Fifties and Sixties
Christina Cabeen, University of California, Santa Barbara
In the decades following the nationwide crackdown on gambling in the early 1950's, popular magazine accounts of the Las Vegas Strip utilized religious imagery with surprising regularity. Some articles compared tourist behavior with exotic pagan rituals, while others used conventional religious figures and church images to explore how Las Vegas maintained, inverted, or subverted conventional values. By presenting Las Vegas as a parody of religion, it demarcated the Strip as liminal space. This invocation of religion is valuable for understanding how people who were not necessarily religious nevertheless used religious categories to make sense of their worlds.
Comic Form, Forms of Comedy, and the Limits of Religious Criticism in American Popular Culture
Mark W. Graham, College of Wooster
Comedy, though commonly and obviously intended to entertain, often carries with it more serious aims, some of which are to offer critiques of existing social institutions and norms. With this in mind, this paper examines some of the proliferation of popular media formats and forms of creative expression (Internet, print media, television, movies: Weblogs, animated television comedies, newspapers, comic books, movies) that feature a variety of forms of comedy (satire, parody, etc.) that are in part aimed at religious life in American culture, and argues that such riches, rather than being liberating – of creating new ways and means of expression for religious social criticism -- have just as often been critically limited, both by the forms and formats they employ, and by their dissemination through networks of communication whose interests are primarily economic.
Parody and Prophecy: A Serious Look at South Park
Brannon Hancock, University of Glasgow
For over nine years, the cartoon series South Park has used parodical satire to call into question the social, political, and religious excesses of late-capitalist American culture. South Park’s creators employ rudimentary forms of animation and video collage to create a platform upon which the right, the left and the centrist receive equal helpings of derisive, yet insightful, critique. Despite its value as social commentary, South Park has not received broad-sweeping acceptance from the religious community, in part because of the series’ unconventional use of blatantly offensive and highly objectionable humour. Yet, it is because of (not despite) South Park’s use of patently scatological content that its critique of religion and society can be situated within the tradition of prophecy. Through an examination of particular clips and dialogue with the prophet Ezekiel, this paper will attempt to justify the prophetic status South Park’s voice and vision.
A19-122
Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group
Theme: Lessons Learned from the U.S./Iraq Conflicts, 1989 to the Present
This panel discussion has been created to reflect upon what we, as scholars of religion, have learned from studying the reality of the evolving conflict in Iraq. Participants will address a variety of issues, from Christian and Muslim understandings of just conflict, the morality of sanctions, environmental ethics, the influence or lack of influence of religiously-based peace movements on the conflict, and more.
A19-123
Roman Catholic Studies Group
Theme: Catholics in the Movies
Progressive Era Religion, Politics, and the Social Problem Film
Judith Weisenfeld, Vassar College
This paper examines American silent film’s participation in and contribution to discourses that located white ethnic Catholics within the complex of economic, religious, and social concerns of Progressive-era America. Using D. W. Griffith’s 1916 Intolerance and Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Regeneration to anchor the discussion, my work will explore approaches to representing Catholicism in “the social problem film,” an important genre in both pre-Hollywood and classical Hollywood film. This essay will expand that literature by examining the varied ways in which relationships between Roman Catholicism and social reform were projected in silent films, as well as contribute to the literature on religion in Progressive-era America by engaging film as an important source for understanding American discourse on Catholicism in the period.
Bing Crosby, Hollywood, and the Catholic Public Sphere
Anthony B. Smith, University of Daytona
Going My Way (1944) was one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed films of the 1940s. The story of a young Catholic priest who saves an urban parish from destitution won awards for both its star, Bing Crosby, and director Leo McCarey. Going My Way constructed Catholicism as the site of numerous cultural borders and transitions, stitching Catholicism into the very fabric of modern urban society while rearticulating it as a sign of an Americanism defined by pluralism, assimilation, and commercial entertainment. The film emerged at a period of intense change both within the American Catholic community as a younger American born generation emerged to challenge ethnic Catholicism, and American society itself as New Deal progressivism gave way to wartime unity. These social changes manifested themselves in the film’s preoccupations with border-crossings, passings, and spatial boundaries as Fr. O’Malley continually traversed the ethnic Catholic city.
The Catholic Horror Film
Peter Gardella, Manhattanville College
The Exorcist marked a turn away from horror films with Victorian settings and Christian conventions where heroes were sure of themselves and objective forces like the cross worked even if those who wielded them did not believe. In this new genre uncertain heroes needed to learn how to believe before they could triumph, and sometimes they did not triumph at all. The Exorcist emerged after the changes of the Second Vatican Council brought an opening to the modern world along with the insecurity of living within it. As the century waned, Evangelical Protestants claimed the power over the demonic in faith-based movie productions, but Catholic priests and ritual objects still signified horror in movies ranging from Hollywood’s Stigmata (1999) to the low-budget Desecration (2000). Re-released in 2000, The Exorcist still keeps alive the panic over Satanism and horror stories of ritual (and actual) child abuse.
Cops and Priests: The Decline of the Irish-American Catholic
Timothy Meagher, Catholic University of America
No film better represents the re-working of American Catholicism, specifically of Irish-American Catholics and “their” church, than True Confessions (1981). Over the course of the twentieth century, the image of Irish American Catholics and the Catholic Church that they led and dominated, changed dramatically. Irish-American Catholics moved from being Hollywood’s favorite ethnic group to being the henchmen of oppressive and authoritarian institutions. True Confessions relentlessly explores the church’s hypocrisy, its cold calculation, and its stifling of dissent. Yet True Confessions is not an anti-religious, nor even an anti-Catholic (nor even anti-Irish Catholic) picture. Indeed, it is really an exploration of what “true” religion is in the new, post-nineteen sixties context of suspicion of authority and institutions.
A19-124
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: Public Theology and Democracy
A minor but significant emphasis in these papers falls upon how Paul Tillich in his time (1886-1965) -- both in Germany until 1933, and in the U.S. thereafter -- constructed a public theology, and the senses in which his was a democratic view. The larger emphasis of the session falls upon the usefulness of Tillich's analyses for constructing a democratic public theology for today, both by way of comparison and interaction with other such analyses, and by way of applying Tillich's ideas to the concrete problems named in the titles of the last three papers.
Constructing a Public Theology: Tillich and Buber's Movement beyond Protestant and Jewish Boundaries in Weimar Germany
Marc Krell, University of Arizona
Liberal Jewish and Protestant thinkers in the Wilhelmine period attempted to mediate God’s presence in the world through their common attempts to portray divine providence in the form of a gradually unfolding process of ethical perfection in history. Yet in their efforts to remain culturally relevant within their own communities, these scholars resorted to apologetics and polemics in attempts to prove their legitimacy. Protestant theologian Paul Tillich and Jewish thinker Martin Buber later rejected this essentialism while at the same time avoiding the dialectic between history and metahistory found in neo-orthodox theology. In fact, they each blamed the disunity of modern European society after World War I on the radical division between the sacred and the secular spheres, and proclaimed the desperate need to mediate between the everyday “broken” world and the Kingdom of God by constructing a public theology situated between religion and culture, unrestricted by confessional allegiance.
Confronting the Powers: Tillich, Stout, and West on Democratic Principles and Procedures
Jonathan Rothchild, Loyola Marymount
Recent debates regarding the formal characteristics of democracy have been widespread and polemical. Whether construed as imperialistic concerns or constitutional questions, these debates compel interrogation of the basic presuppositions underlying democratic principles and procedures and the extent to which theological reflections inform them. The purpose of this paper is to engage Paul Tillich and present interlocutors on democracy. The paper has three central sections: 1) An excursus into the historical trajectories in American politics vis-à-vis the relationship between church and state; 2) An engagement between Tillich and Jeffrey Stout and Cornel West; and 3) An exercise in public theology, that is, analysis of the present policies of President Bush with respect to the perspectives of Tillich, Stout, and West. Though distinct in their approaches to public philosophy and the substantive role of theology, Tillich, West, and Stout seek to reconfigure social structures and practices to implement more justly democratic ideals.
Christofascism in America: A Tillichian Analysis of Christian Reconstructionism
Loye Ashton, Millsaps College
This paper will use Paul Tillich’s work to analyze a religious movement in the United States known as “Christian Reconstructionism” (CR) which has enjoyed increasing influence among the religious right, finding support among well-known evangelicals such as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Ralph Reed for its goal of “re-Christianizing” America. However, CR theology advocates a Christian state in which the Constitution is subservient to their Calvinist reading of Mosaic Law, where capital punishment is expanded to match Levitical purity codes, slavery in re-instituted as a form of penal retribution, women are deprived of occupations outside of the home, and religious freedom is non-existent for those who do not submit to the dominion of Jesus Christ. Tillich’s ideas on the topics of theonomy, the Christian symbol “the Kingdom of God”, and the category of the demonic provide a useful critique of this movement in current debates regarding public theology and democracy.
Does the Road of Providence Lead to Freedom? Geoge W. Bush, Paul Tillich, and the Theology of History
Guy Hammond, Virginia Tech Emeritus
The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of Paul Tillich’s categories of historical interpretation to the current Middle Eastern situation. My approach includes a twofold interest: to contribute to the formulation of a progressive Jewish/Christian perspective toward this situation, and to provide reflection regarding the adequacy of Tillich’s categories in dealing with such circumstances. We will proceed by attempting a brief sketch of the implicit “theology of history” of the Bush administration, and then turn to an explication of the relevant aspects of Tillich’s approach to history (his political theology), emphasizing the early rather than the later Tillich. Finally we will employ these categories in an “ideology critique” of the prevailing interpretation, exploring such themes as national vocational consciousness, religious substance and prophetic critique, the relation of power and justice, the place of heteronomous religion, and alternative meanings of freedom.
A19-125
Cultural History of the Study of Religion Consultation
Theme: Courtrooms, Schoolrooms, and the Making of Religion
Making Religion in the Courtroom: The Practical Implications of the Anthropologist Expert Witness
Kathleen Holscher, Princeton University
Through the twentieth century, anthropologists testified as expert witnesses in American court cases where the very definition of religion, as interpreted and executed under free exercise laws, is at stake. This paper examines the expert witness work of Omer Stewart and John Hostetler, two prominent mid-century anthropologists. Both men testified on the religious merits of practices they studied; Stewart described the use of peyote among American Indians and Hostetler the early removal of Amish children from formal schooling. By considering both the grounds for the authority granted these anthropologists by the courts as well as the layered meanings embedded in each man’s experience as “witness”, the paper works to flush out the sorts of empirical accounts privileged in the courtroom, and uncover the divergent implications that scholarly description can have upon communities of practitioners.
The Collapse of Religion as a Constitutional Construct: Can the Study of Religion Help?
Kathleen M. Sands, University of Massachusetts, Boston
In the American judiciary and in the academic study of religion, parallel changes have taken place within concepts of religion and related concepts of the secular. This paper describes three such changes – the creation of an ever more inclusive list of “religions,” the shift from normative to descriptive accounts of religion, and a recognition that no fixed or coherent boundary exists between religion and culture. As the result of these changes, the definition of religion has become an intractable problem and the religion clauses of the First Amendment are becoming inoperable. The paper illustrates these changes through Supreme Court cases involving Native American religions, Faith-Based initiatives, and sexual dissent. In conclusion, the paper suggests specific ways in which critical studies in the discourses of religion and of secularism might break this conceptual logjam, contribute to a new constitutional concept of religion, and reorient the academic study of religion itself.
The Discourse of "Orthodox Culture" in Postcommunist Russia
Brian P. Bennett, Niagara University
The transition from Soviet empire to Russian nation has been a highly complex and contested affair. Battles over the Soviet past and the Russian future have been waged in both the courthouse and the classroom. A firestorm of controversy erupted over a textbook called THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ORTHODOX CULTURE, which affirmed Orthodoxy's role in Russian civilization, but which critics condemned as retrograde and chauvinistic. The paper discusses this text as a key artifact in the constitution of religion in postcommunist Rusia.
A19-126
Queer Theory and LGBT Studies in Religion Consultation
Theme: Queering the Study of Religion
The papers in this session explore some of the many ways in which the study of religion can benefit from conversations with LGBT studies and queer theory. Examining theology and intersexuality, LGBT and queer approaches to U.S. religious history, and queer perspectives on the religious right and on religious studies scholars ourselves, these papers demonstrate the new approaches afforded by queer perspectives on religion.
Jesus as Intersexed: A Transgender Counternarrative of Embodiment
Tricia Sheffield, Columbia University
Jesus, as Christianity’s paragon of humanity, is traditionally understood by the Church as non-dual, in that he is “one in being with the Father.” That is, there is no division within Jesus’ identity; he is understood to be both God and human, as was later declared by the Council of Chalcedon. However, in American society, it seems that one must be a gender and perform its constraints according to the heteronormative system of domesticity. My paper argues for a performative gender identity that is simultaneously multiple by using a Chalcedic understanding of fully God/fully human as a hermeneutic that allows for Jesus to ‘embody’ a binary that is not either/or, but rather, both/and. From this position, I argue that intersexed and transgender narratives are sites from which to construct an identity of freedom and fluidity that dismantles the fictive narratives of normative femininity and masculinity.
Queering Fundamentalism: The Case Against John Balcom Shaw (1860-1935)
Kathryn Lofton, Reed College
In August 1916, four ministers in Elmira, New York received anonymous letters accusing the Reverend John Balcom Shaw, President of the Elmira College for Women, of sodomy. Over the next year, Presbytery assembled over fifty transcripts from letters, meetings, and individual testimonies regarding these accusations. This paper provides an analysis of this case material. Although there have been previous studies attempting to explicate the gender dimensions of evangelicalism, never have historians been offered such a concrete moment of queer identity within early fundamentalism. Until 1916, Shaw was a celebrated member of the Protestant ruling class, serving as advisor to “The Fundamentals” and leading several large urban congregations. Through an examination of the diagnostic discourse produced by the Presbytery’s investigation, it becomes clear that Shaw’s interrogators were not without theories of sexuality and gender. Their investigative remainders provide a portrait of queer categorization and gender ambiguity within American fundamentalism.
Queer Encounters: Churchmen, Homophiles, and the Council on Religion and the Homosexual
Heather White, Princeton University
The Council on Religion and the Homosexual was founded in 1964 by two Methodist clergy in San Francisco to advocate for the acceptance of “the homosexual” in U.S. churches and civil society. The first meetings of the Council at Glide Memorial Methodist Church invited local clergy and members of homophile organizations to meet and speak to each other. The primary goal of the Council was to “to promote continuing dialogue between the Church and the homosexual,” and it continued to use a model of face-to-face encounters between these two groups as it formed similar bodies in other metropolitan centers. I examine the resources and practices for this model of sexual/religious encounter, exploring the representations of religious leaders and of gay men and lesbians. I also examine how broader understandings of religion and sexuality were both circumscribed and subverted in the work of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual.
Constructing Chaos: The Religious Right, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Scholars Who Study Them Both
Leslie Smith, University of California, Santa Barbara
The “Religious Right” is understood by many scholars in terms of its vision of a particularly stringent moral order. Taking seriously the significance of subjectivity, sexuality, and discourse as explored throughout the works of Foucault, Butler, and Lincoln, it is arguable that one of the Religious Right’s more interesting characteristics is not its conception of a rigid order, but its ability to craft the threat of an impending and all-encompassing chaos that endangers this sense of order. Moreover, this paper will argue that a significant number of Religious Right scholars engage in discursively similar arguments to promote their own normative agendas. The fact that chaos and order are an inseparable, rhetorical couplet used by both the Religious Right as well as its scholarly interpreters underscores the necessity of queer theory’s examination of the dynamics of power, authority, and legitimation techniques, and how such techniques work to essentialize the “self-evident.”
A19-130
Plenary Address
Theme: AAR Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony: Hans Hillerbrand, On Book Burnings and Book Burners: Reflections on the Power (and Powerlessness) of Words and Ideas
(and Powerlessness) of Words and Ideas
A native of Germany, Hans J. Hillerbrand did his graduate work in theology and religion at the University of Erlangen, Germany, with a focus on the Protestant Reformation. After briefly teaching at Goshen College, he received an appointment to the faculty of the Divinity School at Duke University in 1959, where he taught until 1970, when he moved to the History Department of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 1981, he accepted the position of provost at Southern Methodist University, and in 1988 he joined the faculty of the Department of Religion at Duke University. A specialist in the Reformation, his publications include two bibliographies of Anabaptism, a monograph on religious dissenters in early modern Europe, and the Protestant Reformation, as well as the editorship of both the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation and the Encyclopedia of Protestantism. He has served as president of the Society of Reformation Research and the American Society of Church History. He has been editor of the Archive for Reformation History, Church History, and the Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte. The faculty of Montclair State University conferred the honorary doctor of laws on him.
A19-131
Arts Series/Films: Dennis and Dan Bielfeldt - Jazz on Sax and Piano
In addition to being a Philosophy and Religion Professor and a member of the AAR, Dennis Bielfeldt is a jazz pianist with a degree in piano performance. He has done club work throughout the Midwest, particularly in Iowa City and Des Moines, IA, Wichita, KS, and Sioux Falls, SD. He has played with scores of musicians, has taught jazz piano, and has worked as a clinician. He especially enjoys recreating the sounds of the great solo jazz pianists of the thirties and fourties. Dennis' 19 year-old son Dan is already an accomplished jazz saxophonist who has performed in various venues. He has been the first-chair all-state jazz sax player in South Dakota the last three years. He particularly enjoys playing be-bop.
A19-132
Arts Series/Films: Dogma
Directed by Kevin Smith, 1999, R rated
Even before Kevin Smith’s 1999 film was released, it was the subject of controversy. The Catholic League strongly condemned Dogma for anti-Catholic purpose and content, and objections emerged from several countries. Smith, however, asserted his right to free speech and audiences responded enthusiastically. Like Smith’s previous films (especially Clerks and Mallrats), the movie aims at a particular generation. Critics and scholars have often assumed that this generation, referred to as the “slacker” generation or Generation X, either rejects religious and spiritual meaning or embraces it in dogmatic and authoritarian forms. Dogma attempts to intervene in this set of assumptions, poking fun at many of its misconceptions and offering an alternative and playful understanding of God. In the film, a woman who is the last living descendent of Jesus is called upon by the Voice of God to stop two renegade angels from entering a Catholic church in New Jersey, and thereby erasing all existence.
A19-133
Arts Series/Films: Freaks
Directed by Tod Browning, 1932, unrated
Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks disappeared from theatres very shortly after its initial release, saddled with a reputation of financial loss and critical denunciation. Throughout the 1960s, however, the film was successfully screened in drive-ins around the USA as part of the exploitation-cult circuit. In the ‘90s, the film became a central artifact in a growing theoretical conversation between film theory and disability studies. Freaks is perhaps best known for Browning’s decision to employ genuine circus freaks as actors. Set in the environs of a circus sideshow, the film tells a tale of romance and revenge in which the characters with non-normative human bodies are the heroes and the characters with culturally normative human bodies are the villains. The most memorable scene in the film, and the heart of its narrative, depicts the performance of a ritual.
A19-135
Reception Honoring Contributors to A Guide for Women in Religion and the Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies
The Status of Women in the Profession Committee and the Women’s Caucus invites you to a reception honoring those women who contributed to the original Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies and those who produced its sequel A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z.
A20-3
Native Traditions in the Americas Group and Religion and Ecology Group
Theme: Ecology, Activism, and Native American Lands/Waters
Collaborative Environmentalism: Environmental Resistance among Natives and Non-Natives
John Baumann, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
My presentation will explore and analyze increasing collaboration between Native Americans and non-native individuals and groups as a strategy to address environmental issues. I will pay particular attention to calls for a “new environmentalism,” moving beyond identification of problems and engaging people and communities at the grassroots level.
Indians, Salmon, and the Complexities of Conflict: Ethical Foundations of Water Disputes and the Exercise of Political Power in the Klamath Basin
Joel Geffen, University of Montana
Environmental racism typically describes negative impacts of private industry and resource management policies upon politically disadvantaged groups, most of which are ethnic or cultural minorities. Native Americans, Latinos, and African-American communities are highlighted in literature concerning the United States. Toxic dumping, air pollution, and the selection of nuclear facility sites have all been identified as significant issues.
This paper examines environmental racism in relation to native groups living in the Klamath Basin, a region located along the California-Oregon border. Bush administration policies allowing the diversion of irrigation water to farmers and ranchers at the expense of endangered salmon and sucker present a danger to the physical and spiritual sustenance of Klamath, Hoopa, Karuk, and Yurok peoples.
However, instead of mainly arguing that environmental racism is directed at them, I will show that administration policies also ignore non-minorities. Among them are defenders of wildlife refuges, commercial fishing communities, and fish biologists.
The Need for Communal Research Ethics: Haudanosaunee Democratic Models
Dianne Quigley, Syracuse University
Current ethical frameworks that guide health/environmental research are based on the protection of individual human subjects. This falls short in dealing with group/community protections and the moral complexities surrounding culturally-diverse values and knowledge. Communal ethics lies in understanding community contexts, in transferring skills and resources, in learning from diverse values and knowledge systems. The ethical framework of Native science demonstrates democratic decision-making in research ethics. Case studies from the Haudenosaunee (the Akwesasne Task Force for the Environment) and others demonstrate field-tested methods for improving research ethics. They stress objective and subjective meanings (technical knowledge and community embedded knowledge); the multidimensional impacts of contamination on community life and a respect for webs of relationship that influences the structure and process of the research activity.
Ecology and Native Lands
Les Benedict, Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment
We have experienced considerable environmental and ecological change in the past century. Nowhere in time has there been such unprecedented change brought to this earth by a single being, humans. Native life is based on an intimate connection to the natural world, a complexity of relationships. To Native Americans the consequences of failing to fulfill these responsibilities is well understood and recognized to mean the loss of sustainability and possibly the end of human kind itself. Cultural practices, ceremonies and oral tradition acknowledge the importance of these responsibilities.
Modern ecology, about 300 years old, has only recently just begun to recognize what Native Americans have understood and practiced for thousands of years.
Provided is an overview of Haudenosaunee sustainable practices that until today were largely dismissed as strange and ignorant. After 500 years of contact with the Haudenosaunee, modern science has miraculously discovered the interrelationships that are important for a healthy world.
A20-4
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Religion in Europe East and West
The process of European integration has given rise to pivotal debates that signal the evolving place of religion in Europe. Arguments over the potential inclusion of Turkey in the EU and over a constitutional reference to Christian heritage have forced many to reassess the religious dimensions of European identity and to confront the reality of religious pluralism. This forum is designed to shed light on some of the most significant debates involving religion in contemporary Europe. Representing numerous disciplines and regions, a distinguished panel of experts will address a range of issues, including: religion and the politics of identity; the rapid transformation of the mainstream churches; the contentious role of religion in the process of European expansion; the renegotiation of sensitive boundaries between church and state; conflicts between the collective rights of traditional religious communities and the individual rights of European citizens; and the encounter between Islamic and Christian cultures.
A20-5
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Religion and the Science Curriculum: Implications and Strategies
Cosmology, genetics, ecology and evolution are just a few of the topics within the standard science curriculum that regularly elicit questions and challenges from religious parents and communities. In this session our panelists will share their expertise in addressing the following questions: What are the dynamics at work in these debates? What are the implications for American education? What strategies are available for addressing these issues in the K-12 classroom?
A20-6
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section
Theme: What You Don't Know Won't Kill You: Learning Teaching on the Job
These papers explore the different kinds of learning that teaching can give, ranging from what one learns during one's first year of full-time teaching to 'ways in which religious and philosophical ethics can be presented in such a manner that it 'teaches itself' to what professors might want to know as they assist students in transformational education.
“Make the Part Your Own”: What Soap Opera Digest Should Have Taught Me about Teaching
Katherine Janiec Jones, Transylvania University
Using the notion of a “recast” -- an actor who has been hired to replace someone else who is vacating a popular role -- this paper addresses the difficult choices faced by new teachers trying both to fill the shoes of their predecessors and blaze new trails of their own. I suggest that courses tend to be more effective when the instructor structures the syllabus around what she knows and what she enjoys, rather than adhering to imaginings of how others might think the course “should” be taught. The instructor’s enthusiasm for the material is, in many ways, a necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) condition for a syllabus to work. I then flesh out this assertion by looking at the initial, less successful version of an introductory course I taught, and then the revised, much more successful (and enjoyable) version that I now teach.
Negotiating the Chasm between Graduate School and the First Year of Teaching: How I Stopped Crying and Started Drinking
Emily Askew, Carroll College
Six months into teaching religion at a regional undergraduate institution, following ten years of graduate education, I have questions, such as: “Why didn’t you tell me I would have to learn to compose a syllabus reading something like a state penal code, in order to avoid being sued, taken advantage of or humiliated?” In the first part of this paper, I highlight issues that challenge the romantic notion of world-transformation many of us had when we entered colleges and universities as new professors. In the second part, I suggest assignments born from the fire of necessity. With these, I want those who traversed this terrain to remind me of the romance, offer practical teaching suggestions and discuss what kind of wine best accompanies student essays comparing the Dao and YHWH.
What I Wished They'd Told Me about Teaching and How I Learned Better
Anette Ejsing, Augustana College
Everything I was told about teaching is what I have learned: it is hard work, preparation takes more time than you think, female professors have a harder time gaining respect than male professors, I am too ambitious about what to accomplish in the classroom, students are at a low level of knowledge about religious methodology, and they cheat. Still, my argument is that effective teaching is centered on student-learning more than academic content. Designing my courses with the goal in mind that students find them interesting and intellectually stimulating to attend, I have removed the sting of what I was told to expect. My presentation reflects on these three main issues involved in teaching centered on student-learning: 1) The subtle, nearly undetectable dynamics involved in using personal disclosure 2) Tapping into the high energy level of the young learner 3) Calling forward in students a curiosity driven love for learning.
Teaching Itself
Gitte Butin, Gettysburg College
This presentation explores ways in which religious and philosophical ethics can be presented in such a manner that it “teaches itself.” The subject matter is no longer a detached message issued by the instructor and made into an object to be assimilated by the student; rather, the subject matter is worked through as an embodied experience emerging from the learner in response to encounters that address basic religious and philosophical paradigms. The presentation focuses on two modes of teaching itself, both primarily developed in my ethics courses dealing with crime and punishment. The modes consist of 1) experiential learning exercises pertaining to ethical issues and 2) community-based learning, which brings together students and incarcerated people in dialogue concerning crime and punishment. Moreover, the presentation examines the theoretical underpinnings of my pedagogy, primarily the notion of indirect communication as developed by Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein.
The Existential Anxiety of Learning: Stages and Elements in a Seminarian's Journey of Transformational Education
Andrea Hollingsworth, Bethel Seminary
When “combustible issues” are raised in classroom settings, professors need to negotiate not only the interpersonal realities of passionately voiced opinions, but also the intrapersonal existential anxieties of individual students who may be encountering ideas that are transforming their personhood. This paper, creatively presented as an engaging first-person narrative of a recent seminary graduate’s learning experience, describes stages and elements of transformational religious education. The goal of such a presentation is to inspire educators to consider the existential anxieties of individual learners, and to structure learning environments in ways that will foster progression in light of those anxieties. The stages highlight the presenter’s progression from myopic fundamentalism to expanded and integrated selfhood, while the elements describe specific teaching styles and classroom environments that furthered the presenter’s transformational learning. It is possible that greater attention to intrapersonal anxieties will aid in the management of interpersonal conflict in emotionally charged classroom discourse.
A20-7
Buddhism Section
Theme: The Buddhist Preacher in History and Literature
The subject of the preacher (dharmabhanaka/dharmakathika) has gone almost completely unexplored by modern scholars. This paper session focuses on Buddhism in Sri Lanka and India, as a first step. The session has a dual focus: the first two papers are concerned to delineate the role(s) played by preachers in propagating Buddhist textual traditions over time; the second two papers focus on normative portrayals of preachers found within select Buddhist sutras. Ideally, the session will stimulate relection on ways that these two domains may have been mutually influential -- i.e., whether Buddhist preachers may have shaped, and been shaped by, accounts of idealized preachers found in the texts themselves. It is also hoped that the materials presented here will allow for future comparative analysis, both for those working on Buddhism in other cultural contexts, and for those interested in questions of homiletics and hermeneutics across religious traditions.
From Dhammabhanaka to Buddhist Preaching: Theravada Vernacular Transmission
Mahinda Deegalle, Bath Spa University
[No abstract; with reference to the paper proposal, please see notes on diacritical marks below]
Dharmabhanakas in Early Indian Mahayana
David Drewes, Indiana University, Bloomington
In mainstream Indian Buddhism, sutras were memorized and recited publicly by specialized monks known as bhanakas. Though the fact has gone largely unnoticed in scholarship, bhanakas—or dharmabhanakas—played an important role in Mahayana Buddhism as well. They are mentioned frequently throughout Mahayana sutra literature and are depicted in a variety of often surprising ways. They are commonly presented as charismatic figures who traveled with groups of students that coalesced around them; as “irreversible” bodhisattvas very close to the attainment of Buddhahood; and as people who not only preached Mahayana sutras, but were also responsible for their “discovery.” This paper looks at this material against the backdrop of other recent scholarship and attempts to coax from it a picture of the role of dharmbhanakas in the life of early Mahayana.
Listening to the Dharmabhanaka
Natalie Gummer, Beloit College
In Mahayana sutras such as the Suvarna(pra)bhasottama and the Saddarmapundarika, the dharmabhanaka, the orator of the dharma, occupies a critical but profoundly ambiguous position. Within the sutra, the Buddha and his divine assembly describe the future and past times when the sutra will be or has been preached by a dharmabhanaka. As a result, any actual dharmabhanaka who utters the sutra and any audience who hears him find themselves occupying a present time and place foreseen and radically transformed by the narrative of the sutra. The complex and paradoxical relationships among the Buddha, the sutra, the dharmabhanaka, and the audience within the sutra also shape and encompass the dharmabhanaka and his audience “outside” the sutra. These rhetorical strategies in turn construct the model reader as listener, illuminating not only the ritual potency of the oral/aural sutra, but also the ritual (as well as rhetorical) functions of the dharmabhanaka.
The Dharmabhanaka Inside and Outside the Sutras
Richard Nance, Ann Arbor, MI
Indian Buddhist orators have historically served as voices for Buddhist teaching -- but they have also been voiced by that teaching, articulated in the very sutra texts that they are charged to preserve and protect. In this paper, I explore normative portraits of the 'orator of dharma' (dharmabhanaka) drawn in Indian Buddhist sutras, and investigate the influence of such portraits on the ways in which real-world dharmabhanakas likely conceptualized their own activities as orators. As Schopen reminds us, we cannot straightforwardly recover an accurate picture of 'what Buddhism was' from texts that concern 'what Buddhism should be.' But it is no less a mistake to assume either that normative texts do not influence history, or that the traces of such influence are nowhere evident in normative texts. This paper explores some of the ways in which these reciprocal impacts may be glimpsed.
A20-8
Comparative Studies in Religion Section
Theme: Comparativists and the Study of Religion(s)
The modern study of religion has been shaped by the work of comparativists who have gone beyond the religions into which they were born to explore one or more other traditions. The comparativists have developed cross-traditional approaches which differ from those employed within a tradition insofar as they do not privilege, or at least try not to privilege, a particular religion. In this session panelists consider the work of Mircea Eliade, Francis X. Clooney, Robert Orsi, Jonathan Z. Smith, Charles H. Long, Lawrence E. Sullivan, John Carman, Ugo Bianchi, and Mary Boyce. They ask: What is the scholar's starting point with regard to comparison? How does she or he construe comparison? What specific strategies does she or he adopt to facilitate comparison? Finally, with the help of respondents we highlight the common questions that arise in discussing these comparativists.
A20-9
History of Christianity Section and Roman Catholic Studies Group
Theme: Catholic Selves and Others in the New World
Aboriginal "Apostasy" in Colonial North America: Problems and Prospects
Emma J. Anderson, Harvard University
For the last decade, scholars have been questioning presuppositions regarding Native American “conversion” in colonial North America. Though aboriginal “apostasy” was almost as common as conversion, and raises similar conceptual issues, it has yet to receive comparable attention. A pronounced preference for studying either adamant traditionalists or exemplary converts has led scholars to ignore the majority of aboriginal peoples whose ambivalent religious lives either fell between these extremes or encompassed them. Only when “conversion” and “apostasy,” carefully deconstructed, are studied in concert will the contours of post-contact aboriginal religious experience be more readily discernable. Like its sister term, “apostasy” obscures as much about Native American religiosity as it reveals, as it was used by European missionaries to designate dramatically different aboriginal responses to Christianity. This presentation, as well as conceptually grounding the study of Native American apostasy in the colonial period, will examine the contrasting experiences of several aboriginal “apostates.”
Accounting for Acoma: Holy Mission, Holy War, and Holy Memory in Oñate’s Conquest of New Mexico
Brandon Bayne, Harvard University
The celebrated “colonizer of New Mexico”, Juan de Oñate burned the Acoma pueblo after a bloody battle in 1599, severing the feet of male warriors and enslaving the rest of the population. In addition to political justifications, the General invoked potent religious categories in order to consecrate the violence. Specifically, he cited past martyrdoms as the preeminent reason for the conquest and future mission as his stated goal for the colony. These themes allowed Oñate to claim that punishing Acoma was not only “just”, but also “holy”. This paper explores the fine line between a “just war” and a “holy war”, as it played out on the borderlands of colonial New Mexico. Because Oñate fought for Spain's martyrs and worked toward God’s mission, he could not afford to let a rebellious pueblo go unpunished. Nevertheless, his own case for war inadvertently preserved Acoma's very different account of the violence.
Searching for Souls in a Twice-Foreign Land: Tribalism, Nativism, and the Evolution of Catholic Indian Missions (1902-1962)
Mark S. Clatterbuck, Catholic University of America
'The Indian Sentinel,' a periodical published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions from 1902-1962, records the struggle of U.S. Catholic missionaries searching for identity amid tensions from two primary directions. At the turn of the twentieth century, hostility dominated missionaries’ attitudes toward both the “paganism” of indigenous cultures and the anti-Catholicism harbored by much of the country’s Protestant population. By the eve of Vatican II, however, a remarkable transformation had taken place among Catholic missionaries on both fronts. Not only were inculturative experiments with Native traditions underway in mission parishes, but missionaries were also eager to display their patriotic stripes to a predominantly Protestant American audience. As seen in the stories and photographs of 'The Indian Sentinel,' these altered attitudes deeply impacted the theology and missionary method of American Catholics who were beginning to embrace religious syncretism on the one hand, and U.S. patriotism on the other.
Rebel Yell: Father Arthur Terminiello and American Catholicism’s Conspiratorial Margins
Jeffrey Marlett, College of Saint Rose
This paper will address the career of Arthur Terminiello (1906-62), a Roman Catholic priest from Alabama and his involvement with two apparently contradictory elements of twentieth-century American life: anti-Semitism and racial integration. Through this strange brew of hatred and reconciliation Terminiello challenged several stalwart assumptions of mid-century Americana: Jim Crow, anti-Catholicism, Eleanor Roosevelt, Catholic intellectual life, popular culture, and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Terminiello represented a triply-marginalized voice: geographically distant from the centers of Catholic power in the urban northeast, religiously removed from his Protestant neighbors, and ideologically exiled in right-wing extremism. While his name provokes nothing but silence from religious studies scholars, free speech activists know him well as a defining case of hate speech limitations. An examination of Terminiello’s religious actions and attitudes offers new perspectives on Catholicism’s relationship with American life in its mainstream as well as along its alternative, or extremist, margins.
A20-10
North American Religions Section
Theme: Wrestling with the Modern: Reformers, Fundamentalists, and Showmen
What do an amateur theologian and public huckster, a globetrotting Civil War veteran who owned a stuffed baboon named Darwin, a Nobel Prize winning urban social reformer, and a New Testament scholar and proto-Fundamentalist have in common? This session considers the efforts by P.T. Barnum, Henry Steel Olcott, Jane Addams, and J. Gresham Machen to reconcile the advent of the modern era with traditional religion and their own deeply-held religious values and positions. The four figures represent nearly a century of American religious creativity and vitality in responding to the modern conditions of industrialization, urbanization, new scientific methods and their findings, shifting consumption patterns, and religious diversity. Although each of the subjects walked a separate path and fostered different religious changes, the themes of urbanism, pragmatism, science, and the modern constitution of “truth” recur through the papers.
There’s a Sucker Saved Every Minute: P. T. Barnum’s Theology of Humbug
Jeff Wilson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Phineas T. Barnum was an outspoken temperance advocate and promoter of Christian morality. And yet, Barnum worked his way into fame and fortune through the calculated use of deception. His promotion of such monstrosities as the Feejee Mermaid, Chang and Eng, and Jumbo was predicated on exaggeration and disguise. How then to reconcile the Janus-like nature of an upright Christian peddling hokum?
For Barnum, his circus and museum acted as engines for generating wonder. He re-enchanted a rapidly industrializing world, populating it with unicorns and other marvels. As a Universalist, Barnum knew that his audience was destined for salvation, and thus there was no need to preach to them about dogma. Instead, Barnum reconciled his piety and his hokum with a unique “theology of humbug”—by provoking wonder, even if through dubious means, he invited people to remember the gift provided by their maker: life in a world of marvels.
Oiling the Wheels of Progress: Henry Steel Olcott and the Construction of Scientific Buddhism
Benjamin Zeller, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Henry Steel Olcott is best known as co-founder of Theosophy, as well as contributor to the Buddhist and Hindu revivals in Japan, Ceylon, and India. But the (re)construction of Buddhism to possess the best of both liberal Protestantism and scientific modernism obsessed Olcott in the latter half of his life. This paper focuses on his reconstruction of Buddhism as a modern scientific religion, asking how Olcott understood his mission and how it illuminates wider cultural trends such as modernization, colonial globalization, and the advent of scientific hegemony. I propose that ultimately Olcott did not differentiate between the missions and methods of science and religion, understanding both as empirical pursuits of progress, unity, and order. Yet, Olcott reserved an ‘eminent domain’ for religion, positing that religious claims were the most efficient and accurate arbitrators of reality. In the end, Olcott made religion modern in order to make the modern religious.
“Holding Fast to the Vision of Human Solidarity”: Jane Addams on Religion and Social Reform
Emily R. Mace, Princeton University
In the late nineteenth century, technological developments and rapid immigration transformed America’s cities into their modern incarnations, and in response, reformers devised fresh solutions to new challenges. Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull-House, became one of the most famous advocates of the settlement house movement, in which residents sought to cure urban ills by “settling” in troubled neighborhoods. Her response drew from two inseparable sources: the theology of the Social Gospel and the emerging field of social science as expressed by progressive reform. Addams thoroughly integrated these methodologies to argue passionately for a conception of modern American life that held “fast to the vision of human solidarity.” Understanding Addams’s fusion of religion and social science will help us to more fully comprehend American responses to the implications of urbanization and modernity.
As a Matter of Fact: J. Gresham Machen’s Defense of the Metaphysical and the Moral
Brantley Gasaway, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
In the wake of modernism, scientific naturalism and the philosophy of pragmatism became dominant in American intellectual culture. As the leading apologist for “historic Christianity” in the early twentieth century, J. Gresham Machen refused to retreat from the epistemological challenges posed by modernity. Machen appropriated the empirical scientific language of “fact” necessary for intellectual credibility and relevance while simultaneously rejecting the presuppositions of naturalism. He viewed pragmatism as an impotent skepticism unable to provide guidance in metaphysical and moral matters. In addition to his sustained critique of Protestant Liberalism’s embrace of modern intellectual presuppositions, in the 1920’s Machen also began decrying the broader cultural implications of disregard for metaphysical and moral absolutes. Soon other public intellectuals such as Robert Maynard Hutchins, Walter Lippman, and Reinhold Niebuhr voiced strikingly parallel reaffirmations of metaphysical references and categories. Machen’s identification with conservative epistemology allowed him to offer early critiques of empiricism and pragmatism.
A20-11
Religion in South Asia Section
Theme: Post-Hindutva?
Has the recent demise of the BJP in the central government of India signaled a larger downturn for the fortunes of the Hindu Right, both politically and ideologically? Or is Hindutva recasting itself for another era of power? For over a decade, scholars of religion in India have contended with the cultural and political ramifications of Hindu Right's startling success. Through revisions of the Aryan question in archaeology and history, to the rewriting of history textbooks in India, to attacks on scholars for their views of Hinduism, the politics of Hindutva have reached deeply into the public and political cultures of India, the international academy, and the worldwide South Asian diaspora. Our aim is to parse out 'Hindutva' from those sites of practice, ideology, and education that are within the scope of 'Hinduism'.
The Pseudo-Secularization of Hindutva and Its Campaign for Uniform Civil Codes
Purushottama Bilimoria, University of New York, Stony Brook
One plank of Hindutva ideology, from the RSS to Bajrang Dal, has been a persistent attack on minority groups, particularly the Muslims, in the context of the Uniform Civil Code. The Hindu Right has capitalized on the quiddity of Personal Laws vis-à-vis uniformity of civil codes as applicable to all Indians, regardless of religion, and arguably sanctioned in the Directive Principle. This anomaly forms the basis of an analysis of the BJP’s relentless charge of ‘pseudo-secularism’ in this as in various other quarters of a seemingly reform-resistant Indian polity. It turns on the inherent ambiguity in the very concept of ‘secularism’ its failure in the Indian context and flounders on the seams of caste politics and an increasing marginalization of minority communities, in a majoritarian political and cultural climate, which Hindu nationalism has long been pressed to defend and preserve.
Hindutva at the Margins of the State: Hindu Nationalism and Social Work
Kalyani Devaki Menon, DePaul University
I will examine how the Hindu nationalist movement capitalizes on the failures of a shrinking welfare state to position itself as the ‘protector and provider’ of the poor and marginalized. Through establishing schools, health clinics and vocational training workshops and doing ‘social work’ in the slums of New Delhi, Hindu nationalists reach out to those marginalized by the state and recruit them as citizens of an imagined Hindu nation. These venues become sites at which the movement is able to disseminate its values to diverse audiences. In order to create resonance with these diverse populations and continue its expansionary trend, the movement excludes expressions of overt cultural chauvinism, and uses Hindu practices and prayers as a way of identifying with and uniting people. In these venues the movement frames itself as a religious movement with a dharmic (moral) charter, rather than a political movement with a Hindu chauvinistic one.
Sanskrit in India: Beyond the Monochrome
Laurie Louise Patton, Emory University
Sanskrit has been frequently stereotyped by scholars (both Indian and Western) as the property of the Hindu right. Such stereotyping happens in both publications and informal “asides” in lectures and private conversations. There is truth to this stereotype in that the Sangh Pariwar has tried to co-opt Sanskrit as a symbol of the authentically “Indic.” But there is more to the story. This paper will draw upon a year’s worth of research in cities in India with Sanskrit scholars, mostly women, who do not fit this stereotype. I will analyze public scholarship, such as Sanskrit street plays about untouchability, Sanskrit dramas satirizing the academic system, and women who have worked to change the caste make-up of their departments. Many are openly critical of the Hindu right. While such perspectives may not be the norm, these case studies make the picture far more complex than most recent studies allow.
Presence, Absence, and Resemblance: Finding and Interpreting Hindutva in Northern California
Shana Lisa Sippy, Columbia University
The Hindu right’s reach is vast and it can be seen in Hindu contexts throughout the United States. Even while this country is home to hot-beds of Hindutva activity there are still places where Hindutva has not made such deep inroads. Based on research conducted over the past five years in California, this paper looks at sites where Hindutva’s status and role are not clear and seeks examine how Hindutva is present, absent and resembled in a variety of American Hindu expressions, such as temples, community centers, Indian groceries, and camps. The paper seeks to consider the nuances of Hindu articulations in the diaspora and to tries to offer some thoughts about how we might evaluate modern expressions of Hinduism and Hindu identity and their relationship to Hindutva, all the while making room for the fact that when things resemble Hindutva they are not necessarily synonymous with it.
A20-12
Study of Islam Section
Theme: Topics of the Study of Qur'an and Sunna
Ikhrâj in the Qur’an: The Expulsion of the Muslims from Makkah at the Hijrah
Khalid Blankinship, Temple University
A considerable apparent contradiction exists between the sources for the Prophet Muhammad’s biography on the one hand and the Qur’ân on the other about the way his migration with the other Muslims to al-Madînah came about. The biographical historical tradition states that this move was voluntary, even if under pressure, and stresses the role of the Prophet and the Muslims as active protagonists, while the Qur’ân, to the contrary, emphasizes the expulsion of the Muslims from their native city by force and the fear and privation that they endured as a result. While the biographical tradition understandably deemphasizes the weakness and humiliation of the Muslims at the time, a rereading of the text of the Qur’ân makes much clearer the Muslims’ grievance against the Makkans, which became the original source of the wars of early Islam.
Taxonomies in Narrations about the Battle of Uhud and Their Role in Sira-Maghazi Literature
Alfons Teipen, Furman University
The Sîra of Ibn Ishâq (d.767 CE) in the recension of Ibn Hishâm (d. 833), the Kitâb al-Maghâzî of Muhammad b. `Umar al-Wâqidî (d. 822 CE) and the Kitâb al-Tabaqât of Muhammad b. Sa’d (d. 845 CE) are some of the earliest extant records of the communal memory of the historical beginnings of Islam.
This paper will study selected narratives about the important battle of Uhud (625 CE) in these three sources and analyze how variants in their respective narrative presentation can be utilized to learn more about each author’s / collector’s understanding of the Muslim community. Focusing on certain taxonomies and topoi in these varying presentations will allow us to appreciate different understandings of Muslim communal identity in these divergent accounts. These discrepancies are suggestive of differences reagrding the “location,” intended audience, and “Sitz im Leben” of each narrative.
Some Manuscript Evidence Concerning Al-Zamakhsharî’s "Umm al-Kashshâf" and "Khalaqa l-Qur’an"
Andrew J. Lane, University of Toronto
In the secondary literature, al-Zamakhsharî’s (d.538/1144) name invariably appears with a note saying that he was a Mu‘tazilite who wrote a Qur’ân commentary, ‘al-Kashshâf,’ in two years in Mecca; he calls this version the ‘umm al-Kashshâf.’ Such notes frequently add that he began/would have begun his commentary with a Mu‘tazilite ‘profession of faith,’ “Praise be to God who created the Qur’ân (al-hamdu li-llâh alladhî khalaqa l-Qur’ân).” On the basis of an examination of over 200 manuscripts of the ‘Kashshâf’ and its glosses, the author shows that al-Zamakhsharî copied the ‘umm al-Kashshâf’ from a rough draft, and that later he felt the need to ‘authenticate’ the ‘umm al-Kashshâf.’ In the second part of the presentation, the author shows that, not only is there no evidence to support the claim that the ‘Kashshâf’ began with a reference to the ‘creation of the Qur’ân,’ the evidence that is there supports the opposite view.
Gendering the Communal Body: Fasting in the Qur'an and the Hadith
Aisha Geissinger, University of Toronto
This paper will discuss ways that Muslim fasting, as presented in both the Quran and in Sunni canonical and sub-canonical hadith collections, (re)affirms and (re)inscribes particular constructions of gender upon individuals and communities. The actions that fasting Muslims must refrain from during daylight hours--eating, drinking and sexual acts--are activities that also express and perpetuate gender roles and gendered hierarchies in most societies. While the issue of fasting and gender in contemporary Muslim societies has attracted some recent scholarly attention, so far few text-based studies have been done on this topic. This paper surveys the different ways that the Quran presents gender in the verses that discuss fasting. Then, it discusses two noteworthy features of the discourse on fasting found in the hadith literature: the depiction of some early Muslim women as religious authorities on the subject of fasting, and the circulation of traditions which mandate male control of women's fasting.
Women in the Sunnah of Muhammad: ‘Amal ahl al-Madinah and Its Potential Impact on Women in Islam
Phillip Hoefs, Temple University
This paper will examine the historical legal debate over hadith and ‘amal ahl al-Madinah in order to provide insight into the topic of women in Islam. It will have several components, all leading to the need for scholars to re-examine this question for its impact on women. First it will give a brief overview of current scholarship on women in Islam and point out some of the tensions yet to be resolved. Then it will shift to the debate over ‘amal ahl al-Madinah and the ways in which it has been recently revisited, most notably by Yasin Dutton’s 'The Origins of Islamic Law,' in order to highlight some of the limitations of the hadith corpus. By building on Dutton’s work and utilizing additional scholarship the paper will conclude with a discussion of avenues of inquiry for future study that can more positively utilize the Sunnah in discussions of gender.
A20-13
Study of Judaism Section
Theme: Gender, Feminism, and Orthodox Judaism
Assent to Ascent: Rabbinic Negotiations of Exile, Marriage, and Gender Relations
Gail Labovitz, University of Judaism
This paper explores the intersection of rabbinic concerns about gender hierarchy and Exile, notably as rabbinic texts discuss what is to be done when one member of a married couple wishes to reside in the Land, while the other resists. The Palestinian Talmud and the Tosefta suggest that the husband has more coercive power in such cases than does the wife. The Babylonian Talmud, however, posits gender parity, and suggests that either spouse can precipitate a divorce if unable to convince the other to reside in the Land. This latter addition is particularly intriguing in light of the fact that rabbinic sources regularly consider Exile in terms of God's 'divorce' of Israel, and divorce in terms of exile. Which takes precedence: the husband’s dominant position in marriage or the supremacy of the Land, the hierarchy of gender or the hierarchy of place? When is one most in exile?
Theological Approaches in Orthodox Feminism
Rochelle L. Millen, Wittenberg University
This paper will analyze and assess current Jewish feminist theological explorations and their implications for Orthodox Judaism. Included in the discussion are evaluations of the works of Pamela Nadell, Rachel Adler, Rochelle L. Millen, Tamar Ross, and Yehudah Gellman.
Cumulative Revelation and Orthodox Feminist Theology
Jerome Gellman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
The concept of progressive or “cumulative” revelation has been advanced to provide a theological grounding to Orthodox feminism. In this paper I argue that the concept of cumulative revelation is problematic in its own right and of doubtful value for Orthodox Jewish feminism.
'Muggers in Black Coats': Gender and Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Jewish American Imagination
Nora L. Rubel, Connecticut College
This presentation examines two novels: Anne Roiphe’s Lovingkindness and Tova Mirvis’s The Outside World. Written two decades apart, both depict parental concern over the next generation’s return to Jewish tradition. While the first demonstrates the ongoing rift between secularism and orthodoxy and the second exposes the emergent schism within orthodoxy itself, both narratives are examples of a growing genre of American Jewish literature that exhibits the friction between children who have embraced ultra-Orthodox lifestyles and their less religiously observant parents. These works feature themes of “brainwashing” and “kidnapping” by the ultra-Orthodox, coinciding with a growing polarization between Orthodox Judaism and the more liberal Jewish movements. Using these narratives as examples, I will discuss popular imaginings of the ultra-Orthodox as they reflect anxieties of the non-Orthodox about gender and religious authority, as well as the fear of the rea1 or imagined growing power of the Orthodox over contemporary American Judaism.
A20-14
Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group and Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: A Critical Evaluation of Tomoko Masuzawa's The Invention of World Religions (University of Chicago Press)
This panel offers a critical evaluation of Tomoko Masuzawa's The Invention of World Religions, Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Masuzawa examines the emergence of the concept of 'world religions' in modern European thought, emphasizing relations between new classifications of language and of race. Panelists will bring their varied and broad expertise to bear on Masuzawa's analysis of this
'epistemic regime' that implicitly portrays Europe as 'a prototype of unity amidst plurality.'
A20-15
Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group and Women and Religion Section
Theme: Writing Women's Theology in Asian North America
This panel discusses the theoretical frameworks and strategies for writing women's theology in Asian North America by focusing on three recent representative works. These works examine feminist Christology, the contours of postcolonial feminist theology, and faith practices of Korean American women. Situating in the in-between space of Asia and America, these writers have to negotiate complex identities and hybrid subject positions. They have to challenge patriarchal biases within their indigenous tradition as well as in Christianity. At the same time, they demystify and pinpoint racism in dominant white feminist theology. While destabilizing traditional theological constructions, they seek to provide resources for creative theological thinking that has implications for other racial minorities in the North American context. To facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and mutual critique, the panel will feature conversations among women of Asian North American, African American, Native American, Euro-American descent.
A20-16
African Religions Group and Afro-American Religious History Group
Theme: The African Methodist Episcopal Church and Africa
The Other African Methodists in Philadelphia: Zoar United Methodist Church
J. Gordon Melton, Institute for the Study of American Religion
With the emergence of African American religious studies, much attention has been rightfully directed to the role of Richard Allen and the 1794 founding of Bethel Church, the mother congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church. The overwhelming attention to Allen, however, has obscured the presence of the other African Methodists in antebellum Philadelphia, those who rejected Allen's leadership and in 1796 founded the Zoar Church, which
remained in association with the predominantly white Methodist Episcopal Church. Through the antebellum years, which this paper traces, Zoar carried the history of Philadelphia Black Methodism (which predates the founding of the first Methodist congregation) and had paralleled Bethel's success in attracting members. It leaders participated in the intense public debates in the Free Black community (especially relative to Colonization) and
spearheaded the effort for ordination of Black ministers in the MEC.
Africa and the Idea of the Heathen in A. M. E. Missions
Sylvester Johnson, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
This paper examines the pattern whereby A.M.E. missionaries contributed to the production of meanings about Africans and their historical religions as 'heathen.' The idea of the heathen was a powerful concept that vilified Africans and Native American religions in the early modern era. Although it had earlier been applied broadly to religions other than Judaism, Christian, and Islam, it also functioned as a troubling racial signifier--the heathen was non-white and evil. The anti-Africanness and religious hatred germane to this style of alterity is highlighted in the study.
The Lost of the African Centeredness of the A. M. E Church: Leaders, Leadership, Transition, and Lost: The Next Generation of A. M. E. C. Leaders 1839 – 1860
Ralph Watkins, Fuller Theological Seminary
In this paper I argue that after the passing of Bishop Richard Allen the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) begins to lose its roots and African centeredness. The first generation leaders were committed to the African in their name as well as the liberation mission of the AMEC. With the second generation of leaders emerging they are not as connected or rooted to the founding mission. As a result of this sociological phenomenon they begin to develop a bureaucracy and organizational structure that can accommodate the growth of the denomination. The development of this bureaucracy propels the organization into another phase of organizational life that moves the AMEC in another direction than its founders intended. By using the lens of organizational life cycle and institutional theory the development of the AMEC is charted in this paper.
A Trans-Atlantic Relationship: Orishatukeh Faduma and the AME Church
Moses N. Moore, Arizona State University
In 1887, Benjamin Tanner-editor of The AME Church Review received a letter from Freetown, Sierra Leone, introducing William J. Davis as a new subscriber. Davis informed Tanner that 'through Dr. Blyden, a veritable friend of the Negro, your Church Review came into my hands. A Negro indeed, of unmixed blood, I feel Proud that there is existing today a Review such as yours. I shall always read it with pleasure.' In closing, Davis asked, 'Will you, dear Mr. Editor, accept contributions from me either in verse or prose?' Tanner's answer in the affirmative resulted in Davis (AKA Orishatukeh Faduma) becoming an important contributor to the Church Review during a critical era in the history of both the journal and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This paper examines this relationship within the context of subsequent theological and ecclesiastical developments within the AME Church.
A20-17
Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group
Theme: Self, Subjectivity, and Agency: Theories of Religious Being
Feminist Theory, Religion, and American History
Amy Black Voorhees, University of California, Santa Barbara
When women, religion, and American history intersect, two central problems emerge. One is a tendency towards descriptive reductionism. The other is that the field continues to operate primarily in “empowerment mode” despite the explanatory shortcomings of this approach. These two problems are both linked and discrete. They are linked by their common genesis in the need to grapple with what is generally considered the paradox of female agency, and by their interdependence. They are discrete in definition and scope. Together these problems impede sophisticated historical treatments in the field and compromise our understanding of women’s religious experiences. This paper outlines these two problems and suggests recuperative strategies based on a review of relevant theoretical work, particularly in the field of feminist philosophy. While this paper applies to a particular subfield of religious history, its observations and conclusions apply to much feminist work in the field of religious studies.
Exscripted Love: From a Feminine Body
William Robert, Louisiana Sate University
If “this is my body” says anything, Jean-Luc Nancy writes, it says it outside of speech, as an exscription addressed to a lost body. The body, it turns out, is ininscriptible; rather than being a part of existence, it is a figure of khora: giving place without taking place. The body has place only as a limit and as an opening, as the limit place that opens, that makes way for existence. The kind of body that Nancy imagines—other, plural, open, exposed—explodes any rhetoric of borders, of place, or of the proper. This paper explores what these consequences look like in terms of a feminine religious subjectivity by turning to Julia Kristeva’s work. Through figures such as khora and love that intertwine body and writing, it opens new and plural possibilities for mystical forms of love through which a feminine body comes to be the ex-position of God.
"Talking Back in Iran": Religious Discourse, Women's Agency, and a Rhetorical Turn
Elizabeth Bucar, University of Chicago
Is it possible to conduct “feminist” cross-cultural scholarship when the term “feminist” is contested? Drawing on fieldwork conducted with leaders in the Iranian women’s movement, this paper explores the ways in which secular feminist commitments can interfere with analysis of the actions of women within religious traditions and suggests the utility of developing a more nuanced account of women’s agency. I begin by considering two models of agency common in the fields of political philosophy and anthropology respectively: 1) autonomy and 2) habituation. I argue that neither of these models can account fully for the unanticipated arguments made by Iranian Shiite women. Drawing on Aristotle’s Ethics and Rhetoric, I propose an alternative theory of agency signaled by the phrase “back talk” which retains a measure of choice even as it acknowledges that traditions create the possibilities for rhetorical performance and response.
"I'll Help You Mommy": Autonomy and the "Ethics of Care" from the Perspective of Mothers with Disabilities
Nancy L. Eiesland, Emory University
Beginning with the experiences of mothers with disabilities, both in aggregate and individually, this paper challenges ethical and theological assumptions about them as recipients rather than providers of care. Further, the paper proposes a feminist account of reverence as means for representing the multiform nature of care and interdependence.
A20-18
Japanese Religions Group
Theme: Projections and Representations of Religion in Japanese Media
This session aims to raise issues concerning the ways religions, or subjects that could be defined as religious, are projected and presented in a variety of Japanese media. Although there appears to be an assumption, particularly among scholars of new religious movements, that representation of religion and interactions between media and religion are generally negative, the situation is more complex and multi-faceted. Investigations into the representation of religious themes in both popular media and the internal media of religious organizations can provide clues regarding the transformation, legitimization, appropriation, and definition of religious ideas, concepts, and forms in society. The papers look at interconnections, convergences, and paradoxes that arise when considering religion in Japanese media. They will also reveal some of the complexities regarding media representation of religion, and the difficulties faced by media consumers (including scholars, who often rely on media interpretations) regarding assessments of religion in Japan.
A20-20
Men's Studies in Religion Group
Theme: Masculinities in Varying Religious Commuities
This session will examine the construction and experience of masculinities in the contexts of Mormonism, Sikhism, and evangelical Christianity. The papers address fathering in an evangelical context, colonialism and its effects on Sikh masculinity, Christology in film and the masculinity it supports, and gender roles within Mormon masculinity.
Fatherhood and the Creation of Society: A Christian Ethical Response to W. Bradford Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs, New Men
John Wall, Rutgers University
This paper argues for a new Christian ethical vision of fatherhood that incorporates the notion of “familism” described in Bradford Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs, New Men, but in the direction of a further possibility that Wilcox himself does not consider: namely, a “critical familism” in which fathers are deeply committed to family life but within the framework of an egalitarian practice of child rearing aimed at the larger promise of creating a more just and good society. Placing fatherhood within a broader Christian ethical historical perspective, the paper orients men’s deeper responsibilities for child rearing, not around greater control in the home, but around the hard work of contributing through the home, in marriage and child rearing both, toward an ever more socially inclusive kingdom of God.
Muscular Mormonism: Gender Ideologies in an Era of Transition, 1890-1920
Amy Hoyt, Claremont Graduate University
From approximately 1880-1930, the Protestant and Mormon churches were experiencing a transition within their respective cultures. Within Protestantism, scholars have identified a masculinization process which occurred in response to a perceived strong feminine presence. Within Mormonism, their marriage system was shifting from polygamy to monogamy and with this change came an emphasis on rigid gender roles, including the masculinization of Mormon men. This paper will chart the ways in which a form of Mormon masculinity was clearly articulated during this era. Mormon masculinity looked surprisingly like the attempts to masculinize Protestantism, but with a twist.
Muscular Mormonism: Gender Ideologies in an Era of Transition, 1890-1920
Sara Patterson, Loyola Marymount University
From approximately 1880-1930, the Protestant and Mormon churches were experiencing a transition within their respective cultures. Within Protestantism, scholars have identified a masculinization process which occurred in response to a perceived strong feminine presence. Within Mormonism, their marriage system was shifting from polygamy to monogamy and with this change came an emphasis on rigid gender roles, including the masculinization of Mormon men. This paper will chart the ways in which a form of Mormon masculinity was clearly articulated during this era. Mormon masculinity looked surprisingly like the attempts to masculinize Protestantism, but with a twist.
(En)Gendered Sikhism: The Iconolatry of Manliness in the Making of Sikh Identity
Navdeep Mandier, Coventry, United Kingdom
In this paper I will attempt to justify the perversity of a proposition which posits the focus of Sikh studies as an object other than Sikhism. The lacuna within Sikh studies signalled by this assertion will be highlighted by problematizing the uncritical acceptance of a Sikh identity, here interrogated from the perspective of the male Khalsa subject, which has been surreptitiously reorganized in an encounter with the pernicious sympathy of modernity’s gaze. It will be argued that the corporeal signature of the Khalsa-pre-eminently the beard, turban and the conspicuous display of weapons- is supplementary to biological masculinity and that the revenant exists in between conflicting interpretations of this fact, the disavowal or affirmation of this supplementary body determining the manifestation of the Khalsa Sikh as either, a ghostly presence or, radically other.
“God, Man, Then ... Wait, How’d That Go?" Examining Emerging Gender Identities in Twenty-Something Evangelical Christians
Curtis Coats, University of Colorado
This paper will explore perceived gender roles among a group of 20-something Evangelicals involved in a large, non-denominational church in the Denver metro area. Specifically, the paper focuses on how the concept, “spiritual headship,” is negotiated in the lives of young Evangelicals and how the concept is reinforced and challenged in the institutional structure and official rhetoric of this particular Evangelical church. The paper directly engages Gallagher and Smith's (1999) notions of 'symbolic traditionalism' and 'pragmatic egalitarianism' by suggesting a broader typology of Evangelical discursive engagement with spiritual headship.
A20-21
Platonism and Neoplatonism Group
Theme: Neoplatonism, Dead or Alive: Is Neoplatonism a Living Tradition? Part I
no abstact
Ancient Wisdom Revived: Neo-Platonism and the Theosophical Movement
Judy Saltzman, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
This essay argues that Neo-Platonism is very much alive and central to a spiritual philosophy called Theosophy, the Wisdom Religion. Theosophists contend that Platonism and Neo-Platonism with its doctrines of emanation, reincarnation and the human unity with a single Divine Source, have always been alive in secret schools , which went underground after the fall of Alexandria and Plato’s Academy. It will examine the claim that H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine (1888), and Grace Knoche in The Mystery Schools (1999) make that there is an unbroken line of teachers stemming from Pythagoras, Plato, and earlier, through Neo-Platonism to Theosophy in the 19th century and the present day. Theosophists hold that the driving force, which kept the mystery schools alive, was the universality of the Neo-Platonic ideas and their correspondence to Asian sources. Is this viewpoint substantiated or self-serving?
Aleister Crowley’s Theory of the Furores
Matthew Rogers, Northwestern University
In the early 20th century, Aleister Crowley appropriated and transformed the antique psychological model of the frenzies or enthusiasms from Plato’s Phaedrus. The frenzies were a staple of the Platonist tradition in antiquity and the Renaissance, and Crowley reinterpreted them to suit his psychologizing, anti-Christian, occultist agenda. Crowley’s rhetoric of magical tradition included appeals to Hellenic antiquity in general, and “the neo-Platonists” in particular. The 1912 article “Energized Enthusiasm” was the paradigmatic expression of his theories with respect to the frenzies. In it, Crowley reduced the four frenzies to three, and revalued “divine madnesses” as “human methods.” The erotic, mantic and prophetic enthusiasms became sexual, pharmaceutical and musical techniques of religious ecstasy, laying the groundwork for an ideology of “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.”
Contested Pagan Theologies: Then and Now
Robert Puckett, Georgia Perimeter College
In attempting to formulate a coherent theology to legitimate Wicca many contemporary Wiccans look back to the philosophies of their ancient pagan predecessors. However, just as in antiquity, there are competing schools of thought regarding the nature of the divine. Many Wiccans espouse an archetypal view of all gods and goddesses as aspects of one God and Goddess, echoing Apuleius' Isis, a universal goddess worshipped under many names. Some argue for a "pure polytheism" or a henotheistic devotion to patron gods. Others are pantheists with no personal conception of deity, and still others advocate a Neoplatonic panentheism in which the gods emanate from a single source. This paper seeks to analyze the contesting theologies of contemporary Wicca and to elucidate the ways in which Wiccans attempt to legitimate their theological interpretations through the use of classical sources and how these arguments influence and are influenced by the broader Neopagan movement.
Psychoanalysis as a Practice of Neoplatonic Mysticism
Dan Merkur, Toronto, ON, CANADA
The famous Kleinian analyst Wilfred R. Bion approached psychoanalysis through “Plato’s theory of Forms.” Bion’s theory began with the fact that psychotics’ hallucinations and delusions prove coherent when their unconscious meanings are interpreted. Because psychotics are incapable of coherence, their intelligibility attests to “pre-conceptions” that exist objectively. Bion conceptualized psychoanalysis as the analyst’s gathering of the patient’s “beta-elements,” affect-laden sensory data that cannot be linked into coherent thoughts, and their transformation into “alpha-elements,” or thoughts that can be used in thinking. Through interpretation, both the analyst and the patient think increasingly abstractly until they arrive (optimally) at the thought of “O,” the unknowable source of thought. Self-described as a mystic, Bion cited a roster of pagan and Christian Neoplatonists and recommended that analysts listen to patients in states of “reverie” “without memory and desire."
Roethke’s "Epidermal Dress": The Body’s Excessive Vitality and Becoming Divine
Jennifer Rapp, Stanford University
Throughout the course of his writing American poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) focused on embodiment. Considering Roethke as an extension of the platonic and neoplatonic traditions opens up the most significant features of both his work and the traditions themselves. Roethke’s understanding of embodiment would be difficult to appreciate apart from a consideration of the approaches to the body taken by Plato and Plotinus. Specifically, there are substantial, analogous relationships that can be drawn between Roethke’s and Plato’s use of animal and organic imagery to represent embodiment. Roethke and Plotinus share a concern with “the body’s excessive vitality” and its role in achieving, and frustrating, fulfilled states of the soul. The conceptual thread linking Roethke to Plato and Plotinus to be discussed: the soul is characterized by surfeit, and, embodied experience is the distinctively human way this surfeit is encountered, denigrated, or delivered.
A20-23
Religion and Disability Studies Group
Theme: A Third Way: Religion as an Alternative to the Medical Model and the Social Model of Disability
Disability Studies speaks of disability in paradoxes. The Social Model shows how disability is socially constructed while the Medical Model places the 'problem' within the individual. Each of these models offers important insights to our understandings of disability, yet both include significant limitations and risks. This session highlights explorations of disability from religious or theological perspectives that attempt to develop a new 'third way' model for disability studies, one which more fully takes into account the complexity and diversity of individual and social experiences of disability.
Nondualistic Paradigms in Disability Studies and Buddhism: Creating Bridges for Theoretical Practice
Lynne Bejoian, Teachers College Columbia University
Arising from personal and scholarly concerns as to misperceptions of Buddhism within disability studies, this paper endeavors to explore current interpretations of Buddhism within disability studies context, critique disability studies’ assumptions about the value and relevance of this spiritual perspective, and use classic Tibetan Buddhist texts to pose a more current and socially relevant view of disability. Additionally, as a woman with a disability who is a practicing Buddhist, the author will bring a personal voice to this area of critical inquiry. Thus, as a scholar committed to disability studies and Buddhism, the author will explore the paradigm shift both “belief systems” present/expect one to make individually and socially to put theory into practice.
Disability in the Qur'an: The Islamic Alternative to Defining, Viewing, and Relating to Disability
Maysaa Bazna, College of Staten Island
The purpose of this study is to seek a first-hand understanding of the Islamic position and attitude towards disability by examining the primary sources of Islamic teaching—the Qur’an and the sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad. We search the Qur’an for references to such terms as blind, mute, deaf, lame, weak, orphan, destitute/needy, and wayfarer. We attempt to understand the intent of these terms by examining the roots of the Arabic words and investigating their possible synonyms; cross-referencing the Qur’anic verses containing the same terms; and confirming the meaning with the Hadith. We conclude that the concept of disability, in the conventional sense, is not found in the Qur’an. Rather, the Qur’an concentrates on the notion of disadvantage that is created by society and imposed on those individuals who might not possess the social, economic, or physical attributes that people happen to value at a certain time and place.
Disability, the Human Condition, and the Spirit of the Eschatological Long Run: Toward a P(new)matological Theology of Disability
Amos Yong, Regent University
The two dominant models of disability are the biomedical definition that emphasizes the curing of individual impairments and the social-constructivist model that focuses on the socio-political conditions produced by discourses on disability. Both models are operative in the biblical traditions. How then can we develop an alternative mode of theologizing disability that incorporates but is not limited to these perspectives? Nancy Eiesland’s proposal of Jesus Christ as “the disabled God” goes some ways toward this goal in redefining disability in anthropological, ecclesiological and theological terms. Its weakness, however, may be its incapacity to address the eschatological hope that motivates many persons with disability. I propose a pneumatological model of the Spirit as the “community-enabling God” that is able to appreciate and rehabilitate insights from the biomedical and social-constructivist models, even as it seeks to complement Eiesland’s proposal and contributes further to a more robust trinitarian and eschatological theology of disability.
Let Us Seek Not to Solidify: Analyzing Disability beyond the Organic or the Social
Lorna Hallahan, Flinders University
This paper develops a detailed and durable framework with which to analyse the ‘contemporary ordinary of disability.’ The paper explicates a phenomenological/relational understanding by combining three schemes to unfold disability: Julia Kristeva’s work on the variegated aspects of experience; Edward Said’s approach to contrapuntality; and Henrietta Moore’s schema for detailing the intersubjective construction of experience. The paper concludes that an intersubjective framework for analysing disability can contain the high levels of ambiguity that threaten to overwhelm any attempt to speak theoretically and theologically about disability. Perhaps more importantly this analytical framework constructs a deeply textured context from which to do theologies in ways that open pathways to positive change in the lives of people with impairments.
A20-24
Religion and Popular Culture Group
Theme: Exploring the Research Agenda for the Study of Religion and Popular Culture
The study of Religion and Popular Culture has grown substantially over the past fifteen years with the setting up of the Religion and Popular Culture Group at the AAR as well as new specialist journals. The aim of this session is to provide an opportunity for scholars working in this field to discuss the achievements of the past fifteen years, and to explore the agenda for the next phase of research in Religion and Popular Culture. Panelists will begin this conversation by presenting their views on the key questions facing the study of Religion and Popular Culture, as well as the methodological issues that need to be addressed to develop increasingly sophisticated research in this area. The intention will be to draw as many perspectives as possible from participants in the session in order to clarify how the study of Religion and Popular Culture may usefully develop in the future.
A20-25
Religious Freedom, Public Life, and the State Group
Theme: Religion, Politics, and the Moral Values Debate
No Abstract. See individual paper abstracts.
Abortion and the Politics of God: Why the Left Has Been Left Behind
Linda Ellison, Harvard University
This paper will investigate the ethical implications of the silence of the religious and political left on matters of religion as it relates to abortion. The paper will also propose ways the left may engage the realm of religion in the abortion debate. The paper will specifically draw upon the personal narratives of 729 religious women interviewed by the presenter. These are women who have undergone abortions and have grappled with reconciling and re-imagining their own religiosity/spirituality in the midst of their termination and the public debate.
Moral Effectiveness of Voices on the Religious Left: Seeking Integration via the Paradigm of Nonviolence
Eli Sasaran, Graduate Theological Union
Although deep commonalities exist across religions, the voice heard most often in American public discourse is the religious right. How can the voice of the religious left become more effective in public discourse? How can we enrich the dialogue of an American ecumenical ethic, especially in the context of globalization and re-occurring violence? I explore these questions, with a focus on the moral message of the religious left. First, I briefly describe the situation of the religious right and left. Second, I investigate voices from the religious left, such as Michael Learner, Rev. Jim Wallis, Sr. Joan Chittister, and Michael Nagler. Third, I consider the paradigm of nonviolence as a path to deeper integration of the religious left. My paper argues that the paradigm of nonviolence seems to integrate these voices on the religious left into a more clear, inspiring, and effective moral message for public discourse.
"Moral Values" and the Presidential Election: A Historical Overview of Protestantism and Politics Since the 1960s
Darryl Victor Caterine, Grinnell College
The contemporary conflation of religion and politics in presidential elections can be traced back to the Neoconservative Movement of the 1970s. This presentation offers an analysis of neoconservative historiography, particularly its erasure of the Civil Rights Movement and the attendant issues of injustice in the articulation of a political philosophy. By erasing the Movement as a constitutive political force of the 1960s, neoconservative intellectuals are able to narrate the events of this decade as an irreligious challenge to the legitimacy of the American nation state. Since the 2004 presidential election, religious and Democratic Party leaders have begun to revisit the prophetic Protestantism of the 1960s' counter-culture as a religious and moral language for future elections. The emerging religious politics of the American presidency revive earlier, twentieth century debates between theologians of Neo-Orthodoxy and the Social Gospel, problematizing the meaning of 'moral values' in a historically broader context of American Protestantism.
The Dignity of Politics: Philosophy, Religion, and the "Consent of the Governed"
Joseph S. Pettit, Morgan State University
In current debates about values in politics, little attention is paid to values that are intrinsic to the democratic political process. The failure to attend with care to our understanding of the values present in the democratic political process itself has reduced democracy to a means in service to other ends, rather than an end in itself. As a result, disagreement becomes divisiveness and fellow citizens become combatants who are either friend or foe. In this paper, I argue that at least some portion of these problems is caused by equating consent with material, or substantive, agreement regarding the content of political outcomes, rather than with moral agreement regarding the procedure from which these outcomes are produced. Thus, I propose that as part of current debates about values in politics we should reconsider what we affirm and what we value in 'the consent of the governed.'
A20-26
Schleiermacher Group
Theme: Part II of Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre (The Christian Faith): On Sin, Redemption, and Christ (Second of a Four-Year New Investigation of Schleiermacher's Magnum Opus)
This will be the second year of the Group’s reexamination of Schleiermacher’s magnum opus, The Christian Faith (Glaubenslehre). Last year we focused on Part I. This year we shall focus on the first half of Part II: on sin, Christ, and redemption, and faith. The papers this year are exceptional, not only because of their quality of scholarship but also because each is daring and novel in its approach and therefore each promises to break new ground in the field.
The format will be as follows: Papers will be available in advance (see below); brief presentations will be made, with discussion after each paper; and a round-table discussion at the end.
Papers for this session will be posted in mid-October at the Schleiermacher Group's "Yahoo! Group" website. AAR members wishing to join the Schleiermacher Group and access this website should contact Brent Sockness at sockness@stanford.edu.
Christ the Bearer of the Divine Love: Christ’s Person and Work in the Theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher
Jacqueline Marina, Purdue University
According to Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ’s work, Jesus saves through his perfect expression of the divine love and the subsequent impartation of his perfect God-consciousness. It is Christ’s person forming activity that is salvific. This paper explores how Schleiermacher envisions this person-forming character of Christ’s redemptive activity, paying particular attention to its psychological, social, and historical dimensions. Important in this regard is Schleiermacher’s understanding of the corporate character of sin and his understanding of what it means to be a self. Because human beings are so interdependent on one another, the sin of one person implicates the whole race. However, this interdependence also makes it possible for the salvation of all to be accomplished in the life of one person. The transforming power of Jesus’ God-consciousness is transmitted to others in the historical and social arena and in this way becomes salvific for each person and for the entire community.
Schleiermacher on Sin and Redemption: Continuity and Change
Walter E. Wyman, Whitman College
Schleiermacher on Sin and Redemption: Continuity and Change
According to Schleiermacher, in Christianity “everything is related to the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth” (Christian Faith §11). To think about the Christian faith as Schleiermacher understood it is to think about the dynamics of sin and redemption. My paper investigates Schleiermacher’s thinking about the heart of Christianity, sin and redemption, focusing on the problem of continuity and change. It will seek to sort out the genuinely revisionist or New Protestant components from the points of strong continuity with the theologies of Old Protestantism. How does Schleiermacher conceive of sin and redemption? Wherein lies the novelty of his discussion–what is revisionist or “New Protestant” about it? Wherein lies the continuity with the tradition–what is Old Protestant about it? How successfully has Schleiermacher solved the problem he sought to solve, that is, to work out a middle way between orthodoxy and rationalism?
Faith as Communion with Christ in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics
Dawn A. De Vries, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education
One of the remarkable things about Schleiermacher’s systematic theology, the Glaubenslehre, or “doctrine of faith,” is that it has no locus de fide—no sustained discussion of the concept of faith itself. In various places within Der christliche Glaube, Schleiermacher identifies faith in a number of ways; in order to draw out his definition of faith comprehensively, then, many different sections of the system must be consulted. In this paper, I attempt to provide such a comprehensive account of Schleiermacher’s doctrine of faith, arguing that union or communion with Christ is his central definition of faith. Further, I contend that faith so understood provides the subjective correlate to the christological structure of Part II of the Glaubenslehre. Throughout my paper, I locate his discussion of faith within the confessional context that he himself points to in the references listed under his leading propositions.
Schleiermacher’s View of Resurrection in Relation to Redemption, the Naturzusammenhang, and Eschatology
Nathan D. Hieb, Princeton Theological Seminary
The Glaubenslehre provides the context for this exploration of Schleiermacher’s understanding of Christ’s resurrection in relation to redemption (Propositions 100-105), the conditions imposed upon this understanding by his preceding treatment of the nature-system, and the profound implications of this understanding for eschatology. My central claim is that, in spite of his affirmation of the historicity of Christ’s resurrection (Proposition 99), Schleiermacher proceeds to empty the resurrection of redemptive significance in the work of Christ, thereby maintaining consistency with a Naturzusammenhang that implicitly disallows miracles, and resulting in an eschatology in which the resurrection of individual believers may only be posited in severe tension with the consummation of the Church. Thus, the weight of Schleiermacher’s consistent argumentation regarding redemption, the nature-system, and eschatology suggests that there is little room for literal resurrection in the Glaubenslehre in relation to either Christ or individual believers.
A20-27
Daoist Studies Consultation
Theme: Daoist Studies: Problems and Prospects
This panel explores the state of the field of Daoist Studies, a self-reflective discussion of requisite skills and evaluative criteria, and theoretical issues in Daoist Studies, specifically new interpretative models for understanding and teaching Daoism.
“The Bright Dao Appears Dark”: Is Early Daoism Possible?
Thomas Michael, George Washington University
Early Daoism remains an enigma for scholars who deal with it in their research and teaching. The important controversy centers on the religious nature of Chinese Daoism: does it become a tradition only with the revelation of Laojun (Lord Lao) to Zhang Daoling in 142 CE, or is there some connection between this institutionalized Daoist religion and what went on in the textualized ideas that circulated centuries before? This paper presents ideas on teaching early Daoism as a tradition of discourse that is identifiable by a shared understanding of the pristine Dao. These writings constitute a vibrant tradition of discourse that illuminates a way of thinking and living that owes relatively little to non-early Daoist writings. The importance of this for teaching and research is that it can open new ways to understand the role and position of early Daoism in relation to early Chinese thought and later Chinese religion.
Pedagogical Prospects: Daoist Studies and Material Culture
Jason Steuber, University of Missouri-Kansas City & Nelson-Atkins Museum
Daoist Studies integrates disciplines emphasizing historical and contemporary materials. However, it must remain self-reflexive to avoid pedagogical “textual bias.” The Daoist Studies group can avoid bias by incorporating non-textual materials in pedagogy and interpretation.
Questions to voice include: Would more publications of Daoist art and material culture, without equal increases in access to Daoist works on public display, be sufficient to improve scholarly discourse? How can Daoist material culture collections and education programs be integrated pedagogically?
I suggest two project proposals focused on publications and access. First, a list of Daoist material culture collections must be generated. Knowledge of and access to collections will benefit the group. Second, “textual bias” can be addressed by developing a database of archaeological materials in China. Surprisingly, extant Daoist material culture is often unearthed alongside Buddhist works. With the database, the group could interpret why a difference between Daoist Studies and Buddhist Studies exists.
Ecology and the State: The Politics and Prospects of Daoist Studies
James Miller, Queen's University
This paper examines how scholars have constructed of an affinity between Daoism and ecology that is not only underpinned by a romantic Orientalist reading of Daoist philosophy and religion, but also serves the logic of modernization and nationalism that forms part of the ideology of the Chinese state. In order to legitimate themselves in the eyes of the state, it is in the interests of Daoist institutions to be seen to help build the future of modern socialist China through promoting an ecological consciousness among the masses. This paper argues that it is the task of contemporary Daoist Studies to analyze the ways in which this powerful affinity between Daoism and ecology has come to be constructed and the way in which this affinity functions in terms of the historic relationship between China's religious institutions and the state. In conclusion it examines the obligations of the modern scholar of Daoism.
Reception Theory, Martial Arts, and Daoism in the West: An Interpretative Model in Cultural and Religious Transfers Studies
Dominic LaRochelle, Université Laval
This article proposes an interpretative model derived from reception theory, as developed in the field of literature by Jauss, Iser and Fish. This theory is not only relevant to the study of Daoist traditions in the West, but also to any tradition, religious or otherwise, that traverses the bridge from Asia to Western societies, and vice versa. Reception theory claims that the meaning of a text comes not from the text as a self-sufficient object or from the intention of its author, but rather from the act of reading. It is thus the analysis of the experience of the reader within a specific frame of reference which is relevant to the reception theorist. This paper argues that throughout Taiji quan books, one can clearly perceive a redefinition of Daoism functioning within a specific frame determined by martial arts practice and by a modern Western context.
A20-28
Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation
Theme: Continuities and Discontinuities: Contemporary Cross-Cultural Approaches to the Study of Death
This is the inaugural session of the Consultation: Death, Dying, and Beyond. This new program unit will endeavor to examine death from any and every angle of religious studies. Our first session includes papers covering a wide swath of contemporary approaches to the study of death, from a varied and cross-cultural perspective.
Pagans, Death, and Dying
Michael F. Strmiska, Central Connecticut State University
This paper involves the intersection of two different research projects that the author has been involved with for some time. The first project is doctoral research on Indo-European Afterlife Beliefs, focusing on ancient Scandinavian and Vedic-Hindu traditions. The second project is research on contemporary Pagan or Neopagan, New Religious Movements in Northern and Eastern Europe, specifically Iceland and Lithuania. Building on these research projects, the paper investigates the afterlife beliefs professed by contemporary Pagans or Neopagans, that is, Wiccans, Celts and Druids, Norse Heathens, others, who claim to be continuing religious traditions of the pre-Christian European past. The paper will examine the extent to which modern Pagans are carrying on documented beliefs from the Pagan past versus the degree to which they are adding or combining elements from contemporary culture. The author will touch on recent fieldwork in Lithuania in 2004/05.
The Changing Role of the Vajrayāna in the Good Death: Tibetan Buddhist Liberation in Modernity
Eve L. Mullen, Mississippi State University
This paper explores changes to Tibetan Buddhist death rites and interpretations of the Bardo Thödol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) in exile and the west. Regulations on body disposal and lack of available monks for performing rituals influence funeral rituals in exile, and adaptations of death rites for western popular use also affect Tibetan traditions. The paper describes such changes and adaptations in modern Vajrayāna, observed in recent funeral rituals in Tibetan communities, the uses of Tibetan Buddhism in the Living and Dying Project in San Francisco, and the influence of the Chinese invasion of Tibet and subsequent mass deaths of Tibetans upon the Vajrayāna perspectives on death today. The author concludes that the Buddhist virtuous life is still one according to the Buddha’s dharma and compassion, one in which death’s presence is a vital impetus for attaining Buddhist virtues.
Death and Dying in Traditional Islamic Spirituality: A Sufi Saint in America
Gisela Webb, Seton Hall University
This paper will look at the teachings and community practices regarding death and dying established by the twentieth century Sri Lankan Sufi teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who founded a community in Philadelphia in 1972. His mazar (burial shrine) outside of Philadelphia serves as traditional sacred space, perhaps the first Sufi saint shrine and pilgrimage site in the United States. Bawa’s discourses on Qur’an, hadith, and traditions on individual or cosmic transformation and death –such as Muhammad’s paradigmatic Isra’/Night Journey--form a contemporary example of classic Islamic mystical theology, and practical advice, on “dying before death.”
Impromptu Memorial Shrines: Mediators of Ongoing Connection with the Dead in Contemporary U.S. Popular Religiosity
Denis Thalson, Graduate Theological Union
This paper demonstrates that impromptu memorial shrines function as places of mediation between the memorial builders and their loved dead. Memorial builder respondents in a study by geographers Charles Collins and Charles Rhine expressed a conviction that the place of death held more of that person’s essential presence than the grave, which held only the dead body. Collins and Rhine, did not choose to elaborate on the functional importance for the builders of the memorial place. However, in this paper I extend the intimations in their study to suggest that memorial shrines constructed at or near the place of death reveal the imperative of marking the death place itself because to do so establishes and maintains a palpable ongoing connection with the deceased loved one in the minds of the memorial builders.
Death Rituals in Tsunami-Devastated North Sumatra and in Remote Irian Jaya
E. Randolph Richards, Ouachita Baptist University
On December 26, 2004, a 9.0 earthquake, the subsequent tsunami, and the ensuing devastation have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Aceh province of North Sumatra. Most coastal villages had death rates above 75%, rendering it impossible to provide appropriate death rituals for the deceased.
In the past century, travel in Aceh has been forbidden to most foreigners. Since January 2005, international aide workers have been provided a temporary glimpse into this region. Most of the research for this paper comes from case studies and field interviews/observations in Aceh. This data will be compared to previous work I have done on death rituals among Dani tribesmen in the Baliem Valley of Irian Jaya. These two Indonesian tribes, the Acehnese and the Dani, are separated by over 5,000 miles, 10,000 islands, and two religions; yet there are striking similarities in the more indigenous elements of their death rituals.
A20-29
Open and Relational Theologies Consultation
Theme: Theologies of Mission in a Pluralistic Age
Open and relational theologians have typically embraced a theology of religions that prizes inclusivism or some form of pluralism. In this session, presenters consider what open and relational theology might contribute to a theology of missions. Among the topics discussed are apologetics, evangelism, pluralism, process thought, evangelical theology, interreligious dialogue, and missiology.
Reversing Mission: Relational Resources for Bearing Witness to the Other
Donna Bowman, University of Central Arkansas
Pre-twentieth century theologies of religions tended to essentialize both Christianity and other religions, yet subjected only the other religions to abstraction from their historical contexts and particularities. Such imbalance and selectivity became untenable with the rise of the historical consciousness and the social sciences. However, these same tools can be used to discover the resources available in Christian history and practice for theorizing mission. With eyes wide open to the full contingent reality of the Other, and with ears sensitized to the voice of Christ emerging from many times and places, we may construct a relational theology of mission that reverses the hierarchy in which the missionary represents Christ and the missionized represent the world’s sinners. Such a mission will stress finding Christ in the Other rather than bringing Christ to the Other, and embracing the contingent web of relationships that brings both parties together.
A Paragon for Relational Theological Apologetics in a Pluralist Society: Newbigin’s Approach as a Way Forward for Evangelical Theological Epistemology
Steven Sherman, Winebrenner Theological Seminary
Lesslie Newbigin’s approach to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue ought to serve as a way forward for relational evangelical theological apologetics in a pluralist society. His holistic theological method, including his call to civil and constructive dialogue both within and beyond Christian academia, requires emulation among evangelical scholars; it entails adopting a scholarly believing criticism or critical anti-criticism stance, along with an attitude of genuine openness, as well as dedication to painstaking effort, time, sacrifice, and patience. Hopefully, such a move will generate a broadening consensus as to authoritative sources and humble apologetics respecting theological knowledge: especially among scholars open to considering a wide variety of views both within and beyond evangelicalism. Newbigin’s willingness to learn and to change, his attitude of true appreciation and patient understanding of others and their perspectives, and his ability to hold in tension confessional and open stances regarding theological epistemology, merits imitation among Christian theologians.
Rethinking Dualisms: An Interreligious Approach
Michelle Voss Roberts, Emory University
The vision of the divine relationship to the world as one of connection and horizon is a fundamental contribution of open and relational theologies for grounding interreligious dialogue. This paper explores how to arrive at (or return to) this vision interreligiously –completing the hermeneutical circle of method and content. I argue that approaching the “dualisms” of non-Western traditions (here, Samkhya-Yoga metaphysics) with a relational template enables Western traditions to rethink the nature of their own dualistic foundations. By way of return from the other, interreligious dialogue can enable theologians to rethink the nature of divine and human transcendence without capitulating to separative, hierarchical antinomies.
Process Theology and Religious Pluralism: Evangelism as Deep Listening
Jay McDaniel, Hendrix College
In Understanding Theologies of Religion Paul Knitter shows how in recent Christian history three attitudes toward other world religions have emerged: a replacement model, a fulfillment model, and a mutuality model. Process theologians expand the mutuality model by (1) by offering a theology of listening, suggesting that humans can 'feel the feelings' of one another across cultural and religious divides; (2) offering a theology of evangelism, which interprets missionary activity, not as a seeking of converts, but rather as the promotion of friendship between people of different religions, wherein diversity is honored within limits, and, most deeply; and (3) suggesting that the divine reality is itself an ongoing act of deep listening, which is itself creative transformed by relations with the world. This means that as Christians listen to people of other religions and allow themselves to be transformed by their wisdom, they are extending the healing ministry of Christ.
A20-30
Signifying (on) Scriptures Consultation and SBL's Signifying (on)Scriptures Group
Theme: Theorizing Signifying Traditions and Practices
Panelists will discuss signifying traditions and practices in various parts of the world and relate such to the phenomenon of 'scriptures.'
A20-34
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Doctoral Student Workshop for Teaching: Systematic Theology to Latinos and Latinas
The AETH (Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana), through funding granted by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, is sponsoring a project entitled "Pedagogia: Teaching Latinos and Latinas in Theology." In connection with this project, non-Latino/a doctoral students in systematic theology who intend to become professors are invited to attend a workshop that will offer insights, techniques, and resources useful in teaching systematic theology to Latinos and Latinas. The workshop will be presented by Jeanette Rodriguez (Seattle University) and Ruben Rosario (Saint Louis University). Advanced registration is REQUIRED and space is limited to 20 doctoral students. To register or for more information, please contact Ruben Rosario at roasarir@slu.edu.
A20-33
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Wabash Student-Teacher Luncheon
The Wabash Center and AAR Graduate Student Task Force cordially invite AAR and SBL doctoral Student Members to this lunch gathering with experienced faculty mentors to share conversation about teaching. What influenced your choice to become a teacher? What opportunities have you had to develop your teaching skills? What joys and frustrations do you experience in teaching? What assistance do you have in developing as a teacher?
Participation is by advance registration only, limited to the first 75 doctoral Student Members whose registration the AAR receives. (Overflow registration is accepted in case of cancellations or late arrivals.) Eligibility is limited to doctoral students nearing completion of study who have teaching experience or will soon be teaching, and who have not previously participated in this annual event. Seating is assigned in advance, so if you register and do not attend, your presence will be missed. Lunch is provided. Separate registration is required.
A20-50
Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group
Theme: The Interpreted Bonhoeffer
To what extent is the publicly known and much revered Bonhoeffer a creation of his primary interpreter Eberhard Bethge? To what extent does the historical Bonhoeffer depart from Bethge's presentation of him? This session features well-known Bonhoeffer scholars asking difficult questions. It will be of interest not only to those concerned with Bonhoeffer in particular but to all those interested in questions of historical and theological legacy.
The two sessions of the Bonhoeffer Group at this year's AAR meetings are deliberately constructed in parallel with each other to address different dimensions of the ways Bonhoeffer is interpreted today. We encourage you to attend both sessions.
The Quest for the Historical Bonhoeffer
Victoria Barnett, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
In much of the Bonhoeffer literature, the “historical” and the “theological” Bonhoeffer have been conflated. Bonhoeffer’s role in history has been “theologized”, shaped by interpretations of him as a Christian martyr. Yet, in much of the historical literature on the Nazi era, Bonhoeffer is a fairly minor figure. How can we understand Bonhoeffer historically, and does a historically grounded study of Bonhoeffer yield new insights into his theological legacy? This paper will begin with an overview of the Bonhoeffer literature from the fields of theology, ethics, history, and Holocaust studies, identifying some of the questions that arise when Bonhoeffer is studied from these different perspectives. The analysis will then turn to the material in the Bonhoeffer Works, including previously unpublished material that sheds new light on Bonhoeffer’s role in history. The paper will conclude with an attempt to bring this historical information into dialogue with the historical and theological scholarship.
Eberhard Bethge: Interpreter Extraordinaire of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
John de Gruchy, University of Cape Town
Eberhard Bethge was undoubtedly Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s close friend. He was also the person Bonhoeffer appointed as executor of his literary estate, a task that Bethge undertook with immense energy and commitment over more than forty years after the Second World War. But Bethge was far more than friend, and more than editor of Bonhoeffer’s works; he was also the major interpreter of Bonhoeffer's legacy. This paper explores this role, one that was evident during Bonhoeffer’s life and developed in a remarkable way after his death. To what extent is the Bonhoeffer we know the Bonhoeffer received through Bethge’s experience and reflection? How did Bethge’s interpretation develop, and did it change over the years? How has Bethge become the paradigmatic interpreter of Bonhoeffer, influencing the way others have interpreted him? And does our knowledge of Bethge as interpreter of Bonhoeffer shed light on the task of theological interpretation as such?
Bonhoeffer and the Jews: Bethge and Beyond
Stephen R. Haynes, Rhodes College
For the past twenty-five years, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s relationship to Jews and Judaism has been dominated by his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge’s conclusion that “there is no doubt that Bonhoeffer’s primary motivation for entering active political conspiracy was the treatment of the Jews by the Third Reich.” Recently, however, new critical light has been shed on Bonhoeffer’s theology and actions vis-à-vis Jews by historians, theologians, and officials at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Where do things stand in 2005? This paper will address this question by reviewing recent developments related to Bonhoeffer and the Jews and by assessing the extent to which they problematize the Bethge thesis that has held sway for so long. In the process, much will be revealed about the 'quest for the historical Bonhoeffer,' Bethge’s role as his primary interpreter, and about the scholarly and popular forces that interact in remembrance of Bonhoeffer.
A20-51
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Women in Religion - Thriving, Not Just Surviving: A Conversation with Mary E. Hunt, Editor of A Guide for Women in Religion
Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies (1992) framed women's entry into the field of religion in terms of their basic “survival”: balancing career and family, finding one's voice, handling commuting partnerships, negotiating contracts, building the case for tenure, etc. Now an updated view for the twenty-first century, A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z (2004), looks beyond women merely surviving to aim at their thriving in religion. Structural challenges to this persist in various forms, including sexism, racism, economic injustice, and the effects of colonial and patriarchal traditions. But new questions also have arisen: choosing among various career alternatives (administration, publishing, libraries and technology, nonprofits, ministry, etc.), teaching on-line, moving from associate to full professor, facing retirement, and moving into emerita status. Come join a lively discussion of these and other related topics with the editor, Mary Hunt.
A20-52
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Marty Forum
The recipient of the 2005 Martin Marty Award for contributions to the public understanding of religion is John L. Esposito, Founding Director of Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, Professor Esposito is the author of over 30 books, including Muslims' Place in the American Public Square: Hope, Fears, and Aspirations (2004).
The Marty Forum provides an informal setting in which Dr. Esposito will talk about his work with journalist Caryle Murphy of the Washington Post, and engage in discussion with the audience.
A20-53
Special Topics Forum
Theme: What the Study of Mormonism Brings to Religious Studies: A Special AAR Session Organized on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s Birth
Jan Shipps, whose case study approach virtually set the framework for the study of Mormonism within religious studies, will present a paper designed to provide contours for the reflections of five well-known scholars of religion. These contributors have been invited to consider the question of how treating Mormonism as a case study might enrich their own fields of specialization. Briefly outlining the current situation in which, even though more of its members reside outside than inside the U.S., the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the now the fourth largest church in the nation, Shipps will describe how religious studies helps to explain how this once provincial tradition embedded in particular geographic places and idiosyncratic cultures is managing to make itself at home in myriad places and cultures. From their multiple perspectives, the panelists will consider what the study of Mormonism can add to the scholarly study of religion.
A20-54
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Posters Session
Madame President? An Analysis of Christianity’s View of Women in Leadership and the Dilemma of Women Caught between Radical Feminism and Traditional Exclusion
Prior Holland, Azusa Pacific University
This paper integrates a survey of the current leadership status of women in the U.S. with feminist biblical interpretation supporting women leaders in all spheres of life. Current leadership in Protestant Christian communities and the broader society do not reflect that women are qualified to hold all the same leadership positions as men. I argue that Christians ought to actively affirm women leaders. Recognizing that individual women and men have skills and traits that both duplicate and complement each other, gender equality in leadership selection will provide complimentarity gains. Thus, I argue that Christians must recognize gender differences but not value one gender above the other. Individuals ought to seek role models to develop their leadership abilities; churches need to promote, rather than oppose, female leadership; and the broader society ought to promote both genders to the highest positions of leadership, including the U.S. presidency, based on needs and competence.
From Sanctuary to Sidewalk: Black Religious Iconography in Philadelphia
Matthew Hunter, Temple University
Drawing on the work of Josiah Young, Vincent Wimbush and James Cone, I will describe the form and function of Philadelphia’s African American murals as religious iconography. The Black religious iconography of murals in Philadelphia has continuity with African and Christian traditions of iconography and ancestor veneration.
Foundational to both practices is a deep theology of incarnation. However, these icons also function to claim space through the construction of an-other world-in-marronage that subverts and resists the previous order of things.
Social Scientific Approach to Studying Christian Conversion Narratives
Sang Bok Lee, Kangnam University
The author studied the relationship between Christian adults’ psychosocial factors affecting religious conversion and their conversion narratives. The narrative themes of Christian adults’ conversion stories demonstrated some significant turning points in their autobiographical memories. In this study, the author measured the converters’ stress level and anxiety level, as related to their conversion narrative themes and spiritual well-being. The author selected dramatic conversion group (n=25) and gradual conversion group (n=25), and identified major psychosocial factors influencing dramatic Christian conversion. Dramatic conversion group showed a higher score in the domain of transcendental (p<0.05) in the spiritual well-being score. In the dramatic conversion group, conversion was considered as the first among the significant life events. The members of gradual conversion group reported less stressful life events (p<0.05) and better adjusted to their life environment.
Grassroots Interreligious Organizations: An Emerging Religious, Social, and Political Phenomenon in the United States
David O'Malley, Cleveland State University
This presentation provides an overview of descriptive qualitative research exploring the emerging nature of grassroots interreligious organizations in the United States. It considers the effect on the individuals and institutions participating in this work, as well as the development of three potential organizational missions: 1) the fostering of dialogue among different traditions, 2) addressing unmet human needs through service and 3) advocating for change through corporate and governmental policy. This research holds implications for both theory and practice in light of emerging religious pluralism. This topic is relevant to scholars of religion and other disciplines, as well as practitioners in religious leadership, health, education, social services and law. Interreligious organizations serve as critical organizational structures in communities. Similar to other religious institutions they provide a shared sense of purpose by mobilizing people and resources to address various issues of concern in a community.
Economics and Religion Research Group
Paul Oslington, University of New South Wales, Australia
Despite a Nobel Prize awarded for economics, and its enormous contemporary cultural importance, economic theory has received little attention from religion scholars. A research group recently established in Canberra Australia, (supported by a grant the Metanexus Institute/ with funding from the John Templeton Foundation) is developing the economics and religion dialogue. This group brings together the research universities and theological institutions in Australia’s national capital, Canberra. Convenors are : Dr Paul Oslington, (University of New South Wales/ADFA), Professor Geoffrey Brennan (Australian National University), and Associate Professor Stephen Pickard (St Marks National Theological Centre). We are keen in our poster session to make contact with other scholars interested in issues at the interface of economics and theology. We are also exploring the possibility of a new AAR consultation or group on economics and religion.
Role-Playing the Trials of Jesus and Paul: An Introduction to the New Testament
Adam Porter, Illinois College
My poster describes how my Introduction to the New Testament Class uses role-playing to encourage students to engage with (familiar?) texts in new and interesting ways. Students enact the trials of Jesus and Paul, by playing different roles to persuade the 'Roman' student group to agree with them about what to do with the defendants. Students need to read primary source material closely to do well in the trial; they also need to interact with each other and participate in the trial's discussions. I will also report my assessment of how well the new course met my initial goals for the class and how I plan to further modify it the next time I teach it.
Path-Goal Theory Made Flesh: Mordecai, Esther, and the Road to Purim
Kim Seitz, Azusa Pacific University
Path-Goal Theory is a leadership theory that focuses on empowering others to accomplish the tasks necessary to achieve the goals of a group. The book of Esther tells a story rife with empowerment. Mordecai repeatedly empowers Esther to take risks on behalf of her people. Ultimately, Esther empowers her people to defend themselves from annihilation. Evans and House developed four leadership styles: directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership. The purpose of these styles is to enable subordinates to achieve desired group objectives. This paper will discuss recent developments in this theory. It will then consider this theory in light of the book of Esther to creatively evaluate how Ahasuerus, Mordecai, Haman, and Esther measured up as leaders. Once a comparison has been made, this literary investigation will discuss how a church or college leadership class might use the Book of Esther to teach Path-Goal Theory.
Digital Resources for Classroom Use: the ATLA/ATS Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative
Martha Smalley, Yale University
This interactive display will showcase a freely-available Internet database that contains thousands of images and texts related to the study of religion, the Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative of the ATLA/ATS. The display will feature case studies demonstrating methods for integrating digital resources into teaching and learning contexts. While the focus will be on the content of the database, which supports the study of the Ancient Near East, American and European church history, the missionary movement, the history of Methodism, Baptists, and the Moravian Church, religious iconography, church architecture, the practice of Islam, etc., interactions between librarians/archivists and educators at the display will contribute toward evaluation of how digitization can best be exploited for teaching and learning, and will affect decisions regarding future developments of the database.
Cognitive Science and the Emergence of Symbolic Thought: Semiotic Theory and the Development of Religious Cognition
James Van Slyke, Fuller Theological Seminary
Cognitive Science of Religion has embraced a modular view of the mind, where religious cognition is accomplished through domain-specific autonomous modules which process information independently and unconsciously. Contrary to this view, Terrence Deacon has developed a theory of the co-evolutionary process of language development based on the semiotic theory of C. S. Pierce. According to Deacon, the environment has been a causative factor in the structuring of human cognition to make it easier for humans to easily develop competence in language, especially symbolic processing. Symbolic processing allows humans to represent abstract concepts, thought-patterns and events. Applying this theory to religion, it would seem to be the case that any cognition that is understood as religious (which is a type of language) would also have to involve religion acting as a type of selective process in the development of religious cognition.
A20-55
Ethics Section
Theme: Political God-Talk: What Does the Religious Left Need to Learn?
The papers presented in this session provide an ethical analysis of the religious and moral language used in contemporary, western, progressive political movements.
The Peculiar Shape of Liberal Christian Political Activism
Ellen Ott Marshall, Claremont School of Theology
This paper identifies three features of liberal Christianity that complicate faith-explicit political activism: theological humility, a narrative approach, and attentiveness to moral ambiguity. These three features help to explain why many progressive Christians flinch at the evangelical tone of their fellow progressives in the public sphere. They also help us explain the peculiar shape of liberal Christian public engagement as distinct from that of progressive evangelicals. Acknowledging this pluralism may weaken the political efficacy of the religious left. However, such acknowledgement is required if we are to engage the public sphere without compromising theological and ethical integrity.
An Eschatological Politics for the Religious Left
Sarah Azaransky, University of Virginia
In order to develop an effective moral message in public discourse, the American religious left must balance liberal democratic and theological commitments. This paper introduces Pauli Murray as a theoretician of a new kind of democratic politics that is robust, egalitarian, and attentive to theological commitments. In the 1970s and 1980s Murray articulated an account of how American theological and democratic commitments inform and revise each other. Central to this account is a concept of eschatological politics, which provides resources for a person with particular theological commitments to engage with the state. Murray provides an alternative, therefore, to political theory that has eschewed religious reasons and theology that has avoided political engagement. This paper argues that Murray articulated a moral message from the religious left that is a viable model today.
“We Don’t Do God!” The Moral Message of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Tradition of Christian Socialism
Doug Gay, University of Edinburgh
“We don’t do God” – was the warning issued to a journalist in 2003, from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Press Secretary. Blair, a practising Anglican, is a member of the Christian Socialist Movement, which claims a tradition of British socialism dating back to F.D. Maurice in the 19th century. Blair has also linked his Christian 'socialism' with the ideas of Scots philosopher John MacMurray. While claiming a Christian basis for his political beliefs, in response to the tightly policed discursive space offered to explicitly religious ethical messages in UK public life, Blair has adopted a highly mobile strategy of deploying and withholding explicit religious expressions of political ethics. This has been motivated by fears of media identification with the religious right in the USA as well as the inhibitions of the British Left about religion in public life. Is this shrewd and mobile strategy itself ethically cynical?
The Impact of the Religious Left in the Living Wage Movement
Melissa Snarr, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
In this paper, I document and analyze the role of the “Religious Left” within one of the most successful current social movements in the U.S.—the municipal Living Wage movement. Drawing on aspects of social movement theory, I identify the multiple assets the Religious Left has contributed to Living Wage campaigns --including organizational resources, privileged legitimacy, identity formation, and moral motivation-- and argue that in many cases, success was dependent on the Religious Left’s involvement. In the end, I contend that renewed alliances between religion and labor (which involves growing pains on both sides) revitalize the Democratic Party’s base on a local level in ways that have been noticeably absent from recent federal politics. I close the paper by offering a list of best practices, or lessons from the field, which Christian political ethicists might incorporate into their scholarship, teaching, and activism.
A20-56
North American Religions Section
Theme: Faith and the City: Religion in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia
This session explores religion in Philadelphia with reference to four historical settings: fundamentalist influences on the Philadelphia African American community in the first half of the twentieth century, Christian celebrity and cults of personality in radio evangelism in the 1950s-1970s, the encounter between Jewish Reconstructionist and the Renewal movements and the ways in which they influenced each other, and the growth of new religious movements (especially among African-Americans), in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s. The papers will serve as a point of departure for discussion, among all session attendees, about distinguishing features of the twentieth-century religious history of Philadelphia as well as about religion in urban America more generally.
Reconstructing and Renewing Judaism in Philadelphia: The Unexpected Alliance between the Reconstructionist and Renewal Movements in the 1970s-1990s
Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Reconstructing and Renewing Judaism in Philadelphia: the Unexpected Alliance between the Reconstructionist and Renewal Movements in In the 1970s-1990s
In the 1970s , two new Jewish religious movements chose to turn Philadelphia into the center of their activities . The Reconstructionist and the Renewal movements were very different from each other in their theologies , styles of worship and social status. Geographical proximity brought the two groups to cooperate with each other . Sharing teachers and exchanging ideas , the two groups have come to influence each other, inspiring changes in their thinking and style. The reshaped character of the two groups helped both of them to improve their image and standing within the larger Jewish community and offered the two fledgling movements more legitimacy and influence.
Fundamentally Black: The Rise of Philadelphia's African American Evangelical Community
Albert G. Miller, Oberlin College
This paper will explore the rise and significance of fundamentalism and evangelicalism within Philadelphia's African-American community. Whitfield Nottage, a Bahamian emigrant, came to the U.S. in 1909 with his two brothers, Talbot Burton (T.B.) and Berlin Martin (B.M.). Whitfield established the Ebenezer Community Chapel in Philadelphia in the mid 1930s, where he ministered for more than 30 years. Through this ministry, Nottage mentored several generations of Philadelphia ministers and congregations. Whitfield was also the anchor for the arrival in Philadelphia of other Brethren from the Caribbean. Whitfield along with his brothers begin to build a network of ministries across the U.S. that in some ways represents a larger movement of African American evangelicalism. The paper will also discuss the development of the Manna Bible Institute, (of the pre-millennial dispensational theological persuasion) in the 1944, for the specific purpose of providing Bible training to Christian leadership in the Philadelphia Black community.
Kingdoms in the Air: "Morning Cheer" and Early Media Evangelism in Philadelphia
David Perkins, Vanderbilt University
Three Philadelphia-based entrepreneurs of early radio evangelism created kingdoms in the air---principalities defined by theological position, personal speaking and preaching style, political posture, music, and a complimentary host of public meetings where the on-air world materialized before an appreciative constituency. Dr. George A. Palmer, the focus of this paper, and his “Morning Cheer Broadcast” competed with Carl McIntire’s “20th Century Reformation Hour” and Percy Crawford’s “Young People’s Church of the Air” to win souls as well as the loyalty and financial support of “faithful listeners.” Palmer, Crawford, and McIntire each objectified his radio ministry by building a permanent Bible conference facility where influential evangelical preachers, educators, and authors interacted with paying attendees. From the 1950s through the 1970s, these Bible conferences, in combined force with their related radio ministries, became hothouses for the kind of evangelical culture upon which the kingdoms of Bakker, Swaggart, Falwell, and Robertson were built.
Faith in Flux: "Black Gods" in Philadelphia 1930-1945
Danielle Sigler, Austin College
When University of Pennsylvania graduate student, Arthur Fauset decided to study the growth of “storefront” churches in 1939, he had chosen an auspicious moment. African American religion in Philadelphia was becoming increasingly diverse, with established mainstream denominations as well as an influx of these newer religious organizations. Competition for the hearts and minds of Philadelphia’s citizens was fierce. Rev. Becton was murdered in Philadelphia and evangelist Daddy Grace, himself a relative newcomer to Philadelphia, was a prime suspect (though never charged). Divine had shifted his headquarters to Philadelphia following a scandal and the threat of arrest in New York. Thus Fauset found himself at the center of a burgeoning, complicated, and at times, dangerous religious scene.
This paper will focus on the growth of new religious movements in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s, seeking to understand its role as both an extension and escape for leaders of new religious movements.
A20-57
Religion, Media, and Culture Consultation and Philosophy of Religion Section
Theme: Religion, Violence, and the Special Effect: Irruptions of Exceptionality
Recent critical theory has responded to the apparent triumph of global markets
over what were once viewed as Leftist alternatives to capitalism (or over
activities once thought to be outside the sphere of market calculation) with a
renewed exploration of political subjectivity thought in terms of a founding
exceptional event or the irruption of a "special effect" that reorients the
structures within which it initially appears.
Is this turn to the exceptional event the same thing as a turn to (or return of)
religion? How should we understand the haunting isomorphism in much of this
literature between a subjectivating "event" of exception and the "special
effect" as a designation for that captivating irruption of transcendence, the
"fragile absolute," or an unsystematized, contingent excess of meaning?
Similarly, is it possible to elaborate a genealogy of the specialness of the
special effect (or the exceptionality of the event)?
A20-58
Study of Judaism Section
Theme: Eastern European Jewry: Culture, Thought, and Impact
Bodies in Perilous Balance: A Rabbi’s Response to "Othering"
Ramona Kirsch, University of Missouri-Kansas City
This paper provides one example of ‘othering’ discourse about Jews and their bodies in nineteenth century religious thought as advanced by a Galician Rabbi, Joseph Samuel Bloch during the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Rather than examining those discourses that ‘other’ this paper focuses upon Bloch’s conception of the bodily ‘sameness’ of the Jew that attempted to counter the images of inherent ‘difference.’ In particular Bloch, as an Eastern European Jewish scholar, utilized Talmudic literary practices to not only respond to the ‘othering’ of Jews but to debate within the Jewish community itself regarding the purpose of the Jewish body. Bloch’s very public critique of the growing anti-Semitism and Nationalisms in the fin-de-siècle Habsburg Monarchy resisted conceptions of inherent difference of the Jewish body. Bloch’s conception of ‘sameness’ reveals how individuals and groups establish, produce, and reproduce identity and meaning for themselves vis-à-vis their imposed identity as ‘the other.’
Eastern European Scholastic Kabbalah in Early Modernity
Pinchas Giller, University of Judaism
The solitary practitioners of kabbalistic scholasticism, and the devotional prayer associated with it, remained in practice in Lithuania in early modernity. The term “scholastic kabbalist,” in this case, means someone whose preoccupation is with pure kabbalah, disdaining homiletics and even mystical experience itself, excepting contemplative prayer. The greatest scholastic kabbalist, the Gaon of Vilna, left a number of students in early modern Lithuania. Eventually, these students opened channels of communication with their supposed opponents in the hasidic community, which in turn had several dynasties that produced works of kabbalistic scholasticism. Both groups also forged connections with the mystics of the Middle East. In this way, kabbalistic scholasticism served as a portal to modernity, even as its social influence dwindled in the face of the Jewish enlightenment.
Europe in America? The Historiography of the Landsmanshaft Synagogue
Steven Lapidus, Concordia University
The phenomenon of the landsmanshaft synagogue, also known as the chevra or anshei shul, on the American scene, is clearly a creation of the Eastern European immigrant. But to what degree is it a direct recreation of the Eastern European shtetl synagogue? While many scholars argue that it was an exact replica of its European antecedent, others argue that while an attempt to recreate a familiar institution, the landsmanshaft synagogue inevitably exhibited features of the New World. Its location in America per force, imposed new features on it, resulting in a new creation, a hybridized shtot shul with an American flavour. I will argue that in fact, in its modification and proliferation, the landsmanshaft synagogue served as a stepping stone in the process of Americanizing traditional European Orthodoxy.
The People of the Comic Book: Jewish Men and the Creation of Comic Book Superheroes
Harry Brod, University of Northern Iowa
The illustrated book was one of the few outlets for visual artists in the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, primarily the Passover Haggadah. The story of Moses, raised by others when his people were threatened with extinction, eventually becoming their savior aided by miraculous powers, informs the creation of Superman, and with him the entire comic book superhero genre, by two Jewish teenagers in the Depression era United States. To counter anti-Semitic stereotypes which saw Jewish men as Clark Kent types – timid, physically weak, sexually ineffectual quasi-intellectuals – they created a super man. Inspired also by Jewish mystical legends of the Golem, from Superman and Batman to Spider-Man and others, Jewish men have inscribed changing images of Jewish identity into their comic book superhero creations. This paper probes how comic book superheroes embody Jewish traditions and values, as well as their undercurrents of gendered Jewish psychodynamics.
A20-60
Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group and Evangelical Theology Group
Theme: Constructing Asian-American Evangelical Theologies
This panel will present a conversation about the possibility of constructing Asian North American evangelical theologies. Panelists will propose various methodologies or theological foci that can assist in the construction of Asian North American evangelical theologies that are distinct from - yet in dialogue with - “mainline Protestant” and “fundamentalist” theological paradigms. The panel will also address specific questions such as “what makes Asian North American evangelical theologies distinct? How can an Asian North American evangelical theology be a prophetic voice to the evangelical church? How and when should issues of race, class, and gender get addressed by Asian North American evangelical theologians? Should they be addressed? Why does one retain an evangelical commitment?” Throughout the conversation, the panel will dialogue with universalizing evangelical theologies, Orientalist Asian theologies, and “mainline” Asian North American Protestant theologies - three theological discourses that interpenetrate and influence any attempt to construct evangelical theologies.
A20-61
Kierkegaard, Religion, and Culture Group and Black Theology Group
Theme: Despair, Evil, and Human Suffering: A Conversation between Kierkegaard and Black Theology
Grappling with Melancholia and Despair, Black Invisibility and the Tragicomic: The Conversation between Cornel West and Søren Kierkegaard and Its Import for Black and Womanist Theological Anthropologies
Stephen Butler Murray, Skidmore College
A well known anecdote concerning the early teenage years of Cornel West entails his procuring a volume of Søren Kierkegaard from a bookmobile, and finding therein that the pages concerning Kiekegaard’s melancholia and despair set light to West’s study of philosophy. Throughout the academic career of Cornel West, Kiekegaard has remained a constant intellectual companion and interlocutor, particularly with regard to the sources and struggles of hopelessness and anguish. This paper seeks to explore the dimensions of melancholia and despair expressed in the philosophical and autobiographical works of Soren Kierkegaard, in conversation with Cornel West’s articulation of black invisibility, black rage, and the tragicomic. As black and womanist theologies draw on West as a major source, the intent of this paper is to discern how this conversation across the centuries between Kierkegaard and West is important in the construction of contemporary theological anthropology among black and womanist theologians.
Illin’ the Evil, Outing the Absurd: Kierkegaardian Irony Meets Machiavellian Grotesquery in the Postindustrial City
James W. Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary
This essay will “riff off” of Frederick Jameson’s ideas of the “Global Sublime” to develop an “existential augury” of life in the postmodern ghetto under tutelage to both Kierkegaardian irony and Hip-Hop grotesquery. Kierkegaard’s display of consciousness as an infinitely volatilizing capacity euphemized as “irony” marks out a characteristic of modern mentality that cuts either side of ethics: it can serve a population like oppressed African Americans as a possibility incapable of containment even as it becomes the self-indulgent wit of the elite literati. Notions like Charles Long’s “opacity” or Victor Anderson’s “grotesquery” will be invoked to present a polyvocal challenge of postcolonial “darkness” to the ethereal cynicism of postmodern irony. The aim of such an enterprise is neither clairvoyant vision nor condemnatory evaluation, but a “dialogue of the def”—a subtle shadowing of the possibilities of conscious action and conscientious struggle in a world gone delirious with violence.
The Question of Evil: Romney M. Moseley's Kierkegaardian-Caribbean Theology of Suffering
Brian C. Barlow, Brenau University
This paper introduces and analyzes a dialogue between Soren Kierkegaard (SK) and Romney M. Moseley as a way of contributing to a conversation between SK and Black Theology. It is rooted in the particularities of SK and Moseley as seen in their writings The Sickness Unto Death and Becoming a Self Before God. There is a paradoxical process at work in SK's treatise that guides the reader into ever more intense forms of the suffering of despair as a way of freeing the self from its double-binds in order that it might rest in God. Moseley's book is a passionate testimony to his own short-lived struggle to become an authentic self before God. It is only in and through pain that the self-emptying God can become present to the kenotic self who becomes present to itself before God in imitation of the kenosis of Christ.
A20-62
Chinese Religions Group
Theme: Teaching Chinese Religions in the Undergraduate Classroom: A User's Guide
'Teaching Chinese Religions in the Undergraduate Classroom: A User's Guide' explores resources, approaches, and pedagogies, and is directed to both specialists and non-specialists in the field. The four panelists address textbooks and other resources, new directions in Confucian studies, new directions in Taoist studies, and pedagogical methods relating Confucianism and Taoism to comparative religious studies and the survey course on Asian Religions. 'Transmitters and Innovaters: Re-presenting Authentic Religion in Chinese Religions Sourcebooks' evaluates the reliability of primary source textbooks in Chinese Religions courses. 'Learning Confucianism through its Exemplars' adapts a traditional Chinese teaching tool to the modern American classroom. ‘Teaching Taoism in the 21st Century: Opening Moves' draws upon current scholarship to present a new vision of the tradition, its teachings, and its true place in Chinese society. ‘Problematizing 'Confucianism' and 'Taoism' in the 'Introduction to Chinese Religions' Course,’ places the Chinese religious tradition in a global religious context.
A20-63
Eastern Orthodox Studies Group
Theme: Twentieth-Century Eastern European Theologians
Trinity and the Church in the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae
Radu Bordeianu, Marquette University
The relationship between the Trinity and the Church is a subject that rarely receives due attention. Oftentimes the Church seems to be a parallel reality, somehow unrelated to the Trinity. Dumitru Staniloae establishes a clear relationship and a continuum between the Trinity and the Church. One can regard the Church as a reflection of the Trinity by analyzing the analogical relationship between the Trinity and the Church; the Church as icon of the Trinity, where the Church is the type that points to its prototype, that is, the Trinity; the Church as the “third sacrament,” where the Church is understood as the sacramental presence of the Trinity in the world; the ecclesiological consequences of Staniloae’s understanding of theosis, in which creation becomes god by grace, though not God by nature. Thus, Staniloae affirms that the same relationships that exist within the Trinity are manifested in the life of the Church.
(Un)Knowing the Divine Mystery: Theological Epistemology in Dumitru Staniloae and Thomas Aquinas
Jeff McCurry, Duke University
How do we speak of God and know God? In contrast to oppositional narratives of the relationship between Orthodox theology and Catholic theology, I explore similarities in theological epistemology between the twentieth-century Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae and the thirteenth-century Italian Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas. Both seek a third way for theological epistemology between two equally unsalutary options. Staniloae seeks a third way between forming an idolatrous concept of God, on the one hand, and speaking merely meaningless words about God that are unhinged from any real reference to God, on the other. He seeks to chart a vision of truthful but partial knowledge of God. Aquinas's third way of knowing and speaking about God goes between equivocity and univocity to speak of God in an analogical grammar, in which God is referenced truly but not comprehended, in which the divine mystery is described but not mastered.
Tradition, Changes, and the Life of the Faithful in Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
Maria McDowell, Boston College
This paper approaches the ongoing Orthodox discussion of ‘Tradition,’ ‘traditions,’ and theological change in light of the work of the Romanian Orthodox theologian Fr Dumitru Staniloae. First, I will present Staniloae’s emphasis on the Church in history and the distinction between dogmas, theologoumena, and teaching. From there, I will discuss the interplay between these conceptual distinctions as they relate to the formulation of doctrine and how change in teaching and practice may occur within this framework. The heart of this discussion is the dynamic tension between the abstract framework of a ‘living Tradition,’ the lived traditions which change and develop over time, and the important union with God by believers who live and practice various forms of T/tradition. I will conclude with reflection on this final element, ‘union with God,’ and its importance in reflecting on changing practice and teaching.
Dumitru Staniloae on Law and Human Nature
Lucian Turcescu, Concordia University
Orthodox theologians tend to talk a lot about human nature, but much less about law. Romanian Dumitru Staniloae (1903-1993) was no exception. Staniloae saw law as a necessary result of the Fall into sin of the first humans, Adam and Eve. In line with Apostle Paul and the book of Revelation, Staniloae opposed the “newness of the spirit” to the “oldness of the law” and contended instead that as long as there is law there is sin and that the law was given to remove humanity’s sinful state. But eventually love has to take the place of the law. After the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe, Staniloae was called upon to reflect on the church’s role in postcommunist societies. His earlier understanding of the relationship between the law and human nature came to light more prominently during this exercise, but it proved somewhat problematic, as this paper will show.
A20-64
Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group and Religious Freedom, Public Life, and the State Group
Theme: Liberty, Values, and the Politics of Gender
Democratic Tradition and Fundamental Liberties: From Bowers v. Hardwick to Lawrence v. Texas
Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Grinnell College
In Democracy & Tradition, Jeffrey Stout mediates between secular
liberals and religious conservatives by proposing a pragmatic conception
of the idea of public reason. Stout proposes his account over against
Rawls's political liberalism. In this paper, I test Stout's account
through an analysis of the majority and dissenting decisions in Bowers
v. Hardwick (1986) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003). The decision to view
same-sex practice and expression among consenting adults as being within
the scope of liberty protected by the U.S. Constitution has been
fiercely contested. Rawls's approach to such contest has been
criticized. In analyzing the Bowers and Lawrence cases, I demonstrate
grounds for supporting Stout's approach, while I show what is at stake
in rejecting Rawls's idea of public reason in the public political forum.
Policing Values and the Private Judgment of the Magistrate
Craig Martin, Syracuse University
Some legal theorists have recently argued for abortion rights and gay
rights under the umbrella of the first amendment, claiming that its
protection should extend to a variety of different values, and that no
one has the right to "impose" their norms on everyone else. I argue that
his approach to procuring gay rights will be unsuccessful, because the
configuration of the public/private border is always "imposed" on the
basis of someone's values. For example, in John Locke's classic essay "A
Letter Concerning Toleration," Locke suggests that the magistrate will
decide on the basis of his "private judgment" when it is uncertain
whether or not a religious doctrine is harmful to the public good.
Although a border is drawn around a sphere in which the government has
no authority, those in power determine the contour of that border, and
they are unwilling at this time to extend that border.
Marriage, State, and Equality
Robert Ross, University of Massachusetts -- Boston
This paper analyzes the recent decision by the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court to allow same-sex marriage. It examines the arguments of
the court not only in terms of their inherent logic, but also in terms
of their constitutional, cultural, and religious implications. The
purpose of the paper is not to constitute a polemic for or against
same-sex marriages, but rather to demonstrate a balanced and
multi-disciplinary approach that considers the interplay of legal,
ethical, social, and theological analysis.
A20-65
Mysticism Group
Theme: Mystical Relationships: Marriage and Community
For the Beloved: Mystical Marriage in Meister Eckhart and the "Sister Catherine" Treatise
Charlotte Radler, Loyola Marymount University
The construction and division of mysticism into antithetical strands of speculative mysticism and affective mysticism creates artificial fractures and borders. In order to bridge fissures caused by compartmentalizing studies of medieval mysticism, this paper has two major purposes: first, it will highlight the place of bridal and affective imagery in Meister Eckhart’s thought, themes largely neglected by later interpreters of Eckhart. The paper will show the integral part that mystical marriage plays within Eckhart’s mysticism. Secondly, this paper will place the Dominican Master in conversation with the “Sister Catherine” treatise. I will here compare the crucial roles played by marriage motifs in this tract and Eckhart’s mysticism. Readers of these two texts will find the organic coexistence of “speculative” and “affective, bridal” topoi, producing fecund mysticisms. The wider aim of the paper, therefore, is to interrogate and challenge putative dichotomies between speculative and affective mysticism.
Indo-Tibetan Tantrism as “Spirit Marriage”
Stuart R. Sarbacker, Northwestern University
As has been documented by Eliade, Lewis, and others, a fascinating dimension of shamanic ritualism is the practice of shamanic marriage. The foundational principle of such marriage is the nuptial connection between the shamanic ritualist and a spirit-spouse, sometimes yielding amorphous “spirit children” and leading in some cases to “spirit divorce.” As a mythic and ritual institution, shamanic marriage represents one manner in which religious power is mediated through gendered and sexualized symbols and ecstasies. We will demonstrate how the “logic” of shamanic marriage can be said to be parallel to the gendered and sexualized images of Hindu and Buddhist tantra. It will be argued that tantric ritualism embodies the principle of shamanic marriage through tantric maithuna (ritual intercourse) and more broadly the propitiation of wrathful female deity figurations. It will be argued that this may be meaningfully understood in terms of both content (phenomenology) and context (sociology).
"Devekut" and Bodily Service: The Role of the Tsaddik and the Redemption of the “Evil Urges” of the Flock in Eastern European Hasidic Communities
Thomas Cattoi, Boston College
Traditional Hasidic courts were communities where members of Eastern European Jewry sought spiritual fellowship and support under the guidance of a holy man known as Tsaddik, revered for his extraordinary spiritual insight. Hasidic sources credit the Tsaddik with the ability to capture the destructive power of the passions and desires of his disciples and to redirect them to God’s service, in the same way as the soul can gradually purify the passions and desires of the body. By charting the theological ancestry of the doctrine of the Tsaddik, this paper shall explore how Hasidic communities succeeded in elaborating a remarkably original synthesis by appropriating elements from Kabalistic theosophy and from the more world-affirming spirituality of the Jewish tradition. Particular attention shall be given to Hasidism’s re-interpretation of the Kabalistic understanding of 'devekut' in line with the notion of “service through corporeality”, whereby ordinary acts are invested with sacramental value.
Sharing Mystical Experiences in Community: Implications of Some Unusual Evidence
Robert K. C. Forman, The Forge Institute
The Forge Institute has held gatherings of between 10 and 60 experienced practitioners and teachers from a range of spiritual backgrounds and traditions. On many occasions at these events, participants have reported finding unmistakable common experiential ground and identities between their present experiences. In addition, during intimate dialogues, participants, even though from diverse spiritual paths, often identify their present experiences as virtually identical.
These remarkable reports of similar or identical mystical experiences among a group and/or among two individuals from different paths offer distinct challenge to the assumption that all mystical experiences are solo and that various mystical traditions always generate various mystical experiences
This presentation will exammine these experiences and suggest some philosophical and epistemological implications. These experiences also suggest the possibility of mysticism serving as a kind of spiritual 'lingua franca' for our pluralistic age.
A20-66
Person, Culture, and Religion Group
Theme: The Psychodynamics of Religious Violence
Religious Aggression from a Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychoanalytic Perspective: A Comparison of Aaron Beck and Erich Fromm
Terry Cooper, St. Louis Community College District
Religious aggression is analyzed through a comparison of cognitive-behavioral psychiatrist, Aaron Beck, and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm. More specifically, Beck's conviction that religous aggression stems exclusively from distorted, egocentric, biased thinking is carefully examined. Further, his view that aggression can be 'tamed' through cognitive restucturing is explored. The argument is made that while Beck's contribution is insightful, it is not equipped to handle the ontological anxiety which frequently pushes individuals toward aggression and destructiveness. Erich Fromm's analysis of the limitations of Freudian aggression and the death instinct, along with his own development of the 'syndrome of decay' are employed to illustrate a psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamics of religious aggression. The goal is twofold: (a) to provide a contrast between cognitive-behavioral and psychoanaltyic views of religious aggression, and (b) to come to a deeper understanding of the possibilities for non-aggressive religious dialogue.
Religion and Terrorism: Reflections on the Controversial Conjunction
Thomas B. Ellis, Appalachian State University
This paper argues that religion and terrorism share a common strategy for dealing with the untoward nature of chance. Murderous finalities notwithstanding, terrorism gets its strength before the kill: we are terrorized when we don’t know when, where, or upon whom the next strike will take place. Similarly, and as Rene Girard argues, religious traditions throughout history have attempted to contain confusions and uncertainties through an arbitrary selection and subsequent expulsion (murder) of a surrogate victim. Both of these strategies may be linked to an evolutionary history that has endowed the human animal with a predator-detection system. In other words, humans find chance anathema because our first encounters with chance were our encounters with the unforeseen predator. In an attempt to contain such disconcerting chance, humans seek to violently redistribute this chance to another. This is the predation strategy at the heart of religious sacrifice and terrorism.
Enemies of God: An Exploration into the Psychodynamics of Religion and Violence
Marsha Hewitt, Trinity College
Violence, rage and the urgency to destroy the threatening 'other' infuses most of the world's known religions. This paper will explore the internal psychodynamics of religious violence and religious terror/terrorism from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. A major theme focuses on the internal dialectic within religion that strives to strengthen a sense of identity and agency within the believing community while evacuating difference and the 'alien other' through repression, splitting, dissociation and projective identification. Peter Fonagy's concepts of 'psychic equivalence' and 'mentalization' are helpful in exploring impairments of thought that require the unbelieving, impure, diabolical or threatening evil other, be it an individual, community, nation or ideology in order to eradicate it, thereby producing illusions of internal and external purity and safety. The paper will place these psychoanalytic themes in cultural and political contexts in order to understand the traumatic effects of modernity that produce experiences of dislocation, disorientation and fear.
The Psychodynamic Roots of Religious Terrorism
James W. Jones, Rutgers University
The Psychodynamic Roots of Religious Terrorism
This paper will do three things: review current research on the social-psychological factors associated with terrorism and genocide; discuss the religious beliefs and practices that can lead to terrorist actions; and describe some of the psychodynamics that predispose people to adopt such beliefs and practices. Among the primary texts that this paper will draw on will be Mohammed Atta’s letter to his companions, the letters written by the Dutch fanatic who killed Theo VanGogh, and the author’s research on the Aum Shrinkyo cult. Written from a contemporary relational psychoanalytic perspective, this paper will demonstrate how these clinical psychoanalytic constructs can deepen and enrich the findings of social psychology and illustrate some of the potential contributions of the psychology of religion to the current discussion of religiously sponsored terrorism.
A20-67
Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Group and Religion and Science Group
Theme: Peirce, Hegel, and Stuart Kauffman’s Complexity Theory
Recent decades have seen several calls, like those of biologist Stuart Kauffman and mathematician Stephen Wolfram, for a “new kind of science,” one emphasizing the appearance of unpredictable novelty in systems governed by rigorous laws. Some of these proposals unwittingly echo arguments about logic and reality that Charles Peirce made a century ago- or even older arguments by G.W.F. Hegel. Our panel will attend especially to Kauffman’s 2000 manifesto Investigations, proposing Hegelian and Peircean ways of understanding unpredictability there. Does Robert Brandom’s retrieval of Hegel’s notion of objective spirit allow an “explanation” of novelty? Could the “gamma part” of Peirce’s “existential graphs,” itself conceived as a rigorous logical system from which novelty emerges, provide an underpinning for the new science Kauffman envisions? Finally, can the contrast between a Peircean approach to populations and Manuel De Landa's use of Deleuzian multiplicities illuminate Kauffman’s attempt at a scientific definition of unpredictable “life”?
Pragmaticist Approach to Emergence in Cognitive Science
Mark Graves, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley
The pragmaticism of C.S. Peirce provides a key framework for addressing current issues in cognitive science. Peirce’s phenomenology, metaphysics, and logic support an emergent model of person rooted in experience that incorporates a person’s decision-making and habit-formation in a neurologically plausible anthropology. Peirce’s real generality, which he called Thirdness, captures interconnected tendencies and escapes the dualism inherent in mind-body, body-soul, and brain-consciousness dichotomies. The intrinsic interconnectivity of Thirdness escapes the essentialism of Cartesian concepts and supports an emergent systems approach to describing the physical, biological, psychological, cultural, and theological aspects of cognitive science. Conceptual graphs, based on Peirce’s existential graphs, provide a logical, diagrammatic, modeling language for cognitive science that captures systems of constraining relationships across biological, neurological, cognitive, and linguistic domains.
A20-68
Religion and Popular Culture Group
Theme: Frontiers of Technology and Transmogrify
The Swan Complex: Ritual Regression, Technology, and Transfiguration in TV's "The Swan"
Jeremy Biles, University of Chicago
Perhaps no 'reality' television show is so disturbing or so prophetic as 'The Swan.' Designed to transform 'ugly ducklings' into beautiful women, the 'swan program' subjects contestants to extensive cosmetic operations. I argue that the fascination with this successful show derives from its compelling ritual structure. With attention to the ways in which Christian conceptions of the relations between body and spirit are implicated in the American obsession with extreme transformations, I suggest that the 'swan program' enacts a ritual regression that violently literalizes the psychoanalytic symbols associated with the 'mirror stage': each contestant is surgically rendered a 'fragmented body' before beholding in a mirror the transfigured, unified body that ultimately ratifies her sense of self. These 'swans,' I conclude, herald the formation of subjectivity proper to contemporary machine culture, where the intimacy of bodies and technology paradoxically manifests a thirst for perpetual youth underwritten by the death drive.
Technology and Animal Ethics in the Contemporary Kosher Industry
Aaron Gross, University of California, Santa Barbara
In the wake of intense media discussion of animal abuse documented at AgriProcessors, Inc.—the largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse in the world located in Postville, IA—
recent months have witnessed one of the most intense public debates about the ethics of kosher food that American Jewry has ever seen. Given that 175 billon dollars of the goods on supermarket shelves—fully 35% of all supermarket goods—are certified as kosher, the impact of this controversy extends well beyond Judaism. This paper seeks to analyze the range of Jewish voices in this debate on the issue of the ethical status of animals, paying special attention to how the technologically-heavy infrastructure of modern animal agriculture has shaped the debate. I argue that this case can be taken as an illustration of how technology and religious ethics form themselves in relation to one another at both the level of behavioral code and subject-formation.
Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and the Persistence of the Sacred
Robert Geraci, Manhattan College
According to the new discipline the cultural history of religions, religion produces and reproduces culture, including secular culture. The cultural productivity of religion occurs through the persistence of sacred categories outside of theology; that is, religious themes lay camouflaged within secular culture, including science. Recent technoscientific appropriations of the theory of evolution demonstrate the persistence of the sacred and the power of religion to produce culture in the modern world; in particular, popular science publications by eminent scientists demonstrate the persistence of the sacred in secular science. Theories of salvation and cosmic world-purpose help shape the historical development of robotics and artificial intelligence.
The Doomsday Body, or Dr. Strangelove as Cyborg Crip
Rebecca M. Raphael, Texas State University
This paper analyzes Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick 1964) in terms of human-machine hybridity as a locus for concerns about purity. I argue that the film articulates its dystopic eschaton by appropriating traditional apocalyptic dualism but inverting its valuations: here it is not mixture but rather excessive concern for purity, either organic (Gen. Ripper) or technological (The Doomsday Machine), that brings down the final disaster. As a human-machine embodiment, Dr. Strangelove depicts both the dangers and the wisdom of hybridity. The work of Mary Douglas, Donna Haraway, and contemporary disability and monster theorists provide the methodological orientation of the paper. I intend to highlight common apocalyptic structures, rather than to trace historical influence.
A20-69
Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group
Theme: Sexuality, Religion, and Health
(Re)Production Zones: Religion, Development, and Sexuality in Rural Ecuadorian Households
Jill DeTemple, Southern Methodist University
Among the most private of spaces in rural Ecuadorian households, bedrooms are nevertheless the focus of several public debates. Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal and other Christian doctrines address correct sexual behavior, placing it squarely in the context of bedrooms as centers of nuclear households. At the same time, development organizations ranging from the Peace Corps to Plan International target bedrooms and sexuality as they seek to improve the health and well being of Ecuadorians as clients of international aid. “(Re)Production Zones” examines these debates, analyzing both religious and development discourses and practices that focus on sexuality in the context of rural Ecuadorian households. The paper concludes that bedrooms are 'zones of (re)production,' spaces where rural Ecuadorians produce and reproduce worldviews that blend religious and development teachings into a seamless whole, even as they call into question development's unique claim to modernity and religion's hold on tradition in household spaces.
Cuban Feminist Theology: A Revolutionary Ethic of Health and Wholeness for Cuban Society
Margarita M.W. Suarez, Meredith College
Cuban Feminist Theology offers a particular lens into analyzing both the Cuban church and the problems of Cuban society. This paper offers an analysis by Cuban feminist pastors/theologians in mainline evangelical denominations in Cuba that churches in Cuba can work with the state to affirm an ethic of health and wholeness for all the Cuban people. One interlocutor says that the role of the church should be preserving and developing an ethical model which works to transform relationships to protect the people from falling into the arms of a society of consumption. They believe that persons of faith should encourage social and political justice, and work within this society whose revolutionary historical motivation has been to empower the most powerless. These evangelical feminists believe that the ideals of the Cuban revolution and a Christian feminist ethic are compatible and potentially complementary.
Oppressed Bodies Don't Have Sex: The Blind Spots of Bodily and Sexual Discourses in the Construction of Subjectivity in Latin-American Liberation Theology
Claudio Carvalhaes, Union Theological Seminary, New York
Liberation theology in Latin America has been a theological movement based on the preferential option for the poor. It created a new methodology, re-invented theological doctrines, offered new partners of dialogue and helped foster other liberation theologies throughout the world. However, this theology got entangled within the grid of social sciences and ended up repressing and dismissing important aspects of the life of the poor, namely the body and sexual practices. This paper tries to show how these blind spots denounce the totalizing discourse present in Liberation theology and how liberation theology confined both the notion of the poor and of the subject into its own pervasive Christian boundaries. Also, it calls into question the very task of talking about the poor and its subjectivity by complicating its possibilities. Finally, it attempts to create new ways for liberation theologies to talk about the poor in other responsible ways.
A20-70
Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group
Theme: Cinema-Going as Religious Practice? A Discussion of Issues Raised by Clive Marsh's Cinema and Sentiment: Film's Challenge to Theology (Paternoster Press)
This panel will examine suggestions that cinema-going has a religion-like function in contemporary Western society. In offering critical assessments of Clive Marsh's 'Cinema and Sentiment' the four panelists will use cinema-going as a major case-study of how technology, entertainment and visual culture contribute to Western audiences’ structuring of life, and of the social practices used to discover or construct meaning.
The topics to be discussed are likely to comprise:
Assessments of existing interactions between theology and religious studies and media/entertainment/popular culture
The significance for theology and religious studies of a shift from screen theory to attention to audience response in film studies.
The adequacy of definitions of ‘theology’ used in discussions about film and popular culture
The significance of distinguishing ‘theological’ and ‘religious’ perspectives on film-watching and cinema-going.
The significance of the institutional locations of participants in theology/religion and film discussion
A20-73
Western Esotericism Group
Theme: Western Esotericism
The study of Western Esotericism is a new academic discipline that has been developing rapidly since the early 1990s. Its subject matter includes currents such as Gnosticism, Hermetism, the 'Occult Sciences' (astrology, magic, alchemy), Renaissance Hermeticism, Philosophia Occulta, Prisca Theologia, Paracelsianism, Rosicrucianism, Christian Theosophy, Freemasonry, Illuminism, Occultism, Spiritualism, and New Age religiosity. These currents are studied from an multidisciplinary and crosscultural perspective.
The Christianization of Angel Magic in the Late Middle Ages
Katelyn Mesler, Northwestern University
This paper explores the practice of invoking angels as it developed in the Christian magical tradition from the 13th to 15th centuries. This growing trend, largely influenced by Jewish and Islamic magical treatises, defied the standard theological conceptions of angels and challenged the limits of licit magical practice. As a form of adjuration, angel magic was initially condemned as a disguised form of necromancy. However, Christian magicians shaped this new tradition as an alternative to demonic magic. This development of Christian angel magic as a distinct practice eventually influenced the widespread understanding of magic, allowing for a new distinction between angelic and demonic invocations. By the 15th century, angel magic was thus much more resistant to persecution. These changes then helped pave the way for the varieties of spiritual magic that began to flourish in the esoteric writings of the Renaissance Mages.
Innovation and Canonization in Esoteric Discourse: The Case of Martinus Thomsen
Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark
The Dane Martinus Thomsen (1890–1981), generally referred to by his first name only, is arguably the second most influential Scandinavian esotericist, after Swedenborg. After two successive visions in 1921, Martinus devoted the following decades to writing a vast corpus of texts outlining a complex cosmology and anthropology. This doctrinal corpus clearly show signs of combining a variety of elements current in the cultural repertoire of the early 20th century, particularly the theosophical and, to a lesser extent, Christian traditions, positivism and non-figurative art.
The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to present a religious thinker who has as yet not been the object of virtually any non-partisan scholarship (a couple of articles in Danish are the only exceptions). Secondly, and more importantly, it uses Martinus as a case with which to analyze specific mechanisms of religious innovation and canonization which obtain in European history of religions.
Emanuel Swedenborg’s Aesthetic Philosophy and Its Impact on Nineteenth-Century American Art
Jane Williams-Hogan, Bryn Athyn College of the New Church
In 1972 the Director of the National Gallery, Joshua C. Taylor, wrote
that in the nineteenth century “Only the Swedenborgian teaching had a
direct impact on art, and this was through its link with a complex
philosophical view of perception and aesthetic judgment which suggested
not narrative themes but a spiritual context for artistic form.” This
paper is an exploration of Swedenborg’s (1688-1772) teachings with a
view toward explaining his “philosophy of perception and aesthetic
judgment.” In addition it will examine how that philosophy was used by a
long line of practitioners as they passed their enthusiasm for these
principles from one to another. Among other artists this paper will
discuss the work of Hiram Powers (1805-1873), George Inness (1825-1894),
William Keith (1838-19110, and Ralph A. Blakelock (1847-1919).
Esoteric Studies and Modern Western Occultism: A Useful Methodology to Reconsider Their Relationship and Redefine Identities
Alfred Vitale, University of Rochester
The field of Esoteric Studies includes among its traditions the so-called “occult movements” of the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet, there is very little academic research on these movements, both among Esoteric and traditional religious scholars. While the reasons for this are many, the absence of such published research has robbed religious studies of a vital, paradigmatic religious movement. It is the purpose of this paper to detail the process which is at the core of Modern Western Occultism, where religions are considered discrete systems of useable technologies that can be isolated, extracted, and rebuilt into customized systems of religious beliefs and rituals. This conceptual approach was pivotal in the formation of the New Age movement, the proliferation of Eastern religious elements into the West, and the modern consideration of religion that fostered the “spiritual marketplace.
A20-74
Zen Buddhism Seminar
Theme: Zen Thought
The seminar explores Zen thought with discussions on Zen understanding of mind, Buddha, enlightenment, the role of doubt in koan tradition. It also evaluates the legacy of D. T. Suzuki as well as zen ethics in relation to Wang Yang-ming's philosophy.
Mind, Buddha, and the Way: Doctrinal Permutations in Mid-Tang Chan
Mario Poceski, University of Florida
The paper explores the conceptions of mind and Buddhahood in Tang Chan, and their ramifications for interpreting the inner dynamics of Chan practice and realization. The staring point for the study is the well-known adage “mind is Buddha,” attributed to Mazu Daoyi, the leader of the Hongzhou school. Notwithstanding the appeal of the premise of readily accessible Buddhahood, the teaching of “mind is Buddha” inherited problems associated with the tathāgatagarbha doctrine, especially its propensity to reify the true mind. Because of that, the records of Mazu’s disciples explicitly criticize its doctrinal stance. Such concerns are partially addressed by the basic notion that all teachings, including “mind is Buddha,” are simply expedient means and should not be grasped as normative truth claims. Accordingly, doctrinal formulations are useful only inasmuch as they counteract mental fixations and facilitate the experience of nonduality, but they are provisional and eventually have to be given up.
Doubt as a Unique Chan Approach to Cultivation and Enlightenment
Ding-hwa Evelyn Hsieh, Truman State University
Chan has often been characterized as anti-logical, anti-traditional, and anti-scriptural. These labels are misleading and fail to describe what Chan really means. Chan is distinctive because it emphasizes self-effort, self-investigation, and self-realization by using doubt as a motivating engine. Unfolding the story of doubt in Chan helps to bring into focus the essence of Chan cultivation and the nature of Chan enlightenment.
Doubt, the state of perplexity and spirit of inquiry, has deep roots in indigenous Chinese thought that often warned against blind acceptance of authority and certainty in one’s intellectual pursuit and moral commitment. Nonetheless, it is also a systematic methodology resulted from the Chan hermeneutical device of the “live word” and “dead word.” Doubt is a prerequisite to good faith; it serves as an introspective force that motivates one to undertake critical self-reflection of one’s own conviction and thus keeps one’s faith grounded in sanity and humanity.
Problems with Enlightenment: The Performance of Encounter Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Chan Buddhism
Jiang Wu, University of Arizona
Many discussions of Zen thought are based on historical sources of early and medieval Chan/Zen traditions, which are regarded as “the golden age” of Chinese Buddhism. Less known is the revival of Chan Buddhism in seventeenth-century China. In this movement, Chan monks sought to reinvent Chan ideals such as the performance of encounter dialogue. This paper proposes to study various implications of the performance of encounter dialogue as revived in the seventeenth century. I shall examine the use of encounter dialogues in Chan communities and reveal that these encounter dialogues were largely enacted based on imitation of previous kōan stories. Such an imitated performance posed questions to the meaning of genuine enlightenment experience because it created a “faked” imagination of actual awakening. By employing performative analysis,” I point out that the problem of such reinvented practice lies in the imagination of “textual ideals” that entail a “performatively created past.
Zen and Japanese Culture: Cultural Perspectives on Suzuki Daisetsu's Interpretation of Zen
Albert F. Welter, University of Winnipeg
Suzuki's influence over modern Zen is indisputable, and has lately been the subject of pointed commentary. Many have noted the correspondence between Suzuki's interpretation of Zen and the Nihonjin ron (Japanism) agenda of the Kyoto School. I draw parallels between Suzuki's interpretation and two prominent thinkers who haveinfluenced notions about Japanese culture: the Edo period Shinto revivalist, Motoori Norinaga, and the father of modern folklore studies in Japan, Yanagita Kunio. I argue that aspects of Norinaga's kokugaku (National Learning) agenda were adapted and reformulated by Suzuki for a twentieth century context. I also suggest how Yanagita's association of contemporary folk customs as a reflection of Japan's 'deep culture' parallels Suzuki's famous identification of Zen's with Japan's artistic traditions. The presentation raises the issue of the role of culture in defining Zen, and whether Suzuki's interpretation of Zen is more about Japanese cultural proclivities than Zen teaching or practice.
A20-75
Animals and Religion Consultation
Theme: Compassion and Sacrifice, Friends and Enemies: Animals in Religious Traditions
Animals function in myriad roles across the world's religious traditions and throughout human history. This series of papers examines animals across time and space. 'Christ as Orpheus' (Susan Power Bratton) compares ancient Roman and early Christian imagery; 'Dogs in Islam' (Richard Foltz) asks whether canines are God's worst enemy or 'man's' best friend; 'Generating Compassion Through the Release of Animals' (Jennifer Eichman) explores differing perspectives in Chinese Confucianism and Buddhism; 'Surrogate Suffering' (Antonia Gorman) moves into the contemporary cultural/theological discourse via the vivisection movement. Throughout the presentations we continue to pose a central question of 'other than human animals' and where/how they fit in religious studies dialogues.
Christ as Orpheus: Attitudes towards Animal Sacrifice and Violence towards Animals in Early Christian Art
Susan Power Bratton, Baylor University
Comparison of non-Christian and Christian Roman art from the 2nd through the 5th centuries CE demonstrates that Christians adopted Roman motifs concerning plants and agriculture with little modification, while largely eliminating violent scenes concerning animals. Roman sarcophagi lacking obvious Christian symbols may portray the deceased as hunting or depict Dionysian revels with decapitated animals. Christian art favors bucolic settings with shepherds and living animals. Frescoes depict Christ as Orpheus charming the creatures as well as the Good Shepherd, accompanied by his companion animal, a faithful dog, or carrying a sheep. Christian art reduces hunting scenes and military symbols such as horses. The paper investigates possible theological and ethical roots for the differences between Christian and non-Christian images of animals including Christian concepts of egalitarian society, acceptance of barbaric or foreign cultures, and pacifism. Early Christian art rejects Roman sacrificial rituals, potentially including the Roman games.
Generating Compassion through the Release of Animals
Jennifer Eichman, Seton Hall University
Late sixteenth-century Chinese Buddhists claimed that releasing animals was a means to cultivate the mind. To persuade their peers to join releasing-life societies and to attract financial support for the excavation of ponds, they had to address criticisms from both Confucians and other Buddhists. The Confucian scholar, Wang Yangming (1472-1579), wrote that because animals and humans share in the same underlying substance, namely, innate knowing, animals should be used to nourish one’s parents. In contrast, the monk Zhuhong (1535-1615) and his lay followers believed that because humans and animals are both sentient and have buddha-nature, they should not be killed for human consumption. This paper will flesh out the theoretical arguments for and against killing animals, and present some of the ethical practices that were promoted by Zhuhong’s followers, especially Yuan Zhongdao (1570-1604) and Tao Wangling (1562-1609).
Surrogate Suffering: Sin, Salvation, and Sacrifice within the Vivisection Movement
Antonia Gorman, Drew University
Within the surrogacy model of Christian 'salvation,' the sacrifice of Jesus is seen to be the necessary condition for the redemption of humanity. Under this model, the torture and death of an innocent victim not only becomes an acceptable price to pay for the redemption of the sinful many, it becomes the essential price. This paper will show that this model of sacrificial, substitutionary suffering and death repeatedly plays itself out upon the bodies of vivisected animals and that it has self-consciously done so since the advent of the vivisection debate in the Victorian era. It will argue that calls for the recognition of animal subjectivity, so often and importantly heard within the halls of the animal rights/welfare movement, can have little effect within the sacrificial paradigm. Instead, a reformulation of 'salvation' will be recommended--one that utilizes an eco-relational theology in order to dislodge the logic of substitutionary sacrifice.
A20-76
Childhood Studies and Religion Consultation
Theme: Orphans and Adoption as Matters of Sex, Race, and Poverty: Interfaith Perspectives
This session explores diverse religious perspectives on orphans and adoption. Scholars from various fields address issues such as biblical views of adoption, Christian and Jewish grounds for adoption, hospitality toward orphaned children, systems of foster care and adoption, the role of gender and race in adoption, market aspects of US adoptions, single-parent and gay and lesbian adoption, and cross-cultural adoption.
The Want Ads: Second-Hand Children, the Ethics of Adoption, and the Age of Desire
Laurie Zoloth, Northwestern University
This paper explores the invisibility of children awaiting adoption in a culture troubled by the drama of “designer babies,” genetic engineering, cloning, and ethics of reproduction. For scholars of religion the issue of orphans bears particular weight, for in the Biblical tradition the yearning for children, the problem of fostering marginal children, and the construction of the family are central to the text. Acts of hospitality frame moral imperative in Jewish tradition and lead us to ask: how ought our communities, our fields, and our families respond to the persistent and unanswered yearning of children in the foster and adoptive system? This paper will analyze the literature of “designer” babies and want ads for adoption; reflect on the salient issues in the systems of adoptions and foster care; and reflect on the way that the Jewish textual and Halachic tradition responds to the question of hospitality toward orphaned children.
The Hospitality of Adoption
Jeffrey Hensley, Virginia Theological Seminary
This paper reflects theologically on adoption as a Christian practice of hospitality to children and grounds this reflection in a recovery of the concept of adoption as a way of understanding our relationship with God. It specifically criticizes the prevalent view of adoption as a mere alternative mode of reproduction that leads to the commodification of children. In contrast, it advocates viewing adoption as an expression of charity, a vocation of hospitality in addition to the gifting of children to those who cannot or choose not to have them biologically. Thus it calls for a Christian (i.e., Trinitarian) ethic of hospitality to children that goes beyond the self-interested desire to perpetuate oneself in others—beyond, in other words, a biological form of idolatry—and rather advocates viewing adoption as a witness of God’s gratuitous love for the world.
Suffering the Suffering Children: Christianity and the Rights and Wrongs of Adoption
Timothy P. Jackson, Emory University
Section I of this essay examines how the Bible defines adoption. Section II looks at the rights that ground the moral and legal permissibility of adoption. Section III investigates the ethics of single-parent and gay and lesbian adoption. Section IV looks at the right of adoptees to know their biological identities. Section V asks how views on Christology affect basic perceptions of adoption.
My specific theses are that: (a) adoption is not merely the bestowal of a new (legal) identity but also the acknowledgement of a pre-existing humanity, (b) the primary adoption right is that of orphaned, unwanted, destitute, or abused children to be adopted, (c) it is the sanctity of these children’s lives that gives them this positive right, and (d) society ought to permit both single adults and same-sex couples to adopt.
Tangling the “Red Thread”: Interrogating Racial Difference in International and Cross-Cultural Adoption
Elaine K. Swartzentruber, Wake Forest University
In 2002 slightly over 5000 Chinese orphans, the vast majority being female, were issued immigrant Visas entering the United States as the newly adopted children of American citizens, the vast majority being Caucasian. This paper addresses such cross-cultural adoption as a crucible for systematic interrogation of racial difference and privilege in theorizing and living out of relationships between women. The realities of white supremacy persist as a blind-spot in the ideological discourse of “bi-cultural” Chinese-American adoption inhibiting a thorough analysis of the highly politicized construction of the intimate and personal relational bonds between mother and daughter. Feminist political and theological discourse, as well as ethnographic narrative frame the investigation.
A20-77
Liberal Theologies Consultation
Theme: Liberal Theologies: Parameters and Prospectives
The Sociology of Liberal Protestantism
Chris Hinkle, Harvard University
Of late liberal theology seems to have many assailants and few defenders. The liberal churches, having lost past social prominence, face an uncertain future. This paper compares depictions of liberal Protestantism by four sociologists (Stark, Berger, Bellah, and Wuthnow), within the context of their treatment of secularization and of the influence of higher education on religious belief and practice. Drawing on this research, I argue that liberal religious thought is precariously intertwined with contested conceptions of secularization, and that the openness to culture and scholarship which defines it will, if these spheres are resolutely secular, invariably deplete it as well. A rehabilitation of liberal Protestant thought and practice thus demands rethinking our understanding of the contemporary social order.
Liberal Theologies: An Alternative Family History
Sheila Greeve Davaney, Iliff School of Theology
Liberal theology is most often associated with the turn to experience, indeed the turn to universal forms of experience, articulated by Schleiermacher. Much of the current criticism of liberal theology has focused on this dimension of the liberal tradition. Not only does such criticism neglect the self-correcting developments concerning the interpretation of human experience that have occurred within liberal theologies over the last century and a half, it almost thoroughly ignores other strands of religious reflection that counter such universalistic and essentializing assumptions. Most significantly, the critics of liberal theology exhibit a strange amnesia concerning the historicist and, in the American context, pragmatist dimensions of theological liberalism. This paper will trace this alternative trajectory within liberal theologies making explicit mention of the precursors to liberalism such as Herder and especially the American socio-historical versions of liberal religious thought that characterized the early Chicago School of Theology.
Can There Be a Radical Liberalism? Nineteenth-Century Resources for Contemporary Theological Liberalism
Daniel McKanan, Saint John's University
Liberal theology can be defined in opposition both to 'orthodoxy' and to 'radicalism.' Liberals reject the dogmatism and pessimism of 'orthodox' Christianity, while 'radicals' assail liberals for compromising with culture. Indeed, critics ranging from Barth to Hauerwas have proposed theological orthodoxy as the foundation for political radicalism. Theological liberals can respond to this challenge with a theology that is both radical and liberal, celebrating the divine goodnes present in all persons and cultures while recognizing that the struggle against evil demands revolutionary as well as evolutionary change. This paper will explore the radical liberalism of nineteenth-century activists like William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglass. They found support for their liberal idealism in both the Christian tradition and the American revolutionary heritage, but they were willing to overthrow both church and state when these violated their highest ideals. Their example can revitalize liberal theology for a new century.
Concerns and Parameters of Liberal Jewish Theology
Ellen M. Umansky, Fairfield University
Over the last one hundred and fifty years, liberal Jewish theology has developed in a number of new directions. The rational “God idea” of nineteenth century classical Reform Judaism gave way to greater belief in God’s reality, although the nature of that reality took, and continues to take, a number of different forms. Early Reform’s emphasis on universalism has since given way to greater emphasis on particularism, while Reform, Reconstructionism, and Conservative Judaism have sought to create distinct theological voices and visions within the American Jewish community. So have feminist theologians and those theologians self-identifying as progressive, new age, or “renewal” Jews. This presentation will explore both the development of Liberal Jewish theologies from the mid-nineteenth century through the present and the clearly articulated parameters and possibilities of each.
Liberal Theology: Roots, Consensus, Enigmas
William E. Farley, Vanderbilt University
This paper explores the present situation of liberal theologies. First, liberal theology’s historical roots are post-medieval movements of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Liberalism arises as one way Protestant theologians responded to that set of institutions, epistemes, and cultural phenomena called the modern. Second, the many sides and movements of liberal theology can be summarized in ten convictions, both negative and positive, that constitute a loose consensus. Third, three enigmas (horizons of future work) shape the present situation and challenge of liberal theology. The first is liberal theology’s tenuous relation to its religious community, to actual religion as practised. The second is the cognitive problem created by the relativization of traditional authorities, the problem of the references and criteria of theological judgments. The third is liberal theology’s ambivalent relation to the modern that grounds its appropriation of historical, social, philosophical and other frameworks in which it would recast religious insights.
A20-78
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Annual Meeting Initiatives and How to Propose a New Program Unit
Join the chair of the Program Committee and the AAR Annual Meeting Program Director for an informal chat about upcoming Annual Meeting initiatives as well as the guidelines and policies for proposing a new Annual Meeting program unit.
A20-100
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Got Life? Finding Balance and Making Boundaries in the Academy
This session explores the question of whether it is possible to balance a broad set of life pursuits with academic work. Is the academy structured so as to enable or even allow a variety of important life activities? Within the contemporary academy can one be a scholar/teacher and have a life? The panelists will address issues such as parenting, participation and leadership in religious communities, caregiving, work in the arts, adjunct appointments, and graduate student life. The panel, in conversation with the audience, will engage not just the question of how individuals manage to have a life while pursuing academic careers, but also the best practices that academic institutions can pursue to enable work-life balance.
A20-101
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Teaching Ethics: The Challenges of Moral Discourse in the Classroom
In the aftermath of September 11, the field of religion has increasingly been turned to, by students and others, for insights on ethical issues and perspectives. What challenges and opportunities exist, and what kind of creative techniques can one employ in teaching ethics? How does teaching ethics differ in a variety of academic contexts, ranging from large state universities to small denominational schools? Is it the role of the instructor to be moral advocate, referee for disparate opinions, or something else? A distinguished group of panelists, all of whom have extensive experience in teaching ethics, will engage each other and the audience on these questions and share some of their successes and failures.
A20-102
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Gifford Lectures: Retrospect and Prospect
Larry Witham's new book, The Measure of God: Our Century Long Struggle to Reconcile Science and Religion, provides an insightful history and analysis of the Gifford Lectures and their legacy. Endowed by Lord Gifford in 1887, the lectures have included such great and diverse thinkers as William James, Albert Schweitzer, Niels Bohr, Karl Barth, and Iris Murdoch. Using this as a starting point, the panelists will together address the importance of the Gifford Lectures and the impact that they have had on the philosophy of religion, the relation of religion and science, and on the broader intellectual currents of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since most of the speakers are themselves Gifford lecturers, the panel will also include personal reflection on giving the Gifford lectures and how the experience has shaped their own thoughts.
A20-103
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Before You Sign That Book Contract: Negotiating with a Publishing House
As the demands on scholars to publish continue to increase, it’s vital to understand the elements of a book contract. In this session, experts will guide you through the basic clauses of a standard contract, alerting you to some areas that are usually negotiable and discussing important matters like subsidiary rights, out-of-print clauses, advance s and royalties, delivery dates, option clauses and right of first refusal, and indemnities. More than half of the session will be devoted to questions from the audience.
A20-104
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Mourning and Responses to Suffering
Facing Death: Confronting and Portraying the Dead in Spirit Photography, 1861-1940
John Harvey, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
This paper argues that the image of the dead and of the culture of bereavement was transformed and adapted to the conditions of modernity by spirit photography. The camera provided a technologically mediated encounter with the dead (who appeared on the photographic negative, usually in the form a translucent portrait); evidence of post-mortem survival; and a pictorial promissory of, and index to, the life to come. In so doing, spirit photography revised received models for pictorializing ghosts; extended the range of devices used to keep ‘alive’ the memory of the dead; and profoundly changed the psychology and process of grieving.
Awakening and Encouraging Desire to Hear Stories of Suffering: An Exploration of Friedrich Schleiermacher's Die Weihnachtsfeier: Ein Gespräch
Melissa Johnston-Barrett, Emory University
The Christian theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher is not the first to come to mind when addressing suffering theologically. However, his relatively little-known fictional work, Die Weihnachtsfeier: Ein Gesprach (Christmas Eve: A Dialogue) (1806), proves itself a refreshing alternative to other theological treatments. Traditionally, theology has dealt with suffering as a punishment for sin, as a way of building character, or even as something “aesthetically” necessary. While more recent theology has called these ways of dealing with suffering into question and has pushed for the need to recognize and include the actual voices of those who suffer in theology, almost none have dealt with the issue of how to cultivate the desire to listen to those voices to begin with. This paper explores Schleiermacher’s Weihnachtsfeier as an example of a theological text that does deal with the cultivation of the desire to listen to and tell stories of suffering.
Maccabees and Memory: The Conflation of Hanukkah and the Holocaust in Jewish Children's Literature
Jodi R. Eichler, Columbia University
The figure of Judah Maccabee has been seized as a site of Jewish memory and heritage in diverse ways. In twentieth and twenty-first century America, he has become commercialized as a “Huggable Hanukkah Hero” doll while simultaneously being invoked to link the discrete historical persecutions of the so-called “First Hannukah” and the Holocaust. In this paper I argue that the construction of Jewish identity in contemporary children’s Hanukkah literature takes place through the interwoven writing of trauma and of nostalgia. Drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Maurice Halbwachs, among others, I show that the temporal flexibility of such media cuts in numerous directions. On the one hand, it leads to a flattening of time and glossing over of historical differences. At the same time, it makes space for the imagined restoration of a lost past as a palliative for coping with trauma.
Narratives of Trauma and Truth: Letters from Prison in Early Modern England
W. Clark Gilpin, University of Chicago
Catholics and Protestants imprisoned for matters of religion in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries covertly published letters in which they argued that they were suffering unjustly for witness to Christian truth. These letters sought to make good on this claim by weaving together three narrative strands: the prisoner's place within the grand narrative of Christian martyrdom; the detailed narrative of the prisoner's arrest and imprisonment; and the narrative of the prisoner's interior preparation for death. This narrative strategy is illustrated through a close, contextual reading of four Elizabethan prison letters, two by English Jesuits and two by Protestant sectarians.
A20-105
Christian Systematic Theology Section and Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group
Theme: Beauty in Thought, Prayer, and Action: Theological Reflections on Mysticism and Social Activism
This co-sponsored session between the Christian Systematic Theology section and the Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace group focuses on the intrinsic connections between Christian mysticism and activism, a seeming oddity in the Western world. The papers selected for presentation include expository examinations of theologians who have spoken to and done both mysticism and activism in an integral manner, as well as constructive engagements with and critiques of the theory and practice of mysticism and activism.
Channeling Reconciliation: Howard Thurman and the "Poetics of Peace"
Ridgeway Addison, Catholic University of America, Georgetown University
'Channeling Reconciliation: Howard Thurman and the 'Poetics
As a Baptist minister, pastoral theologian, and 'spiritual architect' of the American civil rights movement, Howard Thurman (1900-1981) made significant contributions to the religious and ethical life of twentieth-century America. This paper presents a first-time analysis of Thurman's unique 'reconciling' spiritual idiom (i.e. his 'poetics of peace')as expressed in his many sermons, lectures, addresses, as well as his published and unpublished writings on mysticism and peace. Primary attention will be given to Thurman's own concern for what may be called the 'grammatical' aesthetic' as addressed in his journals, autobiography, and his twin manuscripts, 'The Word,' and 'Apostles of Sensitiveness.'
Where on Earth Is God? Palamite Mystical Theology as a Basis for Environmental Activism
Eleanor Forfang-Brockman, Texas Christian University
In our age of environmental crisis, various attempts at “green” cosmologies have been developed. Some of the most adventurous and potentially effective options, such as process theology and the theologies of “the world as God’s body,” are regarded as challenging received tradition. The mystical theology of Eastern Orthodox Palamite tradition, however, offers a cosmology that neither relativizes humanity (as does deep ecology) nor arouses suspicions of pantheism. This paper will argue that Palamite theology, which is at heart mystical, affirms the radical transcendence of God as well as divine immanence, recognizes the indwelling presence of God in creation, affirms the non-human while at the same time elevating the role of humanity, and broadens the meaning of salvation to include the cosmos itself. In short, Palamite cosmology may provide precisely the foundation for a Christian cosmology that can support environmental activism.
God's Beauty, Social Activism, and the Cross of Christ
Gregory Love, San Francisco Theological Seminary
In 'The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance,' Dorothee Soelle seeks to erase the distinction between the mystical experience of God and social activism. Against a privatized spirituality rooted in a 'perennial philosophy,' and the dogmatic, cerebral faith of the German Protestantism of her upbringing, Soelle identifies a form of mysticism rooted in the concrete particulars of life lived in this world. God is 'common,' 'accessible to everyone.' While Soelle's form of mysticism rightly encourages both inter-religious dialogue and common ethical endeavor, it fails to recognize that Christianity brings to the discussion a unique form of mysticism rooted not in common experience but in the particular narrative of a God who enacts a risky descent, becoming vulnerable to pain and suffering, in order to lift up the threatened creatures. Barth and Bonhoeffer exemplify such a Christian mysticism which, rooted in the God's strange cruciform beauty, enact social resistance to evil.
Some Questions for Male Christian Pacifists
Sarah Morice-Brubaker, University of Notre Dame
This paper examines some examples of masculinist bias in articulations of Christian pacifism, particularly their characteristic focus on state violence. The author suggests ways in which female heterosexual experience may be imagined as a metaphor for Christian nonviolence, and suggests that the image of the church as 'polis' needs to be mitigated by the image of the church as household. The connection between female sexual experience and nonviolent practice also facilitates a needed connection between political theology and mystical theology.
A20-106
North American Religions Section
Theme: Author Meets Critics: Robert A. Orsi's Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them
Three critics - Peter D'Agostino, Paula Kane, and Thomas Ferraro - will speak about the recent book by Robert A. Orsi, BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH: THE RELIGIOUS WORLDS PEOPLE MAKE AND THE SCHOLARS WHO STUDY THEM. Discussion among all session attendees follows the presentations and Robert A. Orsi's response.
A20-107
Japanese Religions Group
Theme: Zen and the Art of the Bell Curve: Educating Buddhists in Japan and the U.S.
This session explores the historical roots and contemporary manifestations of Japanese Buddhist education both in Japan and in America. The various papers consider Buddhist education as it occurs at sectarian universities, high schools, temples, research centers, and in American Soto Zen communities. In order to better understand issues of concern in Japanese Buddhism today, it is crucial to be aware of how Buddhists themselves teach history, doctrine, ritual, and values. Japanese Buddhism continues to grope for ways to maintain doctrinal purity while responding to the needs of a drastically changing society. Rather than reinforcing this dichotomy through an exegesis of classical texts or an ethnography of a present-day temple, this panel charts the as yet unexplored arena of religious education as a way to bring together the diverse, and often contradictory voices, that make up contemporary Japanese Buddhism, both in Japan and abroad.
A20-108
Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Theme: Contemporary Psychological Approaches to the Comparative Study of Religion
Spirituality of the Flesh: The Role of Discrete Emotions in Religious Life
Robert C. Fuller, Bradley University
This paper examines the role of discrete emotions in shaping humanity’s religious sensibilities. I will explore recent research in the natural and social sciences that highlights the importance of identifying distinct emotions and explore how this research opens up new possibilities for understanding the biological basis of religious thought or emotion. More specifically, I will review contemporary research on two very different discrete emotions: fear and wonder. The selective effects that fear has upon our perceptual and cognitive operations sets a biological context for interpreting a variety of religious phenomena--especially North American Protestant apocalypticism which is known for generating tribalism, boundary-posturing, and excessive concern for demonizing enemies real or imagined. I will also argue that research concerning the neurology and evolutionary-adaptive of the emotion of wonder provides important insight into certain modes of personal spirituality, particularly the kinds of religious sensibilities found in John Muir, Rachel Carson, and William James.
Young Adult Worldviews and Life-Purpose: Shaped by Social Capital, Education, and Self-Efficacy, but Not Religion
David Gortner, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Graduate Theological Union
Contemporary Western youth and young adults engage in constructing “personal theologies” – when they are least connected with organized religion. This study presents two elements of 82 emerging adults’ (18-25) personal theologies: worldview (how positively or negatively individuals see the world) and life-purpose (how individuals describe their sense of purpose, function, or “fit” in the world). Participants from across the U.S. were interviewed as part of an eight-year longitudinal study of adolescent and young adult development. Content analyses followed by statistical regression analyses yielded several key findings. Young adults shape worldview and life purpose from diverse developmental experiences in school, family, work, and their own self-efficacy – but not religious involvement. Stronger social capital and education afford greater theological diversification (e.g., more benevolent worldviews and proactive life purpose). Implications for religious discourse in the public sphere are discussed in light of personal theologies’ asynchrony with any overarching “sacred canopy.”
Experience and Religion: A Psychological Perspective
Ulrike Popp-Baier, University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University
Although the concept of religion has played a pivotal role in religious studies, more and more scholars have become sceptical with regard to the analytical value of this concept for future research. At the turn of the twentieth century it has been taken for granted in psychology of religion that 'religious experience' has to be the object of psychological study. But due to shifts in the intellectual climate (rise of behaviorism and depth psychology) 'experience' disappeared from the top of the research agenda ( cf. Wulff, 1995). In this paper I would like to argue that a formal-hermeneutical concept of experience would have enough analytical value to contribute to the analysis of the impact of religion on the lives of individuals. A methodology for research on experience and religion is proposed relying on Dennett's concept of heterophenomenology and on Geertz's concept of cultural analysis.
Cognitive Contributions to the Social Construction of Religion Hypothesis: Or, Experimental Studies Which Show That Postmodernists Are (Half) Right.
Jason Slone, University of Findlay
Most scholars now view religion as a “social construction.” Curiously, however, no causal mechanism has ever been identified that explains how this is so. Lacking such a causal mechanism, the social constructionist hypothesis remains impoverished. Recent work in the cognitive science of religion resolves this problem. Religion is not “socially constructed”; rather, religion is cognitively constructed in the process of social transmission from mind to mind or object (e.g. book) to mind. Transmission involves memory storage and retrieval. Storage involves representational coding (the mind codes for efficiency), and retrieval involves reconstruction—building up the memory from the bits and parts stored in code. It is in this way that religion is constructed. This paper presents overviews of memory studies in the cognitive science of religion, and two sets of experimental studies by the author and colleagues that document instances of religious concept construction.
A20-109
Religion in South Asia Section and Islamic Mysticism Group
Theme: Sufi Music: Poetics and Performance in South Asian Qawwali
Qawwali is a distinctly South Asian variation of sama', the Sufi ritual performance of ecstatic poetry accompanied by music. It integrates love poetry, devotional imagery, musical rhythms and melodies, as well as gesture and dance to spur moments of spiritual rapture. Cultivated in particular by the Chishti Sufi order since the thirteenth century, the tradition has inspired poets, spiritual seekers, and popular audiences alike. It has also frequently invoked criticism from detractors that question its Islamic credentials. This panel explores the poetics and performance of this unique genre of Sufi music from a variety of historical, methodological and interpretive perspectives. The four papers form two distinct pairs, each with parallel frames. The first pairing is historical and textual, focusing on the lyrical and ethical dimensions of premodern Sufi qawwali. The second set of papers explores the performance of qawwali in contemporary ritual contexts on both sides of the India-Pakistan border.
From Baghdad to Brindaban: Erotic and Spiritual Love in Qawwali Performance
Scott A. Kugle, Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World
Qawwali is a particular South Asian variation of sama, the Sufi ritual performance of ecstasy, integrating love poetry, devotional imagery, rhythm and melody, even gesture and dance in moments of rapture. As cultivated by Chishti Sufis since the thirteenth century, Qawwali is the site of confluence of Krishna imagery and Islamic devotional imagery. Some rare Qawwali performances refer intensely and explicitly to Krishna, such as the poem by Nawab Sadiq Jung, “Hilm'. More commonly, Qawwali performances evoke traces of Krishna through indirect images of love, lover and beloved. Images of an ecstasy-evoking Krishna that are central to Hindu Bhakti devotion are congruent with images of the intoxicating beloved that are central to Sufi devotion. These environments overlap in South Asia where Sufi Muslims could understand and sympathize with Bhakti-oriented Hindus, to the point of seeing Krishna images as a natural part of their own poetic repertoire of mystical love imagery.
"I Emerge from Myself Like a Melody": Khvājāh Mir Dard and the Art of Sama' in Eighteenth-Century Delhi
Homayra Ziad, Yale University
This paper adds to the growing scholarship on reformist, universalist trends in pre-colonial Indo-Muslim understandings of Islam. I focus on the practice of sama'/qavvālī in eighteenth-century Delhi to explore the significance of Khvājāh Mīr Dard’s (d. 1785) tarīqah muhammadiyah, a new universal spiritual path rooted in Naqshbandī Mujaddidī concepts that upheld itself as the original “pure religion of Muhammad.” In contrast to common Mujaddidī practice, Dard, a beloved Sufi teacher, poet, and musician, enjoyed and encouraged sama'. In exploring this disparity, I propose that Dard’s tarīqah was a truly individualistic endeavor that by its very nature allowed “aberration“ in philosophy and practice. I further argue that the limited attention to his religious thought after his death reflects Dard’s refusal to be pigeonholed - his encouragement of sama' together with his strongly sharī'ah-oriented ethics likely presented a conundrum that his more “sober” Mujaddidī contemporaries could not easily assimilate.
A "Proving Ground" for Spiritual Mastery: The Chishti Sabiri Musical Assembly
Robert Rozehnal, Lehigh University
This paper explores the polemics, piety and performance of sama' within the contemporary Chishti Sabiri order of Pakistan. I focus on two prominent twentieth century Chishti Sabiri masters—Muhammad Zauqi Shah (d. 1951) and Wahid Bakhsh Rabbani (d. 1995)—who each offered a resolute defense of sama' in their voluminous writings. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I also examine how Chishti Sabiri disciples explain the setting, lyrics, and transformative power of the highly ritualized musical assembly (mahfil-i sama'). Sufi adepts distinguish between the commercialized qawwali of the global recording industry and the spiritual discipline of sama'. In this counter-narrative, qawwali is defined as a form of mass (and often crass) entertainment. Sama', by contrast, is characterized as a carefully controlled ritual performance—a technique of spiritual pedagogy accessible exclusively to an elite cadre of Sufi adepts (murids), supervised by a teaching shaykh, and governed by strict rules of etiquette and comportment.
Unseen Power: Aesthetic Dimensions of Symbolic Healing in Qawwali
James R. Newell, Vanderbilt University
This paper puts forward the claim that qawwali music is one element of an everyday aesthetic that informs and contributes to the symbolic healing experienced by Muslim worshippers at darghas across South Asia. This symbolic healing, of which the performance of qawwali is one element, is an affirmation of collective memory that asserts for the worshippers the importance of their Islamic heritage, Sufi ideology, and belief in the unseen, and contributes to the individual’s formation of a symbolic cultural self. I begin with a case study and identify three key values that I see as being important leitmotivs in the aesthetics of everyday life at a South-Asian dargha. These are: performance, memory, and belief in the unseen. I will elaborate on my understanding of how these values relate to the role of qawwali in symbolic healing at Tajbagh, and close with a discussion of my conclusions.
A20-110
Study of Judaism Section
Theme: Place as Elsewhere: Home and Homelessness in Jewish Text and Commentary
This panel will stake a claim about the literary representation of Place in a general sense--situatedness, locatedness and also the loss, sacrifice, or abandonment, of place as varities of textual, and ethical summonses. As its own 'intervention of theory,' place compels readers to reckon with the exigency of footing within and outside the text, which is the frictional relation between being somewhere and being elsewhere. This is topos in two senses--both figural theme and concrete locality. The first paper will focus on the work of the late W. G. Sebald, whose work testifies to a post-Shoah,posthumous experience of topography unsettled. The second will paper will probe Jewish aesthetics and proximity to the sacred in the writings of S.Y. Agnon and Yehudah Amichai and the third will explore thematically different interpretations of the Abraham narrative by Emmanuel Levinas and R. Shalom Noach Brazovsky (the Slonimer Rebbe).
A20-111
Chinese Religions Group
Theme: Rhetorical Strategies in Ritual, Narrative, and Performance
No Basis in Text: The Persistence of Unauthorized Iconographies and the Tantric Turn in the Practice of East Asian Buddhisms
Hank Glassman, Haverford College
This paper takes up the cult of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha (C: Dizang, J. Jizô, K. Chijang) as a case study of the relationship between text and image. From the ninth-century until our time, Dizang has occasionally shown up in some unexpected company. I refer specifically to the Amitâbha triads and pentads featuring this bodhisattva in his guise as beautiful young monk with East Asian facial features. The pentad, which adds Ksitigarbha and a deified Nagârjua to the usual three, and the triad in which Ksitigarbha replaces Mahâstamaprapta, are fairly rare but do appear periodically over the centuries in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhist practice. As this grouping does not have the authority of sutras, commentaries, or ritual manuals behind it, debate or controversy often surrounds its implementation. It is this conversation that I will be attending to as I share a few specific historical instances of such “unauthorized iconographies.”
Hidden and in Plain Sight: Ritual Techniques and Textual Redaction in the Yuqie Yankou Rite
Hun Y. Lye, Warren Wilson College
The Yuqie yankou gained prominence in the early Ming period and became the paradigmatic Chinese Buddhist esoteric rite in the late imperial period. A study of the genealogy of this rite demonstrates that it is a result of a multi-directional development of liturgical texts and ritual indices spanning more than a millennium and drawing from Chinese, Indian and Tibetan sources. In this paper, I examine two specific points: 1) the hidden transformations of Guanyin in relation to ritual techniques employed in the Yankou and 2) the transparency in the Yankou's presentation of its own textual history. While 'oral transmission' (and 'lineage') is often identified as one of the main rhetorical devices employed in tantric traditions, the Yankou material often rejects this emphasis in favor of textual authority. Furthermore, the Yankou rite appears not to be that concerned about 'covering the traces' of the redactional and editorial processes it has undergone.
Mountain Journey as Narrative Device in the Ziyang Zhenren Neizhuan
Julius Tsai, Texas Christian University
This study focuses on the narrative device of the mountain journey in the Ziyang zhenren neizhuan (HY 303), an early Shangqing hagiography dating to the late fourth century CE. Not only does this hagiography tap into the symbolic resources of an array of mythical and ritual models (including those of mountain reclusion, of imperial rites at the sacred mountains, and those connected with the Yellow Emperor), it in turn constructs a framework for yet another set of rites, namely transmission rites. This study inquires into how one might situate this hagiographical account in the context of other early Shangqing revelatory scriptures, and the extent to which this narrative might have been intended as a model for early Shangqing transmission and ritual practices.
Symbolic Modules: Tracing Patterns in Daoist Ritual
Gil Raz, Dartmouth College
This paper introduces the notion of symbolic modules as an analyial tool for comprehending the multivalence of terms, schemes, and systems in Daoist ritual manuals. The analysis proceeds by tracing the changing meanings of three symbolic modules, the East Well, the Eight Archivists, and the Six-Jia, across a range of medieval Daoist ritual manuals. Originating in early tradition of technical divination, these symbolic modules were appropriated by Daoists as they constructed new ritual systems. These ritual systems, in turn, were coopted by other Daoist lineages, and embedded in newer ritual schemata. These symbolic modules were thus manipulated to produce different ritual schemata, with different meanings. The two main questions this paper examines are: How do the meanings of symbolic modules change through their emplacement in different ritual schemata? And, what is the relationship between the symbolic modules and the ritual schemata in which they are embedded?
A20-112
Christian Spirituality Group
Theme: The Spiritual Ecology of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) at the Half-Centenary of His Death
This panel will explore the spiritual ecological vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a French Jesuit and paleontologist, who was one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century. Fifty years after his death in New York his spiritual perspective remains relevant. An opening presentation will give a broad overview of his life and thought. The panel will further examine how Teilhard integrated his scientific understanding of evolution with his religious understanding of the 'Spirit of the Earth.' Papers will explore his vision of the human as part of a dynamic unfolding universe as expressed in his classic text, 'The Human Phenomenon.' As an accomplished scientist and as a person of deep religious conviction, Teilhard was himself a pioneer in bridging science and religion in a spiritual ecology. He was a visionary capable of imagining a viable, vibrant, and sustainable future for humans and the planet.
A20-113
Europe and the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity Group
Theme: The Uses of Comparison
From Paul to Orpheus
Fritz Graf, Ohio State University
My paper deals with two ways of comparison, internal and external, exemplified by the interpretations of the so-called ‘Orphic Gold Tablets’, and the ideologies behind this. In 1879 and 1880, excavators found several hexametrical texts on gold leaves. One scholar, Domenico Comparetti, immediately labeled them Orphic. Soon afterwards, these small texts became central to a larger project. By comparing them (and a few more that had been found in the following years) with Paul’s teachings, a German (Maass), a French (Loisy, an excommunicated priest) and an Italian scholar (Macchioro) argued for an Orphic origin of Christian eschatology. Their theories inscribe themselves into the secularization debate of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that accompanied the state-formation of Germany and Italy, and the laicization of the French Republic. As J. Z. Smith (among others) showed, this same debate is one of the roots of History of Religion.
Rehabilitating Tatian: The Pit-Falls of Over-Reading
Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College
Read any book on Syriac Christian asceticism and invariably Tatian is blamed for this Church’s early ascetic tendencies. But a close reading of the available material proves otherwise. Why have we been so quick to blame Tatian? In part the answer lies with the Western Church fathers such as Irenaeus and Clement who were also quick to blame Tatian for Encraticism. Yet Tatian suffers no such reputation among the Syriac writers until quite late. Nevertheless Tatian is an easy target for modern scholars for explaining the very early prominence of asceticism among the Syriac speaking Christians because he is originally an Easterner and writes relatively early. Through a re-examination of Tatian’s writings (and supposed writings) I wish to examine how the ancient church fathers and especially how we modern scholars conceptualize “East” and “West” particularly as it is used to “explain” the ascetic phenomenon in early Christianity.
The Power of Sacrifice: Roman and Christian Discourses in Conflict
George P. Heyman, St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry
This paper argues that the conflicts between Rome and the early Christian Church were the logical outcome of divergent discursive formulations of the idea of sacrifice. This project examines “discourse” within the conceptual framework offered by Foucault, Barthes, Lincoln, and Todorov. Both imperial Rome and early Christianity capitalized on the idea and the rhetoric of sacrifice as a discursive means to craft their location and identity within the cosmos. Because of this sacrificial discourse Christians were perceived as a threat to the complex and fragile balance of power that existed between the gods and the state. In an attempt to check Christianity’s growth, Rome made sacrifice the litmus text of political and religious loyalty. Borrowing an imperial political model, as well as exalting the spectacle of the martyr as an imitation of the biblical Christ, Christianity was able to create its own social order through a novel discourse of sacrifice
A20-114
Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group
Theme: Imagining Feminist Political Spaces in Religious Perspectives
Politics and the Social Self in Feminist Christian Ethics
Melissa Snarr, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
The paper compares critically three important twentieth-century feminist Christian ethicists: Beverly Harrison, Emilie Townes, and Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, in order to (1) establish the social self as an important normative and theological category in their work, (2) examine how their conceptions of the self and its formation overlap and differ, and (3) show the implications of these commonalities and differences for their distinctive understandings of politics, political participation, and political reform. By analyzing the differences among feminist Christian ethicists’ social conceptions of the self, I propose that one can better understand how some ethicists come to prioritize the reformation of all social institutions for proper Christian formation while others assume that the ecclesial community provides the sufficient context for moral formation and therefore, encourage only “selective engagement” with secular or dominant politics.
Partial Visions: An Asian-Malaysian Feminist Standpoint Epistemology
Sharon A. Bong, Monash University
I offer a re-visioning of women’s human rights articulated through an Asian-Malaysian feminist standpoint epistemology in contending that women’s rights are culturally and religiously contingent. I draw from feminist standpoint epistemologies in interpreting 27 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with feminists-activists through four epistemic and political criteria: 1) ‘whose knowledge’ is premised on critical relativism or the universal-relativist positioning of rights within cultures and religions; 2) ‘who knows’ are faith-rights-based activists, whose commitment towards social justice is imbued with a spiritual ethos; and 3) seeing from ‘above and below’ comprise their self-reflexive strategies in operationalising women’s-human rights in multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious contexts. To conclude, I show how faith-rights-based activists ‘have it both ways’: knowledge that is ‘partial’—neither abstract nor universalised—and paradoxically has a wider resonance to the global women’s movement. I thus provide a platform for a transformative hermeneutics for discourse and a sound basis for political action.
Care for the Many-Lived, Unending Forms: Departing from a Rhetoric of War through Adrienne Rich's "Transcendental Etude"
Christina Hutchins, Graduate Theological Union
Work by theorists from Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil to Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard display new relevance in light of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent U.S. wars against 'terror,' Afghanistan, and Iraq. Utilizing insights from A. N. Whitehead's 1933 Adventures of Ideas and Judith Butler's 2004 Undoing Gender and 2004 Precarious Life to perform a fresh reading of Adrienne Rich's 1978 poem, 'Transcendental Etude,' this paper critiques the rhetorical invocation of good and evil by the G.W. Bush administration. The paper displays the fruits of a larger project, an aesthetic theory of reading literary and cultural moments/subject/events, not as 'arrivals' into discourse, but as 'departures' toward new, always plural and unforeseeable contexts of effect. Rather than halting at the 'arrival' of a goal or the entry of a subject into discourse, value and agency can be understood as temporal mobilities in a dynamic and sensate world.
From Fantasy to Freedom: Iris Murdoch’s Vision of Redemption
Kathleen Tierney, Stanford University
This paper will present Iris Murdoch’s conception of freedom and the potential challenge her work poses to feminist models of redemption. Murdoch advocated selflessness as liberation from the distorted, fantasy-laden state of our ordinary condition. The paper will critically examine this ideal of selflessness in light in feminist concerns for the spiritual and political advancement of women. Murdoch held a dark view of the human psyche in which every person struggles to move beyond the significant limitation of rampant egoism. As a result Murdoch’s conception of freedom addressed the need to move beyond self-concern in order to reach higher states of human potential. This paper will examine Murdoch’s conception of redemption and pursue the challenge and contributions her thought makes in a feminist context. The paper will also challenge Murdoch’s conception of selflessness in light of feminist concerns about power dynamics and the traditionally feminized virtue of humility.
A20-115
Indigenous Religious Traditions Group
Theme: Indigenous Religious Traditions in Theory and Practice
Santería Sacrifical Rituals: A Reconsideration of Religious Violence
Mary Ann Clark, Rice University
The connections between religion and violence, including all types of sacrifice, have a long-standing history of scholarly concern. Because Santería (along with other African-based religions) engage in rituals of sacrifice that include the immolation of animals, an exploration of sacrifice and other types of religious violence through the lens of these religions may provide new insights into these activities. In this talk I will suggest that the standard approaches to the issues of religion, sacrifice and violence are flawed by their Indo-European ethnocentrism and that the perspectives of indigenous religions, like Santería and the Yoruba traditional religion, configures the place of sacrifice in the religious milieu and calls into question both the rhetoric and use of violence in other traditions.
The New Animism and the Study of Indigenous Religions
Graham Harvey, Open University
Several anthropologists have recently used the term ‘animism’ to label the respectful engagement of particular indigenous peoples with a range of other-than-human persons. Much of this scholarship builds on what Irving Hallowell learnt from the Ojibwe of Beren’s River. This paper discusses the value of this ‘new animism’ in the Religious Studies and indigeneity. It begins by demarcating this usage from the now (correctly) rejected colonialist usage which labeled an alleged failure to distinguish between persons and inanimate objects. It then discusses conversations with Ojibwe and Maori hosts about the recognition within their languages and ceremonies of a wider range of animate persons than is typical in European discourse. Citing an important essay by Harry Garuba, it considers the prevalence of ‘animist realism/materialism’ in the books of West African and Native American authors. It concludes that the new use of the term is valuable when it reflects indigenous knowledges.
Towards an Appreciation of the Religious Authority of Eldership: A Native American Example
Michael McNally, Carleton College
That indigenous people place great importance on 'honoring elders' has become a routine observation of conventional wisdom. This paper tries to reckon more fully and systematically with the sophistication that stands behind such a maxim in the beliefs and practices over time of the Anishinaabe, or Ojibwe people native to the Great Lakes region. It attends to distinctive Ojibwe ways of constituting and valuing the life course, and to the pedagogical dynamics of eldership. The paper draws directly on archival and fieldwork experience concerning the Ojibwe, but is posed in broader terms to engage in conversation with scholars of other indigenous traditions, perhaps especially African and African diaspora traditions, in order to put the category of 'elder' in its rightful place besides 'priest', 'prophet,' 'shaman',and other stock figures of the sociology of religion.
Mi’kmaq Myth and Aboriginal Claims
Jennifer Reid, University of Maine, Farmington
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, folklorists recorded a body of Mi'kmaq myths that focused on the mythic hero Kluskap Given Kluskap's centrality in these collections, one might expect he would have remained the focus of sacred narratives into the present, but this is not so. Although Kluskap is associated with landscape, widespread knowledge of the earlier myths has disappeared. We might conclude that Kluskaps earlier centrality in Mi'kmaq oral culture was over-emphasized by scholars, but this would be an error. I believe Kluskap figured prominently during the period, and that interest in these myths has recently waned. Obvious questions, then are why (i) these myths had such popularity, and (ii) this popularity ebbed. The answer is that Kluskap myths have functioned as a symbolic apparatus for interpreting 18th century treaties, and for opposing the dominant epistemological/ legal foundations of the relationship between the Mi'kmaq and non-aboriginal Canadian society.
A Comparison of Acehnese (Islamic) and Dani (Christian) Death Rituals in Search of an
Underlying Indigenous Indonesian View of the Soul
E. Randolph Richards, Ouachita Baptist University
In the past century, travel in Aceh has been forbidden to most
foreigners. As a result of the tsunami, international aide workers have
been provided a temporary glimpse into Aceh, including Acehnese death
rituals. A field study of funeral rituals from villages in both remote
Aceh Province (North Sumatra, Indonesia) and the Dani (Baliem Valley,
Irian Jaya, Indonesia) reveal the immediately obvious differences
between Islamic and Christian funerals. A more detailed study, including
field interviews, uncovers indigenous customs regarding the migration of
the arwah (soul) after death. In these two regions, separated by
distance as well as religion, there are remarkably similar beliefs and
customs. (Some of these will be illustrated by video clips.) Do these
similarities originate from a common, underlying indigenous cosmology?
A20-116
Korean Religions Group
Theme: Religious Responses to Secular Politics/Society in Korea
Religions in modern Korea are dynamically engaged in transforming the social and political landscape. As new domestic and international political pressures appear, modern religions have developed strategies for influencing the course those pressures take or strategies of accommodation and adaptation to those pressures. Religious responses to the politics of cultural imperialism, government authoritarianism, gender politics, and diplomatic engagement with North Korea will be presented in this session.
When Cultures Clash with Each Other
Shin Kwon Kim, Drew University
This paper deals with the semiotic and post-colonial analysis of the report ‘the Baby Riot’ in Fifteen Years among the Top Knots by L.H. Underwood. This report has multiple layers of meaning: the report of the event itself, the missionaries’ point of view, the hidden voices of Koreans, and the historical facts of what really happened. The paper first analyzes the religious clash between Christianity and Confucianism in their views of judging cultural values as superior and inferior. Next, the paper will analyze the clash between Western and Eastern medical systems. Finally, the paper deals with the clash between the Western colonizers and colonized Koreans. The paper concludes with an analysis of how Koreans dealt with the clash brought on by Christianity and Western culture in terms of a strategy of hybridization.
Pacificists or Legalists? Korean Seventh-Day Adventists and Their Conscientious Objection/Cooperation (1950-1970)
Julius Nam, Pacific Union College
Since the American Civil War, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has urged its members to choose the noncombatant option when faced with compulsory draft. Adventists felt that this position would best help them to keep God's commandment not to murder and to keep their Saturday Sabbath holy. During and after the Korean War, Adventist draftees in South Korea did not have the same option that their American counterparts had. This led to the imprisonment and harsh treatment of Korean Adventists in the military for their refusal to bear arms and work on their Sabbath. But in 1966-1968, a shift in the attitude of the church leaders led to the justification of bearing of arms. Since then, Korean Adventists' conscientious objection has been limited to the issue of Sabbathkeeping, an indication that their primary interest lay in strict observance of the Ten Commandments, rather than in pacifism or civil disobedience.
Mythic Tales of Mago, the Great Goddess, from Korea
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Loyola Marymount University
Although the mythological status of Mago has begun to reemerge in Korea in recent years through various efforts including Jinok Kang’s article on the folktales of Mago (1993), the subject of Mago, the Great Goddess, remains largely unexplored in English speaking academic circles. This paper will introduce documentation of over 215 mythic tales (including 64 toponyms) of Mago from Korea as part of the larger corpus of Mago found cross-nationally in Korea, China, and Japan. By discussing the nationwide interspersion of Mago mythic tales in both South and North Korea, the overall features of these tales, many names of Mago, distinctive aspects of Mago cosmogonic stories, and female agency manifest in these tales, I posit that the mythic literature of Mago from Korea discloses, partially but substantively, the forgotten [read suppressed] gynocentric tradition of East Asia.
Three Stances toward Christianity in North Korea: Exploitation, Revanche, and Engagement
Timothy S. Lee, Texas Christian University
Chosôn, a pro-North Korean journal based in Japan, notes that as of 2004, North Korea had 16,000 Christians. This number pales in comparison to about 300,000 Christians that lived in the North in 1945 when Korea was divided in two. Nonetheless the presence of these Christians and the significance of northern Korea in Korean Christian history have compelled the Communist regime and Christians outside the North to take a stance toward North Korean Christianity. Three main stances are evident. One is that of exploitation, which has been the policy of the North Korean government. Another is that of revanche—of not only reinvigorating North Korean Christianity but also of reclaiming lost Christian properties—the stance favored by South Korean Evangelicals. And a third is that of engagement, favored by South’s liberal Christians, who have sought to engage Northern Christians through official channels, fully aware of all the limitation that those channels imply.
A20-117
Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group
Theme: Faith beyond Mango Street: The Construction of the Latino in Literature - Explorations in Religion, Gender, and Identity
In religious discourse, Latinas are often presented as tradition bearers, officiants and practicioners in popular religion. From abuelitas to la Virgen, from curanderas to madrinas, the representation of the religious
practices of Latinas has been the focus of significant attention in the study of Latino/a religion and in interdisciplinary discussions that focus on literature by Latina authors in particular. This panel will
explore the representation of gender and identity of the Latino in literature (fiction and autobiographical narratives) by Latin American and U.S. Hispanic male authors, as well as the representation of male
characters in literature by Latin American and U.S. Latina authors, with an eye to examining the intersection of gender, identity and religion beyond the stereotypes of 'machismo.'
A20-118
Law, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: Going Public: The Legal Construction of "Religion"
Identifying Religion Proper: The Arya Samaj and the Politics of Religious Freedom
Cassie Adcock, University of Chicago
Historians of the north Indian reform movement, the Arya Samaj, have frequently described it as having split in 1893 into a “religious” and a “secular” or “political” party. This classification by historians is echoed by, and may seem to find support in, similar descriptions of the Arya Samaj by government officials of the colonial period. I will revisit this classification of the Arya Samaj, not by reassessing its accuracy, but by interrogating the understandings of religion on which classifications of the Arya Samaj were based in colonial India. I demonstrate that the mobilization of the opposition of religion and politics is itself a political act: in a colonial context informed by the legal principle of freedom of religion, the identification of religion from politics, and the definition of religion on which this identification was premised, has immediate political repercussions.
An Examination of the Constitutive Role of Islamic Legal Institutions in Early Modernity
Gregory Mack, McGill University
A key objective of this paper is to inform the evolving discourse about the existence of an 'early modern' trajectory in Islamic history. Attention will be paid to the role of Islamic Law in the formulation of a vibrant and autonomous public sphere in the Ottoman Empire ca. 1450-1600 AD, counterpoised between a centralized bureaucratic state and its subjects. Particularly, I will examine the institution of the Qadi (Judge) and its key role in facilitating relations through the Shari’a. Evidence drawn from Ottoman court records suggests that despite institutionalizing the judicial hierarchy to an unprecedented degree within the apparatus of government, the Qadi maintained a remarkable degree of autonomy and scope of activities. Indeed, it is appropriate to speak of 'the rise of the Qadis' at this time. This research challenges the over-simplified view of Muslim societies as stagnant and despotic and advances beyond historiography inspired by modern nationalism.
"Making Someone Public" as Punishment in Islam: The Eschatology of Tashhîr
Christian Lange, Harvard University
This paper is an essay in historical anthropology of Islamic criminal law. It proposes to analyze the public ritual known as 'tashhîr' (lit. 'to make public'), an ignominious parade through the city. In Islam, this was a punishment with a wide geographical distribution and long history. A close reading of two prominent examples from the Saljûq period (1055-1174 C. E.) suggests that tashhîr functioned both to remind the audience of the state's authority over their lives and to reassure them of their status as the elect few who escaped punishment. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that the ways in which the tashhîr ritual was encoded with eschatological meaning informed, and continue to inform, how Muslims both perceive and enact acts of punitive justice, and of extreme violence in general.
A20-119
New Religious Movements Group
Theme: Theoretical Issues in the Study of NRMs and NRMs and Their Sacred Texts
Developing a Memetic Continuum to Track the Potential for Violence in New Religious Movements
John K. Simmons, Western Illinois University
Developing a Memetic Contiuum to Track the Potential for Violence in New Religious Movements
In this paper, I will explore the connection between two disparate yet potentially fruitful areas of intellectual inquiry: a) the study of memes or self-transmitting bits of culture that, among other things, may account for the standardization of human behavior in social institutions, including religion; and b) the ongoing quest to accurately identify and track new religious movements (NRMs), using tension with established religious and secular institutions as a defining characteristic. I make the case that tension arises along a memetic continuum between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. A typology of memetic tension can then be used to predict when a NRM is on the verge of illegal, violent, or otherwise, unacceptable behavior.
Pagans on the Prairie: Correllian Wiccans and Community Identity in Central Illinois
Jonathan Moore, Grinnell College
In 2002, Wiccan cleric Ed Hubbard purchased a downtown property in Hoopeston, Illinois, a homogenous evangelical Christian town of 6,000 where Hubbard intended to establish the first Wiccan college in the United States. Locals protested the pagan 'invasion,' catalyzing a identity crisis for the economically depressed community. This paper will examine Hubbard's community, arguing that it represents something unique in American Neo-Paganism. Although noncoercive and individualist, the 'High Correllian' tradition of Wicca posesses an elaborate priestly hierarchy and a well-organized denominational infrastructure. Careful attention to the Correllians suggests that following this traditional American pattern is largely responsible for their success.
A Variety of Deconversion Trajectories: Cross-Cultural Research Results
Heinz Streib, University of Bielefeld
What is deconversion? What motivates deconversion? Is there a difference between deconversion from new religious and fundamentalist orientations and other deconversions – or, with Bromley, between deconversions from subversive, contestant and allegiant religious organizations? What is the impact of cultural and biographical context? How are deconversions linked to faith development? How to psychological well-being? After dealing with extant research and problems of definition, the paper presents and discusses results from the Bielefeld-based International Study of Deconversion which are based on a core sample of 130 deconversion narratives from Germany and the U.S.A.. These biographical interviews, together with 300 faith development interviews (also with members) and a total of more than 1,000 questionnaires, are a rich data base for answering the above questions. The multidisciplinary research strategy combined qualitative instruments and quantitative measures to systematically explore contexts, conditions, and outcomes of deconversions nad results in a typology of deconversion trajectories.
Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita in Hindu-Inspired New Religious Movements
Lola L. Williamson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
From the mid-nineteenth century to the present, various American religious groups have appropriated parts or all of the Bhagavad Gita in formulating their belief systems. This paper briefly traces the history of the Bhagavad Gita in new religious movements in America—from Transcendentalism to the Hare Krishna movement. With particular focus on its use by contemporary movements, I analyze commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement. I also include analysis of interviews with followers of these movements to show how the interpretations of each group vary. Yet while gurus and movements use the text to exemplify their particular points of view, generalized similarities are also evident, and these general beliefs have filtered to a certain extent into American culture.
Reading between the Magic: Exploring Isobel Bird's Young Adult Fiction Series, The Circle of Three
Laurel Zwissler, University of Toronto
Today, with the wide range of young adult fiction involving magical themes, adolescent readers have significant access to alternative pantheons, theologies, and life-perspectives.
How do authors of these texts understand the religious elements in their stories? Are they purposely teaching their readers about Neo-Paganism, or are they merely aiming to entertain? How do the readers of texts with Neo-Pagan themes interpret those elements of the books? Is Neo-Paganism part of the fiction, or do readers approach fiction as informative of their own religious options? What are some of the social implications of combining Neo-Paganism and series fiction?
This paper focuses on the series _Circle of Three_ by Isobel Bird as an example of Neo-Pagan themed, young adult fiction. Through use of textual analysis, published author interviews, and book reviews by readers, this paper investigates the author’s intentions, responses of young adult readers, and the role of religion in the books.
Gender Essentialism in Matriarchalist Utopian Fantasies: Are Popular Novels Vehicles of Sacred Stories, or Only Sacred Propaganda?
Christine Kraemer, Boston University
Cynthia Eller’s book _The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future_ indicted matriarchal narratives not primarily for their historical inaccuracy, but for what Eller saw as a destructive tendency toward gender essentialism. This gender essentialism, in her view, renders the myth useless even simply as a sacred story. In contrast, this presentation will argue that popular utopian fantasy novels that draw on the myth of matriarchal prehistory play with this narrative in a much more organic, flexible, and liberating fashion than Eller suggests. Some actively work to create imagined societies with fluid gender roles, while others contain embedded critiques of the matriarchal myth even as they spread it to a wider audience. I will close by considering the importance of the popular novel in spreading the Goddess movement’s ideas, as well as contextualizing the connection between literature and neopaganism historically.
A20-120
Nineteenth-Century Theology Group
Theme: Ernst Troeltsch as Historian of Protestantism
This session explores the significance of Ernst Troeltsch's work as historian of Protestantism. The focal points are two recently published volumes of the Troeltsch Kritische Gesamtausgabe: volumes 7 and 8, consisting of Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neuzeit, Die Bedeutung des Protestantisumus für die Entstehung der Modernen Welt, and Troeltsch's shorter essays on Luther, Calvin, and the Reformation.
Ernst Troeltsch as Cultural Historian of Chrisitanity
Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, University of Munich
Ernst Troeltsch not only wrote books, essays, encyclopedia articles, and countless reviews on historical themes, in particular on the history of Western Christian religion and on the history of Protestant theology, he also reflected upon the methodological principles of historiography. My paper will first sketch Troeltsch’s historical practice. I will show that Troeltsch represented a constructivist understanding of history, oriented on concepts and the formation of types. With great conceptual precision and consistency, Troeltsch projected historiography as an intellectual undertaking that served primarily the understanding of the present rather than some sort of universal view of the past. Through reflection on historical origins, Troeltsch identified the plural, contradictory forces that shaped the present and plumbed the prospects for a humane shaping of the future. Troeltsch’s model of the construction of the past will be clarified through several examples and related to contemporary European debates on the genesis of modernity.
Ernst Troeltsch’s Lasting Contribution to the Historiography of Protestantism
Arie Molendijk, University of Groningen
This paper outlines Troeltsch’s basic insights into the history of Western Christianity and Protestantism in particular. To start with, his view of the relation between Protestantism and modernity and the dichotomy between the Old and New Protestantism will be examined (using the recent Kritische Gesamtausgabe with important volumes on the history of Protestantism). Troeltsch presents an alternative to the dominant historiographical thesis of the secularization of Christian religion. The core of this paper consists of a critical discussion of the manifold uses and historiographical implications of the famous typology Church-Sect-Mysticism. This typology is not only a sociological instrument, but also engenders a new, illuminating perspective on the rise of modern forms of Protestantism and their relation to modernity.
"A Metaphysical Attitude towards Life": Ernst Troeltsch on Protestantism and German National Identity
Aimee Burant, University of Chicago
For Ernst Troeltsch, the aim of historical scholarship is the understanding of the present. This paper argues that in interpreting the history of Protestantism, Troeltsch identifies the significance of Protestant Christianity for modern German national identity. Troeltsch’s argument that Lutheran idealism shapes the German “metaphysical-religious” spirit is premised on his cultural theory of national identity and is articulated in the context of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century debates in theology, history, and politics over the confessional quality of German nationality. This paper contributes to the study of the political inflections of German theology at the turn of the twentieth century and integrates scholarship on nationalism with the intellectual history of German Protestant thought.
Reassessing Troeltsch’s Conception of Protestantism and Its Relationship to Modernity
Lori K. Pearson, Carleton College
The second edition of Ernst Troeltsch’s well-known work on the relation between Protestantism and the rise of the modern world reveals the extent to which Troeltsch came to see Protestantism as an internally diverse tradition with multiple models for social engagement. This gradual complexification of Troeltsch’s view of Protestantism(s) is evident in the significant changes and additions he made to the first edition of his book, Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus für die Enstehung der modernen Welt (1906/1911; translated into English in 1912 under the title, Protestantism and Progress). In the second edition Troeltsch gives increased attention to the thought-forms of modern Protestant “sects” and to the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism. I explore the ways these changes point to Troeltsch’s evolving understanding of the relationship(s) between religion and culture in general and the meaning and boundaries of Protestantism in particular.
A20-121
Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group
Theme: "All Will Be Revealed": Apocalypse, Identity, and Myth in Film
Mapping Light: Toward a Taxonomy of Narrative Modes in Contemporary Religious Film
Roy M. Anker, Calvin College
This paper has a two-fold purpose. It is primarily an attempt to ease a frequent difficulty in discussions of religion and film, and that is the lack of precise nomenclature for delineating different kinds of narratives in religious film. The paper sets out a preliminary taxonomy that seeks to label and describe the four types of religious film narrative: linear realism, parabolic, fabulist, and liminal. The second purpose ventures tying narrative modes to varieties of religious experience typically dramatized in those narrative types. In effect, this last portion charts contemporary cinematic understandings of primary means of divine disclosure, ranging from quiet manifestation in individual lives, such as in Tender Mercies, to the wild eruption of divine presence in Magnolia.
The Moral Demand of the "Loving Cup": The Presence of the Abject Body in Tod Browning's Freaks and the Christian Eucharist
Kent Brintnall, Emory University
Relying primarily on Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject and its relationship to religious ritual, this paper offers an analysis of Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks that highlights the ritual content of the film and the relationship between ritual, embodiment, and the formation of moral community. Focusing primarily on the “loving cup” sequence from the film, the paper compares the film’s representations of non-normative bodies as heroic and admirable with non-normative embodied meanings of the Christian eucharistic ritual. This comparison demonstrates that the atypical bodily representations and responses of this cult film and this cultic ritual opens a disorienting and abyssmal space which demands moral response and communal reformation.
"A Jew in a Porsche": Jewish (Religious) Identities in Contemporary Europe
Stefanie Knauss, Karl-Franzens-University
In this paper, I consider the problems and chances that Jews of the second and third generation after the Holocaust living in Europe face in constructing their Jewish (religious) identities. Given the difference of their situation from that of Jews in the USA or Israel, and that with the breakdown of the Soviet Union the political and social context in Europe has changed, the problem of identity is posing itself in a new and particular form to Jews in Europe. Comparing recent filmic explorations of everyday Jewish life in Europe (Supertex, Alles auf Zucker, Le Tango des Rashevski, Das Apfelbaumhaus) with the theoretical discourse on the development of Jewish identities in contemporary Europe, I argue that the films offer models of identity that point towards a Jewish presence in Europe which integrates cultural and religious elements specific to Jewish traditions, and the conditions of everyday life in European countries today.
Angel of the Apocalypse Meets Slacker Theology: Kevin Smith’s Dogma (1999)
Amy Johnson Frykholm, Leadville, CO
Even before Kevin Smith’s film was released, it was the subject of controversy. The Catholic League strongly condemned Dogma for anti-Catholic purpose and content, objections emerged from several countries, and Smith received a death threat. Audiences, however, responded enthusiastically. Despite a certain technical and narrative sloppiness, the film grossed $30.7 million and eventually became a staple of cable television. Using both a reception study and responses to Smith’s film from Catholic sources, this paper examines representations of divinity and the religious quest as discussed in the film and commented on by audiences. Addressed to both Catholic and non-Catholic audiences, Dogma translates the apocalyptic content of contemporary American popular culture into a Catholic idiom while simultaneously raising religious questions about it.
A20-122
Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Group
Theme: The Ethics of Forgetting
Generally, the mention of the Holocaust and other incidents of genocide elicit calls to 'never forget' and a commitment to memorialize the victims. This session examines the role of forgetting in the aftermath of Holocust and genocide. The four paper presenters ask such controversial questions as whether there is a 'right to forget,' and in what ways remembering is linked to forgetting. Does forgiveness necesarily involve forgetting the trauma of the past? How should we conceptualize oblivion in the context of Holocaust remembrance?
Serenity at the Heart of Europe: Switzerland and the Fading of Wartime Memory
Tania Oldenhage, Academy of Boldern
Is there a “right” to forget the Holocaust? This paper focuses on the current disappearance of wartime memory from the public scene in Switzerland. For a long time wartime memories in Switzerland were a source of national pride. This changed in the 1990s when international pressure and a younger generation of Swiss historians forced the public to face questions that would complicate wartime presentations in a profound way. Today, the public debates of the 1990s have given way to a striking unresponsiveness among Swiss people with regard to their country’s role during the war. Could it be that the current Swiss climate forecasts an attitude that could become common in other places as well: neither Holocaust denial nor Holocaust obsession, but a genuine Holocaust indifference?
Forgetting and Forgiving the Trauma of Evil
Eric Boynton, Allegheny College
Is it possible to respond to evil by acknowledging its traumatizing effects and work-them-through? Can practical understanding that seeks to respond actively to evil and that redirects us toward action create a certain distance to evil without forgetting its excessive presence? Based on the work of Sigmund Freud on mourning and Emmanuel Levinas on forgiveness, I take up the issues of forgetfulness and forgiveness in the context of the trauma of genocide. Recognizing that the ethical response is animated by the memory of trauma, this paper argues that forgetting and forgiving can be rethought with Levinas’s notion of the other who can “give the past a new meaning” by opening up the future.
Remembering for Redemption or Forgetting for Reconciliation? Keshgegian and Volf on the Memory of Violence
Laura Gilbertson, Bethel University
This paper examines two perspectives on the controversial role of memory as experienced in the wake of social violence, such as the Holocaust and other episodes of genocide or “ethnic cleansing.” Specifically, it addresses the views of American Christian theologians Flora Keshgegian and Miroslav Volf, focusing on their apparently divergent views regarding the importance of ‘forgetting’ in such contexts. Put simply, Keshgegian emphasizes “redemptive memory” that primarily attends to concerns of the oppressed and therefore opposes forgetfulness, whereas Volf suggests that ultimate redemption requires a “certain kind of forgetting” that addresses the ambiguous dynamics of social systems. Our thesis is that, despite important differences, Volf’s understanding of ‘forgetting’ is actually much closer to Keshgegian’s idea of ‘remembering’ than may first appear. Furthermore, each view possesses important and indispensable insights that must be preserved, which presents a challenge for future work that can successfully integrate these intuitions.
Is Forgetting Permissible? The Necessary Role of Oblivion in Holocaust Remembrances
Björn Krondorfer, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Given the fundamental role that “forgetting” plays in individual and communal life, surprisingly little that is positive has been said about it in Holocaust discourse. Forgetting is viewed as a form of individual repression and cultural amnesia, a mental operation that can only be explained as a kind of psychic defense or psychological pathology. I will pair “forgetting” not with amnesia and denial but with the positive term of oblivion, suggesting that the latter is an essential cultural task. Marc Auge’s Oblivion (2004) is my point of departure for probing the permissibility of forgetting. Auge’s ethnographically informed essay helps to rethink our facile use of “forgetting” when talking about the (religious) obligation to remember. His proposed “three forms of oblivion” (return, suspense, rebeginning) are applied to Holocaust remembrances: the role of testimonies as a case of “return;” narrative and commemorative (role) reversals as “suspense;” and dialogical encounters as “rebeginning.”
A20-123
Ritual Studies Group
Theme: Ritual Dwelling, Crossing, and Acting: Theory as Transtemporal, Transperformative, and Transmethodological
Ronald L. Grimes presents the idea that theorizing is a kind of act, one that is implicitly metaphoric, tacitly narrative, and peculiarly imaginative. Madeline Duntley explores ritual theory in the humanities as transmethodology, using Northwest Coast indigenous art and aesthetics as a window into the formline and theoretical hybridity of ritual studies interdisciplinarity. E. Thomas Lawson addresses the transitive connection between ritual competence and ritual performance by using 'ritual form hypothesis' (Lawson & McCauley). Thomas A. Tweed features the annual Mass and rosary for Our Lady of Charity in Miami to present the ritual theory of transtemporal and translocative practice, and argues that ritual itself embodies the paradox of dwelling and crossing.
A20-124
Tillich: Issues in Theology, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: God, Being, and God beyond Being
Why Tillich Is Not (Just) an Ontotheologian: Tillich's Indebtedness to Apophatic Theology
John J. Thatamanil, Vanderbilt University
The ongoing engagement between postmodern thought and contemporary theology has bypassed Tillich. His theology of God as being-itself is dismissed as perpetuating ontotheology. But Tillich is no mere ontotheologian. He recognized that 1) theological speech cannot be conceptually pure, 2) that God who is being-itself includes non-being, 3) and that God is both ground and abyss, both grund and ungrund. These themes are constitutive features of Tillich's theology because he is deeply indebted to the apophatic theology of Pseudo-Dionysius and Meister Eckhart. Derrideans who are perpetually wary of thinking that draws up dichotomous categories only to annul one side of those dichotomies should recognize in Tillich a thinker who cannot be easily dismissed as hopelessly and irredeemably ontotheological.
The naïve assumption persists that only a theology that altogether refuses Athens for Jerusalem is faithful and non-totalizing. Tillich shows us how to embrace both cities by appeal to the apophatic tradition.
Mystical and Prophetic: Tillich's Theology of the God beyond God Reconsidered
Lois Malcolm, Luther Seminary
I examine Tillich’s reference to the “God above the God of theism” and call for the church to preach “the Crucified” from the standpoint of his appropriation of biblical prophetic traditions that speak of God’s judgment and mercy and ancient philosophical schools that enact spiritual practices for discerning truth, beauty, and goodness. Not only Tillich’s theology but also his contribution to existentialist thought can be related to mystical and prophetic traditions that reflexively interpret—even as they test and criticize—the meanings and practices that enact participation in God’s life. I distinguish this reading from other readings of Tillich (e.g., Gilkey and Lindbeck) and other postmodern theologies (e.g., Marion, Milbank, Mark C. Taylor) and argue for its relevance not only for thinking afresh about classic Christian symbols but also for conversation between Christian theology and Jewish thought, Buddhist practice, and the role of humanism in democracies.
God, Being, Tillich, and Neville
John C. M. Starkey, Oklahoma City University
Few theologians could be more similar than Paul Tillich and Robert Neville—but Neville’s system can be viewed as a specification, a development, or a creative replacement of Tillich’s. First, Neville can be seen as specifying what Tillich meant by God as Abyss and Ground, in setting out how God absent creation would be beyond Being, but how God as in fact Creator is not beyond Being. Second, Neville can be seen as developing Tillich’s thought so as to render it coherent. Tillich’s dual affirmation of God as Abyss and Ground of Being can be construed as requiring a dialectic of the subjunctive and the declarative. God can only be Creator insofar as God could be, but is not, sheer Abyss. Third, Neville can be seen as claiming that Tillich’s classical metaphysics could not accommodate what a Peircean approach can— hypothetical method in theology.
A20-125
Wesleyan Studies Group
Theme: Pan-Methodism: History, Polity, and Theology
Taking advantage of the location of the annual meeting in Philadelphia, site of Mother Bethel Church, the Wesleyan Studies Group is exploring various issues related to Methodism as it has developed in historic African American churches.
Cone and Wesley on the Use of Experience as a Theological Source
F. Douglas Powe, Saint Paul School of Theology
The term experience has become a catch phrase in contemporary religious times meaning anything from one’s personal relationship with God, to an emphasis on a certain form of shared communal experiences. Whether it is one’s personal experiences or a community’s experiences, the lived reality of those involved is important in defining reality as it pertains to the person or community, especially related to issues of justice. For Wesley and Cone, the lived reality of the underprivileged must be taken into account in considering issues related to justice. Wesley and Cone will have differing perspectives on the role of experience as it relates to the underprivileged, but both are fundamentally committed to the importance of experience as a method for understanding the tension between the faith claims and the actual practices of Christians.
Pan-Methodist Union and the Demands of "American Christian Civilization": An Early Twentieth-Century Attempt
Morris L. Davis, Drew University
This paper addresses a key moment in the union conversations among American Methodists in order to chart the fault line in that debate in the early 20th cenury. Two clear but mutually exclusive visions of that unity existed: that unity among the racialized Methodist denominations represented an opportunity for a unified “American Christian civilization;” unity also represented a threat to the very foundations of that civilizational dream. These opposing views of nationalism explain the complex discussions among Methodists about the best ways to reconstitute the movement into a national Methodist Church. Black and white Methodists were trapped by equally powerful but opposing visions of what an orderly and effective “American Christian civilization” would look like. In the end, the combined strength of democracy, equality, and even scriptural slogans were not equal to the ability of racial nationalism to provide a vision of a safe and orderly racialized Christian America.
The History of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and its Contribution to Both Methodist Episcopacy and Methodist Polity
Reginald Broadnax, Hood Theological Seminary
The thesis of this paper is that the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (A.M.E. Zion) is often either misrepresented, inaccurate, or ignored by historians of African American religious history in the United States in general, and by historians of African American Methodist history in particular. In this paper I will seek to 1) correct the misrepresentations of some of the current historians in the field, 2) to recount the events that lead to the founding of the A.M.E Zion Church, and 3) to state the contribution of the A.M.E. Zion Church to the development of Methodist Episcopacy and Methodist Polity which is a contribution which is not mentioned in discussions of Methodism in general and African Methodism in particular.
A20-126
Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group
Theme: Womanist Pedagogy and Black Women's Bodies: A Womanish Call and Man-ish Response
Society has made Black women professors' bodies that are clearly marked by ethnicity, race, size, sexuality and gender -- an obligatory embodied pedagogy. In pedagogical interactions, value and accessibility of our scholarship is judged through the perceptions and/or encounters with our bodies in the classroom which too often becomes a death-dealing enterprise. From our own experiences, research, and reflections on teaching as womanist scholars, the panel will engage the following questions: If engaged pedagogy is embodied, what does it mean for a Black woman's body to enter the classroom as teacher? What are the historical or cultural ways in which Black women's bodies are viewed? In response to this womanist clarion call, Black men professors will critically engage the panel by answering the following questions: In what ways are these questions different for Black male professors? In what ways should Black men be advised by womanist reflections on embodied pedagogy?
A20-127
Tantric Studies Consultation
Theme: Sexuality and Gender in Tantric Traditions
The Consultation in Tantric Studies welcomes scholars who utilize a range of methodological and theoretical perspectives in their studies of the complex religious, social, and cultural phenomena known collectively as Tantra. The goal of the Consultation is to provide a venue for scholars of different areas of Tantric studies to collaborate across traditional boundaries of religious traditions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism), present-day nation-states and geography (e.g., India, Tibet, China, Japan). and academic disciplines (e.g., history of religions, anthropology, art history). It is intended to be a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary enterprise. The Consultation will allow scholars to present new methodologies for the study of Tantra, and help to bridge more traditional academic approaches such as textual-based and fieldwork-based studies. Finally, the Consultation will also explore new perspectives for studies of gender, power, identity, sexuality, and global religion that are so germane to modern religious scholarship.
"Tantric Sex" in an Eighth-Century Buddhist Context: The Case of the Cakrasamvara
David Gray, Santa Clara University
This paper will explore the category of 'Tantric Sex' from the perspective of a single tradition, that centering around the Cakrasamvara Tantra, an eighth century Buddhist text. It will begin by exploring the construction of sexuality in this tradition. Despite the interpretations of later commentators, who sought to read into the Cakrasamvara Tantra the sophisticated systems of Buddhist Tantric yogic sexuality that had developed by the ninth century, the Cakrasamvara Tantra follows more closely the model established in Hindu Tantric traditions as described by David White. Rather than calling for the retention and transposition of sexual fluids, this tradition calls instead for their emission and sacramental consumption. The commentaries thus shed light on the development of distinctive Buddhist Tantric sexual yogic practices. They also betray a clear androcentricity, which may improve our understanding of the role of women in early medieval Indian Buddhism.
Gender, Sexuality, and Tantra in South India
Elaine Craddock, Southwestern University
Important early manifestations of Tantric ideas in south India can be seen, I believe, mixed in with bhakti ideas in the lives and work of some of the devotional poets. The sixth-century Tamil poet Karaikkal Ammaiyar’s life and compositions present an especially dramatic example of the ascetic and transgressive path to Shiva, in contrast to the sexual yoga central to other Tantric paths. This is not the classic renunciation called sannyasa that is typically undertaken at the end of life after fulfilling one’s obligation to a family; the severe asceticism she undertakes in the prime of her life implicitly critiques the location of women in a domestic space of family relationships. Karaikkal Ammaiyar’s poetry dismantles the paradigm of human order and duty rooted in the household not by focusing on gender roles, but by extolling devotion to Shiva in a community of devotees in which gender is irrelevant.
The "Kali Practice": A Class Act Revisitation of Women's Roles in Tantra
Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado, Boulder
This paper follows this theme of women as actors in Tantra. In this I suggest that a particular form of Tantric practice, existing in Northeast India in the late medieval period (15th -18th centuries) presents a view of women we don't often see: one which acknowledges both women's capacities for spiritual attainment, as well as the rights and wishes women may have in the daily business of living life. In general, what we find in this peculiar Tantric tradition flies directly in the face of much of the current assessment of the role of women in Tantra.
Working with a range of textual sources which have so not been included in the Western scholarly discussion of women's roles in Tantra, this paper points to the presence of a coherent Tantric practice within a number of texts which offers images of women as initiates and as gurus.
Passionate Revelation: Consort Relationships in the Tibetan Buddhist Treasure Tradition according to Sera Khandro’s (1892-1940) Biographical Writings
Sarah Jacoby, University of Virginia
This paper explores the relationship of consort practices to the production of Tibetan Buddhist revelation (known as Treasure) through a reading of the renown Eastern Tibetan female Treasure revealer Sera Khandro’s (1892-1940) biographical writings including her autobiography and the biography she wrote of her primary consort Drimé Ozer (1882-1924). Focusing not only on the insights these biographical writings provide regarding the philosophical importance of sexuality in the revelation process, this paper highlights Sera Khandro’s literary representation of the lived realities of engaging in consort practices and participating in communities involving Buddhist revelation. Sera Khandro’s works provide important new sociological information on 19-20th century Eastern Tibetan Treasure revelation communities including rare accounts of the often contentious relationships between consorts, the situation of women in communities involving Treasure revelation, and the dynamics between celibate and non-celibate members of communities centered around Treasure revealers.
A20-129
Plenary Address
Theme: Master Narratives and the Future of Christianity
David Martin, born 1929, is emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics, and past Professor of Human Values, Southern Methodist University, Dallas (1986-90), as well as International Fellow of the ISEC, Boston University. He is author of some 20 books, including A General Theory of Secularisation (1978), Pentecostalism - The World Their Parish (2002), and On Secularisation: Towards a Revised General Theory (2005).
A20-130
Plenary Address
Theme: Templeton Plenary: Charles H. Townes -- The Parallelism and Ultimate Convergence of Science and Religion
Charles H. Townes is the 2005 Templeton Prize Laureate. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 for his investigations into the properties of microwaves, which resulted first in the maser, and later his co-invention of the laser. Townes has spent decades as a leading advocate for the convergence of science and religion. His 1966 article, “The Convergence of Science and Religion,” established Townes as a unique voice – especially among scientists – that sought commonality between the two disciplines. Recently, Townes has been a champion of optical searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, using methods he first proposed in 1961 as a complement to searches for radio transmissions. Townes attended Furman University, Duke University, and the California Institute of Technology (PhD, 1939). After holding positions at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, Columbia University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was appointed University Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 1967.
A20-131
Arts Series/Films: Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble
The Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble was founded in 1972. Voloshky has earned renown for the vigor and resplendence of its performances. The Voloshky style is bold, powerful, and one of sparkling athleticism. The ensemble generates a dynamic blend of art and energy characterizing the vitality of the Ukrainian people. Voloshky achieves a delicate balance between authenticity and originality in style and composition. The dancers combine the strengths of classical ballet, with the vigor of traditional Ukrainian dance. Voloshky's artistry and portrayal of Ukrainian dance is testament to a vibrant and enduring culture steeped in rich history. Under the artistic direction of Taras Lewyckyj, Voloshky accomplishes dance on a truly lofty scale.
A20-132
Arts Series/Films: By the Dawn’s Early Light: Chris Jackson’s Journey to Islam
Directed by Zareena Grewal, 2004, unrated
In 1996, NBA basketball player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (formerly Chris Jackson, who played collegiate basketball at Louisiana State University) caused a stir when the NBA suspended him for refusing to stand during the national anthem because of his “Muslim conscience.” The incident was the basis for Khaled Abou El Fadl’s 2001 book And God Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and the Authoritarian in Islamic Discourses. This documentary film reexamines the controversy, the media (mis) representations and the differing reactions of African American Muslims and immigrant American Muslims. The film’s director, Zareena Grewal, will preside over a discussion of the issues raised in the film.
A20-133
Arts Series/Films: What the Bleep Do We Know?
The movie “What the Bleep do we Know?” was a surprise indie hit, combining mysticism and quantum physics. Does matter exist? Does time flow in one direction? Is the universe a construct of the human mind?
A20-134
JAAR Editorial Board Reception
JAAR Editorial Board members and contributors to the 2005 volume of JAAR are invited to a reception in their honor.
A20-135
Arts Series/Films: Transnational Savior: A Salvadoran Jesus Reunites with His People in the United States
This 40 minute documentary film chronicles the Salvadoran celebration of La Bajada (the Lowering) and The Day of the Salvadoran in Los Angeles. The film traces the development of the event over the past five years and the creation of SANA (Salvadoran American National Association), the journey of El Divino Salvador del Mundo to the U.S., and the ritual itself. SANA leaders and other Salvadorans are the main narrators of the story. Their voices are complimented with images of the event from 2000-2003. The documentary was created by an assistant professor of Religious Studies, Dr. Jeanette Reedy Solano, who is especially interested in the symbolic and theological significance of this popular Catholic rite. Transnational Savior is a moving tribute to a brave people who are transforming the religious landscape in California as they negotiate their new identities as Salvadoran-Americans north of the border.
A21-1
Nominatons Committee Meeting
Peter J Paris, Princeton Theological Seminary, Presiding
A21-3
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Designing the Intellectual Experience
Sometimes we can take for granted what happens in a classroom: lecturing, answering students' questions, returning and discussing graded work. But excellent teaching requires studied attention in advance to compose the elements of students' intellectual experiences. Accomplished teachers align class materials, activities, and assignments to support and extend students' learning in a variety of ways. In this interactive workshop presented by an experienced Wabash Center workshop director and consultant, participants will be led through a series of exercises to reflect together on how they currently compose intellectual experiences for their students and explore ways of doing so more effectively. Participants are encouraged to come on time and remain in attendance throughout the event. Participants are encouraged to bring three copies of an assignment that they use in a course.
A21-4
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Accessible Career Journey: Employment and Disability
This session will examine the role of disability in the academic career journey from the perspective of both the employer and the employee from the job application through to retirement. Issues such as when to identify oneself as a person with a disability in the hiring process, how to request accommodations when disability occurs mid-career, what are the employers legal obligations in regards to the employee with a disability, and what should one do if they find that they must limit their work load due to disability prior to retirement. The discussion will include insights from personal experience, knowledge of disability law and government regulations, and ethical theory. This will consist of a question and answer format that will provide an opportunity for AAR membership to ask questions about their individual or institutional concerns regarding issues of employment and disability.
A21-5
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Christian Theology's Engagement with Religious Pluralism
In this forum, scholars of religion and theology discuss Christian theological thinking and the challenge of religious pluralism. What does it mean for Christian theology to take seriously the engagement of Christians with the world of religious pluralism? Does religious pluralism create a new global and local context for theological thinking? How will an engagement with religious pluralism impact theological education in the years ahead?
A21-6
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section
Theme: Walk, Talk, Teach, Learn: A Streetfair of Posters, Exhibits, and Interactive Displays That Will Excite and Educate about a Breakthrough Moment in the Classroom or a Great Course
New this year, the Academic Teaching and Study of Religion Section is pleased to present this session. The streetfair will allow the presenter to an opportunity to go beyond the traditional presentation into an interactive conversation. Come at any time during the session and stay for as long as you like.
Saints Alive: A Student-Made Iconostasis Teaches about Religious Time, Creativity, and Community
Mark Larrimore, New School University
An introductory course on saints is able to raise central questions in (and to) religious studies in a secular context while also addressing students’ concerns about the place of individual creativity and difference in religious life. Through the construction of an “iconostasis,” we were also able to experience the larger contexts of community, time and creativity by which individuals navigate their lives in religious traditions. Each class started with a student presentation of one of the day’s saints, culminating in a visual representation of images or symbols relating to the saint’s life and efficacy we called an “icon.” These “icons” were attached to form an “iconostasis” which grew from class to class, a vivid representation of our class’s progress in time and as a community. But the class really made the “iconostasis” its own when students had to invent stories linking symbols on an “icon” whose story they had forgotten.
Introducing Islam on Its Own Terms: Qur'anic Recitation as Pedagogy
Marilyn Gottschall, Whittier College
This presentation provides an argument for a new classroom approach to the introduction of Islam; it suggests that we introduce Islam on its own terms, i.e., by employing Qur'anic recitation as a supplementary teaching tool. It makes the case that Qur'anic recitation as pedagogy (1) is consistent with current scholarship that understands recitation as central to the practice, meaning, and experience of Islam, (2) that it mirrors and illustrates the embodied, affective and praxological nature of Islam, (3) that it provides an accessible and familiar medium (sound) for students which can engage and stimulate their curiosity.
Cultivating Empathy and a Critical Stance through Class “Experiments": The Experiments Themselves and a Best Moment on Learning
Sidney Brown, University of the South
How does one gain a critical view of consumerism, such an influential aspect of modern society? In the street fair/marketplace event, I will share a number of experiential exercises I have used to help students cultivate empathy for and understanding of critics of consumer society. My poster presentation will include descriptions of the experiential exercises and a diagram that arose out of one class discussion of how some kinds of learning occur--a “best moment.” This diagram makes evident some of the aspects of learning that often go undiscussed, such as the impact of negative emotions (e.g., anger, envy, and greed) and the greater goals of a liberal arts education (e.g., an individual’s commitment to responding to local and global concerns, the creation of evolving commitments and relaxed and joyful curiosity, and the ability to construct knowledge).
Teaching through the Oral Tradition
Yolanda Yvette Smith, Yale University
The oral tradition was once a critical component of education for African Americans. Although many African American churches have abandoned aspects of the oral tradition in favor of formal education and printed resources, the oral tradition can still be a legitimate system of teaching and learning. This system of teaching and learning, grounded in African tradition, was not only creative and fun, but it was an important vehicle for transmitting communal wisdom along with vital information. A strategy for teaching through the oral tradition can assist the church in drawing upon resources that emerge from African American tradition as viable modes of education. It can further inspire African American churches to reclaim indigenous cultural expressions throughout the educational process.
Role-Playing the Trials of Jesus and Paul: An Introduction to the New Testament
Adam Porter, Illinois College
My poster describes how my Introduction to the New Testament Class uses role-playing to encourage students to engage with (familiar?) texts in new and interesting ways. Students enact the trials of Jesus and Paul, by playing different roles to persuade the 'Roman' student group to agree with them about what to do with the defendants. Students need to read primary source material closely to do well in the trial; they also need to interact with each other and participate in the trial's discussions. I will also report my assessment of how well the new course met my initial goals for the class and how I plan to further modify it the next time I teach it.
Virtual Mandala: Teaching Buddhism by Using Computer Technology to Translate the Wheel of Life into a Western Idiom
Greg Watkins, Stanford University
This paper is a report on a class designed around an exploration of the Himalayan Buddhist technology of the mandala. The central project of the class focused on a proposal to the students that they endeavor to translate the Wheel of Life mandala into a Western idiom. What became particularly fascinating in this classroom exploration was the degree to which computer-based media (which could make possible the introduction of motion, process, sound, etc.) allows for entirely new visual representations of Buddhist philosophy. The simultaneous efforts 1) to understand the Wheel of Life in its Himalayan context, 2) to think about translating it to a Western idiom, and 3) to create a new Wheel of Life with computer technology made for a truly rich and captivating classroom experience. The presentation will display and discuss the 'translated' Wheel of Life created by the students.
Art as a Pedagogical Basis for Teaching Religion
Robert C. Shippey, Shorter College
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of art as a pedagogical basis for exploring the contemporary study of religion with particular emphasis on Christianity. Select works are chosen because of their overtly religious character and because of their contributions to the spiritual life. The study of religious themes in art can assist students in the exploration of the soul, the vanity of life, creation, sin, redemption, calling, suffering and hope. Moreover, analyzing art helps students to develop critical thinking skills, individual responsibility, and the use of the imagination. The paper will provide an overview of a number of significant works including those by, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Poussin, and Rembrandt in order to highlight the important role arts plays in the study of religion as a means to understanding the spiritual self.
Short-Term Study Abroad Made Easy
Calvin Mercer, East Carolina University
Internationalizing the curriculum will continue to be, especially in the post-September 11 world, an emphasis at the collegiate level. Many religion professors who would make excellent study abroad teachers, and have the desire to take students abroad, refrain from such programs because of their understandable reluctance to address what can be daunting recruiting and logistical tasks. I have refined an approach to study abroad that: (1) minimizes the time and effort involved in the recruiting and logistics of these trips, thereby freeing professors to enjoy the stimulating teaching opportunity these programs provide, and (2) provides significant summer salary, thereby eliminating the need to forgo income. My practical program has for several years resulted in the largest study abroad program at my university and programs have included both Europe and the Muslim world (e.g. Egypt). The methods are adaptable to other institutions and various kinds of programs. Handouts will be provided.
A Grocery List and Forbidden Fruit: Teaching Interpretation Methods to Undergraduates
Rebecca K. Huskey, University of Iowa
A Grocery List and Forbidden Fruit: Teaching Interpretation Methods to Undergraduates
An important element of any introduction to religious studies is the academic approach to sacred texts. Few beginning students, however, are familiar with interpretive techniques. To ease students into critical analysis, I present them with a grocery checklist and ask them to draw conclusions about it. After discussing their findings for a secular, mundane document, we examine the first chapters of Genesis. The students begin to develop insights into this text, seeing that a sacred document can be ‘critiqued’ without being demeaned. After presenting my findings, I will ask the audience to examine a similar checklist and discuss their observations.
What Does Saving Private Ryan Have to Do with the Old Testament? Reflections on Course Revisions after the First Year of Implementation
Merrill M. Hawkins, Carson-Newman College
This presentation will discuss the major revisions I made in courses for 2004-2005. I teach three courses with approximately 25 people in each section: Introduction to Old Testament, History of Christianity, and History of the Baptist People. My revisions centered around three changes. First, I built each course around three contemporary films. Second, I eliminated lectures and assigned process notes on the reading. Third, I eliminated unit exams and assigned, instead, three self-evaluations through the course of the semester. The theoretical underpinning for these revisions was the work of Stephen Brookfield on critical thinking and Kurt Lewin on group process. My courses, following these revisions, aimed at content and process. Moreover they aimed to develop critical thinking by the use of course content. This presentation will review each of these three changes after a year of implementation.
Interactive Hebrew Bible Survey
Dean Andrew Nicholas, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy
As a teacher of religious education in secondary education, it is too easy to fall into the trap of only employing traditional methods of assessment. This display will demonstrate alternative assessments for students to learn in a 'hands-on,' participatory fashion. A collection of student work will be on display, from Ur III Sumerian Royal inscriptions to video infomercials supporting competing Israelite dynasties, to newspapers from various Ancient Near Eastern empires. Observe student work that could change your assignments and revolutionize your classroom.
Experiential Learning and Social Justice Action: An Experiment in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Assessment-Driven Course Design for the Introductory Course
Fred Glennon, Le Moyne College
These posters describe classroom experiments conducted in religious studies classrooms. The first details an experiment in the scholarship of teaching and learning where an experiential learning model for teaching about social justice was used. The second discusses ways to incorporate an assessment-driven model of course design into the introductory course in religion.
A21-7
Tantric Studies Consultation and Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Visual Arts and Ritual in Tantric Traditions
Visual Metaphysics and Representation in Hindu Shakta Tantra: Some Methodological Explorations
Madhu Khanna, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts
Medieval Shakta Tantra reinvented a unique vocabulary of iconic and aniconic visual representation as supports to their ritual and meditation practice. The repertory includes a bewildering variety of goddess icons, abstract cosmograms, concentric yantras and psycho-cosmic maps of the subtle body. These visual representations portrayed the gendered cosmos as well as mirrored the micro-macrocosm. The theories supporting the meaning of visual representation Shakta Tantra have remained a ‘conceptual blind-spot’ in Tantric scholarship. This paper attempts to argue that visual imagery has to be understood through a wide range of cultural–specific discourses, which integrate theory and experiential practice.
Esoteric Images of Light and Life at Kokubunji Temple, Japan
Pamela D. Winfield, Meredith College
From its very inception, Buddhism has equated illumination with the cessation of suffering. It has cast the Enlightened One as a Great Healer and conflated the metaphors of light and life inextricably at times. This paper examines the mutuality of light and life imagery at the esoteric sanctuary of Kokubunji National Buddhist Temple in Osaka, Japan. Specifically, it first analyzes the exoteric symbolism of the main Yakushi Medicine Buddha flanked by personifications of the sun and moon. It then considers the added esoteric layer of the Two World mandalas, whose main deity Dainichi (the Great Sun Buddha) strikes solar and lunar iconographic resonances with sculptural group’s ritual role in promoting life. It finally considers the memorial tablet halls in the Kokubunji compound vis à vis Kakuban’s controversial conflation of Dainichi with Amitayus/Amitabha, the combined embodiment of infinite light and life.
Re-viewing Tibetan Tantra: The Pitfalls and Promises of Visual Culture Studies for the Exploration of Tantric Ritual
Laura Harrington, Trinity College
This paper explores Visual Culture Studies as a valuable and under-utilized methodology for the study of Tantra. Beginning with an overview of the goals and methods of this new discipline, 'Re-viewing' takes as a case study a collection of 15th century Tibetan tsakali -- card-sized paintings with inscriptions employed at Tantric initiations -- offering hypotheses and conclusions derived from a host of disciplines including text criticism, art history and costume studies. Initial review of the tsakali suggests they were produced in Central or Western Tibet for use within a rNying-ma Tantric context. Accordingly, 'Re-viewing' places the analysis of the tsakalis within the broader context of 15th century rNying-ma thought and practice, and highlights ways in which a Visual Studies analysis can enrich and challenge strictly text-based investigations.
Looking into Bhairava's Face: The Animating Effect of Horror
Greg Grieve, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Today I am going to talk about the quotidian but horrifying animation of the god Bhairava in the Nepalese city of Bhaktapur, Nepal. I want to start with a simple question. How is that one can change a flat mask (khwa:pa:) of Bhairava into the face of a god (khwa:mha). To understand how public ceremonies animate the god my talk consists of four parts. First, it describes the names and forms of Bhairava. Second, it concentrates on a February 19, 1997, Navadurga troupe performance danced in Bhaktapur's Yachen neighborhood in which a pig was sacrificed to the god. Third, I theorize that the sacrifice was a way to produce “the shivers” (jhinjan minjan), that were used to animate the god. Fourth, I suggest that the animation of the god expands the notion of Tantra beyond personal practice to include also the public performance of such dangerous (gya[n]pumha) gods as Bhairava.
A21-8
Buddhism Section
Theme: Re-Wri(gh)ting: Reading Chinese Buddhist Biographies after Wright
Just over 50 years ago, Arthur Wright presented his classic article, dedicated to the Chinese Buddhist Biographical Collection, the Kao-seng chuan. He criticized the state of scholarship on collections such as this one, complaining that while they were plumbed as sources for historical and biographical reconstructions, the texts themselves had escaped thorough critical examination. This session reflects on that assertion, and suggests some ameliorating of this situation.
The session is made of four papers, each addressing a different issue around the creation and collection of Chinese Buddhist biographies. While focusing at times on different texts, and on different aspects of them, all the papers are intimately connected in their originality and their contribution to the study of this genre. While all the papers share a common reliance on the path illuminated by Wright, each one, in its way presents a significant step outside the lines demarcated some fifty years ago.
Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks: Hagiographic Collection or Monastic Manifesto?
James A. Benn, McMaster University
In the light of new research and a better understanding of the religious and political world of medieval China, we can and should reappraise the nature of Xu gaoseng zhuan (Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks) by Daoxuan (596-667). I argue that far from being a disinterested biographical database for some prominent medieval monks, the text actually encodes Daoxuan’s own vision of what the monastic order was, what it should be, as well as how and why it should be given imperial patronage. Despite the considerable obstacles that face us in tackling this collection—the difficulty of Daoxuan’s prose style, the sheer size of the collection, and the problems of tracking down corroborating or contextual detail in other sources—we need to look at the text with fresh eyes.
Efficacy and Legitimacy: Toward a Sociological Reading of “Biographies of Eminent Monks”
Koichi Shinohara, Yale University
This paper attempts to explore the viability of a comparative and sociological approach to the study of medieval Chinese Buddhist biographies. Setting aside the formulaic presentation of these biographies in standard collections (sixth to tenth century), I will examine specific examples of these biographies, focusing attention on stories of miraculous efficacy. These are stories about specific localities, sacred objects, and holy monks. This focus on efficacy will then be contrasted with another pervasive concern; these biographies are also characterized by their preoccupation over legitimacy. Monks are identified by their affiliation with established monastic centers and their learning and practice are defined by noting the scriptures and treatises in which they specialized. Scholars of other traditions have identified various issues that animate the complex relationship between local religious centers and larger scripturally based ideologies. I hope to study to what extent similar issues shaped the evolution of Buddhism in medieval China.
Enduring Sickness: Illness before Death in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Biographies
Shaul Katzenstein, Hamilton, ON
Chinese Buddhist Biographical Collections have always been considered a crucial source for examining the development of Buddhism in China. These collections have been used primarily for reconstructing historical events, or the life of an individual. Yet surprisingly little work has been done on the texts themselves. This paper draws attention to the ways we can use recurring motifs to better understand the texts in question and their compositional history. By focusing on the specific motif of illness before death in the Zutang ji, the Song gaoseng zhuan and the Jingde Chuandeng lu, I will show how this motif is connected to a particular period and location. In addition, the paper will not only settle the broader historical context, but will hypothesize that the spread of the usages of the motif of illness is related to the relationships between Chan and Tiantai Buddhism at the period and place in question.
Tracing the Elusive Yulu: Precedents for Chan’s Records of Sayings Literature
Albert F. Welter, University of Winnipeg
Along with denglu (transmission records) and gong’an (koan anthologies), yulu (records of sayings) texts constitute one of Chan Buddhism’s distinctive literary forms. In general, yulu constitute an anthology of a master’s words and deeds, and include oral teachings in the form of lectures (shangtang), dialogues and other interactions between a master and his students (wenda), and verses or poetic utterances (shi) expressing a master’s enlightened mind. The current presentation explores the background to the yulu genre’s emergence by investigating precedents for the documentation of Chan masters’ teachings mentioned throughout historical records, under such categories as: “oral teachings” (yanjiao), “records of conduct” (xinglu), “veritable records” (shilu), “outlines of conduct” (xingzhuang), “separate records” (bielu), “books of sayings” (yuben), and “extensive records” (guanglu) or “extensive sayings” (guangyu). The presentation sheds light on how this unique literary form came into existence and the political motivations that inspired it.
A21-10
Comparative Studies in Religion Section
Theme: Rituals Online: Examining the Impact and Implications of Internet Rituals on Religious Practice
Despite the assumption that computer-mediated communication would be a secular undertaking based upon its technological encapsulation of modernity, religion and religious beliefs have permeated the Internet. The most recent study by the PEW Internet and American Life Project found that 64% of wired Americans use the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes. Instead of Internet technology limiting religious practice, people have found creative ways to harness the medium to meet their own spiritual demands. Individuals and institutions are modifying their rituals to take advantage of the benefits of the Internet. This includes developing new rituals, creating sacred spaces within cyberspace where ritual can take place, and allowing for rituals to be conducted despite being geographically distanced from the ritual site. This panel will present new and original scholarship addressing this phenomenon from a number of different perspectives.
A21-11
History of Christianity Section
Theme: The Body as Christian Battleground
The Starving Monk: Coercive Fasting and the Development of Irish Penitentials
Garry J. Crites, Duke University
The Starving Monk:
Coercive Fasting and the Development of Irish Penitentials
This paper examines the means by which Irish monks took an established institution from pre-Christian Ireland and molded it through various strategies to fit the needs of Irish Christianity. Long before Christianity was established in Ireland, there was already in place a well-known type of fasting, troscad, in which an aggrieved person fasted against a higher power in order to force the superior to renegotiate in the area of grievance. To deal with the intransigence of this earlier tradition, some Christian writers simply retained and adapted the indigenous practice to a Christian provenance. This paper argues, though, that Irish monks also discovered creative ways to combine the indigenous tradition with the ascetic practices of Patristic Christianity to form a hybrid tradition that exhibits traces of both, namely, the Irish Penitentials.
Devils in the Bile: The Demonology of Martin Bucer
Edwin Woodruff Tait, Duke University
In this paper, I examine the demonology of the Protestant Reformer Martin Bucer, focusing on his 1527 commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. Bucer argues that the demonic possession described in the Gospels is to be identified with such 'natural' ailments as melancholy. Bucer's identification of demon-possession with melancholy is based in his belief that all events that occur are the providential work of God, with good or evil angels acting as God's instruments depending on the nature of the event. All evils, then, are to be traced to the providential will of God using evil angels as an instrument. Demon possession is therefore no more truly the work of demons than plague or war or famine. The paper will further discuss the later development of Bucer's views on this subject, and place his position in its intellectual and social context.
Exorcising Demons with History: J. S. Semler and the Spirit Possession of Anna Elisabeth Lohmann
Eric Carlsson, University of Wisconsin, Madison
This paper examines theologian J. S. Semler’s response to the 1759 spirit-possession case of Anna Elisabeth Lohmann. It highlights the use he made of the hermeneutical principle of accommodation to refute belief in the reality of spirits despite the Bible’s apparent affirmation of their existence. The paper maintains that while Semler’s arguments contributed to what Weber called “the disenchantment of the world,” they should be construed not principally as the encroachment of autonomous science or mechanical philosophy into the religious domain, but rather as an application of Semler’s distinction between “theology” and “religion,” a distinction he forged in opposition to contemporary Orthodoxy and Pietism. Semler’s response to the Lohmann case thus provides support for an interpretation of Germany’s theological Enlightenment that sees it primarily as an outgrowth of intra-confessional struggles within eighteenth-century Lutheranism.
Of Woman Wailing for Her Demon Lover: Sex, the Satanic Pact, and Folk-Belief in the Polish Witch-Trials
Michael Ostling, University of Toronto
The narrative of the Satanic pact and sexual intercourse with a devil was the product of what Trevor-Roper calls the “fevered fantasies” of male, celibate demonologists, who projected their own suppressed lusts onto the female victims of witchtrials (the accused witches). Because this narrative is usually understood as an elite imposition, forced into the testimony of witches through leading questions asked under torture, and because its stereotyped components are nearly identical in Germany and Italy, Scotland and Poland, scholars have treated it as a pan-European elite discourse, spread through texts. But this ignores the creative ways in which accused witches, in the extremity of an impossible situation, managed to appropriate and modify the narrative to tell stories about themselves and about their own beliefs. This paper examines Polish witchtrials from the 17th century to show how peasant women accused of witchcraft personalized and “indigenized” the narrative of satanic intercourse.
"And the Word Was Made Flesh": The Female Body as Text in Nineteenth-Century American Catholic Culture
Marie Pagliarini, California Polytechnic State University
Based on primary sources, the paper analyzes the discourse surrounding a series of 'miracle cures' of Catholic women that took place in Georgetown, Washington (D.C.) between 1824 and 1838, and investigates how this discourse competed for authority in an arena clearly demarcated along religious and gender lines. The Georgetown Visitation nuns interpreted the cures as God's 'favor' for their struggling convent, while the Catholic hierarchy saw the miracle cures as a spectacular opportunity to champion their cause in a predominantly Protestant America. Protestants, for their part, saw the belief in 'Popish miracles' as evidence of the 'degeneracy' and error of Catholicism. The bodies of the cured women became a battleground in the struggle over religious orthodoxy, as Catholics armed themselves with details of the women's cures, and Protestants countered by claiming their illnesses were a fraud.
Radio Mind: Anglo-Protestants on the Frontiers of Healing
Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto
This paper analyses the ways in which early twentieth-century Anglo-Protestant engagements with psychology led to therapies justified with recourse to the twin authorities of medical science and Christianity. These therapeutic approaches included the Boston-based Emmanuel Movement (often accused of being Christian Science in Protestant disguise) and less institutionally organized clusters of clergy experimenting with the insights of psychology. Among the latter, my paper focuses on the Anglo-Catholic socialist Percy Dearmer of England, author of Body and Soul (1909), and the liberal evangelical Anglican Frederick Duvernet of Canada, who developed a theory of divine healing energy under the rubric “Radio Mind,” and authored the book Spiritual Radio (1925). With the help of critical scholarship drawn from medical anthropology and the history of medicine, as well as from religious studies, my paper will attend to the significance of biomedicine, colonialism, and intra-Christian conflicts for the therapeutic innovations of these two Anglican clerics.
A21-12
Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Theme: Negotiating Boundaries: Religion, Migration, and Cultural Interaction
Migrant Boundaries: Constitutive Justice and the Ethics of Inclusion
William A. Barbieri, The Catholic University of America
Recent political developments, including regional integration, secession movements, and not least of all increased migration, have helped direct attention to the ethical issue of how the boundaries of communities of justice--of, that is, the communities presupposed by notions of distributive justice--are themselves established and modified. These developments undermine the hegemony of the Rawlsian distributivist paradigm by showing how the question of constitutive justice (as I call it) precedes the question of distributive justice. Beginning with this premise, this paper proposes a modest theory of constitutive justice and relates it to the politics of migration in Germany, Israel and the U.S. A common denominator that emerges in these three settings is the relation between religious boundaries--especially those involving Islam--and national or political boundaries. An account of constitutive justice, I conclude, provides limited but invaluable normative guidance in the task of identifying just boundary policies with respect to migration, integration, and borders.
A Border-Crossing Jesus: A Sociopolitical Reading of the Salvadoran Celebration of La Bajada in Los Angeles
Jeanette Reedy Solano, California State University, Fullerton
My paper is the fruit of over four years of research on the civic-religious Salvadoran ritual of La Bajada (the Lowering) as it has been recreated and re-envisioned in Los Angeles from 1999-2004. After a brief description of the evolution of the event, I focus on the sociopolitical and religious significance of the celebration. Transnational and transgenerational identity construction issues are also highlighted. Data was drawn from 600 on-site anonymous surveys as well as enthographic interviews and field observation.
This is a bittersweet reunion story of estranged immigrants and a beloved religious icon from their country’s capital. It is a tale which involves many subplots: political critique and intrigue, immigration politics, intergenerational cultural tensions, nostalgia, popular religiosity, etc. My research is a critical appraisal of a brave people who are transforming the religious landscape in California as they negotiate their new identities as Salvadoran-Americans north of the border.
Hindu Temples in the U.S.
Prema Kurien, Syracuse University
The Hindu temple is the abode of god, and its construction also sacralizes the land on which it is built. Thus, we see Hindu temple spires rising up all over the country as the number of Hindus in this country increases. However the process of constructing and running Hindu temples in the U.S. presents several challenges. This paper will focus on a case study of one of the earliest temples built in the U.S. -- the Malibu temple in Southern California, which was constructed as a temple for the Hindu community in that region. This study is located within the larger literature on Hindu temples in India and the U.S. and will focus on how and why the American environment re-shapes the physical structure, meaning, social organization, rituals, and practices of the temple when compared to the situation in India.
From Pillarization to Assimilation: The Demise of Dutch Multi-Culturalism
Robert Carle, King's College
For the last four decades, the Netherlands’s immigration policy welcomed those seeking political asylum and economic betterment and its criminal justice system emphasized rehabilitation and reintegration rather than punishment. In the last few years, a series of shocks has made the Dutch question many of their liberal presuppositions. Key among these is the popularity of politicians Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders, who have attacked Holland’s ethnic minorities’ policies, calling for a ban on immigration. The murder of Theo van Gogh at the hands of a Muslim extremist 911 days after Pim Fortuyn’s murder has solidified Dutch opinion against Holland’s liberal criminal justice system, leading to the ratification of legislation analogous to the Patriot Act in the United States. The Netherlands is now following the lead of other European countries in abandoning its commitment to multi-culturalism and demanding of its minorities an aggressive policy of assimilation into Dutch culture.
A21-13
Religion in South Asia Section
Theme: The Prescribed and the Permissible: Articulations of Sastra in Indian Literary and Oral Narrative, Film, and the Performed Arts
For over two thousand years, the notion of sastra has had an astonishing presence in Hindu normative thought and culture, and sastras, as codifications of knowledge, have been composed in virtually every aspect of life from love and politics to thieving and horse rearing. While the concept of sastra from Vedic and early post-Vedic times, is profoundly multivalent and heterogeneous as its many contexts of use reveal, a shastra generally signifies normative discourse in a specific area of cultural practice. The papers in this session explore how the idea of shastra is at once rigidly prescribed and dynamically negotiated in the different contexts of conversationally-shared narrative, shastric ideology regarding unconventional marriages, discourses of dance, and modern Indian cinema and politics. The panel is especially interested in exploring the tensions between constructions of “legitimacy” and “permissibility” on the one hand, and “tradition” and individual agency or expression on the other.
Together in Life after Life: Shastraic Ideas of Marriage and Rebirth, and Same-Sex Couple Suicides in Modern India
Ruth Vanita, University of Montana
Two sets of texts draw on ideas ascribed to the shastras, to legitimize marriages perceived as socially illegitimate. These ideas are 1. beings retain their attachments into the next birth, therefore closely attached persons remain associated in subsequent lives; 2. beings need not retain characteristics, such as caste, class or gender, from one birth to the next; 3. friendship and love can constitute marriage. The two sets of texts are 1. stories from the Kathasaritsagara that figure cross-caste and cross-class love as the consequence of attachments in former births; 2. cross-sex and same-sex love-suicides in modern India, where the lovers claim that their love will be fulfilled in the next life. I also look at justifications for same-sex marriage, based on the idea of rebirth, offered over the last two decades by persons ranging from lay observers to Hindu priests and teachers.
“For Shastra's Sake..!” Idioms of Legitimacy in the Plural Moral Worlds of Narrative
Leela Prasad, Duke University
My paper draws on ethnographic research in the pilgrimage town of Sringeri, Karnataka, known for its 1200-year old dharmashastra-interpreting Shankara matha. I find that everyday conversations illustrate that shastra is imagined as extraordinarily plural and elastic, even as it is used to convey ideological finality, suggesting that the very ambiguity and open-endedness of the term shastra allows individuals to strategically employ the phrase “the shastras say” to authorize, dispute, or negotiate a particular mode of conduct. Such spontaneously-shared life stories constitute a powerful argument against conceptions of singular normative worldviews endorsed in political or religious orthodoxies.
Breaking the National Rules for Entertainment in Film
Ronald Inden, University of Chicago
Ronald Inden looks at attempts to ``nationalize' popular Bombay/Mumbai film, to have films that conform to the rules appropriate for Indian film. These have included attempts to account for the peculiarities of popular films by seeing them as descendants of the ancient book of rules on dramaturgy, Natyasastra or, alternately, as ``mythological' in origin and orientation. More serious than these academic arguments have been the moves—most recently in the 90s—to create ``family' entertainment and countermoves to reclaim popular film for the ``man on the street.' At the same time, however, comedy films appeared that parodied the middle class values of the popular Indian film, those of David Dhawan and Govinda.
Challenging Choreographies and Citing Shastra in Indian Dance
Joan Erdman, Columbia College, Chicago, and University of Chicago
This paper titled “Challenging Choreographies” develops its arguments from the continuing debate in India on the relative merits of innovative and classical dance performances. The author uses ethnographic research, analysis of discussion at a 2001 Chicago conference on Bharatanatyam, and Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan’s classic treatises on Indian dance and on Natyashastra, to explore the dialogue between camps that are sometimes called ‘purists’ and ‘modernists’. The renaissance of India’s dance culture beginning in the 1920s is contrasted with the turning to new directions in Indian dance in the mid-1980s, in order to illustrate the historical basis for this lively sastric context of contemporary Indian dance.
A21-14
Study of Islam Section
Theme: Sectarian Indentities and Diverting Interpretations of Islam
To Basmalah or Not to Basmalah: The Emergence of Sectarian Identity in Second- through Eighth-Century Kufa
Najam Haider, Princeton University
This study attempts to assess the accuracy of the classical view regarding the formation of Zaydism through a comparitive analysis of legal traditions compiled in standard hadith collections. Focusing on the issue of the basmalah in prayer, it examines the degree of convergence between Sunni, Imami, and Zaydi traditions on the basis of cited authorities, transmitters, and narrative style. The result is a verification of the classical view that Zaydism developed an independent identity throughout the 2nd/8th Century with one significant qualification. Whereas both the heresiographical literature and modern scholarship consider Zaydism a Shi'i sect, the data indicates that the issue was more complicated, combining elements of Sunnism with Shi'ism. Specifically, Zaydism seems to possess a 'Kufan traditionalist' core surrounded by a Shī‘ī periphery. Though these results are preliminary (based on a single case study), they suggest the need for a critical re-examination of the origins of Zaydism.
Nomen and Numen: Reading Meaning and Identity in the Designations of a Shii Sect
Shafique Virani, Zayed University
As they swept across the Near East in the twelfth century, Christian Crusaders encountered, for the first time, the ‘Nizari Ismailis,’ a Shii Muslim people who came to be designated in European languages by variations of the contemptuous term ‘assassin,’ or miscellaneous corruptions of the equally unfortunate Arabic sobriquet ‘malahida,’ meaning ‘heretics.’ Not until the late eighteenth century, with Barthélemy d’Herbelot’s pioneering encyclopedia of things oriental, did other epithets gain some currency, indicating a multifarious nomenclature. While modern scholarship has more-or-less settled on the use of the name ‘Ismaili,’ it is frequently forgotten that this eponymous term was inherited from the works of early Muslim heresiographers. Meanwhile, names originating within the community itself and which assert proximity to the numen are scarcely known to western scholarship. This multimedia presentation attempts to re-read the designations of this community and to develop a typology in an exploration of names and meanings.
Medieval Muslim Metaphors for Revelation: Interpretive Consequences Then and Now
David Vishanoff, University of South Carolina
Medieval Muslim jurists’ competing interpretive theories embodied profoundly different visions of law, revelation, and the relationship between them. The Zahiri Ibn Hazm envisioned law as a language game, in which the details of the law unfold like theorems from God’s axiomatic utterances. The Mu`tazili `Abd al-Jabbar pictured revelation as a signpost erected by God in the midst of creation, indicating the consequences of human actions in plain speech. The Ash`ari al-Baqillani regarded the words of revelation as dim and partial indicators from which human beings may infer the content of God’s eternal, inscrutable command. The Hanbali Abu Ya`la portrayed revelation anthropomorphically, likening it to a human ruler’s speech that brings about obligations performatively. Many of the fundamental questions about language and meaning addressed by these medieval models remain contested in contemporary Islamic hermeneutical discourse, where they now have the potential to generate dramatic changes in interpretation and law.
The Qur’anic Defense of Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah
Edward E. Curtis, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
This paper breaks new ground by showing how, from the late 1950s to Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, several intellectuals in the Nation of Islam offered interpretations of the Qur’an to support the Islamic legitimacy of their prophet, Elijah Muhammad. My argument also shows how the criticism of immigrant, indigenous, and foreign Muslims prompted NOI intellectuals to do so. The paper challenges the scholarly wall often placed between the religion of the NOI and the religion of other Muslims in the United States. It shows how the crossing of this important boundary resulted in a deeper engagement with canonical Islamic texts among African Americans who were not under the tutelage of immigrant and foreign Muslims, and it illuminates the development of an indigenous form of African-American Islam that, despite its theological heresies, became part of transregional and transnational traditions of Islamic intellectual exchange.
"Each One Teach One": Teaching the Lessons and Dialogic Ethnography among the Gods of the Five Percent Nation
Kathleen Malone O'Connor, University of South Florida
This presentation explores the meaning/use of co-equal terms “God/ALLAH” among the Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, a youth offshoot from the Nation of Islam in the 1960’s, in relation to the traditional Islamic understandings of God/Allah in the Qur’an and Islamic theology as well as theoretical understandings of “divinity”/“God” in religious studies. Five Percent rejection of religious studies terms like “divinity,” “theology,” “mystery” and “transcendence,” suggest need for reevaluation of Five Percent meaning when as exegetes and believers they terms themselves “Gods” and use the Arabic word “ALLAH” in their personal names. A dialogic or collaborative model of ethnographic inquiry will guide this reexamination of Five percent concept of “God”-hood and the self-understanding of the “Gods” of the Five Percent Nation.
A21-15
Women and Religion Section
Theme: The Coming of Lilith: An Assessment and Celebration of Judith Plaskow's Contribution to Judaism, Feminism, and Sexual Ethics
Judith Plaskow’s work has had an impact on multiple communities--Jewish, feminist and academic—for over 30 years. Her book, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, was the first full-length articulation of a comprehensive Jewish feminist theology. Although Plaskow has been a key figure in the development of the Women and Religion section and is a past president of the AAR, her work has never before been the topic of a session at the AAR.
In the wake of the publication of her new book entitled, The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Judaism, Feminism and Sexual Ethics, 1973-2003, this panel will assess Plaskow’s role in the creation of feminist theology as a field of study in its own right, the place of authority in the struggle for gay, lesbian and Jewish women’s rights, Plaskow's theorization of interlocking oppressions, as well as her notion of 'just sex.'
A21-16
Afro-American Religious History Group
Theme: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Discourse of African-American Religious History and Historiography
'W. E. B. Du Bois and the Discourse of African American Religious History and Historiography'
This session presents three papers that examine the pioneering contributions made by W. E. B. Du Bois to African American religous history and historiography.
The respondent will be Dennis Dickerson who recently authored 'W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, and the Genesis of African American Religious History'
The Translation of Finer Feelings: Henry Ossawa Tanner, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Uses of Religous Discourse
Marcus Bruce, Bates College
This paper and slide presentation offers a comparative analysis of the uses of religious discourse to convey the finer feelings of black folk in Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk and Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting of religious subjects. This paper examines and discusses Du Bois’s use and selection of specific spirituals or sorrow songs to illuminate both the content of each chapter of his text and the complex feeling evoked by each chapter. It argues that the variety of spirituals and approaches adopted in each chapter is meant to reveal the complexity of black subjectivity. Du Bois uses the final chapter of the text to lift the veil on black subjectivity by analyzing the sorrow songs and explaining their meaning. Tanner, by contrast, as will be illustrated by means of a series of slides, uses religious discourse to both express complex feelings and veil his racial identity.
The Problem of the Negro Church: W. E. B. Du Bois and His Analysis of Black Religion
Curtis Evans, Florida State University
Abstract
W.E. B. Du Bois’s signal contribution to the discourse of the Negro Church was his historical argument about the viability and continuing influence of African culture. He asserted the partial autonomy and creativity of black culture. This was a crucial achievement in his day when theories of African cultural “backwardness” and black “degeneration” were dominant. Du Bois was able to trace the social history of blacks and place it within the context of African religious history and American history. His detailed analyses of particular local black communities also enriched his theories on black culture, and made possible more accurate generalizations about social change in black communities, an important task in a time when measurements of black progress or decline consumed observers of the Negro Problem. Because his work was discussed in peer-reviewed journals, his contributions to African American religious historiography were eventually granted the attention that they deserved.
Du Bois and the Social Scientific Study of Black Religion
Donald H. Matthews, University of Missouri, Kansas City
The work of W.E.B. Du Bois is seminal in the study of African American historiography. His work removed black religion from the periphery to the center of the academic study of black culture. By combining the methods most associated with Max Weber and Karl Marx, Du Bois invented a powerful cultural structural methodology that was dialectical in nature and capable of highlighting the social/historical and social/psycholgical effects of African American religion.
A21-17
Anthropology of Religion Group
Theme: Sacred Transformations: Placement, Displacement, and Replacement
The Language of Tibetan Nuns in the Indian Himalayas
Carol Winkelmann, Xavier University
The religious language of Tibetan nuns in the Indian Himalayas is a heterogeneous mix of traditional male-dominated monastic forms, innovative forms influenced by western feminism, and implicit indigenous forms regarding the concept of oppression. In this presentation, I present findings from my research of nunneries in Dharamsala, India, the Buddhist community-in-exile. I consider how women religious are responding to their new roles in the sangha and their new visibility in the public realm by examining linguistic mechanisms that reveal ideological change in their language. These mechanisms include linguistic disruption, form-replacement, and alternative discourses. In conjunction with indigenous language about oppression that can be characterized as concerning ideas about continuity, spirit, and self, these forms provide ways for women religious not only to cross restrictive ideological boundaries that limit their place in the local sangha, but to contribute to social change about religion and gender discrimination on a global scale.
No Spectators: Ideology and Performativity at the Burning Man Festival
Lee Gilmore, Graduate Theological Union
Burning Man is a week-long festival that draws over 35,000 individuals to northwestern Nevada's Black Rock Desert every summer. My ethnographic study of this festival has demonstrated that, through the creative deployment of diverse cultural discourses, this event can be a ritualized space for those who desire some expression and experience of 'spirituality.' Among these discourses is a clearly delineated and performative ideology—that is, a particular set of ethical and behavioral ideals that are both enacted and rendered efficacious by participants. The core elements of this ethical framework are signified by the terms participation, radical self-expression, radical self-reliance, community, gifting, and leave no trace. Burning Man organizers consistently promote these concepts in various media, and these ideals are in turn embraced and championed by participants as they propagate these principles throughout the festival community. This paper examines the mediated performance of this ideology and its theoretical implications.
The Mezuzah: American Judaism and Constructions of Domestic Sacred Space
Erika Meitner, University of Virginia
A mezuzah is a parchment inscribed with sections of Deuteronomy, rolled into a decorative case attached to the doorposts of Jewish homes. The practice of hanging mezuzot is mandated in the Torah and observed by many Jews--even those who are not otherwise observant. This study uses interviews to see how Jews of different observance levels interpret the practice of mezuzah, and use it to define their space. There is no more important space in Judaism than the home, and the mezuzah acts as a gatekeeper. As a public gesture, a mezuzah marks a space and its inhabitants as Jewish for other Jews and non-Jews. As a private gesture, a mezuzah changes the way a space is understood by its inhabitants. For the people in this study, hanging a mezuzah marked the transition of their spaces from houses to homes; the object sacralized their dwellings, turning them into distinctly Jewish homes.
Dying for Agency: Posthumous Divorce in Contemporary Japan
Mark Rowe, Princeton University
This paper examines the interplay of religious identity, new family structures, and changing social norms through the lens of Buddhist responses to radical shifts in contemporary Japanese burial practices. I discuss the recent “grave crisis,” a phenomenon characterized by a move from extended family graves to individualized burial and exemplified by “posthumous divorcees,” women who think that one lifetime spent with their husbands is enough. By exploring the different reasons women choose these new burial forms and reject the still powerful ideology of patrilineal family graves, I hope to complicate the ways we look at religious activities in contemporary Japan and show the need for multi-sited ethnographic approaches that are also attentive to historical and doctrinal forces. New burial practices, with their emphasis on individual association rather than family bonds, have important implications for both the study of contemporary Japanese notions of self, and Japanese religious affiliation as a whole.
A21-19
Comparative Studies in Hinduisms and Judaisms Group
Theme: Mothers and Mothering in Hindu and Jewish Traditions
Carrying Fire Pots for the Goddess: Mothers and Daughters in the Performance of a Vow to Mariyamman
Amy Alloco, Emory University
I propose to discuss a vow taken during the hot season by South Indian Hindu women to the goddess Mariyamman. In this cycle of religious practices votaries internalize and embody the goddess’ own heat, and disperse that heat to other devotees in the temple setting and to the community’s collective body through their ritual practice and possession. The goddesses’ heat is channeled through the votaries' bodies and distributed among devotees, who approach the possessed votaries for prophecy and blessings. While vows in South Asian Hinduism have been characterized as inherently individual undertakings, I suggest that they are better understood as the outgrowths of complex ritual collaborations between the votary and members of her family, caste group, and community. In particular, I emphasize the ritual collaboration between a female votary and her daughter(s), whose presence during the goddess’ festival is crucial to the efficacy and proper performance of her mother’s vow.
Toward Motherhood: Fertility, Infertility, and the Ritual Struggle to Conceive
Vijaya Nagarajan, University of San Francisco
This paper explores the traditional ways in which the field of anthropology of religion has examined notions of 'fertility' and places them in tension with actual women's experiences of fertility, infertility and the struggle to conceive. This paper is located primarily in the ethnography of the Indian diaspora. Fertility is a dominant aim of Hindu women's ritual practice. Using literary, religious and symbolic understandings of fertility, infertility and conception stemming from Hindu religious traditions, this paper will juxtapose the multiple demands of ritual fertility with the actual consequences and lack of in real and mythological lives. Ethnographic interviews with Indian women in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties, and sixties will be compared and contrasted to trace the patterns of change towards ritual handling of infertility.
Mothers, Matriarchs, and Divine Revelation: Returning to Sita and Sarah
Madhuri Yadlapati, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
Married women in Hindu and Jewish traditions often have been seen primarily in terms of complementarity to their husbands' religious responsibilities or have been restricted to the 'unofficial' or private sphere of religious worship in the home.
This paper examines two prominent mothers in these traditions: Sita of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, and Sarah of the Hebrew Book of Genesis. It explores how the virtues of sexual purity and marital fidelity are intimately related to their fertility or motherhood. The paper then explores the relationship to be envisioned between motherhood and religious responsibilities. It argues that this is an important consideration for Hindu and Jewish traditions which value cultural specificity. Asking this question of the relationship between motherhood and religious responsibility will move us back and forth between the roles of Sita and Sarah as immediate mothers and their roles as matriarchs to a religious community.
Rebecca: Mother, Prophetess, or Conspirator
Yudit Greenberg, Rollins College
In this paper, I will discuss the problematic nature of Rebecca’s role as mother of Jacob and Esau and as Isaac’s wife. This Genesis story turns maternal love into a drama of conspiracy against spouse and eldest son, which ends in deceit and a cover-up, causing a major crisis not only to the safety and harmony of the immediate family, but a lingering sense of alienation between brothers and a pattern of deception in the extended family relations. Was Rebecca justified in her actions given the revelation she received while pregnant, or was she immoral and a careless mother, at least towards Esau? In this paper, I will analyze the opinions of the commentaries and midrashim in their treatment of Rebecca and assess more general assumptions about maternal love in the Jewish tradition.
A21-20
Feminist Theory and Religious Reflection Group
Theme: Doing Saving Work: Feminist Reconstructions of Sin and Redemption
In “Theorizing Feminist Theology,” Rebecca Chopp issues an invitation to feminist theology to deploy feminist theory not simply to deconstruct the dominant discourse of Christianity, but to transform its core symbols and normative visions. In her later work, Saving Work, Chopp sharpens her challenge, urging feminist theologians to use feminist theory to create theological traditions and “new spaces of survival and flourishing.” Responding to this challenge, this panel seeks to reconstruct the notions of “the bondage of the will,” “law and freedom,” “desire and redemption” in light of feminist interrogations of the Christian theological tradition. Each paper enlists the support of feminist theory or resources from other religious traditions (Buddhist, Islamic) to open new spaces for theological reflection. While each paper “contests” different aspects of the Christian theological tradition, together the panel seeks to do the “saving work” of creating emancipatory feminist discourse about the nature of redemption.
A21-22
Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Group
Theme: Where Do We Go from Here? Assessing the Fundamental Commitments of Latino/a Theologies
Political, liberationist, cultural, or post-colonial theology? The papers and paper respondents in this session will explore and assess the fundamental commitments of Latino/a theologies--that is, the political; theoretical; methodological; and thematic commitments found within Latino/a theologies.
"Ni Blanquitos, Ni Negritos?" On the Interpretation of Racial Formations as a Fundamental Challenge for Latino/a Theologies
Jorge A. Aquino, Graduate Theological Union
Latino theology has established its distinctiveness, within the larger U.S. theological firmament, in part through claims about race — particularly the role that racialization has played in Latino/a religious reflection. But while discourses about mestizaje and mulatez have shaped reflections on U.S. Latino identity, to date a rigorous approach to the interpretation of race, especially its transnational dimensions, has been lacking in U.S. Latino theological work. In particular, one finds a lack of historical and sociological consciousness and methodology marking U.S. Latino theological reflections on racial identity.
This paper will propose a re-reading of the work of Cuban sociologist Fernando Ortiz (1880-1969) as the foundation for a transnational approach to the study of racial formations and their impact on U.S. Latino religious identity, in particular through a critique of its discourses of mestizaje and mulatez.
"Dignidad en la Lucha": Latina/o Ethics and U.S. Civil Society
Maria T. Davila, Boston College
“Dignidad En La Lucha:” Latina/o Ethics and U.S. Civil Society
This paper critically examines the contributions made to Latina/o ethics by scholars such as Ada María Isasi-Díaz and Ismael García and the way in which their ethics present a point of intersection between Latina/o religious life and civil society in the United States. In particular, I hope to look at how ethicists incorporate matters of Latina/o identity into their work in order to make a unique contribution in the field of Christian ethics that can further the discussion of Christian ethics and civil society. Of special concern is the interaction of Latina/o ethics with specific aspects of U.S. civil society such as individualism, equality of opportunity, economic prosperity, religious freedom, and citizenship.
On the Failure of Liberation Theologies in the Americas: The Case of Latino/a Theology
Ivan Petrella, University of Miami
This paper examines Latino/a theology as an example of liberation theologies failure to place liberation at the forefront of their task. The argument develops as follows: First, I highlight the socio-economic context within which Latino/a theologies today work. I claim that awareness of global misery should be theology’s starting point. Second, I show that the global economy and Latino/a theology parallel each other - both exclude the majority of the world’s population from its concerns. I argue that Latino/a theology remains obsessed with safeguarding an ethnic/racial and theological identity that gets in the way of developing a liberation theology. The end result is a theology for the middle class. Finally, I connect the plight of Latino/a theology to liberation theologies generally, as a preliminary attempt to develop a liberation theology for the Americas.
A Pragmatic Bridge between Cultural and Political Action
Christopher D. Tirres, Harvey Mudd College
As a diverse and maturing theological enterprise, U.S. Latino/a theology has both a political and a cultural strain. The former may be seen in terms of Latino/a theology's emancipatory aims, while the latter may be seen in its use of popular religion as a theological locus. While scholars have taken strides in both directions, more careful analysis is needed to show how these two strains, and their respective views of human action, themselves interrelate and complement one another. In this paper, I consider the merits of a pragmatic-instrumentalist approach to this question. Such an approach highlights the fact that all meaningful human activity -- whether cultural, religious, or political -- is teleological in character; it underscores the functional relationship between the two strains without reducing one to the other; and it stresses the role of intelligence in responsibly transforming cultural means into valuable political ends.
A21-23
Law, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: Testing Secularism
The Pledge of Allegiance and the Limits of Civil Religion
Grace Kao and Jerome Copulsky, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
According to Robert Bellah’s influential essay entitled “Civil Religion in America” (1966), there is a form of American religiosity that exists alongside of denominational religion though can be distinguished from it. This appropriately named “civil religion” draws upon a number of important biblical tropes (e.g., chosen people, promised land, sacrificial death and rebirth) and accordingly provides an apprehension of “universal and transcendent reality” as seen in or revealed through the experience of the American people. The continuing influence of Bellah’s work notwithstanding, we submit that recent controversy regarding the appropriateness and constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools (Elk Grove v. Newdow) paradoxically reveals the enduring strength as well as the growing limitations of the idea of an American “civil religion.” We thereby propose that such a conception of “civil religion” needs to be reconsidered and revised in light of a shift in both religious demographics and sensibilities.
Girard's Will, Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia, and the Origins of Secular Government: A Tale of Capital, Philanthropy, and the Supreme Court
James McBride, Schulte, Roth, and Zabel LLP
Legal scholars and cultural critics routinely attribute the rise of secularism in American public life to a series of post-WW II Supreme Court decisions that barred religious education, prayer, and Bible reading from the public schools, e.g. McCollum (1948), Engel (1962) Schempp (1963). However, secularism in American civil government originated in nineteenth century Philadelphia where the will of Stephen Girard, a merchant, banker, and the richest man in America, established a school for white male orphans (under the auspices of the city's government) that prohibited any 'ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever' from holding any position at the school—or even entering the premises.
This paper analyzes the Supreme Court's 1844 decision upholding his will and compares the Weberian model of the Protestant work ethic as the driving force behind capitalism to Girard's understanding of disestablishment and religious tolerance as key to America's mercantile success.
Secularism or Secular Humanism as Reactive Deviance
I. Chatterjea, Vanderbilt University
Secularism or Secular Humanism as it haunts the rhetoric of the public square in media accounts will be examined through Gary F. Jensen’s understanding of 'Reactive Deviance' (2005), Foucault’s use of Enstehung (1977) and Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital (1977). The paper will present results of a content analysis of the deployment of these terms in media accounts in the United States from 2001-2005, with particular attention paid to Glassroth v. Moore. The analysis will gauge to what degree the terms appear in the mouths of Secularism and Secular Humanism’s alleged supporters and purported victims and their advocates, the composition of these groups, and the degree to which the deployment of these terms does or does not fit Riesebrodt’ identified patterns of fundamentalist rhetoric and action (1993).
Constitutional Secularization: Religious Pluralism and the Canadian Courts
Steven Engler, Mount Royal College & Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo
This paper offers a brief overview of Canadian case law since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982. At the same time that it has more firmly entrenched religious freedom, the Charter has placed explicit limits on the right of religious freedom. Canadian courts have shown themselves willing to intervene in the internal workings of religious institutions. Legal protection has been extended to include not only non-Christian religions but also non-religious beliefs more generally. The cumulative effect of these decisions has been to effectively erode the de facto separation between Church and State that has developed in Canada. The value of increased respect for religious pluralism is potentially offset by increasing judicial intervention and by the correlated effective imposition of secular values. The courts have been defining “religion” and “religious pluralism” in increasingly secular terms.
A21-24
Pragmatism and Empiricism in American Religious Thought Group
Theme: Topics in Empiricism and Pragmatism
Who's Afraid of Reductionism? Cognitive Science, Pragmatism, and the Humanities
Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia
In this talk I would like to present to religionists the increasingly strong case for breaking down the traditionally unbridgeable divide between the humanities and natural sciences and to argue for a “vertically integrated” approach to the humanities. “Reductionism” is an empty term of abuse—any explanation worthy of being called an explanation involves reductionism of some sort. Drawing upon the work of Charles Taylor, I will try to explain what “good,” non-eliminative reductionism might look like, but nonetheless argue from an embodied pragmatist perspective that human-level structures of meaning should still be seen as grounded in the lower levels of meaning studied by the natural sciences, rather than hovering magically above them. Practically speaking, this means that humanists need to start taking seriously discoveries about human cognition being provided by neuro- and cognitive scientists, which have a constraining function to play in the formulation of humanistic theories.
Let’s Be Realistic: Evolutionary Complexity, Instrumental Biology, and the Cognitive Science of Religion
Matthew Day, Florida State University
In this paper I argue that pragmatists should reflect on how well their instrumentalist and realist commitments cohere. As they do so, they will need to wrestle with Alexander Rosenberg’s realist argument for the relatively instrumental nature of biology. According to Rosenberg, the processes and outcomes of evolutionary history are so complex that—unlike physics or chemistry—an exhaustive scientific account is simply beyond our computational and cognitive prowess. While the vision of an inescapably instrumental biology has important consequences for the philosophy of biology, my paper focuses on its implications for psychology and, by extension, the cognitive science of religion. If Rosenberg is correct, it suggests that instead of a genuinely explanatory theory about religion the cognitivist research program will produce nothing more--and nothing less--than heuristically valuable case studies with limited generalizations, meager predictive power, and lots of local details about what people say and do.
The Danger of “Wholes without Rhythm”: The Productivity of Pluralism in Dewey’s Aesthetic Theory
Finbarr Curtis, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dewey’s aesthetic theory can be a corrective to models of the public sphere that emphasize rational political content to the exclusion of the aesthetic dimensions of political and religious institutions. His belief that “tension” is a productive element in aesthetic experience can be read to argue that consensus, either secular or religious, may actually undermine vital public life. Boundaries between communities of discourse may be the effects of social conflicts in which people seek to identify, articulate, and even invent social differences in order to mobilize political or religious participation. Incommensurable differences are not always the most pressing problem in public life, but rather, the problem of indifference can be equally as counterproductive to healthy political conversations. In this sense, much of the problem with our contemporary political milieu may lie with a surplus of bland similarity and a lack of different or creative options for articulating social goods.
Cultural Pragmatist or Defender of the Unseen: Sorting through Contrasting Appropriations of William James in the Study of Religion
David R. Perley, University of Toronto
Rorty demonstrates James' contributions to the pragmatic shift from academic discussions of the existence of the objects of religious belief to that of language about such objects. For Wayne Proudfoot, James presents the varieties of perspectives on an 'unseen order' as part of a tradition of thinkers engaged in a protective strategy to avoid a naturalistic explanation of religion. The different caricatures of William James presented by these two scholars serve as excellent examples of the complexities and challenges facing the study of religion, most notably because James functions as a nexus between theory and material for the study of religion. The paper suggests that Proudfoot's emphasis on historical context augments Rorty's appropriation of James, while Rorty's pragmatic, proactive view of metaphor supplements the shortcomings of Proudfoot's image of James as defender of an absolutely ineffable reality of the unseen.
A21-25
Religion and Science Group
Theme: What the Bleep Do We Know? The Future of the Religion and Science Discourse
The movie “What the Bleep do we Know?” was a surprise indie hit, combining mysticism and quantum physics. Does matter exist? Does time flow in one direction? Is the universe a construct of the human mind? This panel will evaluate the content of the movie, discuss the phenomenon it represents, and use it as a springboard to discuss the future of the religion/science discourse, particularly as it relates to physics. Has the New Physics become old hat? Or are we just scratching the surface? Is this the old theology of privilege in a New Age/New Physics guise, with a narrow constituency and no relevance to 'justice'? Or, does Quantum Theory present a theological challenge with radical ethical implications? Panel members will begin the conversation, but it is hoped that the majority of the discussion will be an interaction between the members of the panel and all those in attendance.
A21-26
Religions, Medicines, and Healing Group and Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Group
Theme: Dialogues and Debates on Tibetan Medicine, Healing, and Religion
This panel addresses the theme of healing and medicine through ritual in the Tibetan traditions. The first presenter explores the interface of Tibetan healing and religious practices. Focus is on the relationship of the medical humor of wind (rlung) and the esoteric channel-winds practices (rtsa rlung) of the Tibetan Bon and Buddhist traditions. The next presenter addresses the diversity of medical thought in Tibet prior to the Great fifth Dalai Lama. The third presenter examines through medical anthropology, the performance and phenomenology of ritual practice of the Medicine Buddha Long chen Nying thig (Long chen rNying thig) lineage of the Nyingma tradition. The final presenter addresses the ritualization of disease as punishment and redemption in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism and medicine drawing from conceptions of disease and ritual practice in biographical texts, philosophical treatises, and Tibetan medical texts with some reference to modern practice.
A21-27
Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group
Theme: Religions and Denominations Working Together for Peace
This session highlights different case studies and practical tools for how different religious traditions, often at odds, can come together to work for peace and justice. This session is very international in focus, examining specific cases and peace work in Korea, the Sudan, Srebrenica, Nigeria, and Kenya. Many of the participants will have first hand accounts and case studies of successes.
The Danger of Religious Nationalism and Hope for Renewal: Lessons from Srebrenica
Noreen Herzfeld, St. John's University
The name Srebrenica has come to symbolize in the minds of many what can be lost when one group turns completely against another. The Serb massacre of the Bosniak population in Srebrenica was not the act of isolated individuals, but one piece in a planned bid for territory and power. Religion was used in several ways to provide a justification for this bid. In this paper I will examine the use of religion by Serb nationalists and the implications of this use for the future of the Serbian and Islamic religious communities in Srebrenica. Possibilities for future reconciliation between the Muslim and Orthodox communities will be described through the words of the clergy currently working with those populations in Srebrenica.
Koreanized Christianity toward Peace and Justice: A Case Study of Korea's Independence
Hee An Choi, Boston University
Describing the struggle of Koreanized Christianity in the Japanse colonial period and post-colonial times, this paper will address how Christianity worked together with grassroots people in Korea and supported Korea's independence. It will also discuss the activities of women in Christian oranizations during that time and show how these women went beyond Christian faith and collaborate with other religious groups. Focusing on colonial power and patriarchal traditions, this paper will explore the conflict women experienced between national peace and gender justice.
The Decade to Overcome Violence on the Nigerian Road: Stories from Abuja to Kano
Scott Holland, Bethany Theological Seminary/CrossCurrents journal
The World Council of Churches program, The Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV), has been actively and successfully involved on the continent of Africa. Recently, some narratives of conflict mediation and resolution out of Nigeria are demonstrating how religion can function both as a source of terror and a source of peaceful transformation of civil, cultural and theological disputes. The current conversations in Nigeria around DOV and how religion might function in the process of peacemaking are constructively engaging three areas of conflict: the Christian-Muslim dialogue, Shari'ah law and political democracy, and finally, the composition of safe, pluralistic (and secular?) public space beyond the arenas of fighting gods. This paper will present some stories of successful conflict transformation from Abuja, the modern, central, capital city of democracy, to Kano, the ancient, Muslim city of the north.
The Role of Religions in Promoting Peace among the Refugees and Their Neighbors: A Case Study of Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya
Emily J. Choge, Moi University
The presence of refugees in the northern part of Kenya has been a cause of much unease and sometimes active conflict between the refugees and their neighbours. Their coming fueled an already volatile situation which had been the scene of much unrest between the Turkana and their neighbours due to cattle rustling and the scarcity of grazing land and water. This work explores the role that religious organizations have played in promoting peace in this area among the refugees themselves and also the host community, the Turkana both from a Christian as well as an African traditional religious perspective. The efforts of Christian organizations like the World Vision, Lutheran World Federation, and grass roots initiatives such as, KISOM, a cooperative effort between refugees and the Kenyan hosts including the work of a Catholic priest who has lived among the Turkana for over 30 years have borne much fruit.
Reconciliation in Sudan: A Framework for Muslims, Christians, and Traditional Africans
Vern Neufeld Redekop, Saint Paul University
Conflict between identity groups in Sudan resulted in over 2 million deaths and the displacement of millions of people. A peace agreement between the North and the South promises an end to the primary civil war. Reconciliation within many relational systems is still needed: peoples of North and South (Muslim-Christian); Darfur and the Nuba Mountains (Muslim-Muslim). Additional social conflict includes the controversial application of Sharia Law. In 1999, the Wunlit People to People Peace Conference sponsored by the New Sudan Council of Churches ended a violent conflict between the Nuers and the Dinkas in the South. Wunlit lessons learned and the framework developed by Redekop in From Violence to Blessing: How an Understanding of Deep-Rooted Conflict Can Open Paths to Reconciliation will form the basis for collaborative research with religious leaders in Sudan to develop a framework and strategy for religious-based reconciliation within Sudan.
A21-28
Roman Catholic Studies Group
Theme: Regional Catholicisms: Pennsylvania and Beyond
Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church: Problematizing the Catholic-Protestant Relationship in Early National Philadelphia
Katie Oxx, Claremont Graduate University
Using Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church as lens into the relationship between Protestants and Catholics in 1830s and 40s Philadelphia reveals what R. Lawrence Moore calls the 'unsettled pluralism' there and undermines the conventional interpretation of the 1844 Bible riots. That rioters gathered there disturbs a narrative of the violence framed around Protestant attacks on immigrant Catholics. Protestant attendance at and support for Saint John’s unsettles our notion of the relationship between the communities and reveals the attractiveness of upper class Catholicism to Protestants. Sermons preached at Saint John’s reveal that Pastor John Hughes and Bishop Francis Kenrick vacillated between accommodating to Protestant sensibilities and defending their Catholic views. This suggests the riots might better be read as an illustration of both the ecumenical spirit that existed between some Catholics and Protestants and the animosity between others than a clearly defined Protestant versus Catholic or immigrant versus native incident.
Southern Harmony: Catholicism and Freedom in the Antebellum South
Andrew Stern, Emory University
This paper analyzes Catholic-Protestant relations in the antebellum South, particularly in Charleston, Louisville, and Mobile. It focuses on Protestants’ roles in the establishment, maintenance, and use of Catholic institutions such as churches, schools, and hospitals. Protestant support for such institutions helped Catholics play an active role in the public life of the South. By tracing the forms of this support and motivations behind it, this paper emphasizes the oft-overlooked contributions of Catholics to Southern society. It also challenges the dominant historiographical view of Protestant intolerance by depicting the complexity of Catholic-Protestant relations.
"The Religion of the Sisters": Catholic Sisterhood and Southern Manhood in Confederate Hospitals
Michael Pasquier, Florida State University
When Confederate soldiers left the battlefield and entered the military hospital, the social requirement to rigorously uphold standards of honor and manhood often succumbed to the medical and religious needs of wounded and sick soldiers-turned-patients. This cultural transformation often occurred within a context influenced by a corps of Catholic sister-nurses who made up twenty percent of female nurses during the Civil War. The personal narratives of Catholic sisters provide a lens through which historians can render a picture of the religious and gendered spaces of military hospitals. At the level of everyday practice, many Protestant or non-Catholic patients and Catholic nurses responded to the suffering and misfortune of war by transforming the ideal forms of Catholic sisterhood and southern manhood. In the process, they created a novel form of religious expression that respected religious difference and came to be described in some hospitals as the “religion of the sisters.”
The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual? Violet Oakley's Mural Series and Roman Catholic Protest
Kristin Schwain, University of Missouri-Columbia
In 1906, Violet Oakley completed a set of murals for the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building in Harrisburg entitled, The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual. Although Oakley intended to present the growth of religious tolerance under the leadership of William Penn, Roman Catholics denounced the series for its anti-Catholic bias. Citing her selection of historical events, the ideological narrative she created, and the written descriptions that accompanied the murals, organizations like The American Catholic Historical Society, The Federation of Catholic Societies of Pennsylvania, and the Knights of Columbus lodged formal protests requesting the Capitol Building Commission to reject Oakley's frieze. This paper explores the conflict between Oakley and Roman Catholic organizations to examine the latter's escalating role in Pennsylvania's civic affairs, the public roles of art and history in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the complex relationship between church and state in American life generally.
A21-29
Scriptural Reasoning Group
Theme: Scripture, Democracy, and Traditions
Religious voices were for a time excluded from the public square of liberal democracy. Political theorists have now begun to ask what place religious traditions might have in the transformation of democracy. Text-based, hermeneutical and oriented towards communal practice, each of the Abrahamic traditions has resources for the critique and repair of the liberal democratic tradition. This panel brings together Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers to consider how their traditions put corrective pressure on liberal democracies both 'from the inside' abnd 'from the outside'. Each of the papers will engage with scriptural texts, the interpretive traditions generated by those texts, and late modern democratic reasoning. Two respondents will establish the connections between the papers and set the scene for the conversation to follow.
Reasoning through the Prophetic: A Reading of Luke 4:14-30
Randi Rashkover, York College of Pennsylvania
In an era of de-secularisation, religion is faced with the challenge of discerning how to contribute to public discourse. One possibility is to search into Judaism and Christianity’s prophetic traditions.
Luke 4:14-30 leads readers into an investigation of Isaiah 61:1-2, Leviticus 25:1-19, Deut 15: 1-8 and Deut 31:10-14. What happens to the Jubilee when it is proclaimed prophetically, and what happens to the voice of prophecy when the subject is the Jubilee? An investigation of these questions leads to a deep engagement between Judaism and Christianity’s readings of the prophetic tradition and its place within a political discourse.
Luke’s text challenges Jewish readers to reconsider the concept of the Jubilee as a politically potent source of prophetic critique. A Christian investigation of the Hebrew Scripture sources of the Jubilee year will expose Christians to the Deuteronomic link between the sabbatical year and the imperative to engage in inter-generational Torah study.
Augustine's Readable City: Beyond the Politics of Empire
C. C. Pecknold, University of Cambridge
The sacred scriptures form the heart of Augustine's critique of Roman politics in _The City of God_. This paper explores the scriptural logics generating his critique of the Roman Empire and its 'lust of sovereignty,' its 'deceitful masks,' 'deluding whitewashes,' and 'unjust wars.' All of this, Augustine writes, needs to be 'truthfully seen and scrutinized.' Genesis, John and especially Romans have a particularly important place in his critique of Rome. His critique of the Platonic 'noble lie' tradition, his radical commitment to truth, to God's sovereignty, and his semiotics all find rootage in the City of God, which is the New Jerusalem revealed in Scripture. The aim of this paper is to describe Augustine's political reasoning in ways that present a challenge to contemporary political reasoning, with special referenence to both Leo Strauss, Straussians, Sheldon Wolin and proponents of Radical Democracy.
Islam, Liberalism, and Democracy
Mohammad Azadpur, San Francisco State University
Abdulkarim Soroush argues that to appreciate the significance of the concept of Islamic democracy, we need to decouple liberalism and democracy. It is apparent that for Soroush the central concern is the discord between the liberal and the Islamic accounts of human nature, and to make his case, Soroush strawmans the liberal tradition. I will draw upon Islamic and liberal texts to articulate (fairly) whether there is such a discord and to determine its scope.
A21-30
Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation
Theme: Boundaries and Paths to Authenticity
Contemporary Pagans are using a variety of boundary markers, from the organization of calendrical time to discourses of secrecy to define their paths to spiritual authenticity. For some, these paths are increasingly influenced by popular culture, while for others, identity that is crafted in this manner can never be genuinely authentic. The papers in the panel take very different approaches to explore these issues and the tensions that are inherent in them.
Gods of Blood and Gods of Land: Authenticity Claims in Celtic Paganism
Aislinn Jones, American Academy of Religion
I plan to examine some of the tensions over authenticity claims between Celtic Pagans living in the southeastern U.S. and Scotland. As a diasporic community, U.S. Celtic Pagans assert authenticity as Celts by making claims of blood or ancestry, arguing that the gods and spirits of the Celts followed the tribes of people who migrated to new lands. Scottish Pagans maintain primary authenticity by saying that one must live on a Celtic land to worship and participate in Celtic traditions; for them it is the connection to the earth that validates their right to Celtic Paganism. By exploring the tension of blood vs. place claims, the processes and issues Celtic Pagans encounter as they legitimize their identity as authentic Celts will be revealed.
Flying Ointments and the Discourse of Secrecy in Contemporary Wicca
Chas S. Clifton, Colorado State University, Pueblo
Flying ointments, magical medicines conveying the power of flight, have been a staple of supernatural fiction since the Hellenistic era. During the witch-trial period, the presence of suchg ointments, which may in some cases have been merely homemade remedies, was used as evidence against accused witches. The psychotropic nature of some flying ointments led twentieth-century scholars to claim them as evidence for an indigenous, entheogen-based European shamanism. These speculations have been recirculated by 'Celtic' and 'Norse' reconstructionists, contemporary Pagans who endeavor to create historically authentic version of pre-Christian religion. Finally, claims of knowledge and use of flying ointments are among the currency of 'secretism.' As Pagan Witchcraft has become better known and as its followers have agitated for religious recognition, so claims of secrets are used to reinforce status in ongoing struggle between those who would keep it a small-scale mystery religion and those who seek a larger public role.s.
Paths to Teenage Witchcraft: A Cross National Study
Helen Berger and Douglas Ezzy, West Chester University
Paths to Teenage Witchcraft: A Cross National Study
Helen A. Berger and Douglas Ezzy
This paper, based on research on three continents, identifies a typology of four main themes that describe the path to Witchcraft among teenagers. These are outsiders, the wounded, environmentalists, and spiritual seekers. While some individuals are primarily motived by one of these themes, it is common for two or more themes to be found in their accounts. Young Witches are significantly influenced by the mass media, easy access to the Internet, and the plethora of books on Witchcraft in mainstream bookstores. They are strongly individualistic, relying on books written by the older generation as a guide, both continuing what went before and in some ways radically challenging and changing it. This paper will explore the youths' routes to becoming Witches and the implication of that for their practice of Witchcraft.
Dating Modern Paganism: Material Culture and Calendrical Subversion
Douglas E. Cowan, University of Missouri, Kansas City
As part of a larger project on modern Pagan material culture, this paper will examine commercially produced Pagan calendars and date books as instantiations of both identity-formation and maintenance, as well as cultural subversion and subcultural legitimation. Two significant aspects of these calendars will be discussed: (1) the cultural importance of having a calendar at all, let alone one commercially available. While many new religions function liturgically according to their own calendars, the existence of these items in mainstream commercial outlets bespeaks a cultural acceptance far beyond that achieved by most new religious movements. (2) Embedded within the Gregorian system that frames these calendars are layers of organization that support the contemporary Pagan subculture even as they subvert the calendrical power of the dominant Christian culture. Each reveals multiple layers of cultural meaning, all of which support a modern Pagan worldview, even as they reverse or subvert culturally dominant understandings.
A21-35
Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Group and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Theme: Religion and the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe
In what ways did organized religion contribute and respond to the events of the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe? In particular, what roles did the Orthodox Church, the Jewish communities, and, especially, their respective leaderships, play during the Nazi era? This session, with the generous co-sponsorship of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, examines these questions by presenting cases from Bulgaria, Romania, and Lithuania.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust: Addressing Common Misconceptions
Vladimir Georgiev, Shoumen University
Attitudes of the local population to Central and East European Jews during the Holocaust ranged from widespread hatred to rare cases of sympathy. In some Polish towns locals massacred their Jewish neighbors as soon as the Wehrmacht occupied them in 1939, while in Bulgaria MPs, bishops, intellectuals, communists and, finally, the Tsar joined efforts in 1943 to save the Jews inside the country but gave up those in occupied areas of Greece and Macedonia. The causes and motives behind the attitudes were also various, including the number and prosperity of Jews vis-à-vis the general economic situation; prevalent chauvinist mythology, often coupled with or incorporated in folklore and religious tradition; the influence of stauncher antisemitic cultures (especially Ukraine and Russia); and the degree of democratization of a church and ability of its hierarchy to control or prevent mass hysterias.
Antisemitism in the Orthodox Church and the Holocaust in Romania
Georgeta Pana, University of Bucharest
In the interwar period, with the ascension of the antidemocratic, antisemitic and fascist forces, which rejected traditions of liberalism, humanism and pluralism, the Romanian national Church served as a unifying force in Romanian society. Moreover, Romanian fascism and nationalism grew side by side with the renewal of the Orthodox Church. The fascist trends made use of this tendency, developing the antisemitic elements and demonizing the Jews; calling for their expulsion from society end even from the country. Unfortunately, the Romanian Orthodox Church, part of the establishment, lacked the moral force to prevent this process, having become at times a tool of the governments that ruled Romania during this period. Both fascist regimes that ruled Romania after September 6, 1940 (the Iron Guard State and Antonescu’s dictatorship), had declared themselves “Christian,” thus satisfying the Church but also creating a double standard of values for Jews and for Romanians.
Faith and Death for the Wartime Leadership of the Slobodka, Lithuania, "Musar" (Moralistic) Yeshivah
Gershon Greenberg, American University
Enough of the wartime moralistic lectures and sermons of the two Slobodka yeshiva leaders has survived to shed light on the mindset of the yeshiva's population as it faced and entered (nearly collective) death. The religious ideal of Yitshak Ayzik Sher (the Yeshivah Head, who escaped to the Land of Israel in 1940), which was metahistorically focused, was to emulate the people of Israel's face-to-face encounter with God's light at Sinai—specifically, for human intellect to transcend itself and touch the infinite intellect of divinity. The goal of religious life was to concentrate uninterruptedly on God's presence, to the point that all reality (including one's own) was of the divine. Through the war, Sher spoke of touching God's presence and trusting in His providential reality in history, of reaching a self-transcending position from which to trust absolutely in God's rescue amid suffering and death.
A21-33
Religion and Disabilities Task Force Meeting
The Religion and Disability Task Force Meeting will be an open forum to discuss how to encourage people with disabilities within the profession through mentoring, the employment search, employment accommodations, and other disability concerns related to the profession.
A21-50
Sacred and Religious Sites of Philadelphia Bus Tour
A bus tour focusing on historic and contemporary
religious diversity in South Philadelphia. We will include as many of the following as possible: the Father Divine Circle Mission Church; the National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia; Bra Buddha Bansi Temple; an historic synagogue; and Gloria Dei Episcopal Church. For those interested in the
Historic District, including Christ Church and the Arch Street Meetinghouse, information on self-guided tours will be available on the AAR website.
A21-51
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Racial and Ethnic Minority Mentoring: A Conversation among Graduate Students and Scholars
The AAR Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession Committee (REM) has received a generous grant from the Luce Foundation to assist in preparing a first-of-its-kind guide for racial and ethnic minority graduate scholars in the field of religion and theology. This guide, to be published on the AAR Web site, will address preparation for graduate study, the various stages of graduate study itself, and the myriad career issues arising after graduation.
In connection with this project, REM and the Graduate Student Task Force (GSTF) members are cohosting a conversation with graduate students and scholars in religion and theology seeking creative input about how to put together an effective mentoring program for racial and ethnic minorities at the AAR Annual Meeting. Any other issues of interest to racial and ethnic minority students and scholars in the field are welcome.
A21-52
Special Topics Forum
Theme: The Second Edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion
This Special Topics Form is devoted to a critical appraisal of the 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion as a reflection of the state of the field and a guide to emergent issues. Panelists will assess different aspects of the revision, including the revisions of entries related to the conceptualization and study of religion, entries on traditions, and the thematic entries. Attention will be devoted to innovations, both in format (e.g. “Further Considerations”, “Composite”, and “Visual” entries) and substance (e.g. new attention to gender and religion, new religious movements, and the study of religion). This session is co-sponsored by the AAR Publication Committee, Comparative Studies in Religion Section, Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group, and Cultural History of the Study of Religion Consultation.
A21-53
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression
In 1935 in order to generate support for New Deal reforms, the Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) began making a photographic survey of economic struggle and social dislocation in Depression era America. Historical Division director, Roy E. Stryker, also wanted to produce a composite picture of American society. So, in the "scripts" he sent out to his photographers, he asked them to include pictures of America's religious life. These "sociologists with cameras" entered the homes and churches of the poor as well as the middle class. They photographed people in prayer, domestic shrines, dinner graces, parishioners going into their churches, revival meetings, and even the gospel trucks of itinerate preachers. While many of the FSA (and later Office of War Information) photographs are familiar, this is the first exhibition of how government photographers represented religion during this critical time in our nation's history.
A21-54
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section and SBL's Reading, Theory and the Bible Group
Theme: Post-Scripture[s]/Post-Holocaust: Representing the Irreparable in the Art of Samuel Bak
Bak’s Impossible Memorials: Giving Face to the Children
Gary A. Phillips, University of the South
Bak’s primary image of crucifixion is comprised of the famous photographic image of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, an image that has come to represent the fate of the million child victims of the Holocaust and, for Bak, both the face of his childhood friend murdered by the Nazis and his own alter-ego. By replacing Dürer’s face of the Renaissance Man with an effaced Holocaust child, Bak signals “an age that has lost its light and plunged itself back into darkness”. Bak’s (self)representations remind us that every construction of “Christ” reflects the unique needs and experiences of its specific historical community. As each gospel writer’s “Jesus” reflected its gospel community, and as Dürer’s Christ reflected the humanistic triumph of the Renaissance, the face of Bak’s fragmented Christ-child holds up a new mirror to history, showing us what is true in our time and asking how we will now live.
co-presenter with Phillips
Danna Nolan Fewell, Southern Methodist University
Bak’s primary image of crucifixion is comprised of the famous photographic image of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, an image that has come to represent the fate of the million child victims of the Holocaust and, for Bak, both the face of his childhood friend murdered by the Nazis and his own alter-ego. By replacing Dürer’s face of the Renaissance Man with an effaced Holocaust child, Bak signals “an age that has lost its light and plunged itself back into darkness”. Bak’s (self)representations remind us that every construction of “Christ” reflects the unique needs and experiences of its specific historical community. As each gospel writer’s “Jesus” reflected its gospel community, and as Dürer’s Christ reflected the humanistic triumph of the Renaissance, the face of Bak’s fragmented Christ-child holds up a new mirror to history, showing us what is true in our time and asking how we will now live.
Quartet for the End of Time
Charles Rix, Drew University
Samuel Bak's portraits of String Quartet Players were inspired by the work of French composer Oliver Messaien. Encoding the titles of his quartet from scenes and texts in the book of Revelation, Messaien abandoned all 'classical' forms of musical notation, combining atonalities, daring chromaticisms, and a host of other devices, to portray the depths of the human cry petitioning a divine audience to avenge an all consuming evil. I suggest that juxtaposing Bak's Paintings of his Quartet Players against Messaien's music enables us to experience the confluence of cries of dispair and supplications for divine deliverance. Thus we are drawn into the complexities and ambiguities of 'crying out to the divine realm', not only as conceived in the Biblical texts of Deuteronomistic historians and Apocalyptic writers, but in all human suffering extending across time, finding an expression in Bak's own 'believing atheism'.
Iconoclash and Akedah
Yvonne Sherwood, University of Glasgow
Focussing on Samuel Bak’s recent works on the akedah, this paper explores how Bak exacerbates the element of destruction already integral to classic works by Mantegna and Caravaggio, who stress the violence intrinsic to Genesis 22 by freezing the text at the point of Isaac’s scream or Isaac’s head pulled back by his father. Bak amplifies the terrifying almost-destruction intrinsic to the original. What is radical is the extension of intrinsic breaking to the point where it rips apart the necessary relationship between destruction and construction by which ‘sacrifice’ distinguishes itself from damage, disaster, and catastrophe (Shoah), and so defines (and purifies) itself. In these and other ways, his art raises questions of the relation of Torah to icon and iconoclasm, and probes the creative/destructive potential of iconoclash.
A21-55
Buddhism Section
Theme: Buddhist Encounters with Modernity
The panel comprises studies of Buddhism as practiced and conceived in contemporary Chinese, Burmese, Sinhala, and North American communities. The papers will contribute to the scholarly reflection on what constitutes “modern Buddhism” and how we can best theorize change in Buddhist discourse and practice without resorting to the worn-out habit of comparing and contrasting modern forms with the ideals abstracted out of ancient texts. The papers share a concern to explicate how Buddhists engage both the pressures and opportunities of modernity to produce religious forms that can variously be described as innovative, politicized, reactionary, and scientific. The presenters will seek to link modern Buddhist expressions with recent social, economic, political, and theoretical movements, seeking to identify which particular modern realities exert the most impact and influence on Buddhism as practiced in a given society today.
Traditionalist and Modernist Voices in Contemporary Chinese Buddhism
Stuart Chandler, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
My paper will examine three distinct locations of contemporary Chinese Buddhism—Han Buddhism in the PRC, Southeast Asia (especially Taiwan), and the Chinese diaspora. It focuses on some rhetorical devices that have shaped Chinese Buddhist discourse over the past century: the notion that Chinese Buddhism is undergoing a revival; the distinction made between traditionalist and modernist practice; and the evolution of the concepts 'renjian fojiao' and 'renjian jingtu.' An analysis will show that the declaration of a revival gives more insight into Chinese Buddhist self-understanding than it does to any increase in numbers of devotees or socio-political influence. Also, although a majority of practitioners accept a traditionalist approach to Buddhist teachings, Buddhist modernists have set much of the contemporary agenda. Finally, renjian fojiao and renjian jingtu have been the most important phrases shaping contemporary Chinese Buddhism, although their connotations have been given differing coloration by traditionalists and modernists.
The Theravada Buddhist Engagement with Modernity in Burma
Juliane Schober, Arizona State University
Giving at least implicit recognition to the fragmented nature of modern bodies of knowledge that resulted from British colonial rule, modern Buddhist movements in Burma came to serve specific social and cultural purposes, including the rise of nationalism and constructions of ethnic and national identity. Traversing the territory charted by modern Buddhism in Burma, this paper considers the ways that relations between politics and religion have been transformed in modern Burmese history, broadening networks to include transnational communities living abroad. Beginning with a sketch of traditional cosmological features, the discussion turns to the impact of British colonialism on Burmese Buddhism and the kinds of religious reforms it invited. Next, the essay considers the role of state Buddhism in the nation building process and then turns to Buddhist ways of resisting the power of the state. The role of Buddhism in shaping Burmese transnational communities concludes the discussion.
Resisting the Global in Sri Lankan Buddhist Nationalism
Stephen C. Berkwitz, Missouri State University
Discomfort with the exclusivistic stances and political action associated with Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism has limited the range of critical scholarly attention given to this modern development. This paper will examine the rhetoric and representations of “Buddhism, nation, and country” employed by the renowned, controversial Buddhist monk Ven. Gangodawila Soma (1948-2003). By analyzing the message of religious and political reform he espoused through a variety of media, I will argue for viewing Buddhist nationalism as an effort to reassert the primacy of local traditions and identities over the global intrusions of religious, political, economic, and cultural forms in contemporary Sri Lanka. Additionally, I will reflect upon how recent constructions of Buddhist nationalism are related to, yet distinct from, earlier forms of anti-colonial and political “Buddhisms,” and how they serve to structure new polemical and political forms in Sri Lankan society.
Buddhism and Cognitive Theory: A Response to Modernity
Ellen Goldberg, Queen's University
Buddhism has grown immensely since it first arrived in the West, and there are several discourses, such as feminism, social engagement, and ecology, that have played important roles in shaping the current stage of reorientation and innovation. One of the more recent developments is the intersection between Buddhism and cognitive science. Cognitive science and Buddhism both make emphatic claims about the relationship between the body and the mind. To examine this complementary relationship I draw upon the four main approaches currently being used by cognitive science and then consider the implications of these theories in the innovative self-development stage of the transplantation of Buddhism to the West in the modern world. Cognitive science presents a new way of studying and explaining mind/body functions, and this can open exciting vistas for further dialogue between Buddhism and the varied methods and theories of modernity.
A21-56
Christian Systematic Theology Section
Theme: Mary and Divine Creativity
The papers in this session offer considerations of the history, theology, and iconography of Mary as aesthetic keys to understanding and formulating the Christian doctrine of God.
Divine and Human Creativity in the Annunciation: Beauty and Illumination
Cyrus Olsen, University of Oxford
Depictions of the annunciation provide systematic theologians with an aesthetic key to understanding and formulating the Christian doctrine of God, divine initiative, and human freedom. Few contemporary theologians have considered the intimate link between ‘beauty’ and the so-called ‘doctrine of illumination’, well depicted in iconography of the annunciation. Not only has this doctrine been frequently bypassed in theological aesthetics, but systematic theologians have also missed the relationship between illumination and divine-human creativity. Using various artistic renditions of the annunciation, this paper proposes to retrieve a doctrine of illumination as a means of preserving the mystery of the relationship between divine and human freedom. Mary’s disposition as illustrated in the iconography of the annunciation will provide a unique context in which to comment on our images of Mary, the woman, as the archetype of all created persons.
Guadalupe and the Role of Beauty in the Birth of a New People
Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu, Graduate Theological Union
This paper explores how the beautiful works to awaken us to what is in danger of disappearing through a close reading of the transformed consciousness brought about by Our Lady of Guadalupe. In proposing this theological aesthetic approach of the Guadalupe event, this study engages Viktor Shklovsky’s theory of ‘estrangement,” and the aesthetic category of “wounded innocence” developed by Alejandro Garcia-Rivera; an innocence that through its very woundedness mediates the gift of profound religious insight. In Our Lady of Guadalupe a religious aesthetic acts upon what is not normally understood as aesthetic, the political, the moral, and in this case the very survival of an entire people.
Mary, Sophia, and the Ascetical Aesthetics of the Doctrine of God in the Thought of Pavel Florensky
Nathan Jennings, University of Virginia
Florensky’s ascetical aesthetics provides a means to describe the broader context of the task of Christian theological construction. According to Florensky, ascesis, or Christian ascetical discipline, is the existential means to appropriate and participate the beauty of creation that is God’s wisdom, or “Sophia.” Florensky views Mary as the human embodiment of Sophia. Through visual media, this presentation focuses on the icons of Mary and Sophia that Florensky reflects upon, namely: Icon of Sophia, Novgorod; Icon of Sophia, Wisdom of God, Tret’iakov Picture Gallery; Fresco, Yaroslavl Church of St. John Chrysostom; and the Kiev Sophia. Mary, in her inspired fiat, provides the example par excellence of ascesis. Implicit, therefore, in Florensky’s theological aesthetics is a commitment to ascesis as the means by which aesthetic vision of God is existentially realized. Only such embodied, ascetically disciplined participation in the triune life makes positive unfolding of the Christian doctrine of God possible.
Reflections on Mary as More Than a Reflection of God
Melissa Stewart, Adrian College
In this paper, I explore the connections between Marian iconography and Beauty. In particular, I compare traditional Catholic and Protestant understandings of Mary and contrast their resources for formulating a doctrine of God as Beauty. I ask if Protestants have impoverished the doctrine of God as Beauty by downplaying traditional Catholic claims about Mary, in particular Mary as the Mother of God. Through the lens of Mary as the Mother of God, not only is motherhood honored but the act of creation itself is honored, thereby establishing the sacramental nature of the entire created order. Mary as the Mother of God establishes the sacramental beauty of all of creation.
A21-57
Ethics Section
Theme: "We Fight Our Own Battles": Women's Moral Agency and the Politics of Punitive Public Policies
Public policies are too often shaped without regard to the realities of women's lives or with a specific intent to discipline dangerous women: poor women, women seeking abortions, women living with HIV/AIDS. This session provides ethical analyses of specific policies and locations, in the U.S. and Africa, and the failure of U.S. progressives to respond adequately to such policies or to provide a vision of gender justice.
Justice Theory and US Progressives: A Feminist Ethical Critique
Mary E. Hobgood, College of the Holy Cross
This paper explores the justice rhetoric and theory of selected progressive Democratic politicians and US religious leaders. It argues that as long as they address only the fear of war and impoverishment, and neglect the anxiety around gender transformation and reproductive issues, they condition people to support the conservative social agenda, even at the expense of more progressive politics. Economic justice and peace will never be advanced without justice for the world’s women who increasingly carry the burdens of global economic restructuring and the devastations of wars. In addition, women’s political struggles for national liberation and socialism provide important theory and strategy for social movements everywhere. Until the US religious and political left, abandons masculinized justice theory, helps people work through the fear associated with gender transformation, and incorporates all that can be learned from global feminist theory and politics, they will continue to loose to the political right.
Morality That Impoverishes and the Impoverishment of Morality: Poor Women Resisting!
Noelle Damico, University of the Poor
Poor women across the United States are resisting public policy designed to constrain women’s moral agency and manage the poor rather than eliminate poverty. From taking over abandoned HUD houses, to organizing peaceful mass marches of thousands of poor people, to suing the United States of America through the Inter-American Commission of the Organization of American States, poor women are refusing to submit to governmental policies that endanger themselves, their families and the well-being of every member of our society.
In this collaborative paper, leaders of poor people's organizations analyze the stereotypes and effects of current public policies related to poverty on themselves and their families, examine these policies in light of the “indivisibility of rights” espoused by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and describe their practices of resistance that are building a growing social movement led by the poor to win economic human rights for all.
African Traditional Ethics: Role of Women and Authority in the Family and HIV/AIDS
Jonathan Gichaara, Urban Theology Unit, Sheffield
Of the 25 million people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa, 58% are women between the ages of 15-49. And if we were to narrow the age bracket to 15-24, 75% of those infected with the virus are young women and girls.
It is the argument of this presentation that the African Traditional Communitarian Ethics that still informs most of black Africa has joined forces with the predatory male behaviour to leave most African women in a vulnerable position in the negotiation for safe sex. In this traditional ethic, based on the hierarchically ordered concept of vital force, women have almost no power to say ‘NO’ to male overtures.
In conclusion, we argue that the cultural beliefs and practices that socially marginalize and dis-empower women, especially in sexual matters, leading to the escalation of HIV/AIDS among contemporary African women, should be reconfigured.
Why the Left Has Been Left Behind: Moral Marketing, Dangerous Divides, and Ethical Ineffectiveness in the American Abortion Debate
Linda Ellison, Harvard University
Few issues are as divisive in American public discourse as the topic
of abortion. Vocal proponents and opponents of abortion rights
spend millions on marketing their opinions and saturating the
public discourse with their views. The religious right has flooded
the debate with rhetoric of righteousness and discussion of
doctrine, while the religious left has sought to side with
secularism, espousing “women’s rights” but staying silent about
women’s spirituality. In this paper I will argue that the religious left
must not concede the speaking space of religion and God on the
issue of abortion to the right, but rather engage it. Drawing from
personal narratives of 729 religious women who have obtained
abortions, I will demonstrate how the left could complexify its
moral message on abortion by constructing and imagining a new
vision of women and God together in this issue, not divided by it.
A21-58
North American Religions Section and Religion, Media, and Culture Consultation
Theme: Media, Commodities, and Practices in Religious Culture
Consuming Community: A Case Study in Jewish Material Culture and Practice
Faydra Shapiro, Wilfrid Laurier University
In November 2004, a massive grocery store opened in a mid-sized city in North America. Operated by a major grocery chain, the store held great significance for the city’s small Jewish community offering a stunning display of kosher food products, chosen to consciously court the kosher consumer.
Scholars of religion acknowledge that religion is at least as much a material phenomenon as it might be a spiritual one. But while the practice of religion is undoubtedly material, the material realm of consumer capitalism can be perceived to represent a threat to the practice of religion and the growth of community life. Based on in-depth community interviews and field research, this paper takes as its starting point that the notion that consumerism does not necessarily create a hegemonic mass culture, by offering an illustration of how a religious community can maintain its distinctive practices, while participating in mainstream consumer patterns.
Bloody Shankbones and Braided Bread: Food Narratives and the Fashioning of American Jewish Identities
Carol Harris-Shapiro, Gratz College
American Jewish consensus on what constitutes a “good Jew” has faded in recent decades in the wake of declining communal authority and increasingly individual fashioning of religious and ethnic identities. In response, sociologists of American Jewry have begun to look at everyday activities to “find Jewishness” in new configurations of Jewish belief and practice. In this study, food narratives are shown to be an important site for this identity work; through the language of food, respondents articulate and authenticate atypical Jewish identities, simultaneously upholding and resisting perceived Jewish norms. These findings suggest that prevailing paradigms of American Jewish foodways research examining either acculturation to American norms or nostalgia for earlier Jewish practices might be usefully broadened to examine food practices and food narratives as expressing and mediating the twin pulls of autonomy and community shaping idiosyncratic Jewish identifications in the contemporary era.
Performing Amish Tourism: Lived Religion and Commerce in the Lancaster County Marketplace
Beth Graybill, University of Maryland
Tourism is big business in Lancaster County, Pa. Many Amish women participate in the multi-million dollar tourism industry that brings some four million tourists to visit each year. My ethnographic interviews with Amish women business owners offer an inside perspective on Amish-tourist interactions. Performance theory, with its emphasis on live interactions and their performative qualities, and the concept of 'lived religion' as practices and behaviors which, in this case, take place in the realm of commerce, offer useful frames of reference for examining this terrain. Not only is tourism performed by Amish women, but it is also performed by the urban tourists who patronize them. My paper explores the concept of commodification in the Amish tourism industry: to what extent are the Amish commodified as 'exotics at home,' to quote Micaela di Leonardo, and to what extent are tourists themselves commodified as buyers or 'urban exotics' by the Amish themselves?
Thoughts on Approaches to the Study of Popular Religion, with Examples from Madonna's Anti-War Video "American Life"
Mark Hulsether, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
This paper suggests how scholars in religious studies can (1) pay closer attention and (2) respond within a more helpful frame of reference when major cultural innovators such as Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West and pop superstar Madonna make cultural interventions that blend religious themes with counter-hegemonic cultural critique. I will give attention to the state of the discourse on popular religion in the overlapping territory defined by religious studies, cultural studies, and American Studies, and suggest two shifts in the dominant analytical paradigms used within this intellectual territory. Then I will seek to illustrate the value of my suggestions through an analysis of work by West and Madonna. Because of time constraints my major focus will be on Madonna in this presentation, but I will attend briefly to West and bring copies of a longer paper that treats both artists.
A21-59
Philosophy of Religion Section
Theme: Feminism and the Philosophy of Religion
Becoming Body: Nietzsche's Gift to the Feminist Philosophy of Religion
Kimerer L. LaMothe, Granville, NY
Nietzsche’s account of the role played by the body in the creation of ideals offers resources for addressing issues debated among feminist philosophers of religion concerning whether philosophers of religion can and/or should “project” differently gendered ideals of “transcendence.” Close analysis of the dance imagery scattered across Nietzsche’s written work reveals that he uses dance metaphors to figure an alternative mode of valuation to that he associates with Christian morality—one that values the body, or more precisely, bodily becoming, as the movement through which we not only generate but also become our highest ideals, our “gods.” This paper calls upon the dance practice and performance of American modern dancer and Nietzsche-reader Martha Graham to help elucidate both Nietzsche’s call for a “physical-spiritual discipline” that will enable persons to generate ideals of transcendence that “affirm life,” and the significance of his call for projects in the feminist philosophy of religion.
Phantasy, Feminism, and the Philosophy of Religion
Beverley Clack, Oxford Brookes University
Feminist philosophy of religion has emerged over the last ten years as a critical discourse that challenges the dominant ideas of mainstream philosophy of religion. In developing such critiques, feminists have made use of a range of different methodologies. This paper aims to develop the links that might be made between a feminist philosophy of religion and psychoanalytic theory. The relationship between phantasy and reality as understood in Kleinian psychoanalytic theory is used to explore and critique the phantasies that drive the concerns of mainstream and feminist philosophy of religion. The intention is to develop an account of the philosophy of religion that challenges the idea that religion can be understood in purely rational terms, while offering a theory that takes into account the role of the imagination and desire in shaping religious belief and practice.
Secondarizing the Feminine and Sexing the Divine: Consequences of Levinas’s Secondarization of Sexual Difference
Wesley Barker, Emory University
In “En ce moment même dans cet ouvrage me voici,” Jacques Derrida suggests that Emmanuel Levinas's 'The Trace of the Other' figures an ethical moment with an uninterrogated primacy of masculinity. Following the Derridian reading, this paper turns towards the implications of Levinas’s ethics on the feminine relationship to the divine. Although Levinas theoretically secondarizes only sexual difference, Derrida seems to argue that Levinas's grammar and rhetoric secondarize the feminine and undermine the efficacy of his ethical theory. Through a Derridian reading of Levinas, this paper argues that the feminine is rhetorically and materially denied access to God because she is not in “His” trace. Accordingly, this paper wrestles with a feminist reading of sexual difference and Levinas's ethical moment in relation to Derrida's concerns regarding an appropriately ethical reading of Levinas.
In the Beginning: Kristeva, Cixous, and the Abject Mother of Metaphysics
Wendy Wiseman, University of Washington
The violence of primal abjection is a founding violence of metaphysical systems of meaning, and both ontotheological and apophatic metaphysics are born of this expulsion of the maternal body from the light of truth. However, apophatic traditions posit a beyond of Being that only mystical lanugage can approximate--the Logos of ontotheology must renounce itself if it would pursue its ultimate desire. This other extremity, inversely corresponding to Matter, bears uncanny resemblance to the non-being of abjection, but here, in the bosom of the One, the placeless place is not lack but absolute plenitude, a paroxysm of purity. The abjected mother of metaphysical foundations finds, I argue, her transfiguring mirror in the ultimate place of divine dissolution, the hyperousia of the Godhead. With the help of Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous, I will trace some dynamics of these founding moments of metaphysical architecture, and the differences within metaphysics itself.
A21-60
Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Theme: Robert Wuthnow: The Significance and Methodology of His Work for Religion and the Social Sciences
Robert Wuthnow has had a towering influence on religion and the social sciences in recent decades. In this high-profile panel discussion, leading scholars from various sub-fields will offer their analysis of Wuthnow's significance and methodology. Panelists include Elizabeth Bounds (Emory); Stephen Carter (Yale); Diana Eck (Harvard); Mark Noll (Wheaton); and Wade Clark Roof (U. California, Santa Barbara). Robert Orsi (Harvard) will preside. Wuthnow will offer his own reflections and responses to the panelists.
A21-61
Religion in South Asia Section
Theme: Money Problems: Money, Wealth, and Religion in South Asia
This panel explores possibilities for analyses of the relationship between money and religion in South Asia. Religious groups respond to money in ways arising out of each group's perception of the nature of money, the methods in which its institutions support themselves, the relationship between donors and institutions, and how its members relate to money in both religious and secular contexts. We, the panelists, each analyze individual communities (Mahayana Buddhists, Gandhians, Indian Shi'a Muslims, Jains in the United States, Gujarati Jains in Maharashtra, and Christians in Tamil Nadu) and and their rituals, institutions and texts, as the ground on which to explore questions about how specific contexts and discourses shape the use and understanding of money. These communities have systems for negotiating the poles of individual interest and community benefit, which often center in their discourse on money.
A21-62
Study of Islam Section and Study of Judaism Section and Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Theme: The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy
This session will feature three responses to Gil Anidjar's book, THE JEW, THE ARAB: A HISTORY OF THE ENEMY (Stanford UP, 2003). Using methodologies informed by recent continental philosophy, Anidjar inquires into the theo-political conditions in the west that produced and continues to use these two assymetrical identities as markers of 'Europe' and its boundaries. The distinguished panelists will draw on their expertise in the study of Islam, Judaism, and continental thought in their comments on the book. Dr. Anidjar will respond.
A21-63
Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: Religion and Empire
Christian Exceptionalism, American Exceptionalism: Texas and the Christian Contribution to the Ideology of the American Empire
David R. Brockman, Southern Methodist University
The question facing American Christians today is not whether the U.S. is an empire: scholars across the political spectrum now acknowledge that it is. Rather, the crucial question is: in what ways has American Christianity contributed to problematic forms of American imperialism, and to its ideology, American exceptionalism? This presentation argues that American exceptionalism is rooted in and legitimated by the inside-outside dualism of Anglo-American Protestant thought about religious others. The presentation demonstrates this link by citing examples from an earlier instance of American imperialism—the Anglo “settlement” of the Mexican province of Texas—which has intriguing implications for contemporary reflection about the nature of the American Empire and Christianity's contribution to it.
Dissolving Christian Monism: The Gift of Altering Hospitality
Jenny Daggers, Liverpool Hope University College
The contemporary moment confronts Christianity with a stark question: will theology and faith communities alike opt for a reinvigorated Christian monism, perhaps implicated within a renewed imperial trajectory, or will theological thinking and practice embrace an altering hospitality? This paper examines the implications for Christian theology of issues arising from global migrations and the ensuing debates around multiculturalism. Philosophical perspectives, which focus on the altering potential of hospitality at work in the encounter between host and stranger, are employed for this task. This potential is elucidated in terms of fluidity in identity, which relies upon the altering hospitable encounter to illuminate and challenge rigid fixities. Fluidity of identity, resourced by the hospitable encounter with the stranger, is affirmed as productive of reinvigorated Christian theologies, through which core Christian themes are reworked, while the mantle of Christian monism is cast aside.
Globalization, Imperialism, and Christian Theology
Anselm K. Min, Claremont Graduate University
Globalization, Imperialism, and Christian Theology
Globalization entails the clash of economic, political, and cultural imperialisms on the global scale and sets the most comprehensive and determinative conditions for human life today. Theology must therefore take globalization as its new context and ready itself for the new issues that globalization raises, e.g., the significance of Empire in history, a global conception of God revealing herself in the many differentiated histories of nations and religions, a global sense of human solidarity, the significance of difference, the political responsibility of citizens in imperialist nations, the theology of church as a sacrament of global human solidarity in difference.
A21-64
African Religions Group
Theme: Issues in the Historiography of African Religions
"Religion" in the Time of the Ancestors: Methodological Problems in the Interpretation of Precolonial African Religious History
Robert M. Baum, Iowa State University
This paper will examine sources for understanding the pre-colonial history of African religions. Until recently, many scholars assumed that African religious history began with the arrival of Islam and Christianity. As recent work by historians trained in the use of oral traditions has shown, this is emphatically not the case. Changes in cult organization, ideas of the supreme being, concepts of priesthood, prophethood, and gender, etc. are remembered in oral traditions which can be collected through field research. This paper will examine the ways that oral traditions can be analyzed to shed light on African religious history, as well as the methodological problems of using oral traditions gathered in the twentieth century to shed light on earlier centuries of African religious history. Problems of memory and history, contemporary ideological needs, the impact of other religious traditions, as well as the power inequality between researcher and host communities will be discussed.
Separating the Historical from the Mythic in Ese Ifa, the Sacred Poems of Ifa
Keisha Armorer, Temple University
The paper presentation is an exploration of the history of ese Ifa, as the oral scriptural corpus of the Yoruba religion. It reports on the extent to which we can account for the origins of the corpus, its authorship and compilation process. It charts out the process of local and regional collection and transmission. It investigates ese Ifa as an historical document. The origins of the text are professed to be divine. This work asks whether there are any historical accounts of its origin and how far back can we date the recitation of ese Ifa. It also projects what we can learn about the history of the religion from the text, particularly with respect to its founders. The purpose of the paper then is two-fold, it examines the history surrounding the text and speculates about the possibility of decoding the history within the text.
Living on the Threshold: Liminality and the Globalization of Christianity
Frederick P. Lampe, Syracuse University
The missionization of East Africa is a historic event that continues to the present. Ways of worship, social expectations, and experiences continue to be driven by traditions that have woven their way into individual lives. This paper will explore the nexus of connection and contention between Western Christianity and local notions of liminality, purity and danger that exist within a particular community through the oral narratives of women. I will apply Turner and Backthin, Douglas and Bourdieu to the dilemma that the oral narratives of women as they wrestle with social obligations and norms set against Christian discourse. At the heart of its analysis are the contemporary notions of Christianity relative to the changing social experience.
"Engaged Insiders" in the Study of African Traditional Religions: Prospects and Challenges
Ezra Chitando, Bayreuth University
This study examines the contributions of committed practitioners of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) to the growth of the discipline. It is located firmly within discourses on the historiography of ATRs. Locating “engaged insiders” in the contemporary period, it seeks to evaluate their contribution to the study of ATRs. It outlines the debate between “insiders” and “outsiders” in the study of ATRs. Traditionally these terms have meant “African” and “whites”/”others”, However, the study seeks to illustrate the complexities surrounding these labels by highlighting degrees of insidership to ATRs. It argues that “engaged scholars” can be regarded as first degree insiders by virtue of their participation in ATRs. Other African scholars writing on ATRs are mainly Christians, rendering them “insiders/outsiders”. The study acknowledges the insights that “engaged insiders” have brought to the study of ATRs. However, it also raises some challenges that have emerged from their work.
A21-65
Christian Spirituality Group and Eastern Orthodox Studies Group
Theme: Spiritual Practices in Eastern Christianity
Becoming a Useful Servant: An Early Model of Monastic Spiritual Formation
Bernadette McNary-Zak, Rhodes College
This paper applies the theoretical contributions of several contemporary early Christian historians to a study of the model of spiritual formation advanced by Abba Ammonas, a prominent fourth-century Egyptian desert monastic leader. Abba Ammonas' writings illumine how discernment, a spiritual gift pervasive in early desert monastic circles, was discussed and cultivated in a local context and so provide another way for historians to consider a specifically monastic form of Christian service in this period.
The Notion of Hesychasm in the Triads of Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)
Richard Penaskovic, Auburn University
The Notion of Hesychasm in The Triads of Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)
The term, hesychasm, from the Greek, hesychazein, means 'to be at rest' or 'to be quiet.' It functions as a key term in the apophatic theology of Palamas. This presentation contains an analysis of the notion of hesychasm in The Triads of G. Palamas, focusing specifically on the hesychast method of prayer and bodily transformation.
In The Triads Palamas argues that the human body not only sees the Divine Light but itself becomes transfigured into light. The complete transformation of the body that occurs eschatologically at the end of time is anticipated on earth for certain souls whose physical faculties are refined by divine grace and rendered spiritual.
In sum, my presentation provides a fresh look at The Triads of St. Gregory Palamas and raises some critical questions regarding the theology of Palamas such as the distinction between ousia and energeia.
Popular Uses of the Jesus Prayer in Imperial Russia from the Old Believers to the Name-Glorifiers
John Eugene Clay, Arizona State University
The use and meaning of the Jesus prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner)--and the ritual practices associated with it--provoked serious controversies throughout the Imperial period of Russian history (1700-1917). Using a variety of sources, from heresy trials to newspaper accounts to theological tracts, this paper explores the different uses and interpretations of hesychasm by Russian Orthodox Christians in the Imperial period.
Paisii Velichkovskii and the Hesychast Revolution in Modern Russian Orthodoxy
Scott Kenworthy, Miami University of Ohio
Russian Orthodox spirituality and identity has experienced a series of dramatic transformations in the modern period. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, western scholastic theology dominated the clergy, and eighteenth century rulers sought to curb the influence of monasticism. At the same time, a “counter-culture” movement gained momentum outside the bounds of the Russian empire, led by Paisii Velichkovskii, that aimed at the revival of ancient forms of Orthodox spirituality. Regarded as an innovation at the beginning of the century, hesychast spirituality became regarded as normative by the end of the nineteenth century. Likewise, this nineteenth-century revival has come to be regarded as definitive of Russian Orthodoxy in the post-Soviet period. This paper traces these changes, together with the transformation of hesychast spirituality itself in the modern period.
A21-66
Confucian Traditions Group and Law, Religion, and Culture Group
Theme: Confucianism and Law
The papers in this session explore the relationship of Confucianism to the rule of law, contemporary legal issues, and modernization.
Confucian Values and the Dilemma of Transition to the Rule of Law in Vietnam: An Explanation from Institutional Economics Perspective
Quoc Viet Nguyen, University of Kassel
According to new institutional economics perspective, especially the game theoretic approach, economic efficiency was seen as the main force of institutional change. Recently, it has been recognized that efficiency considerations alone do not always account for institutional change (Furger, 2001) so that game theoretic approach must be extended to study institutions as a “product of an historical process” (Greif, 2001). It is argued that the direction of change may significantly be affected by cultural factors. Therefore, this paper provides empirical evidences to show the impact of Confucian values, as dominant cultural factors in Vietnam, on the transition to the rule of law. Due to such influences, it is hypothesized that the transition to the rule of law in Vietnam must be a gradual transition in which the institutional elements of the rule of law will be established progressively.
A Social Ethicist Look at Confucian Social Conservatism through Max Weber's Thesis
Weon Chu, Brookline, MA
Max Weber's thesis that Confucianism is an obstacle to modernization, though challenged by the economic successes of Japan and the East Asian Region, still fascinates the social ethicists who seek religio-ethical roots of the East Asian economic success. Weber¡¯s thesis expounds that China failed to develop modern capitalism due to the conservative and traditionalistic nature of the Confucian ethic. Weber found the reason for this conservative character of Confucianism in the absence of tension between ¡°nature and deity.¡± This paper weighs Weber's thesis against Thomas Metzger's contra-thesis that Neo-Confucianism had a sense of predicament comparable to Weber's tension. This paper also aims to contribute to the discussion of Weber's thesis by showing that Herbert Fingarette¡¯s behaviorist view presents philosophically what Weber stated in theological terms
co-presenter with Dena Davis
Vivian-Lee Nyitray, University of California, Riverside
This paper contrasts ethical and social concerns about human reproductive cloning in the West and in Confucian-influenced societies. In the West, concerns about cloning emphasize the independence of the child and the maintenance of appropriate boundaries between parent and child. Children are unique and independent individuals with the right to work out their own destinies. Parental motivations for cloning are criticized as narcissistic, overly controlling, and as commodifying children. In Confucian perspectives, the concerns are radically different. Confucianism lacks individual “rights talk”; rather, the individual is seen primarily in terms of relational obligations and duties. Most of the complexities that arise from reproductive cloning stem from specific intersections of the general imperative to produce an heir, son-preference, filial and familial demands, ancestral veneration, and Confucian-Buddhist folk notions of the body.
A21-67
Evangelical Theology Group
Theme: Evangelical Theology and Scripture
Citizenship and Discipleship: Tensions in the New Testament and Postmodernity
Craig A. Carter, Tyndale University College and Seminary
Thirty years after the publication of J. H. Yoder's The Politics of Jesus, contemporary, Third Quest, Jesus scholarship (eg. N. T. Wright, R. Horsley)is vindicating Yoder's thesis that Jesus called his followers to a particular kind of politics, one which requires the disciple to give a higher allegience to Jesus than to the nation state.
The rejection of the ultimate authority of the state can take the form of pacifism, which affirms the necessity of Christians refusing the state’s orders to kill, or the just war theory, which affirms a Christian duty to obey such orders only under certain moral conditions as defined by the just war criteria). In both cases, the church comes into potential conflict with the state because Christians place the concrete Lordship of Jesus Christ above the authority of the state.
This paper addresses the resulting tensions between citizenship and discipleship.
The Canonical Sense of Scripture as a Whole: Trinitarian or Christocentric?
Alan G. Padgett, Luther Seminary
I first introduce what I call the three-fold sense of Scripture for evangelical theology today. These three levels of meaning are: conventional (plain, historical); canonical; and contemporary. This three-fold sense arises from reading the Bible as a whole, with Christ as the key or center for theological hermeneutics. This lecture will focus on the canonical sense. In particular, should we understand the canonical or whole-Bible level of meaning, theologically, to be Christocentric or Trinitarian? I argue that the canonical sense of Scripture for evangelicals is Messianic or Christocentric; but this Christocentric reading can best be maintained in a Trinitarian context.
Evangelicals in the Factory of Scripture
Telford Work, Westmont College
Evangelicalism’s various camps, forms of life, and biblical ethical practices take the common evangelical respect for Scripture in different directions and produce a rich variety of evangelical “Bibles.” Attention to the Bibles of evangelicalism promises greater appreciation of the distinctives of evangelical life and offers avenues for strengthening our witness and the health of our communities.
An inductive study of evangelical biblical habits correlates evangelical views with uses of the Bible. Our different forms of discipleship produce different Bibles – different visions of Scripture in the different evangelical communities. Conflicts among evangelicals’ biblical practices characterize many intra-evangelical disputes. No one metaphor seems to include or govern all the others.
Evangelical uses and images of Scripture emerge only as we use the Bible, as we become familiar with it, and as it shapes us. Using Scripture well thus requires and grows healthy community, obedience, exposure, training, skill, and virtue.
A21-68
Hinduism Group
Theme: The Bhakti Movement—Says Who?
The Bhakti Movement—Says Who?
“The bhakti movement” is one of the most important means by which Hindus have told “the history of religions” in relation to Hinduism itself. In its best known form—that of the Bhagavata Mahatmya—it is a south > west > north narrative, featuring the Dravidian country, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the Braj region of the North as epitomized in Brindavan. In designing our panel, we have represented four of these linguistic regions; only Karnataka is absent. We do so not to reinscribe the Bhagavata Mahatmya narrative but to ask how it succeeds or fails at capturing historical and rhetorical processes that are particularly pertinent to the “bhakti history” of each area. All this leads up to the question: Should we continue to speak of the bhakti movement in thinking, writing, and teaching about Hinduism?
Bhakti as Public Culture
Christian Lee Novetzke, University of Pennsylvania
Devotionalism constitutes India’s earliest, most resilient “public culture,” that realm of public interaction outside courts/states and elite literary spheres where ideas about identity and difference find expression. I approach bhakti as a system that invents religious “publics,” audiences formed into communities through the collective reception of religious media. Situated between a social movement and a personal devotional practice, bhakti creates spheres of public culture in India. I highlight the Marathi saint Namdev (14th century), a key figure within the Varkari religion. Rather than literacy, Namdev is said to have advocated performance, and in the centuries after his floruit, we see a regular practice of reintroducing biographical Namdev’s character and practice of performance to sustain spaces of devotionalism. Through performance, text and film, these spaces display public cohesion and contestation over issues of cultural importance. I argue the shape of a “movement” emerges from this impetus towards creating bhakti publics.
Multiple Emplotments of the Pushtimarg in "Bhakti Movement" Thinking
Shandip Saha, University of Ottawa
This paper will trace the history of the 16th-century devotional community known as the Pushti Marga and attempt to account for its popularity with the Gujarati mercantile community despite being centered in North India.. The Pushti Marga’s success in Gujarat points to the necessity of adding an east-west dimension to the familiar south-north axis of bhakti historiography. It also forces us to define more precisely the term “movement” in the context of bhakti studies: the Pushti Marga was hardly an activist, grass-roots religious movement with a coherent political and religious agenda. The Pushti Marga was, rather, one of many independent religious communities who sought to formulate a response to the social dislocation caused by the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate. It crystallized in Gujarat because it provided the Hindu mercantile community with a religious worldview that addressed their sense of economic and social insecurity in troubled political times.
The Absence of Siva: The North/South Issue Reconsidered
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University
In Tamil, Siva bhakti is the Other of Vaisnava compositions, and the dominant form of bhakti in the subsequent tradition. If Siva bhakti is so powerful a presence in the 'Dravidian country', and the bhakti tradition moved from South to North, what happened to Siva? Why did Siva bhakti not translate? (i) The Guptan inheritance of the North might have predisposed royal patronage towards Vaisnavism. (iia) The growth of Saivism in the South might be tied to the indegenization of Siva through association with the Tamil Murugan, (iib) while the identification with the geographically embedded Gopala/Vasudeva (and possibly Rama)figures might have given special resonance to Visnu in the North. Finally, (iii) aspects of (even brahminical) Siva bhakti theology could have failed to find purchase in the cultural climate of the medieval North. The absence of Siva in the North implies that there is no simple tale of migration.
Performance as Translation: Mira Songs in Gujarat
Neelima Shukla Bhatt, Wellesley College
The figure of Mira, emerging from sixteenth century Rajasthan, is often eulogized as bhakti incarnate. While some songs belonging to her tradition enjoy pan-Indian popularity, a distinctive tradition of Mira songs has prevailed in Gujarat for centuries. Her hagiography suggests that she herself first sang them here when she sought safe haven in Dwaraka after her initial wanderings through Vrindavan, inverting the Bhagavata Mahatmya denunciation of Gujarat as the region from which bhakti had to flee for her life to Vrindavan. In Gujarat, generations of performative translations of Mira songs have brought about changes in their linguistic and musical aspects that establish them firmly within the regional traditions of devotional singing. This paper will explore the nature of these performative translations and their contribution to bhakti’s “movement” across regions. In the process, it will also look at performance of bhakti songs as a platform for creating public culture.
A21-69
Islamic Mysticism Group
Theme: Women's Contributions to Sufism: New Readings and Research
In recent years, several scholars have brought to light the role of women in the Islamic mystical tradition by finding and compiling the substantial information on female Sufis found throughout the works of Sufism. This panel explores a number of critical approaches to this material, with a view to discerning the real contributions of women to the overall development of the Sufism. The panel addresses the degree to which Sufi women brought original ideas to the Sufi traditions of their time, and the extent to which these original contributions are related to their gender perspective as women actively engaging their own religious tradition. Alternatively, we consider whether it is misleading to understand female Sufi contributions as narrowly tied to their perspective as women, thereby perpetuating the notion of women as the exceptional other operating outside of, rather than as actively and cooperatively engaged in, the mystical developments of their time.
Statistical Analysis, Comparison, and Close Readings: Getting at the Data on Early Pious and Sufi Women
Laury Silvers, Skidmore College
This paper presents my findings and modes of research into the lives, practice, and thought of early pious and Sufi women. 1. I statistically analyze important terms, locations, dates, affiliations, etc., describing women in our two main sources, Sulami’s Dhikr and Ibn al-Jawzi’s Sifat al-safwa in order to isolate basic trends and exceptional cases. For instance, I find that while present scholarship highlights extreme asceticism among early women, statistical analysis suggests that most were moderately ascetic. 2. I combine statistical and comparative analysis to illuminate Sulami’s representation of women’s teaching roles by comparing his use of terms in the Dhikr with the terms he uses to distinguish male teaching roles in the Tabaqat. 3. Finally, I use statistical analysis with close readings of theoretical content to ascertain the numbers of women, their locations and affiliations, the types of themes, and the manner in which women expressed metaphysical concerns.
“Inspired with an Awesome Book”: The Mystical Life and Writings of `Â'ishah al-Bâ`ûnîyah (d. 922/1517)
T. Emil Homerin, University of Rochester
`Â'ishah al-Bauniyah (d. 922/1517) was a prolific author and poet, probably composing more Arabic prose and poems than any other woman prior to the twentieth century. Further, `Â'ishah 's mystical writings occasionally contain her personal reflections regarding her life and mystical experiences. In this presentation, I will focus on `Â'ishah 's contribution to Sufism and her place within the tradition in light of several methodological issues. For, in contrast to so many other women Sufis, `Â'ishah’s experiences and voice have not been mediated by male authors. It will be useful to compare her self-portrayal to later images of her by male writers in order to gauge the influence of both gender and genre on these images.
Rabi'a the Teacher
Rkia Elaroui Cornell, University of Arkansas
In classical Sufi sources, the famous Basran saint Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya is depicted as the teacher of the male scholars as well as women students. What is not well known, however, is what she actually taught these people. Although Rabi'a has become famous as a practitioner of love mysticism (mahabba), it is unlikely that she taught such doctrines to Sufyan al-Thawri and Shu'ba. The thesis of this paper will be that Rabi'a's teaching focused not on love mysticism, but rather on the subjects of character development (adab or ta'dib) and practical wisdom (hikma). Both disciplines were popular in the early Abbasid period, and both provide a link between the interests of jurists and the ascetic practices of the school of women ascetics in Basra, of which Rabi'a was a prominent member.
Mothers, Wives, and Daughters: Female Mysticism in a Family Context
Maria Massi Dakake, George Mason University
This paper examines the lives of mystical women who had family connection to prominent male Sufis. It examines the material about such women in biographical collections as well as in personal narratives attributed certain male Sufis who discussed the spiritual lives and influence of their mothers, wives and daughters. The paper examines the hagiographical constructs that influenced the reporting of this information and the extent to which such reports are consciously based upon the example of spiritual women in the life of Muhammad, as well as upon Qur’anic and hadith passages that stress respect for women, and especially mothers, as a religious virtue. Looking beyond such literary patterns, the paper seeks to present a meaningful understanding of the contributions of these women and the influence they exercised on their famous male relations, as well as to gauge the degree of independence they enjoyed with regard to their own spiritual development.
A21-70
Lesbian-Feminist Issues and Religion Group
Theme: Lesbian Lives: Remembrance and Transformation
Lesbian lives have often been silenced by religion, politics or both. The first paper focuses on the the life of Loretta Coller, raised Roman Catholic, discharged from the military because of her sexual orientation, and murdered by a lover. The paper raises the question of the effect of silence on lesbian lives. The second paper addresses the question another way through the religious and political responses to the murder of Sakia Gunn, fifteen year old African American lesbian. Although politics and religion in the city of Newark, New Jersey have served to silence any protest, currently there are coalitions being formed among religious leaders, and marginalized religious groups designed to produce something positive out of this murder. Both papers will explore the ways that religious communities contibute to the silencing of lesbian lives when they do not confront homophobia and misogyny.
For the Orphans and Widows
Gayle R. Baldwin, University of North Dakota
For the Orphans and Widows
This paper examines the spirituality and political strategies of concerned clergy in Newark, NJ who seek a creative response from the political system to the abuse of local homosexual youth, in particular, the murder of Sakia Gunn, May 11, 2003. Although promises were made by the mayor, there has been little response to this murder by religious or political authorities over the last two years. In order to circumvent the politics of direct confrontation, a coalition of the city’s “progressive clergy” has sought to implement a more workable strategy, arguing that the Gospel demands care for the “orphans and widows,” and the victims of homophobia are often homosexual youth and adult lesbians. This paper examines and this strategy and questions its effectiveness in addressing the conspiracy of silence concerning homophobia and the continued victimization of black lesbians.
Ending a Long Silence: The Memoirs of Loretta Coller
Jon Pahl, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Three episodes defined the life of Loretta Coller (1931-1994). The first was her Catholic schooling, the second her interrogation and eventual discharge from the U.S. Air Force by the McCarthy-era Office of Special Investigations for being a lesbian, and the third her murder by a lover. Throughout her life, Coller suffered from silencing that she had begun to break in a rough draft of her Memoirs, completed six months before her death, and that I am editing for publication. These Memoirs describe Coller's coming-of-age, coming-out, and coming-into a series of relationships that defined her identity as a lesbian in America, and that can be mapped as a shifting set of discourses and practices through which she sought to claim a modicum of transcendence (or at least tranquility) in American culture. Hers is a cautionary tale about the long reach of silencing, and a testimony to creative resilience of religious imagination.
A21-71
Men's Studies in Religion Group and Religion and Disability Studies Group
Theme: Masculinities, Disabilities, and Religion
This session will examine the ways in which the study of disabilities and the study of masculinities have common ground regardig the examiniaiton of religin and theology. The papers will address the potential for new insights into the lived experience of men with disabilities and the ways in which religious insights help or hinder a man's ability to flourish. It will also examine the insights that men with disabilities offer to the constructive task of doing theology in the twenty-first century.
Holy Husbandmen: The American Social Hygiene Association's Program for Virility
Amy Laura Hall, Duke University
During the Progressive Era, Protestant clergy formed “Purity Alliances” to take on the scourge of prostitution, resulting in the American Social Hygiene Association. ASHA produced in 1918 a YMCA poster-series to encourage men in the task of “Keeping Fit.” Alongside images encouraging “energy, endurance, and fitness,” boys faced Teddy’s intense gaze, reminded that although “Sickly and frail when a boy, Roosevelt by faithful training achieved the vigor of manhood.” ASHA’s assumed a distinction between a “strong, keen, and efficient” masculinity, capable of “civilization,” and men to be written off as weak, stupid, and inefficient. Children judged to have been begotten by men who did not live up to standards of virility functioned at the boundary – objects of pity. The ASHA series comes from a time during which mainline Protestants were tempted to perceive themselves as Holy Husbandmen – weeding out men who would bring taint to the race.
From Superman to Super Jesus: Constructions of Masculinity and Disability on the Silver Screen
Darla Schumm, Hollins University
Colleen Conway writes that in the Gospel of John, “the desire to show the true divinity of Jesus, a desire that shapes the “high” Christology of this Gospel, results in a particularly masculine Christology.” We argue that recent media portrayals of Jesus such as Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and Philip Saville’s “The Gospel of John” which rely heavily on the Gospel of John, heighten the already high masculinity of the gospel and promote an image of the super Jesus as the model for contemporary American masculinity. Furthermore, the super Jesus model constructs an ideal of masculinity based on a perfect body free from limitations which undermines theologies of disability that utilize metaphors such as the “disabled God.”
A21-72
New Religious Movements Group
Theme: Devoted to the Outdoors: Nature Recreation as Religious Practice
From John Muir’s writings on his religious experience while scaling the North Face of Mt. Ritter in Yosemite, the teachings of Norman MacLean’s father in A River Runs Through It, or pop culture depictions of surfing in Point Break, nature recreational activities have been intertwined with religion, orthodox and non-orthodox, or portrayed in literature, film, and community ideology as religious or spiritual endeavors in and of themselves. Drawing on the phenomenological dimensions of nature-based recreation/sport, this panel will investigate the intellectual, ethical, and political payoff of seeing nature recreational activities as religions practice through three primary questions:
1) Is it possible to consider such activities as religious activities, and the practitioner groups as religious groups or congregations?
2) Is the religion implicitly understood or explicitly expressed, and how so?
3) Is there a correlation between such a nature-based religion and ecological attitudes and/or action?
Surfing into Spirituality
Bron Taylor, University of Florida
Four categories of evidence and analysis are used to depict surfing as a religious practice: lay histories of the sport by surfer-theologians; analysis of modern surfing, from its globalizing patron saint, Duke Kahanamoku, to the 1960s psychedelic era, to surfing in popular and material culture (including music, album covers, surf music and film, surfboard design and art); autobiographical accounts, interviews, and film depicting the experiences that often accompany the practice and which constitute the perceptual heart of this increasingly global religion; the ways surfing as a practice has produced ethics promoting environmental protection as well as peacemaking within the sometimes territorial world of surfing. Theoretical perspectives from the study of religion are used to illuminate each type of evidence mustered for the argument that, for some practitioners, surfing is self-consciously understood as religious, while scholars can view it as religious in the case of many if not most surfers.
Pinned on Karma Rock: Popular Understanding of Whitewater Kayaking as Religious Experience through Hindu and Buddhist Terms
A. Whitney Sanford, Iowa State University
This paper addresses two related questions about the nature of religious experience and its effect on the development of environmental practices. Many whitewater paddlers, particularly those at the elite level, consciously articulate their paddling experience using terms appropriated from Asian religious traditions, i.e. karma, dharma and Tao. These boaters perceive in Asian (and indigenous) religious traditions an openness to the presence of the sacred in the material world, and this perception better reflects their experiences of the material world and, more specifically, paddling. This paper will argue two primary points: first, this appropriation of Asian religious traditions implies a critique of western religious attitudes towards the natural world; and two, these attitudes lead to a changed environmental ethic. I situate this work within one of this panel’s broader questions: to what extent do nature-based sports facilitate the development of an environmental ethic?
Casting for Connection: Religion, Ethics, and Environmental Conservation in Fly Fishing Culture
Samuel Snyder, University of Florida
Using fly fishing as the focal point, this paper will investigate the phenomenological dimensions of nature based-recreation/sport as religious practice and the relationship between devotional practice and environmental ethics. For many anglers, fly fishing is a religious experience. Through ritual practices, material culture, literary history, and understandings of nature as sacred fly fishing presents an interesting target for scholarly enquiry. In addition to the religious watersheds of angling culture, fly fishing has sparked a significant number of conservation groups throughout the world. By an examination of the religious dimensions of fly fishing, and their relation to environmental conservation, this paper will explore the intellectual and perhaps political advantages of look at nature-based activities as religious.
Paddling Toward the Divine: A Critical Look at Canoeing and Nature Religion in Canada
Barbara Jane Davy, Ottawa, ON
Canoeing is a symbol of Canadian heritage and identity, important historically, and in popular culture. As a nature-based recreational activity that has religious significance and is deeply connected to the myth of Canada as “true north, strong and free,” canoeing is expressive of nature religion in Canada. I apply Catherine Albanese’s understanding of nature religion as a variety of civil religion in the United States, finding a related, but distinct, expression of nature religion in Canada. I doing so, I respond to William C. James’ discussion of canoe tripping as religious quest. While James finds parallels with Joseph Campbell’s study of the myth of the hero, often with man’s struggle against nature as a theme, I suggest that canoe trips can also entail meeting the Other who inspires ethics as s/he reveals a trace of God, putting one’s view of the world in question, even the myth of Canada.
A21-73
Person, Culture, and Religion Group and Wesleyan Studies Group
Theme: Transformation in Wesleyan Traditions
An exploration of various forms of transformation in Wesleyan traditions from social scientific perspective.
Watching and Praying: John Wesley's Method of Personality Transformation
Keith Haartman, University of Toronto
This paper examines the contemplative techniques that comprised Wesley's method of spiritual transformation. By employing a psychoanalytic perspective that explains the pastoral effectiveness of the method, I claim that Wesley's view of spiritual growth was therapeutic and transformative as measured by contemporary psychoanalytic standards. Wesley's developmental model involved a series of spiritual phases each characterized by techniques and meditations (ritual mouring, the practice of the presence, introspection) that culminated in sanctification, a cognitive-emotional transformation marked by the eradification of sinful temptations and the perfection of altruism. Couched in a theological idiom, the method helped individuals to work through conflicts created by the two main traumata of British middle class childhood: authoritarian parenting and unresolved bereavement grief. In terms of psychoanalytic methodology, this paper argues that religious-cultural symbolism may promote transformations of archaic affect and neurotic conflict that progressively rehsape these materials into complex existential insights and convictions.
A Psychoanalytic Investigation of the Transformative Impact of Sanctification Experience and Belief in the Conversion of Julia A. J. Foote, Nineteenth-Century Holiness Preacher
Lallene Rector, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
This paper presents an interdisciplinary dialogue between theology and psychoanalysis that considers the effects of conversion and of particular theological beliefs upon a young 19th c. Holiness preacher, Julia A. J. Foote. Questions about what constitutes “transformation” and how it occurs, as well as the matter of sudden and/or gradual processes of change will be explored. Theologically, these issues are represented in John Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification and the elaboration of entire, or instantaneous sanctification versus a gradual “going on to perfection” process. Phoebe Palmer's altar theology provides another 19th c. view of sanctification. The psychological analysis of Foote’s religious experience and teaching, as portrayed in her spiritual autobiography, is primarily guided by the observations about transformation of William James and Chana Ullman, and by two major psychoanalytic concepts, Christopher Bollas’ longing for the transformational object and Heinz Kohut’s idealizing selfobject need.
Paradigms in Psychological Conversion Research: The Emergence of the Biographical-Narrative Approach
Hetty Zock, University of Groningen
This paper focusses on the role of paradigms in psychological conversion research, taking James Richardson’s distinction between the passive (‘Pauline’) and the active paradigm as a starting point. Richardson stresses that scientific paradigms to some extent constitute the phenomenon of conversion itself. As I will show, they are also greatly determined by the cultural models of conversion prevalent in a particular time. From this meta-theoretical, paradigmatic point of view, I will give a survey of the changes in the psychological approaches to conversion. I will argue that since 1980 a new paradigm is emerging: the biographical-narrative approach, focussing on the role of conversion in identity construction by way of narratives. The usefulness of this paradigm will be illustrated by a case-study on a Dutch evangelical television program called ‘The Transformation’. Contemporary transformations in the Pauline model of conversion will be traced.
A21-74
Platonism and Neoplatonism Group
Theme: Neoplatonism, Dead or Alive: Is Neoplatonism a Living Tradition? Part II
Neoplatonism and Polytheism
Edward P. Butler, New York, NY
This paper proposes that Neoplatonism was profoundly distorted in its adoption into the monotheistic philosophical context, a distortion resting chiefly in the identification made by monotheists between the singular God of monotheism and the Neoplatonic first principle. Polytheism had intellectually and practically fostered the development of a philosophical henology of great sophistication which depended upon a distinction between modes of unity which supported the existential multiplicity of Gods as well as the formal singularity of the first principle, as well as the distinction between the discourses of philosophy and of theology. The collapse of this edifice constituted the collapse of systematic Neoplatonism. However, Neoplatonism can be a living tradition once again, insofar as it is possible to reconstitute the situation in which it thrived, in the form of a polytheistic philosophy of religion joined to an ongoing Platonic ontological project.
Living Neoplatonism
John Bussanich, University of New Mexico
Is it possible to pursue Neoplatonism as a way of life in the contemporary world? I shall examine some affirmative responses to this question as they are expressed in the thought of some religious thinkers. I treat the criteria ancient Platonists themselves regarded as constitutive of a living tradition: assimiliation of a coherent body of philosophical teachings based on the writings of Plato, on ancillary teachings in the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition, and on the elaborate commentarial tradition; multi-faceted intellectual training in dialectic and theology; attainment of the ethical virtues; practice of spiritual exercises; submitting to the guidance of an enlightened teacher; and achieving mystical experiences of the hierarchy of states of being leading to perfection. The approach taken here is loosely perennialist: even lacking a living teacher connected to the ancient lineages, authentic Neoplatonic spirituality may yet be practiced under the guidance of teachers rooted in other traditions or in no tradition.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Living Neoplatonic Tradition in Practice and in the Theology of Eastern Orthodoxy
Vladimir Kharlamov, Drew University
This paper will argue that the heritage of Pseudo-Dionysius represents the most living and widespread influence of Neoplatonic ideas and practices in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Many forms of theurgical developments of later Neopaltonism found their congenial places in the ceremonial development of liturgical practice in the Eastern Church, as well as in its church architecture and art. Dionysius' major contribution, with his definitely Neoplatonic outlook, is so beautifully interwoven into the fabric of regular Orthodox liturgy and art, that this one aspect could be considered, without any hesitation, as the most living and functioning representation of Neoplatonic tradition. Although the term "Neoplatonic" is omitted, the essence is present.
The Legacy of Neoplatonic Theology in Orthodox Christianity
Edward Moore, St. Elias Orthodox Theological Seminary
This paper will begin by demonstrating the survival of pagan Neoplatonism in the work of the late Byzantine philosopher Gemistus Plethon, and will serve as a launching-point into an examination of the evolution of post-Byzantine Orthodox theology as it passed from a dependence upon German Idealism to a renewal of the Patristic (Hellenic) tradition, given prominence in the works of Soloviev, Lossky, Gregorios, Zizioulas, etc. Emphasis will be placed upon Trinitarian doctrine and the concept of deification of the soul (theôsis), as the two most prominent concepts in Orthodox theology, connected to Neoplatonic theology. The influence of pagan Neoplatonism on Orthodox Christian theology will be examined. Attention will be given to the recovery of Patristic (Christian Neoplatonic) texts in the works of 19th and 20th century Russian and Greek Orthodox theologians
A21-75
Religions, Medicines, and Healing Group
Theme: Emotions, Suffering, and Efficacy
Healing Emotions and Curing the Soul in Late Antique Monastic Psychology
Andrew Crislip, University of Hawaii, Hilo
At the root of Christian traditions on emotion lie the psychological reflections of early Christian monastics; and without peer among the monastics of late antiquity is Evagrius of Pontus. Evagrius produced the most sustained reflection on the emotions in Christian antiquity, their interrelations, their positive and negative functions within the mind and soul of the Christian, and ultimately the path by which the ascetic might escape the bonds of emotion into the state of pure contemplation he calls apatheia. This paper will explore the distinctive construction of emotion in the early Evagrian tradition as attested in his ascetic writings and those of his followers and contemporaries. Specifically, through a close reading of early monastic literature the paper will focus on the signification and treatment for the most vexing of the Evagrian emotions (to monastics and modern commentators alike): acedia, which has been variously construed as sloth, boredom, and depression.
Healing Pain: Issues of Efficacy in Biomedicine and Religious Traditions
Rebecca Sachs Norris, Merrimack College
Pain may be seen as a problem to be healed or as a means for healing. Control of physical pain is an important measure of efficacy in biomedicine. Pain and the suffering it entails are understood to have no value; pain is a symptom to be alleviated, healing is understood as physical healing. In contrast, in many religious traditions pain is utilized as a means for intentionally generating sacred states. Here pain is used for healing, if healing is understood as not simply physical, but as a state of greater wholeness, or enhanced relationship with the sacred. This paper considers the disparity between these two attitudes and their relation to efficacy, touching on the role of the emotions and the underlying neurobiological processes though which pain and suffering come to be experienced as meaningful.
Typology and Functions of Agwu Sculptures in Dibia Therapeutic Practices
Jude Aguwa, Mercy College
In Igbo therapeutic tradition, the dibia is a person who has been initiated into the agwu cult in response to a calling by the spirit, agwu, to serve as priest, diviner or healer. It is through the consistency of this spirit’s support that these occupations succeed. The tradition also established that one of the essential ways of harnessing the support is through the use of agwu sculptures. This paper examines the many forms of agwu sculptures, and perceptions of how the spirit works through them and with the dibia to effect healing. In Modern times Western impact has led to significant reduction in the use of agwu sculptures in healing. This has affected the thinking about efficacy of medicine, as well as the structure of healing practices. In response, traditional healers evolve new strategies aimed at maintaining appeal for traditional medicine, and some of that is discussed in this paper.
A21-77
Open and Relational Theologies Consultation
Theme: American Empire and Religion
Many around the world suggest that the United States of America uses its immense power to impose its military, political, and economic will upon others with little regard for their best interest. In the minds of many, the United States has become a global empire. Many religious traditions and people consider offensive the coercive imposition typical of imperial rule. In this cosponsored session, papers have been invited that encourage descriptive and prescriptive proposals that address issues related to the tyranny of American empire. Presenters may answer questions such as, In what ways does the United States act as an empire? Upon what resources might religious traditions draw to oppose domination that generates overall ill-being? In what ways do Americans worship the power and violence of the American empire? What can religious people do to reject the ideology of empire and work for a more humane and peaceful world?
The Gospel of Freedom or Another Gospel? Theology, Empire, and American Foreign Policy
James K.A. Smith, Calvin College
Calling into question simplistic demonizations of the Bush administration's foreign policy, and rejecting hasty equations of empire and the American nation-state, this paper interrogates American foreign policy by exploring the links between democratic peace theory, libertarian notions of freedom, and paradigms in evangelical theology. I will argue that the foreign policy of globalizing democracy aims at the expansion of a particular understanding of freedom, viz., a negative, libertarian notion of freedom as independence from external restraint. This understanding of freedom is particularly evinced in an essential component of this desired expansion of “freedom” or “democracy”: the expansion of the free market. I will argue that this same view of freedom is assumed in dominant strains of evangelical theology (as well as open theism), which might explain evangelical exuberance for America’s militaristic foreign policy. But such a model of freedom is open to theological critique from a more catholic, Augustinian tradition.
The United States's Imposition of Religious Freedom: The International Religious Freedom Act
Laurie A. Cozad, University of Mississippi
In 1998, the United States Congress passed into law the International Religious Freedom Act (IFRA). The stated purpose of the IFRA is to provide 'a useful vehicle for advancing the cause of religious freedom throughout the world.' While the IRFA denies any 'attempt to impose 'the American way' on other nations,' it is nevertheless '[g]rounded in and informed by the American experience' and was first conceived of as a means for protecting the international religious freedom of Christians. Thus, this presentation will examine the following four topics: the Christian context in which the IRFA was conceived; the institutional structure of the IRFA as it sets up both a Commission for International Religious Freedom and a separate State Department Office; the mission of the Commissioners versus the State Department's favoring of geo-strategic interests; and the potentially divisive consequences of this Act as it is perceived to promote U.S. interests abroad.
An "Ex-Pat’s" View on the American Empire and Its Religious Divide with Europe
Michael York, London, United Kingdom
While Barbara McGraw’s Rediscovering America’s Sacred Ground (2003) delineates the growing divide between the religious right and the secular left in which both parties have lost sight of the original intentions behind the founding fathers’ framing of the U.S. Constitution, in the present religio-political climate of North America, this same divide is widening the gulf between the United States and the European Economic Union. Americans are appearing increasingly focused on a need for otherworldly miracles. The dominant religious framework is no longer the Sermon on the Mount but the Book of Revelation. The irony is that the EEU is becoming steadily more and more recognised as the defender of the personal freedoms and human rights that were once the distinguishing hallmarks of the American experiment.
Unknown Knowns: What Americans Don't Know They Know about the History of American Empire and Religion in the Age of the "Photo Wars" and "Torture Memos"
C. Neal Keye, College of St. Scholastica
If violence, according to Walter Benjamin, is a sign of the existence of the gods, then the 'pornographic' photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and sexually humiliated in Abu Ghraib is surely a sign of the psychosexual dynamics of American empire in the Middle East. Indeed, the sadistic dimensions of the war in Iraq may be merely the latest example of the 'anarchy of empire' at the heart of American history. The 'theatre of cruelty' that we now know as Abu Ghraib may thus be read as extending visibility to what Slavoj Zizek calls the 'obscene underside' of American culture -- from initiatory rituals of sexual humiliation in the military to the everyday sadism of the right's assault on women's reproductive rights. This insight makes it possible to view the images of torture not simply as a perversion of American values, but rather as an initiation into American culture itself.
A21-100
Arts Series/Films: F. S. A. Photo Exhibit Curated by Colleen McDannell
Following the special topics forum Picturing Faith: Photography and the Great Depression (A21-53), is a reception at the photography exhibit based on Colleen McDannell’s work at the Mellon Society of Fellows, 10th Floor Gladfelter Hall, (12th Street and Berks Mall) on the campus of Temple University. A bus will be provided following the session for attendees interested in viewing the photos.
A21-101
Special Topics Forum
Theme: David Tracy: Tragedy as Cultural Unconscious of Western Religion and Philosophy
David Tracy is a Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books and articles, including: Dialogue with the Other (1990), On Naming the Present (1995), and the forthcoming book revising his Gifford Lectures, This Side of God (2006). This AAR lecture, by returning to the debate in German philosophy on tragedy and philosophy (especially Neitszche) and in French thought on religion (especially Simone Weil and Emmanuel Levinas), will argue for an understanding of tragedy as related to necessity, suffering, and active response to both. It will suggest how such factors provide the unconscious to both Western philosophy and religion. Neither, it will be argued, are simply reducible to a tragic vision, but consciously or unconsciously need it. The recent recovery of a tragic vision in both Marxism (Eagleton) and feminism (Butler) are further suggestions of the import of this category for religious scholars.
A21-102
Special Topics Forum
Theme: How to Publish Your Book: Advice from Oxford University Press and the AAR Book Series Editors
Founded on the premise that scholars know best what books are needed in the field of religion, the AAR publishing program with Oxford University Press produces quality scholarship for religion scholars and their students. OUP is a premier international publisher, and the AAR has published hundreds of titles, many of which have become essential tools in the development of our field and in the training of new scholars. AAR/OUP books are published in five series: Academy Series; Cultural Criticism Series; Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion Series; Teaching Religious Studies Series; Texts and Translations Series. (For more information on the series go to Publications.) This panel provides the opportunity to hear from experienced OUP and AAR editors, and ask any and all questions you might have about publishing in the AAR/OUP Series. There will also be an opportunity to speak individually with an editor.
A21-103
Special Topics Forum
Theme: Exploring the Field: Philosophy of Religion, and Religion and Literature - A Graduate Student Discussion Series
This session, the first in an ongoing series of discussions sponsored by the Graduate Student Task Force, invites graduate students and others to reflect on two prominent subdisciplines within the field of religion and theology: Philosophy of Religion and Religion and Literature. What is the nature of these disciplines? What is their current status? How do our graduate institutions answer these questions? Does a dependable canon or course of study in these specializations? Do we know what exactly it is that we're doing in these subdisciplines? Do we want to define them more precisely? These questions (and many more) will be on the table for group discussion, with participation from all in attendance. The session will also include responses to these questions from senior scholars.
A21-104
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section
Theme: Teaching Religion and Violence: Approaches and Traditions
A panel addressing some pedagogical and methodological principles that might guide the classroom presentation and discussion of violence committed in the name of religion. A topic that readily ignites emotion and controversy, religious violence requires a careful and deliberate pedagogy resting on the kind of careful distinctions that instructors must work hard to communicate in the best of classroom circumstances. Because violence emerges from highly specific and highly contingent factors particular to distinct contexts, teaching violence as the substance of an entire religious studies course or as a component of any historical tradition demands an elaboration of the nexus of myth, history, geography, etc., that comes to engender any act or episode of violence. Some contributors analyze violence in specific religious traditions and probe the best means for teaching them; others describe the broader contours of religion and violence in the American college classroom.
A21-105
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section and SBL's Reading, Theory, and the Bible Group
Theme: Post-Scripture[s]/Post-Holocaust: Representing the Irreparable in the Art of Samuel Bak
Skeptical Visions and Scriptural Truths in Samuel Bak's Genesis Paintings
Lawrence L. Langer, Boston, MA
I shall examine about a half dozen paintings from In a Different Light that interpose on the landscape of Genesis signs of destruction which urge the viewer to re-view the bond between God and his creatures as traditionally described in scripture. I shall emphasize three biblical themes: the creation of Adam and the expulsion from Eden; angelic presence, especially but not exclusively in Bak’s version of the Akedah; and the Noah story (“Noah’s Dream” and “Noah’s Bird”). The Holocaust imagery in these paintings requires the viewer to adjust to a vision of spiritual reality that fuses threat with promise and thus questions the authority of divine providence in human affairs. The blending of skepticism and faith that inhabits the canvases leads to a re-scrutiny of the original religious implications of the stories, once so full of promise for a people presumably under the guidance and guardianship of God.
Bak's Jacob: Painting as Midrash
Alicia Ostriker, Rutgers University
Bak's several paintings on the Jacob theme dwell on Jacob as dreamer, but with a broken ladder. His variations on the theme are midrashic in that they locate contemporary meaning in the ancient text. In addition, they gesture toward a future: is repair possible?
Survival and the Impossible in the Work of Samuel Bak and the Book of Job
Dan Mathewson, Emory University
Samuel Bak compares himself and his life’s work to the biblical Job: one who perpetually asks questions to a silent deity, and fears never to receive an answer. In this paper I probe Bak’s intuitive connection to Job and explore the subtle and profound links the themes of his work have with those of the biblical book. I examine three broad themes of survival testimony in Bak’s work and the book of Job, each of which foreground the impossibility of survival. Bak connects to the biblical Job not only because he asks questions perpetually to a silent deity, but more significantly because he becomes the Modern Job that Maurice Friedman describes: one who confronts the experience of “radical evil” head-on and shapes from it an image of meaningful human existence.
A21-106
Comparative Studies in Religion Section and Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group
Theme: (World-)Religionization: The Politics of Religion-Making
Initially a European and Christian concept developed in modern Western Europe, ‘religion’ has been globalized rather successfully. The emergence of the term ‘world religion’ is just the logical consequence of the globalization of ‘religion’ as a universally applied theoretical concept and mechanism for coercion. It was triggered by the accession of indigenous elites to Western-style objectifications of religion.
The panel aims to create a venue for discussing the politics of religion-making. As religion-making we broadly understand the processes by which religions are formulated and institutionalized in line with the globalizing (world-)religion concept. The panel will illustrate how religion-making operates in conjunction with colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial discourses on authenticity, authority, and legitimacy.
Religionizing Turkish Alevism: The Compelling Power of Institutionalized Religion
Markus Dressler, Hofstra University
This paper will examine the current debate on the ‘religious’ identity of Turkish Alevism, a debate instigated by the Alevis’ demand for recognition as a group clearly distinguishable from the Sunni Muslims. While there is consensus on the existence of an Alevi identity, there is no consensus on what exactly the fundamentals of a distinct Alevi identity ought to be.
The paper will analyze the debate on the nature of Turkish Alevism approaching it from its discursive frames. Both in Turkey, where Sunni Islam serves as the objectified standard for din (“religion”), and in Germany, Alevis are formulating their conceptualizations of ‘Alevi religion’ in a reactive dialogue with the hegemonic religion discourse. The Alevi case exemplifies how institutionalized concepts of ‘religion’ are religion-productive. Once institutionalized, ‘religion’ tends to multiply itself – in other words, religion as an institution creates incentives for cultural entrepreneurs to adapt to /imitate it.
Javanism, Tourist Culture, and Religious Rationalization
Timothy Daniels, Hofstra University
Indonesia’s formal definition of “religion” reflects the influence of Dutch colonialism and its ranking and valuing of “world religion” above the “local customary” belief systems. “Kejawen” religion or Javanism is a complex mixture of localized Hindu-Buddhism and Sufi-Islam. Practitioners of kejawen have attempted unsuccessfully to achieve recognition as official national religion. The government has moved from alarm to recognizing kejawen religion as “Belief” and “Customs,” delegating it to the realm of “culture” as opposed to “religion.” Tourist departments have used kejawen rituals, ceremonies and festivals as the cornerstone of south-central Javanese tourist attractions. Traditionalist Islamic organizations have sought to Islamize kejawen practices through active participation, while modernist Islamic organizations criticized these practices as deviations from Islam. Many kejawen practitioners have responded to dominant discourses by negotiating their position within the larger Islamic community, categorizing their religious practices as non-religious “Belief” or as “Javanese Islam.”
“That's Not the Way We Operate": The Political Implications of the Globalatinized Mandala
Greg Grieve, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
In this paper, I maintain that there is a similar rhetoric at play between America’s current imperialist strategies and what could be called “world-religionization.” The paper unpacks the relationship through three sections that concentrate on how mandalas have been resignified into American discourse. First, the paper illustrates mandalas, especially paubha paintings, as they are made by artisans in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. Second, it uses Jacques Derrida’s neologism of “globalatinization” to spell out the concept of scripturalism—a pattern of mediation that forces religious phenomena into the “Protestant bed” of the printed text and then reifies these texts as ahistorical. Third, it shows the political implications of the scripturalization of mandalas by briefly describing three sites where they have been resignified into the West: the Infinity Foundation’s “Mandala of Indic Traditions,” the Rubin Museum’s art exhibit, “Treasures from the Roof of the World,” and Susanne F. Fincher’s self-therapy at www.CreatingMandalas.com.
A21-107
Ethics Section
Theme: The Contemplation of Social Activism: Prospects and Resources for Zen Social Ethics
This session explores what Zen Buddhism can offer to social ethics and identifies challenges in formulating a distinctively Zen system of social ethics. The papers consider these topics from four angles: 1. philosophical differences between cultural orientations in East Asia that stress intimacy and in the modern West that stress integrity; 2. the range of self-world relations generated by Zen with its correlation between the kinds of mental transformation that ideally result from Zen practice—the 'substance' of Zen—and the outward mode of action that follows from that transformation—the 'function' of Zen; 3. reflections by two Korean Zen thinkers on how the wisdom gained in individual meditative practice can be transformed into compassion as expressed through public, communal action; and 4. resources in Zen for critiquing ideology in light of contemporary Zen ethicists' concerns about ideology. The papers also offer comparisons between Zen ethics and Western religious and philosophical ethics.
Zen as a Social Ethics of Responsiveness
Thomas P. Kasulis, Ohio State University, Columbus
Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen Buddhism took form in cultures having a strong Confucian ideal of social harmony. Therefore, under a different cultural context, such as the contemporary West, Zen might find it crucial to develop its own distinctive social ethics. Yet, Zen’s traditional philosophical orientation has favored intimacy over integrity, highlighting affective sensitivity and responsiveness over responsibility, for example. By contrast, modern Western philosophy has tended to foreground integrity orientations stressing compliance with fixed principles. For an American Zen social ethic to develop, therefore, it could either argue for a fundamentally different type of ethical system than commonly found in today’s West. Or, it could try to transform its own traditional forms of philosophy and pedagogy to fit the expectations of an integrity-dominant culture. In the former alternative lies the danger of cultural confrontation and alienation; in the latter the capitulation of its own intellectual heritage.
What Understanding of Self and World Is Presupposed in Zen Monastic Practice?
Dale S. Wright, Occidental College
This paper argues that every articulation of the point of Zen—every attempt to say what Zen is really about—carries with it a set of teachings or assumptions about how the ultimate goal of the practice connects practitioners to the larger social world. Classical Zen texts make an explicit correlation between the kinds of mental transformation that ideally result from Zen practice—the 'substance' of Zen—and the outward form or mode of action that follows from that transformation—the 'function' of Zen. In this paper, I seek to articulate a typology of forms that this substance/function correlation has taken in the history of Zen literature as a means of understanding the range of self-world relations that have been generated by the tradition. By way of preliminary thesis, I propose to divide these forms of self-world relation into four general categories that range from isolation to active participation in a society.
Zen Buddhism as a Public Discourse: How Do We Turn Wisdom into Compassion?
Jin Y. Park, American University
This paper examines contrasting views of the relationship between individual practice and its role as a public discourse by studying Pojo Chinul (1158-1210) and T’oeong Sŏngch'ŏl (1912-1993). Chinul’s and Sŏngch'ŏl’s views on the issue have been frequently identified as gradualism and subitism respectively. Put side by side, supporters of gradualism criticize the subitists for their lack of concern for others, whereas the subitists have attacked gradualism as propagating an unauthentic form of enlightenment. I will argue, however, that both Chinul’s gradualism and Sŏngch'ŏl’s subitism endorse the same form of social theory of Zen Buddhism, which is based on altruistic empathy for others emerging out of the Buddhist concept of compassion and the Zen Buddhist identification of the sentient being and the Buddha. In order to activate Zen social theory, however, Zen Buddhism needs a serious self-examination as much as it needs to be aware of its relation to society.
Not Buying into Words and Letters: Zen, Ideology, and Prophetic Critique
Christopher Ives, Stonehill College
Judging from the active participation of Zen leaders and institutions in modern Japanese imperialism, one might conclude that by its very nature Zen succumbs easily to ideological co-optation, but a close examination of Zen theory and praxis indicates that the tradition does possess resources for resisting dominant ideologies and engaging in ideology critique. Following a brief examination of facets of Zen that may account for its ideological co-optation during the Second World War, this paper examines how Vietnamese Zen Buddhists in the Tiep Hien Order, Zen social critic David Loy, and Buddhist ethicist Ken Jones have treated ideology. In light of their analyses, this paper then outlines resources that Zen offers for ideology critique and, recognizing that no critiques are free of ideologies of their own, sketches the sort of ideology that a critical and rigorous Zen social ethic would itself possess.
A21-108
History of Christianity Section
Theme: Apostates, Heretics, and Trouble-makers in the History of Christianity
The Development of Heresy: Eucharistic Theologies in English Lollard Dissent
J. Patrick Hornbeck, University of Oxford
The Lollard or Wycliffite heresy of late-medieval England has recently been the province not of theologians but instead of historians and literary critics. While valuable in their own right, their studies run the risk of occluding the theological differences that separated Lollards from their less controversial neighbors and from one another. A careful analysis of Lollard eucharistic theology during the period 1381-1521 reveals that many dissenters discarded John Wyclif’s belief in the real but nevertheless spiritual presence of Christ in favor of figurative interpretations of the sacrament. While many first-generation Lollard texts preserved Wyclif’s nuanced objections to transubstantiation, many of those tried for heresy, especially in the latter half of the fifteenth century, instead articulated symbolic accounts of the eucharist. Vernacular heresy evolved over time, partly in response to changes in orthodox religious culture and partly on account of declining availability of well-educated dissenters and traditional Wycliffite texts.
The Accidental Apostate: "Drowsie Protestants," Temporary Faith, and Deconversion among the Godly in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
Karen Bruhn, Arizona State University
This paper highlights the discourse surrounding the notion of “temporary faith” within the godly literature of late Elizabethan and early Stuart England. 'Temporary faith,'a heartfelt but fleeting experience of all the signs of election, became an accepted version of 'deconversion' within a predestinarian system. This paper argues that temporary faith allowed evangelical reformers to impress upon “drowsie Protestants” that a willingess to endure a sustained spiritual regimen of examination and reflection (so valued among the godly divines, and apparently so eschewed by their audiences) could stand as both proof and protection of one’s elect status. Interestingly, these reformers also applied the inverse, and used “temporary reprobation” (my term, not theirs) to assure those who felt outside the fold that such feelings might well prove impermanant. Consequently, this discourse placed election and reprobation—ostensibly things decided before and beyond time—into a temporal structure.
Varieties of "Turning From": Modernist Deconversion Narratives in a Midwestern Academic Community
Philip Harrold, Winebrenner Theological Seminary
Deconversion is the 'metaphor for our times,' according to John D. Barbour, because it expresses the modern search for identity in the form of a 'flight from authority, from inherited paradigms of thought, and from various forms of pressure to conform.' A close reading of unpublished letters and journals in a late nineteenth-century academic community (the University of Michigan), reveals this preoccupation with 'turning-from' and its bearing upon the social imagination of Protestant modernists, Progressives, and philosophical pragmatists. Distinctive traces of evangelical religion are found in the varied intellectual products of this community. Mothers, wives, and other intimate female acquaintances also appear to play key roles in the transposition of transcendental worldviews to social imaginaries like 'spiritual democracy' or new fields of academic inquiry like social psychology. The legacies of heart religion and the inherent incompleteness of deconversion are highlighted in a series of case studies.
The Devil Went Down to Hoopeston: Pagans, Christians, and American Identity
Jonathan Moore, Grinnell College
Like many Midwestern towns, Hoopeston, Illinois, has seen better days. Once-thriving industries have disappeared from this self-proclaimed “Sweetcorn Capital of the World,” and vacant buildings litter the city’s business district. In 2002, Reverend Ed Hubbard bid $40,000 for a downtown building; there he planned to establish a Wiccan educational campus. News spread quickly throughout this predominantly Christian town of six thousand, and many were not pleased that pagans were coming. When Hubbard temporarily withdrew from the contract, one local Christian minister thanked the Holy Spirit for answering his prayers. But Hubbard eventually purchased the building, catalyzing a crisis concerning community identity. How does an economically depressed, religiously homogenous village react to the arrival of spiritual outsiders? What values take primacy in such a crisis? Notions of identity and difference symbiotically inform one other, and the story of the Wiccans coming to Hoopeston, Illinois, illuminates just how this happens.
A21-109
Religion in South Asia Section and Hinduism Group
Theme: Dharma and the Sastras: The "Religious" and the "Secular" in Hindu Scholasticism
Even the most secular of Brahmanical scholastic works in a variety of disciplines (s´a¯stras) at times invoke religiously grounded metaphysical, cosmological, or moral principles, such as that of dharma. In different ways, the papers in this panel will examine the relationship between `religious' and `secular' domains of personal, social, political, intellectual, and artistic life according to selected S´a¯stric texts. The first paper argues that this distinction of domains is recognized in Hindu law, showing how religious and secular standards interact in principle and practice. The second examines works on poetics to show that literary categories shaped poeticians' conceptions of dharma, suggesting that Hinduism is an `agglutination' of discrete elements. The third paper shows why the study of Hindu law is essential for describing the boundaries of Hinduism, and of the intersecting communities that comprise it. Overall, the panel offers new approaches to conceiving of the role of law within Hinduism.
Punishment and Expiation
Timothy Lubin, Washington and Lee University
Misconduct of various sorts entails in the Dharmas´a¯stra a variety of corrective measures. Many of these are punishments inflicted by some external authority; others are prescribed for the guilty party to perform himself (as pra¯yas´citta, expiation), based on an awareness of guilt, even if the transgression is not known to others. Evidence from the Dharmas´a¯stra literature, Kautalya’s Arthas´a¯stra, and inscriptions will be reviewed to consider the following: What criteria are explicitly or implicitly used in classifying forms of misconduct? Is a distinction between secular and religious authority discernable, in which offences against state-imposed norms incur the former sort of sanction, while ritual faults, resting on Vedic authority, are considered the responsibility of the individual? How distinct are these categories in the Dharma literature? Are certain faults subject to both forms of correction? What are the implications for the relationship of the individual to the community and to the state?
Indian Literary Critics on "Dharma"
Timothy C. Cahill, Loyola University, New Orleans
Texts on Indian poetics (alamka¯ras´a¯stra) are not frequently read for material contributing to understanding dharma. In these texts, more often than not, the term is used in technical senses far removed from its use in the realm we label `religious'. Questions emerge: Do literary categories (genre distinctions, figures of speech, etc.) participate in an ever-evolving construction of dharma? Can we see parallels in the way universalizing, literary systems (cf., grammatical categories) are appropriated for ritual and theological uses? Does the crafting of literature and poetics as a `secular' (or at least uncontested) activity tell us anything about the parameters of the ever-contested sphere of dharma? This paper proposes that literary approaches have much to contribute to this project. Specifically, I will argue that literary categories helped shape an enduring differentiation between sacred and profane, between insider and outsider, central and marginal, pure and impure, from the classical period on.
Hinduism as a Legal Tradition
Donald R. Davis, University of Wisconsin, Madison
The legal side of the Hindu tradition has been unduly neglected. This paper attempts to demonstrate the significance and advantages of incorporating legal categories and theory into a study of Hinduism. First, the standard view of what Hindu law is must change and must not be limited to the Dharmas´a¯stra texts. In doing so, the relevance of law, signaled by terms such as a¯ca¯ra and marya¯da¯, to a variety of Hindu groups both high and low caste will become clearer. Second, the tendency of legal systems to make categorizations will bring to light a more subtle process of boundary-creation and identity-formation in the Hindu tradition. In the end, the paper suggests that a study of law should be as indispensable to a study of Hinduism as it is to a study of Islam, for both similar and different reasons.
A21-110
Study of Islam Section
Theme: Critical Approaches to Salafi Islam
Salafi Islam is a distinct hermeneutic tradition which has deep roots in Sunni Islam. Its central premise is the elevation of the authority of prophetic hadith and the opinions of the earliest generations of Muslim scholars (the salaf) over the authority of the famous jurists around whose teachings the four Sunni schools of laws coalesced. The papers of this proposed panel analyze aspects of the works of four understudied Salafi scholars, al-Bukhari (d. 870), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), and al-Albani (d. 1999), as well as propose fresh theoretical understandings of Salafi Islam in the modern period. The goal of this panel is to steer the study of Salafi Islam away from the polemics and historical imprecision that permeate much of the secondary literature on this topic by initiating a scholarly conversation about its true nature and legacy.
Al-Bukhari’s Legal Theory: An Early Model of Salafi Islam
Scott Lucas, University of Arizona
Muhammad b. Isma‘il al-Bukhari (d. 870) enjoys the paradoxical legacy of being the most authoritative hadith scholar and one of the least authoritative legal scholars in the Sunni tradition, despite the fact that his hadith and legal opinions are found in the identical book, al-Jami‘ al-sahih (‘The Sound Collection of Hadith’). While the individual hadith found in this book have bolstered the arguments of countless Sunni jurists for the past millennium, the legal opinions and theory which al-Bukhari himself derived from these very same hadith have remained largely ignored until the past century. This paper argues that the legal theory that al-Bukhari articulated in three chapters of al-Jami‘ al-sahih is one of the earliest extant Salafi models and explores how it relates to concise early Sunni works on legal theory and the classical commentaries by Ibn Hajar and al-Qastallani.
Salafism and Intra-Islamic Confessional Polemics: Ibn Taymiyah’s Minhaj al-Sunnah
Walid Saleh, University of Toronto
This paper will discuss one of the most important Sunni (or Salafi) anti-Shi`i polemical tractates in Islamic history, Ibn Taymiyah’s Minhaj al-sunnah al-nabawiyah fi naqd kalam al-Shi`ah al-qadariyah (The Path of Prophetic Sunna). The work has so far attracted little scholarly attention, and this paper is a first attempt to redress this neglect. The paper will attempt to situate the work in its historical context. More importantly, I will offer a general assessment of the work and its aims. One of the interesting aspects of this work is that it exhibits a keen awareness of Shi`ite polemical literature, as it actually is in the form of a commentary on one of the most famous Shi`i polemical works, al-`Allamah al-Hilli’s Minhaj al-karamah fi ithbat al-imamah. The paper will also study the relationship of Ibn Taymiyah’s tractate to his other works and its subsequent influence on the history of Sunni-Shi`i polemical literature.
Salafis, Wahhabis and Jihadis: The Ties That Bind?
Natana Delong-Bas, Brandeis University, Boston College
This paper provides a historical exploration of the connections and divergences of Salafism, Wahhabism, and contemporary Jihadism through the themes of tawhid (monotheism), jihad as holy war, emphasis on the study and interpretation of the hadith (sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad), attention to the example of the salaf (Companions of the Prophet Muhammad), and the relative authority of the teachings of the medieval Hanbali scholar, Ibn Taymiyya. It will discuss the 18th century foundations of Wahhabism prior to examining changes in the movement’s orientation and ideology due to historical context before addressing contemporary interpretations of Salafism and Wahhabism and their purported relationship to Jihadism.
Between Salafi Iconoclasm and Institutional Security: Nasir Al-Din Al-Albani and the Criticism of the Canonical Hadith Collections
Jonathan A. C. Brown, University of Chicago
Many Western and traditional Muslim scholars consider Salafism to be an inauthentic deviation from Islamic tradition brought on by petrodollars and a collision with modernity. The conflict between the orthodox schools of law and Salafis is embodied in a fierce debate between adherents of the traditional Sunni schools and the late Salafi hadith scholar Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani over his criticism of certain canonical hadith collections. Using this controversy as a case study, this paper will demonstrate that Salafism is in fact a continuity of an iconoclastic strain in Islamic civilization that had existed in constant tension with a drive to elaborate institutions of religious authority. This paper will trace this debate over the criticism and usage of the hadith canon back to the thirteenth century in order to demonstrate the historical continuity of the tension between these two strains in Islamic history.
From Modernizing Islam to Islamizing Modernity: Historical Transformations of the Salafiyyah Movement
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, University of Illinois
In this paper, I argue that the different interpretations of the Salafiyyah have roots in the ambiguities of its early proponents on their conception of Islam. I argue that the tension between historical/civilizational and doctrinal/cultural Islam generated different responses to the question of modernity and its relation with Muslim societies. I situate these transformations by examining the works of the most influential advocates of this movement in five historical periods: 1- British colonialism in India and the work of Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani; 2- The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun; 3- The establishment of the states of Pakistan and Israel and their reflections in the works of Abul Ala Maududi and Sayyid Qutb; 4- The Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the work of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati; 5-Post-Islamism and new hermeneutics of Islam in the work of Abdolkarim Soroush.
A21-111
Study of Judaism Section and Mysticism Group
Theme: Responding To Elliot Wolfson's Language, Eros, Being (Fordham University Press)
Elliot Wolfson's book _Language, Eros, Being_ offers a wide-ranging contribution to the scholarship of Kabbalah; his work is in conversation with philosophy, history of interpretation, gender studies, and the comparative study of religion. On this panel, four scholars from a variety of disciplines will take up Wolfson's text, both deepening and establishing the intersections of Wolfson's work with a variety of subfields in religious studies: 1) Jewish mysticism and the history and philosophy of science, 2) feminist and Continental philosophy of religion, 3) the history of Christian interpretation and theology in the antique and medieval periods, and 4) the comparative study of the religious imagination (particularly in Buddhism and Islam). Wolfson will respond to the panelists.
A21-112
Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: Is There a New Civil Religion?
Civil Religion at the Hearth: Current Trends in American Civil Religion from the Perspective of Domestic Arrangement
Daniel Campana, University of La Verne
Civil Religion At The Hearth: Current Trends in American Civil Religion From The Perspective of Domestic Arrangement
The current struggle for power in American civil religion is a struggle for the religious legitimation of civic values. I will argue in this paper that, as public policy and private religious practice meet in the domestic sphere, dogmas concerning domestic arrangements provide an enlightening vantage point from which to observe these poles. Specifically, I draw a connection between Jesus’ rejection of the Romanized domestic code as the embodiment of Roman values, the reversal of this in the second generation Christian community, and the struggle today between secularized, public religious consciousness and Conservative Evangelical voices striving to reaffirm the values of the Romanized domestic code.
The Rhetoric of "Sacrifice" in the Public Realm: Tales of Obfuscation and Glorification
Kelly Denton-Borhaug, Moravian college
Sacrificial rhetoric frequently has shrouded U.S. public policy discourse with a mantle of the sacred. This paper interrogates 'sacrifice' as a type of code used to mystify decisions and actions that otherwise might be considered taboo or immoral. Specifically, I examine the language of 'necessity of sacrifice' both in Christian theology and as it appears in two places of current public discourse and policy: 1) U.S. military policy regarding armed intervention; and 2) U.S. policy regarding the confiscation and environmental degradation of Native American Indian lands. What religious connotations remain, and which meanings fall away in the shift from religious to secular discourse? What mystification/glorification do we find taking place? Who is being called upon to sacrifice and what precisely is the nature of that elicited sacrificial act? Does sacrificial rhetoric in the public discourse named above finally look anything like a type of Christian ethics?
Re-Viewing the Flag after September 11 and the 2004 Election: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Votes for Reformed Civil Religion
Stephen M. Johnson, Montclair State University
Old important insights into “American civil religion” went unshared by most 1990s academics. That this was theoretical failure via category mistake was shown by such non-religionists as Barber, Kronman, and Walzer. That the failure was practical was revealed in the ashes of 9-11-01, and confirmed by American days and elections since.
Lest academic, political, and popular mistakes of thirty years ago be disastrously repeated by assuming that “patriotic” and “critical/progressive/multi-cultural” are disjunctive, American “civil religion” needs re-visioning. Protestants and Catholics like H. Richard Niebuhr and Martin Marty, G.K. Chesterton and Andrew Greeley have much to contribute to better understanding of American identity-in-community
Also keenly relevant are recent critical analyses by American Jews of their identities as formed in process-relationship with their covenanted religious community’s textual traditions and symbolic rituals. Presupposed and prerequisite to their meaningful contesting is celebration of the historical community's shared texts and traditions, symbols and rituals.
Making God Safe for Democracy? Visions of American Civil Religion Old and New
Glenn Whitehouse, Florida Gulf Coast University
Political and religious rhetoric in post-9/11 America raise the question whether a new civil religion has appeared on the scene. This presentation will compare recent developments with previous stages of civil religion. Civil religion will be interpreted as a process of making the God of Calvinism 'safe for democracy' through modifying his attributes. The texts of interpretation will be three films exemplifying Cold War, Clinton era, and contemporary time periods. The conclusion will be that the rhetoric of today's right represents a distortion of prior patterns of American civil religion, but not a wholly new development.
A21-113
Women and Religion Section
Theme: Women's Religious Leadership and Feminist Identity
Daoist Priestesses in Sociopolitical Transformation and Cultural Transmission in Northern China during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Shin-yi Chao, Rutgers University -- Camden
This paper examines the biographic records of Daoist priestesses during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This is a particularly intriguing era in Chinese history because the northern part of the territory presently regarded as China was under the regimes of the peoples historically regarded as non-Chinese. Meanwhile, it was also during the period of time that various Daoist sectarian movements surfaced, especially in northern China, expressing what may be described as an evangelical passion.
In contrast to the exist interpretation which carries the implication that Daoism was a powerful institution that rescued and sheltered the underprivileged sex, this paper argues that Daoist priestesses during this period of time secured lay patronage, built temples, established congregations, and accordingly extended the influence of Daoism. They were active and contributive members who assisted in the development of Daoism just like their male counterparts.
Integrating the "Race Woman": Approaches to Ministry among African Methodist Episcopal Women in the 1870s
Kimberly Hill, University of North Carolina,t Chapel Hill
The 1870s offered new political and social opportunities for African Americans, particularly for those who considered themselves leaders. The definition of a leading Black woman was especially contentious at this time in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishops' wives were considered ideal role models for other church women because they were given charge of a new all-female fundraising organization for A.M.E. foreign missions. On the other hand, a well-known preacher named Amanda Berry Smith eschewed denominational work by preferring to seek individual conversions among White Methodists. Was Smith's interest in improving race relations a betrayal her race as her critics claim? This paper analyzes the commonalities and differences between Smith and the other leading A.M.E. women, particularly their views on male leaders, community, and female responsibilities. Though their ministry strategies varied, they help define the Christian 'race woman' and the meaning of racial reconciliation in her work.
Krolowipolski: Black Queen-Mothers of Poland
Malgorzata Kruszewska, California Institute of Integral Studies
The legendary Black Madonna of Częstochowa is just one of many black portraits of Queen-Mothers honored throughout Poland. Tracing the origins of these images to African myths, images and practices emphasizes their significance as political symbols of justice in historically oppressive times.
"Maternal Desires": Deconstruction of the Moral Value of Womanhood by Nineteenth-Century Reformers
Priscilla Eppinger, Graceland University
Quaker activist Lucretia Mott was a key leader in nineteenth-century reform movements. As a minister, Mott preached in Quaker meetings, an activity acceptable within her own religious tradition. As a reformer, Mott addressed public forums, an activity provocatively unacceptable for women to engage in. In an era of strictly defined gender roles, Mott expanded and blurred gender boundaries as she strove to re-form social structures.
Mott was member and leader of movements and organizations whose tactics blurred boundaries between arenas of appropriately gendered behavior thereby calling into question the prevailing social order. In this paper I will use Mott as an example and will show that Mott deconstructed the rhetoric of separate spheres by her subversive use of it. In addition I will show how the methods used by male-dominated anti-slavery societies were operative in destabilizing the social order in areas that the reformers had perhaps not intended.
“I Shall Pluck by the Roots These Useless Breasts”: A Comparative Approach to Asian American Women’s Identity Construction
Tracy Tiemeier, Boston College
This paper looks at identity formation in the context of Asian American women’s negotiations of self. I compare Rita Nakashima Brock and the ninth century Vaishnava poet-saint, Andal, on self, focusing on the nexus between race and gender identity. I briefly trace the development of Brock’s thought, paying special attention to how Brock’s reflections on Asian American and female identity construction develop her notion of self. I then move to Andal, looking at possible analogues. My examination of Andal’s songs provides a bodily way of thinking of self that can enrich and develop Brock’s “interstitial integrity,” a term describing the way Asian American women have tended to navigate their multiple worlds and perspectives. Finally, I reflect on the significance of this study from my own perspective as a mixed Japanese American Catholic feminist.
A21-114
Black Theology Group
Theme: Renewed Conversation: A Meeting of Black and Process Theologies
There is little contemporary conversation between process and black theologies. This silence causes one to ask: Are they incompatible? Or are they disinterested in one another? In 1990, the journal “Process Studies,” hosted a published conversation. Discussions between them were typified by language of compatibility, consistency and assessment. Theologians from each camp assessed one another and arrived at various, often contradictory, answers. Since that time, the published merging or divergences between black and process theologies have been sporadic and individual. Yet, in the last fifteen years, both black and process theologies have evolved. This panel represents a renewed conversation between black and process theologies from the perspective of identified black religious scholars, asking: Are black and process theologies compatible now? How will the combination change the ways in which we do black theology, or transform process theologies? Or should we take an entirely different approach in 21st century black theologies?
A21-115
Comparative Studies in Hinduisms and Judaisms Group
Theme: Death and Dying in Hindu and Jewish Traditions
Funeral Hymn (Sukta) Connected with Death Given in the Rgveda: A Study
T. S. Rukmani, Concordia University
This paper addresses the question of the rituals connected with the phenomenon of Death amongst Vedic Hindus.
Even today some of the mantras uttered at the time of the funeral ceremony go back to the funeral hymn/sukta X.16 of the RV. Thus there is a continuity maintained over thousands of years with the tradition. Apart from this continuity itself being of great interest,the many ideas contained in the funeral hymn are of added importance. Thus, in this hymn, there are suggestions for the development of a full blown karma theory , a belief in the travel of atman to an upper region or to earth in keeping with dharma, the suggestion of a moksa theory etc.Using material from the Vedas and the Classical Upanisads the paper tries to analyse the imagery of the funeral hymn for its possible contribution to the beliefs of the Hindus regarding the phenomenon of Death.
Death and Dying Rituals in Hindu Communities in Atlanta
Kyoko Murata, Georgia State University
The purpose of this paper is to determine how local Hindu American communities have maintained or adapted traditional death and dying rituals in metropolitan Atlanta.
Changes to the United States immigration laws in 1965 allowed South Asians, including Indians, to immigrate and create numerous communities across the nation as well as Atlanta. As the Hindu Indians settled into communities, the need to make modifications to their death and dying rituals such as dying in a hospital room, having a funeral ceremony including viewing and eulogy, and having to cremate the body in a crematorium became necessary. The issues of diaspora and assimilation are the main concerns of this study. Since there has been little documentation of Hindu communities in America, particularly Atlanta, this paper significantly adds to the information on how Hindu Indians have had to adapt their traditions to Western culture and society.
Taharah: Maavar Yabok and Purifying the Dead
Harlan J. Wechsler, Jewish Theological Seminary
Published in 1627, Rabbi Aharon Berekhyah of Modena's book Maavar Yabok (The Jabbok Crossing) became the most important Jewish source that describes post-mortem treatment of the body. The book provides an interesting confluence of both the legal traditions that extend back to the Talmud and new ideas that enter Judaism through the Zoharic kabbalah. I shall describe one post-death procedure: 'taharah,' purification, which involves washing the corpse with a quantity of water (nine kavs) in order to render it 'tahor,' pure. While ritual purity plays a prominent role in both the Bible and the Talmud, there is no procedure for purifying the body after death. Maavar Yabok introduces these practices into Judaism and they are followed until today. This paper will describe the purification with nine kavs of water and the new nature of body, soul and world which they reflect.
A Time to Mourn: A Comparative Analysis of Hindu and Jewish Mourning Practices
Ellen Posman, Baldwin-Wallace College
While Hindu and Jewish beliefs about the afterlife have little in common, their practices contain some similarities that may suggest some cross-cultural theories about the social and psychological uses of ritual. Some similarities include the purification of the corpse, the amount of time assigned to the mourning process, the specific times assigned for certain rites, the requirement of community involvement, and legalism in general regarding mourning.
It is not simply that the scheduling and legal requirements are similar; in fact, some are definitively not. But this paper argues that the similar aspects have a similar psychological and sociological origin, and also entertains the notion of a historical origin. Meanwhile, differences will not be ignored. Such differences as cremation versus burial will be examined with an eye toward theological, cultural, and historic differences that relate to the origins and meanings behind such practices.
A21-116
Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group
Theme: Riding the Margins: The Performance of Queer Religious Identities
Why Are There So Many Gay Mormon Websites?
John-Charles Duffy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Though playfully posed, this is not a facetious question. Given the LDS Church's doctrinal and political opposition to homosexual behavior, to claim to be 'gay Mormon' is extraordinarily problematic. Yet individuals and organizations lay claim to a variety of gay Mormon identities, as exemplified by a dizzying array of websites: GayMormon.com, GayMormonStories.com, GayLDS.com, GayLDS.net, Gay LDS Young Adults, Gay Returned Missionaries, Gay Mormon Fathers, Gay and Lesbian Mormons, and not one but two schismatic gay Mormon churches. One reason there are so many gay Mormon websites is that there are various ways to be gay Mormon: more specifically, various strategies by which gay-identified individuals (overwhelmingly men) legitimate a claim to Mormon identity. In addition to identifying those strategies, I examine the rhetorical functions of gay Mormon identity--that is, what gay men communicate or accomplish by identifying as 'gay Mormon.'
Queer Muslims: Coming Out to Creator
Vanja Hamzic, International Initiative for Visibility of Queer Muslims
The presentation reflects various stands of the queer Muslims in regards to their faith, such as:
- Infalliable word of God from queer perspective: Islam is (not) the 'straight path'
- Islam supports individuality
- Muslim and queer: Sexuality, sexual diversity and sexual perversity in Qur'an
- Prophet Muhammad (saws) and the mukhannath
- Qur'an on gender-neutral 'spouses'
- Story of Nabi Lut (again!)
- Queer Muslim relationships in the past
- Queer Muslim communities worldwide today
Information on historical and current state of queer Musims in the following countries / regions is also provided:
- Bosnia / South Eastern Europe
- Lebanon / Levant
Presenter will also talk about the IIVQM (International Initiative for Visibility of Queer Muslims), its foundation, goals and activities.
Queering the Other: The Homosexual and the Jew in Nineteenth-Century Thought
Steven Lapidus, Concordia University
Scholars have observed that an important nexus for modern European nationalism and respectability was in the arena of sexual health, rigidly-defined gender roles and a clear sex-based division of labour. As national health became equated with social conformity and homogeneity, the greatest menaces to respectability were the outsiders — Jews, and the sexually unhealthy — homosexuals, and Jews, again. Further reinforcing the otherness of Jews and homosexuals was the commonly-held belief that sexual health was plainly visible in physicality and bodily health. Thus, was the distinction between normal and abnormal medicalized, thus elevating the otherness of Jews and homosexuals to the status of concrete and objective knowledge. I intend to examine the parallels of the thought and imagery of both of these groups within the context of European nationalism and illuminate how the process of differentiation, of othering, created similar experiences of discrimination.
Being Queer and Normal at the Same Time? Gay Men in Liturgical and Performing Arts
Dugan McGinley, Temple University
I hope to lay the groundwork for a meaningful conversation on a number of intersecting issues related to the appeal of the liturgical and performing arts for many gay men and their involvement in producing these aesthetic experiences for a mostly heterosexually-identified public. What are the ramifications and implications of this involvement in terms of both the maintenance and subversion of traditional sexual ethics? This is linked to overlapping and competing desires: the desire for a radically altered reality in which sexual difference is celebrated and a desire for all of the comforts and trappings associated with that which is now considered “normative.” In this paradigm, gay involvement in the performing and liturgical arts reflects the way gay men “hide in plain sight” in their daily lives by constructing an aesthetic world in which one can be queer and normal at the same time.
A21-117
Native Traditions in the Americas Group
Theme: Rethinking Analytical Conventions for Native Traditions
A Critical Analysis of Western Healing Practices in Comparison to Indigenous Healing
Marilyn Notah, University of California, Santa Barbara
Western methods of healing can breed alienation, separation, and individualism. By contrast, American Indian healing practices emphasize community. This paper offers a critique of certain practices and assumptions of Western medicine through a consideration of specific indigenous healing practice.
The Rhetoric of Confusion: “Shamanism,” Eliade, and the New Age
Brian Clearwater, University of California, Santa Barbara
This paper examines “shamanism” as a scholarly construct that utilizes racial otherness to categorize behavior deemed bizarre by Western researchers. “Neo-shamanism” is the contemporary phenomenon that reifies the academic analysis of indigenous “shamanism.” Experimenting with the techniques and instruments of “shamans” in a New Age context often yields results offensive to native practitioners. This paper then argues that Religious Studies plays a crucial part in New Age invention, supplying grist for the mill, and that reckoning with that reality has serious implications for how the study of religion is done.
Native American “Religion”: A Reassessment and a Constructive Proposal
Zachary Simpson, Claremont Graduate University
In this paper I seek to undermine a traditional understanding of Native religion using the dual examples of Navaho religion and Heidegger’s critique of Western ontology. Negatively, Navaho religion should be seen as developing an alternative ontology with respect to the Western tradition, one which transforms the meaning and nature of religious life itself for the Native participant. As a constructive proposal, I seek to show that Navaho religion constitutes a “lifeway,” one in which religious claims are mutually reinforcing with respect to language, culture, and a highly advanced mythology, and, possibly, one which sees life as art itself, or as the vehicle for aesthetic transformation.
Native American Epistemology of Religion and Vine Deloria, Jr.
Enrique Maestas, Flatonia, TX
The paper reviews the work of Vine Deloria, Jr. as one of the pre-eminent scholars who has engaged Western analytical conventions through critical inquiry and created a dialogic relation with his particular understanding of Native American philosophy, religion, and society. Including recent correspondence with Vine Deloria, Jr., I plan to include personal communication as a way of clarifying the present and future directions of his scholarship. I am particularly interested in the ways that Dr. Deloria’s early deconstruction of Christian epistemological primacy in representing “reality” developed into a general challenge to Western religious and philosophical tenets when evaluated within a Native American frame of reference. In addition to presenting a chronological review of his work as a cornerstone of Native American studies, I will discuss the implications that Vine Deloria, Jr.’s work has for general questions of religious history and philosophy, both within secular and theological paradigms.
A21-118
Person, Culture, and Religion Group
Theme: The Psychology of Anomalous Experience and the Nonunitary Self
Henri Bergson and William James on Paranormal Experiences and the Multi-Dimensional Self
G. William Barnard, Southern Methodist University
Henri Bergson and William James on Paranormal Experiences and the Multi-Dimensional Self
This paper articulates just how deeply William James and Henri Bergson were fascinated with, and influenced by, research on paranormal phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, mediumship, trance states, hallucinations, and so on. It begins by noting how both James and Bergson attempted to convince the scientific establishment that “psychical research” was a legitimate and necessary investigation. The paper then notes how James and Bergson used the data from psychical research to challenge mechanistic models of reality. The paper ends by providing an overview of several models of selfhood,consciousness, and reality articulated by James and Bergson – models that emerged out of, and responded to, the findings of psychical research.
Spirit Possession, Shin-Byung, and the Restoration of the Self in Korean Shamanism
Jaesung Ha, Vanderbilt University
Regardless of its religious implications, spirit possession has attracted attention from many disciplines. Freud diagnoses possession and concurrent symptoms as ‘a neurotic fantasy.’ Jung, in contrast, attributes the possessional symptoms to the sway of the forces of collective unconscious without proper subjugation by the ego. Shin-byung, a Korean culture-bound syndrome in DSM-IV, demonstrates medically ‘untreatable’ psychosomatic symptoms, which is a typical qualification for shamans. Through the initiation ceremony, the person becomes cured with a new identity as a shaman. In a self-psychological perspective, the process of healing in the ceremony is a treatment of the fragmented self. During the ceremony, the person is ultimately respected as a new god-carrier by the surrounding professional shamans and is encouraged to find compensation for the self. The match between the self-psychological interpretation and the psychosomatic phenomenon is strong, but a possibility that the shaman’s self is affected by socio-cultural misogyny is still open.
Intersubjectivity, Infantile Helplessness, and Occultism: Non-Ordinary Experience in the Dialogue between Freud and Jung
Felicity Brock Kelcourse, Christian Theological Seminary
The theme of non-ordinary experience, as found in memories of infantile helplessness, the occult, and other aspects of human subjectivity, appears as a source of both fear and fascination in the dialogue between Freud and Jung as documented in their correspondence (McGuire, Ed., 1979). Their intersubjective attraction and conflict on this subject can be understood in relation to the foundations of subjectivity suggested by their families of origin. This approach also suggests possible explanations for their differences on the subject of religion. I hope to shed light on some of the controversies that separate proponents of psychoanalytic thinking from Jungians to this day. Each perspective presents promise and pitfalls for describing and better understanding the non-verbal foundations of human subjectivity. Non-ordinary experience became an intersubjective point of contention in the Freud/Jung dialogues precisely because it contained elements of each man's experience that were both longed for and feared.
Psychology, Neurology, and Their Attempt to Dismiss Mystical Experiences: Should They Succeed?
Andrea Mundis, Drew Theological School
This paper will examine the manner in which psychology and neurology have endeavored to explain mystical experiences through natural means. The first portion deals with the similarities between mystical experiences and symptoms of psychological and neurological disorders. Following this general introduction, the specific psychological theories of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Horney, and Merkur and the neurological theories of Mandell, Tart, and Pribram will be explored. These attempts at giving mystical experiences natural causes have found their way into the writing of those who study mystical writings, such as Karen Armstrong. The final portion of the paper will examine mystical experiences in contemporary media, demonstrating that mystical experiences are still prevalent in today’s world. While natural explanations tend to demystify these experiences, this paper argues that mystical experiences, whether they can be explained naturally or not, have validity and importance in religious and theological discourse in both the past and present.
A21-119
Religion and Popular Culture Group and Animals and Religion Consultation
Theme: Religious Responses to Cultural Changes and Other Animals
As culture shifts, so do religious symbols, rituals, practices, beliefs, and stories. This panel investigates the ongoing dialogue in religious communities prompted by changes in popular culture and views of animals. The cultural sweep is broad, from contemporary North American and European societies to 18th century Japanese culture to precontact Native American cultures. All four panelists deal directly with the influence of popular culture on religion, and of religion on popular culture, at these different points in time and from varying cultural perspectives. Specific topics are: the fox in early modern Japanese religious culture, dog shows in contemporary North America, animals in the art and religion of precontact Illinois, and religious responses to today’s cultural ferment on ‘The Animal Issue’”.
A21-121
Ritual Studies Group
Theme: Performance and Change in Civic and Sacred Rites
Conflicts on Appropriate Ritual Procedures in a South Indian Vishnu Temple
Ute Huesken, University of Heidelberg
The case study investigates the conflicts over ritual performances within a South Indian Hindu temple in the small town of Kancipuram. These conflicts are more often that not taken to court by the rivalling parties or individuals. It will be shown that these disputes clearly refer to the realm beyond the narrow ritual context. The 'ritual shares' are highly valued by the participants who try to establish the 'correct ritual procedure' at court. These shares can be perceived of as ‘intellectual property’ which also contributes enormously to individual and group identity within the temple context. Only on the basis of this conception of ‘ritual as intellectual property’ and at the same time as an essential part of the participants' identity, are some features of the conflicts within the Varadaraja temple intelligible, which seem to be trivial if one presupposes a solely material notion of property.
Civil Religion and Public Ritual in Lutherstadt Wittenberg
Barry Stephenson, Wilfrid Laurier University
This paper is based on field study of two annual Reformation festivals held in Wittenberg, Germany. After a brief reception history of the figure of Luther as represented in material culture and cultural performances, I turn to the contemporary festivals, examining their role in shaping various kinds of identities. In the Wittenberg festivals a political, patriotic, and nationalist civil religion exists alongside and is intertwined with a specifically public and internationalist Lutheran, Protestant context. By paying close attention to public, performed events such as the Wittenberg festivals, we can we can better identify, analyze and, if necessary, criticize the kinds of negotiations taking place across and within national, regional, and civic groups on the one hand and religious groups with a global presence on the other.
Authority and Improvisation in Tibetan Buddhist Ritual Manuals: Tools, Symbols, and Literalism in Text and Performance
Sarah Haynes, University of Calgary
My paper examines the function of ritual manuals in Tibetan Buddhist ritual. The performance of most Tibetan Buddhist rituals is characterized by the outcome. The ritual text serves as a tool for the transformation of the practitioner’s worldview, in particular, sâdhana provide instructions for the meditator by describing the deity and attributes they embody. A method for realizing the true nature of reality as symbolized through the deity is thus provided. Authority in ritual manuals and performances is obtained through literalism, which is a key factor in their success. Anew understanding of the nature of reality is dependent upon the words of and performance of the text and the placement of authority. The role of improvisation in the use of Tibetan Buddhist ritual manuals and how this affects the placement of authority in light of literalism will also be addressed.
The Ritual (Re)Creation of the Ancient City
Jacob Latham, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Ritual (re) Creation of the Ancient City
In the ancient world, cities were founded by a complex series of consecration and divinatory rites. However, the city, or at least a certain image of the city, was continually re-created and re-founded through public rituals, most notably, ritual processions, which forged a cognitive map of the city highlighting specific people, institutions, and even pathways through the city. For example, the ancient pompa circensis—the procession opening the games held in the Circus Maximus at Rome—fashion an idealized image, thus also an ideal civic identity, of Rome and disseminated that image to participants and spectators through its dramatic enactment. Thus rituals procession were creative performances that (re) produced the city, but that could also change the city, as the ritual changed.
A21-122
Scriptural Reasoning Group
Theme: Prophecy Heard and Not Heard
The session will consider the theme of 'prophecy heard and not heard' in Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures. How do prophets relate to their communities/societies? What do texts about prophecy and its reception AND lack of reception suggest to contemporary readers about how to interpret the signs of God in the world? The session is designed to reflect, and to allow participation in, ongoing conversations between the Abrahamic traditions focused around the reading of scripture. The speakers will briefly introduce specific texts from their traditions, with comments on the texts' interpretive history and importance for contemporary thought and practice. Most of the session will be conducted in facilitated discussion groups, in which all are encouraged to participate, working closely on the texts presented by the speakers.
A21-123
Wesleyan Studies Group
Theme: Methodism in Eastern Europe: Renewing the Heritage
This panel will focus on ST Kimbrough's book, 'Methodism in Russia and the Baltic States: History and Renewal.'
A21-124
Sacred Space in Contemporary Asia Consultation
Theme: Map and Reality
This panel examines the ideal mappings and superimpositions of sacred models onto local landscapes. Whether in Tibet, China, Korea or Japan, the physical and ideological contours of specific sites are constantly subject to shifts and reconfigurations of meaning. This panel explores how the significance of these boundaries may figure in the differing perspectives of pilgrims, tourists, scholars, shamans and priests, the local communities, national governments and international agencies such as UNESCO. As small local shrines and famous World Heritage sites in Asia are claimed and reclaimed as spaces for spiritual fulfillment, specific ethnic agendas, economic revenue, political posturing and orientalist voyeurism, one is compelled to ask 'what constitutes an authentic sacred space in Asia today and who decides?'
Auspicious Places in a Mobile Landscape: Of Shamans, Shrines, and Dreams
Laurel Kendall, American Museum of Natural History
Drawing on the work of Michel de Certeau, David Harvey, Pierre Nora, and the insights of landscape anthropologists, I contrast the monumental reconstruction of Seoul’s old city center with the flowering of commercial shaman shrines (called kuttang) on its periphery. The shrines lead a precarious existence, threatened by complaining neighbors and urban development schemes. When they are forced to relocate to new locations, the spirits themselves may indicate new sites through dreams and visions. In de Certeau’s scheme, these are the “superstitions” that muddle and confound a totalizing city plan as popular imagination keeps alive small but fantastic acts of resistance. The paper ends with a description of the Kuksadang, a shrine that bridges the polarities of my discussion: a structure designated as a national monument that is, simultaneously, a functioning kuttang. Here, monumentality abides uncomfortably with living religious practices, threatening to consume them.
Ris-Med (Non-Sectarian) Sacred Geography: Religious Authority and the Regional Unification in Nineteenth-Century Khams (Eastern Tibet)
Alexander Gardner, University of Michigan
In the nineteenth century, in the Sino-Tibetan border region known as Khams three religious leaders conceived of a system of sacred geography that mapped their previously ambiguous territory in such a way as to prevent its absorption into either Tibet or the Qing Empire. As part of a larger project of non-sectarianism (ris-med) they created a narrative map of sacred sites linking representatives of all religious institutions within Khams. This narrative map was presented in two separate texts produced ten years apart. Read together these texts reveal two differing aspects of Tibetan sacred geography, one personal and one geopolitical.
Two Temples, Three Religions, and Tourist Attractions: Contesting the Sacred Space at the Sino-Tibetan Border
Xiaofei Kang, St. Mary's College of Maryland
Huanglong is a multi-ethnic pilgrimage center in the Sino-Tibetan borderland. In 1992 it was named a World Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO and became a major tourist attraction in China. This paper studies the controversy over Huanglong’s two major temples in the interaction of contemporary religious revival and tourist development. One is an officially managed Daoist temple that draws Han Chinese, Tibetan and Qiang pilgrims. The other is a Chinese Buddhist temple that was abruptly renovated by the Management Office as a Tibetan Bon temple against the wishes of both the local Han Chinese and Tibetan Bon authorities. As the Management Office seeks to incorporate local religious initiatives, ethnic culture and UNESCO’s eco-tourist policies, it competes with Han Chinese, Tibetan pilgrims, Daoist and Bon priests to redistribute natural, financial and cultural resources. Each group contests the ownership of the temples to redefine its own place in the fast-changing, market-driven world.
From the Dual Mandala to World Heritage: Mount Ômine’s Emergence as a Hotspot on Global Tourist-Pilgrims’ Itineraries
Mark McGuire, Cornell University
This presentation is based upon historical research and fieldwork in Japan’s Kii Peninsula among ascetics whose sacred mountain (Mount Ômine) UNESCO designated a World Heritage site in June 2004. I assess the environmental and human impact of Ômine’s designation, examining how global notions of cultural heritage, sacred space, and gender politics interact with local and national Japanese understandings. The aura of World Heritage has made Ômine a hot spot for global tourist-pilgrims, but this overlay of borrowed cosmology is only the latest in a centuries-old project whereby political, religious and commercial stakeholders narrativize sacred space, religious experience, and hope to create networks of spiritual and political power. I query whether and to what extent knowledge of the ninth century ritual superimposition of the Dual Diamond-Womb mandala swayed UNESCO to include Mt. Ômine’s ascetic training grounds in the Kii Peninsula designation despite the absence of contiguous site maps and historical evidence.
A21-129
Reformed Theology and History Group
Theme: "Reconciled Memory": Book Review Session with Miroslav Volf
The recent work of Miroslav Volf draws on his experiences in Croatia in order to examine systematically the prospect for a redemption of memory. This panel reviews Volf's new book in this area; Volf will respond.
A21-125
Plenary Address
Theme: Plenary Panel: The Future of Religion in the West: Perspectives
This panel will use David Martin's plenary address as the point of departure for reflections on the prospects of "organized" religion in the twenty-first century. This involves an appraisal of the current state of religions so as to propose conjectures for future developments. The appraisal will need to focus on such topics as globalization, inculturation, secularization. The panelists reflect a variety of specializations and perspectives. Panelists include: Sarah Coakley, Harvard University; Peter J. Paris, Princeton Theological Seminary; Julius Schoeps, Potsdam University; Teresa Berger, Duke University; and Vincent J. Cornell, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
A21-126
Arts Series/Films: Left Behind: The Movie
Left Behind: The Movie
Directed by Vic Sarin, 2000, PG-13 rated
This is the first of two movie adaptations of the bestselling Left Behind books (by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins), which offer a fictional account of what will happen to those who have been “left behind” on earth after the Rapture. The novels and films are an explicit attempt to create an appealing fictional vehicle to deliver the very specific dispensationationalist end-times doctrine that co-creator Tim LaHaye has been promulgating within the fundamentalist subculture for many years. For this reason, many aspects of the story are relatively inaccessible to those outside the fold of evangelicalism. In this film, a number of airline passengers mysteriously disappear during a flight to London. A television journalist seeks to connect these and other disappearances with an international conspiracy.
A21-127
Arts Series/Films: The Magdalene Sisters
"The Magdalene Sisters" is a fact-based account of three young Irish women who were imprisoned in a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin in 1964. The original purpose of the ten Magdalene Laundries that were established in Ireland in the 19th century was to reform prostitutes. Women were imprisoned by the State and Church and expected to do penance for their sins through hard work and prayer. By 1930, instead of being populated by former prostitutes, Ireland's Magdalene Laundries were occupied primarily by unwed mothers whose families had rejected them. An estimated 30,000 Irish women were detained in the Laundries during the 20th century, until the last one closed in 1996, and were used as a slave labor force, working from dawn until dusk to turn a profit for the Order that administered the Laundries.
A22-2
Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Section
Theme: An Elephant Ain't Always an Elephant: The Importance of Cultural Context in Teaching
Whether you are teaching Islam in America, theology in the South Pacific, or bringing personal narrative into the classroom, where you stand determines what you see. These papers explore these particular topics and more on this theme.
Theological Education in South Pacific Cultures
Joseph E. Bush, United Theological Seminary the Twin Cities
Four cultural characteristics in the South Pacific shape theological education in an Oceanic context. First, a Pacific conception of time locates the present in continuity with the past and is less directed toward the future; this has implications for teaching curricular areas that emphasize goal-setting (e.g. church administration, religious education). Second, encouragement of interpersonal harmony presents challenges both (a) pedagogically for the conduct of class discussions and (b) epistemologically regarding research that tests the validity of opinion. Third, patriarchy affects theological education of women (e.g. access to resources, recognition of authority, and negotiation of traditional roles). Fourth, the individual self is de-emphasized in favor of community; this has implications for (a) teaching pastoral care directed toward groups rather than individuals, (b) spiritual formation focusing on communal rather than private experience, (c) contextualizing theological instruction to be less focused on individual salvation, and (d) articulating ethics for nation-building respectful of diversity.
When Life Gives You Beets, Make Borscht: On Almost Teaching Religious Studies in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe
Michael F. Strmiska, Central Connecticut State University
As a Fulbright Fellow Lecturer in the Eastern European country of Lithuania during the academic year of 2004/05, the author experienced both rewarding moments of cross-cultural, pedagogical triumph and darker times of disappointment and defeat in attempting to introduce “Religious Studies” as an interdisciplinary, comparative, subject area. This presentation will reflect on the reasons for both the successes and failures that the author experienced. A key topic will be the multi-dimensional problem of explaining and promoting the concept of “Religious Studies” as something separate from “Christian Theology” in a country strongly influenced both by decades of harsh Soviet oppression and a past history of conservative Catholicism. Other topics will be the logistical and bureaucratic hurdles presented by a financially-strapped university with limited facilities, turf-conscious teachers and administrators, along with the pleasure of teaching gifted, hard-working students with sincere curiosity about the world outside Lithuania.
"It Fulfills My Requiremen": Strategies of Passionate Teaching to Dispassionate Students
June-Ann Greeley, Sacred Heart University
Instructors of Religious Studies have committed themselves to be advocates for an extraordinary discipline of study and scholarship, the subject matter of which is, many believe, to be at teh very core of the human condition: to be humanis indeed to be 'homines religiosi.' However, there is not always reciprocity from students towards such passionate advocacy, and instructors toil as much as teach before classrooms filled often with students who are present essentially to fulfill core requirements or complete a Humanities elective. Professorial enthusiasm is met with student indifference, sometimes hostility, and thus questions of student engagement and student learning arise. This paper will attempt to address the several issues of alternative pedagogies, enhancing student investment in the discipline of religion, and confronting the emotional obstacles students find and students bring to those courses in Religious Studies that topically seem to them more controversial or personally challenging.
Teaching “Islam in America": Essentialism, Race, and Politics
Juliane Hammer, Elon University
Teaching a course on Islam in America offers the chance to teach an unfamiliar religion in a familiar context, the United States. It can also be the only course college students ever take on Islam or in Religious Studies. One of the challenges is to address questions related to the relationship, history and identities of African-American and immigrant Muslims. How do notions about race relations, African-American identity and religious pluralism shape the approaches of students? Who decides which Islam is normative? How can students learn about Islam “in general” vs. the particular American expressions, without essentializing either one? These questions are approached from various directions, reflecting on the experiences of a new instructor, and including questions such as insider-outsider issues and the choice of reading materials, which puts the paper into the larger context of debates about authenticity, representation and research as well as political agendas.
A22-3
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Sacramental Arts
Sacramental Sound: Theological Aesthetics in a Musical Mode
Frank Burch Brown, Christian Theological Seminary
In recent works on religion and music, Albert Blackwell and Jeremy Begbie counteract the tendency of scholars to concentrate on words even when supposedly discussing music. Yet there is a musical quality to words themselves as spoken or chanted, as Guy Beck demonstrates in Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound (1993). And the link between music and text is ancient and persistent, as is the link between word and sign in sacrament. Accordingly, this paper examines the interrelationship between words and music, between cultural context and musical subtext, in creating conditions under which music can be heard as sacramental, in the broad sense. This opens up a pluralistic approach to both music and sacrament.
Musical examples include spiritual minimalists as well as maximalists, from Monteverdi to Philip Glass, John Tavener, and Arvo Pärt; excerpts from popular soundtracks of Blue Crush and O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Bordering on the Unsayable: George Steiner and Søren Kierkegaard on Music, Language, and Sacrament
Steven Shakespeare, Liverpool Hope University
This paper takes as its starting point George Steiner's assertion that the experience of music is central to what it means to be human - and therefore to human access to the transcendent. It brings his work together with that of Kierkegaard, whose early texts explictly treat the nature and limits of aesthetic production. Kierkegaard's writing on music (via a pseudonym) leads him to undermine the seemingly stable border between language and music. It is argued that both Steiner and Kierkegaard offer resources for a sacramental theology which is not reliant on certain narrow models of linguistic meaning influential in contemporary theology. Following a critique of the pretensions of postliberal and narrative contributions, constructive proposals are offered for a way of doing theology which takes serously embodiment, sensuality and the limits of the sayable.
Painting as Sacrament: An Examination of the Aesthetics and Sacramental Theology of Salvador Dalí in the 1950s
Paul Myhre, Wabash Center
This paper will examine the sacramental theology of Salvador Dalí evident in his works executed between 1950 and 1960. During this period, Dalí's developing mystical Christology found expression in several paintings focused on Sacramental themes. The paper explores the roots of Dalí's sacramental theology in his interpretation of Roman Catholic teaching about sacraments and sacramentals, conceptions of mystical Christology rooted in discoveries about DNA and nuclear fission, influence of Teilhard De Chardin's writings, evolution of his philosophy of art which he called “Nuclear Mysticism”, and formation of his visually based Sacramental theology. Particular attention is given to two paintings created during the 1950s: The Madonna of Port Lligat (1950) and the Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955).
The Eucharist and Body Modification: The Aesthetics of Brokenness
Brannon Hancock, University of Glasgow
This paper examines the aesthetics of brokenness in relation to Christian eucharistic practice and the secular rituals of the body modification subculture. Resonating with Christ’s sacrificial body, body modifiers undertake various transformations of their bodies through such processes as tattooing, piercing, and scarification which are considered life-long body projects. In both the eucharistic community and the body modification subculture, the prioritization of the broken body results in an aesthetic that inverts and subverts societally-conditioned notions of beauty and instead holds as beautiful the body wounded, bloodied, in pain, suspended and otherwise modified from its original condition. But while the breaking of the body serves primarily individualistic purposes for body modifiers, the purpose of Christ’s broken body is wholly communal – the redemption of all mankind and the hope of resurrection and life everlasting. An aesthetic of brokenness needs to be followed by the practice of givenness intrinsic to the eucharist.
A22-4
Buddhism Section
Theme: New Persectives on the Awakening of Faith
There are many respected specialists in East Asian Buddhism whom, if asked to name the singlemost influential text in terms of the development of the practical and soteriological models of East Asian Buddhism, will tender the name of the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith [AMF]. Yet despite the preeminence of the AMF in the tradition, Western scholarship has still done relatively little to investigate and articulate the wide range of interesting and problematic issues involved with the text — especially in comparison with the large volume of previous and presently ongoing work on the treatise that has been produced in Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan. Therefore, this group paper proposal is intended to be a first step towards reopening scholarly discussion on the text. In doing so, we will offer five solid papers, which will offer a perspective on the breadth of issues that can be treated in the text.
Trends in Modern Day Research on the Dasheng Qixin Lun in Japan, China, and Korea
Kosei Ishii, Komazawa Junior College
While the Awakening of Faith [AF] has long been known for its seminal role in influencing the course of East Asian Buddhist views on soteriology, little attention has been paid to the context and impact of 'revivalist' studies of the text in East Asia. For example, the renewed study of the AF in all three countries during the modern era was closely intertwined with movements toward both modernization and nationalism. Yet the way that Buddhist studies in general, and the AF in particular was utilized in this way shows stark differences. In Japan, for instance, this entailed both Westernization and return to traditional roots. In China, the AF was valued anew as a creative Chinese work. And in Korea, the text became inextricably associated with the cultural hero Weonhyo. This paper explores the course of studies of the AF these three countries from this approach.
A Plan for the Past: The Role of Innate Perfection in the Awakening of Faith's Sinification of Buddhism
Alan Cole, Lewis and Clark College
The 6th century Awakening of Faith has been read for many things — its Chinese reconstruction of Indian Mahāyāna ideals, its insistence on the mutual pervasion of innate perfection and ordinary life, etc. — but little attention has been paid to the way the text attempts to own and redistribute authority and the entirety of tradition. Thus, this essay will argue that the text's insistence that the reader has a perfect form of tradition within themselves is to be read as part of this problematic of importing Buddhism from the distant and little understood land of India. In this light, the 'original enlightenment' (ben jue) that the text offers isn't a purely philosophic concern separate from its overall agenda of convincingly bringing Buddhism to China. Consequently, this essay will both clarify the Awakening of Faith's place in Chinese reconstruction of Indian Buddhism and explore its construction of authority and authenticity.
The Formulation of Exegetical Issues in the Introductory Sections of Early Qixin Lun Commentaries
Tao Jin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
This paper examines the introductory sections of early Qixin lun commentaries with the aim to study the little researched aspect of the Chinese Buddhist exegetical tradition, namely, the practice of writing commentaries. Situating these introductions in their larger historical context, the paper looks at the ways how early Qixin lun commentators explore the scripture's significance and present their understanding thereof: The paper examines commentators' various formulations of exegetical issues in breadth and depth, i.e., the breadth in the selection of exegetical issues and the depth demonstrated in the understanding, organization and presentation of these issues. Such formulations represent the process in which commentators compose their introductions and consequently also their commentaries and, in this sense, provide a unique perspective to the practice of writing exegesis in Qixin lun commentaries in particular and Chinese Buddhist commentaries in general.
A Comparison of Huiyuan's and Weonhyo's Approaches to the Problem of the Two Hindrances in the Awakening of Mahayana Faith
A. Charles Muller, Toyo Gakuen University
One aspect of the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith [AMF] that has not been paid sufficient scholarly attention in the West is the way its author attempted to articulate a tathāgatagarbha soteriological scheme through the skillful appropriation of preexistent Yogācāra terminology. This paper carries out a comparative analysis of the approaches taken in the explanation of this appropriation as seen in the first two of the 'three great commentaries' on the AMF--those by Huiyuan (523-592) and Weonhyo (617-686). The paper starts out by framing the general problematic of the respective Yogācāra/AMF interpretations of the implications of the two hindrances, showing precisely where Huiyuan's view influenced Weonhyo. Time permitting, we will move on to explore some other interesting examples of the variance and affinity on between these two commentaries, in respect to their general take on Yogācāra/tathāgatagarbha issues.
A22-5
Christian Systematic Theology Section
Theme: Abraham's Promise: The Thought of Michael Wyschogrod
Michael Wyschogrod has been called the most interesting and most astute
Jewish
> theologian writing today. His thought is characterized on the one hand by
> intellectual rigor, originality, and an eagerness to address hard
questions,
> and on the other by a profound commitment to the deep sources of Judaism
in the
> Bible and the rabbinic tradition. The result is a singular theological
vision
> that illuminates not only Judaism but Christianity and the contemporary
> cultural setting as well. This overview of Wyschogrod's work featuring
> presentations by Kendall Soulen on "The Achievement of Michael
Wyschogrod,"
> Michael Walzer on "Covenant and Body in the Thought of Michael Wyschogrod"
and
> Walter Lowe on "Michael Wyschogrod and the Task of Christian Systematic
> Theology" is occasioned by the publication of his Abraham's Promise:
Judaism
> and Jewish-Christian Relations (Eerdman's, 2004.)
A22-6
Comparative Studies in Religion Section
Theme: Current Research on the Afterlife
Most religious traditions have some ideas or dogmas on life after death. Since everyone will die and no one knows what will happen after death, this is an area of enduring fascination. It is hard to believe, but classical treatises on the topic, such as Ibn Sina’s Adhawiyyah Treatise on the Afterlife (from the eleventh century A.D.), are only now being translated into English (or any modern European language).
This paper panel will investigate current research on classical authors and their ideas of the Afterlife, including specific questions on reincarnation, transmigration of souls, the resurrection, the Last Judgement, and Heaven and Hell. The traditions to be considered include Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. The success of this panel is based on specific, detailed presentations from knowledgeable scholars, allowing the audience to arrive at a comparative analysis.
Soteriology, Music, and the Afterlife in Theistic Hinduism
Guy Beck, Tulane University
Hindu deity worship invariably includes devotional songs (kirtan) comprised of lyrics, melody, and rhythm performed according to a liturgical calendar. Based on research in North India, this paper examines the soteriological function of kirtan in two traditions of Krishna worship, Vallabha and Radhavallabha. Anticipating communion with God in the afterlife, kirtan participants are perhaps unaware of an underlying ritual process. The metrical structure and rhythm of kirtan is linked, this paper argues, to Vedic units of ritual time that accumulate “heavenly” merit for the sacrificer. Yet the soteriological process of music, outlined in ancient texts like Dattilam and Natya-Sastra, has been overlooked in later theistic music, where time is measured with cymbals and drums. Music in Hindu worship is thus fully comprehended as a soteriological process. Our analysis also points to new comparative issues such as the interrelation between meter, rhythm, and soteriology in other forms of theistic music.
Redefining Death in Mahayana Buddhism: The Antarabhava Sutra and the Deconstruction of Karma
Mark L. Blum, University at Albany
In early Indian Buddhism, the 'afterlife' was understood as leading to rebirth into a new social identity, and that identity as human, animal, god, hell-being, etc., was determined automatically as the result of one's karma. Some Buddhist schools also affirmed a short interval speculated to be 7 or 49 days in an 'intermediate state' between death and one's next birth. In all cases rebirth was repeated many times until the individual could attain Nirvana and become a buddha. As one generally cannot recall one's past identities, the time duration required for salvation led to Mahāyāna sutras frequently offering shortcuts, only possible when a person's karmic record is altered by extra-karmic forces. This paper explores one such scripture, the Antarābhava Sūtra (Sutra on the Intermediate State), which narrates an unusual doctrine of praxis and attainment in the state between death and birth, aided by a compassionate buddha and assisting bodhisattvas.
Nourished by the Divine Splendor: The Individual and the Afterlife in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah
Yechiel Shalom Goldberg, California State University, Long Beach
This paper presents a synthesis of kabbalistic ideas about the afterlife in the thirteenth century, showing how ideas of justice, reincarnation, resurrection, and messianism comprise elements in a coherent worldview that reflects the value that the kabbalists place on knowing their God through knowing themselves, knowledge which arises from study of the Torah. The basis for this synthesis is an examination of the ways in which a number of kabbalists create literary and conceptual juxtapositions between mystical ascents undertaken by living individuals and the ascent of the soul after death. This creates a parallelism between these two ascents through the divine pleroma, such that the ascent in life determines the contours of the journey that the same individual will experience after death. Rabbinic conceptions of the afterlife are transformed by the kabbalistic vision of the individual attainment of theosophic wisdom and mystical union through the study and practice of Torah.
An Eleventh-Century Islamic Perspective on the Afterlife: Ibn Sina’s Thoughts on the Ma‘ad (Return)
Kiki Kennedy-Day, Rutgers University
Ibn Sina presents an alternative theory for the afterlife compatible with Qur’anic revelations. It includes an indeterminate spiritual survival and experiencing God with the intellect (‘aql). Although theologians decided the orthodox doctrine of the afterlife meant the resurrection of a physical body to rejoin the soul and enjoy or suffer physical delights, pleasures or torments and punishments–the Qur’an itself reveals no such scenario. From the earliest days of Islam even the question of the nature of a human being was widely discussed: the Atomists believed the body was comprised solely of atoms and accidents which inhered in them. Others debated such literal questions as whether the same body resurrected as that which died? at what age? in what condition?
Theologians did not flinch from following their ideas to their logical end, demonstrating an awareness of implications. Ibn Sina’s position avoids these pitfalls while offering a theory compatible with Islamic revelation.
A22-7
History of Christianity Section
Theme: East Meets West: Intra-Christian Tensions and Relationships
Comos and Communion: The Orthodox and the Other in Thirteenth-Century Central Asia
Jennifer C. Lane, Brigham Young University, Hawaii
A fascinating case study of the tension between alliance and alienation among Christians is found in Central Asia the mid-thirteenth century. In the middle of an alien and foreign people, different Christian groups negotiated their relationship with each other largely in terms of ritual purity. The Franciscan William of Rubruck observed how the Orthodox Christians refused to drink the Mongols’ comos (qumiz), fermented mare’s milk, believing it prevented them from being saved. The “Nestorians” did partake, and, seemingly in response to the way they are seen by the Orthodox, refused to be in communion with them. In these networks of inter-Christian relationships we can see how the Orthodox Christians’ views on this were rejected by William of Rubruck, while at the same time he was willing to be in communion with them. The otherness of other Christians, was, in large part, overcome by the “Other” among which they all lived.
An Overview of the Tensions Related to Mixed Matrimony in Transylvania during the Eighteenth–Twentieth Centuries
Korinna Zamfir, Babes-Bolyai University
The paper presents the evolution of ecclesiastic and civil legislation, and specific conflicts related to Catholic-Protestant marriages in Transylvania (Romania).
In the 18th century Rome suggested that Protestant marriages were invalid, because of conditional wedding formula. This allowed previously married Protestants to remarry in the Catholic Church, but society considered them bigamous. Catholic bishop Zsigmond Sztoyka sent Rome an Information, sustaining validity of Protestant marriages.
Conflicts were caused by the compulsory promiss (“reversal”) Protestants had to make while marrying a Catholic, agreeing to all the children being baptised Catholic. Nineteenth century civil legislation abrogated the reversal, and stipulated that baptism had to follow the religion of the same-sex parent. Because of this many lawsuits were initiated against Catholic priests.
According to Romanian legislation the father decided about the religion of the children. Twentieth century Catholic and Protestant legislation shows that both severely sanctioned non-compliant faithful. Conflicts persist until present time.
Denomination and Ethnic Affiliation in East Central Europe: Past and Present
István Keul, Free University of Berlin
Denomination and Ethnic Affiliation in East Central Europe: Past and Present
For centuries Transylvania has been a multiethnic and multidenominational region, and the religious and ethnic affiliations of its population have generally coincided over long periods of time, e. g.: Rumanians were Orthodox until the 18th century, after that Orthodox or Greek Catholic. Hungarians belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, after Reformation to the Catholic, Calvinist or Unitarian Churches. However, it would be going too far to assume a complete congruence between ethnicity and denomination at any given moment of the region's modern history. In fact there were different patterns of religious, ethnic and linguistic group formation, mixture and differentiation, patterns which continue to exist even today. The paper deals with examples of rather unusual constellations of ethnic and denominational affiliations in East Central Europe.
Western Christianity as Other: The Discourse of "Latinism" in Russian History
Brian P. Bennett, Niagara University
The West has often construed Russia in simplistic and condescending terms--as despotic, backward, and so on. Not surprisingly, Russia has produced equally censorious classifications of the West. This paper looks at the discourse of Latinstvo (“Latinism'), a complex expression that begins with language but widens out to entail confessional and civilizational meanings. Latinstvo is the inimical Other, threatening Orthodox Russia with everything from venereal disease to the soul-sickening effects of Romanish rationalism. The paper sketches some of the forms and transformations of this “Occidentalist” discourse throughout Russian history.
The Internalized Other: Narrative Constructions of Ethnicity among American-Born Converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Amy A. Slagle, University of Pittsburgh
This paper is an ethnographic survey of narrative constructions of self/other as they relate to 'convert' and 'ethnic' Orthodox identities among contemporary American-born converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which has experienced a well-documented rise in conversions in the last two decades. Specifically, this study is an analysis of oral histories collected from converts affiliated with Orthodox Church in America parishes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Central to this paper is the view that wider societal and academic views of Orthodoxy as an iconic and mystical Christian 'other' shape convert views of self/other. The tropes, images, and morphological patterns of these oral conversion narratives are analyzed in an attempt to discern how a kind of 'orientalism' is fomented in contemporary American Eastern Orthodoxy.
A22-8
North American Religions Section
Theme: Sex, Fear, and Loathing
The Fear of Sex: Evangelical Protestants, Adolescents, and the Pro-Family Movement in Late Twentieth-Century American Culture
Amy Sitar, Princeton University
As James Kincaid has argued, theoretically speaking, the “teen” is an unstable signifier that anchors and stabilizes what came before—childhood—and after—adulthood. In Protestant evangelical discourse of the late twentieth century teens occupied a liminal netherworld—they stood on the borderlands between the happy, obedient children they once were and their god-like parents; neither one nor the other, American evangelical teens soaked in the fears and frustrations of both. The discourse of sexual abstinence, I argue, portrayed adolescents as unrecognizable others—the inner lives their Protestant parents took immense pride in shaping just five years ago were now inscrutable at best, impure at worst. At its simplest, the evangelical prescriptive literature I examine exemplified adolescents’ inscrutability through exclusive attention to the issue of sexuality. This paper examines the fears teenage sexuality engendered and the way they were mobilized in the pro-family movement of the late twentieth century.
Hate Made Flesh (and Cloth): Religious Hate Groups and the Creation of Identity through Dress
Kelly Baker, Florida State University
Uniforms were a distinctive feature of the 1920s Klan. The uniforms displayed the ideology and identity of the Klan. The uniforms mapped patriotism, chivalry, and Protestant Christianity on the wearer’s bodies. Today, their uniforms no longer hold such a prominent position for Klan members. Rather tattooing has become a fixture of many religious hate groups, including the Klan, Aryan Nation, and Neo-nazi skinheads. These contemporary hate groups mark the bodies on their members with swatiskas, burning crosses, “rahowa” signifying “race holy war,” and other haunting images and sayings. The members' bodies continue to display the ideology and the identity of their groups. Dress, which includes clothing,adornment, and body modification, demarcates group boundaries and makes members highly visible. This paper tracks how both the 1920s Klan and contemporary hate groups display their ideology and identity upon their members’ bodies through modes of dress. In other words, hate becomes flesh (and cloth).
Body Apocalyptic: Reading Evangelical Raptures, 666, and Resurrections in the Twentieth Century
Brian Froese, Canadian Mennonite University
The focus of this analysis is on evangelical understandings of the body through such concepts as the rapture, the mark of the beast, resurrection of the dead and heavenly reunions. Through an examination of popular evangelical writers since World War I, one finds that evangelical concepts of body in end-time literature went beyond inscribing the body with social anxieties, but that the body became the ground of evangelical religion. In a mixing of magical readings of the bible with a focus on the body, evangelical Christianity constructed a magical body-oriented cosmology. Such a reading of evangelical piety suggests that what appeared to be a concern with the sexuality and behavior of others was as much a concern for the stability of the cosmos where difference became a corrupting power capable of ending time. That is, the status of the body directly influenced powerfully destructive forces.
A22-9
Philosophy of Religion Section
Theme: Liberalism, Pluralism, and Social Ontology
Martin Heidegger and the Limits of Phenomenology
Jens Zimmerman, Trinity Western University
In his 1920/21 lectures on the phenomenology of religious life, Martin Heidegger works out his hermeneutic ontology on the basis of Christian life experience. True to his modification of Husserl's phenomenology, Heidegger argues that philosophy can only access the Christian faith by grasping it in its ontological 'essence,' that is, in its own authentic experience or way of seeing the world. The later Heidegger has himself recognised the limits of this phenomenological approach. This paper uses the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (specifically his habilitation 'Akt und Sein') to demonstrate for theological reasons why Heidegger's approach to the Christian experience and its central idea of formal indication could not but fail. Like Heidegger, Bonhoeffer situates the Christian faith within ontology but argues that the nature of the Christian faith requires an ontology whose past, present and future, i.e. whose entire temporality is founded by and open to the Lordship of Christ.
Philip Quinn’s Contribution to the Epistemological Challenge of Religious Diversity
James Kraft, Huston Tillotson University
In this essay I both describe the foundational principles guiding Philip Quinn’s approach to religious diversity and discuss how they hold up in comparison to some of the positions he critically responds to. The first section describes Quinn’s diagnosis of the epistemic challenge of religious diversity. A second section situates his thoughts in terms of the most popular threefold way of categorizing approaches to the challenge of religious diversity, namely, in terms of excluivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. This way of describing Quinn’s thought makes all the more sense given the fact that he understood his own position as taking over the valuable, and leaving behind the less desirable, aspects of a prominent exclusivist, William Alston, and a prominent pluralist, John Hick. A third section both discusses a difficulty in Quinn’s call for thinner theologies and relates Quinn’s perspective to a contextualist approach which arguably avoids the difficulty.
Revealed Truths and Fissured Societies: Habermas and the Problem of Monotheism
Robert Erlewine, Rice University
In this paper I problematize Habermas’ attempt to ease the tensions between religious fundamentalisms and the secular structures of contemporary constitutional democracies in his recent essay “Glauben und Wissen.” I maintain that Habermas’ solution, which consists in attempting to incorporate genuine religious pluralism into the public sphere, fails to take note of inherent structures within monotheistic religions inimical to religiously pluralistic positions. I use a variety of closely related texts from Avishai Margalit, Moshe Halbertal, and Jan Assmann, to argue that Habermas’ argument fails because he does not sufficiently engage on a philosophical level with these structures, to interpret and critique them, as did his Enlightenment predecessors. I conclude by suggesting that Habermas’ failure warrants a reconsideration of Enlightenment attempts to bring about a reconciliation between monotheism and the values of tolerance and pluralism.
Heidegger and Thanatology in Twentieth-Century Continental Thought
Michael Johnson, University of Chicago
In his 1920-21 lectures on The Phenomenology of Religious Life, Martin Heidegger attempts to recover the basis of a Pauline ontology of human existence in the New Testament that is not subject to a Greek metaphysics of substance. Martin Luther’s “theology of the cross” provides a principal source of inspiration. From these sources, Heidegger adopts a view of human existence as a living toward death that defines a finite but open temporality that eludes metaphysical essence. Heidegger, however, soon abandons Christianity and Lutheran mysticism but “being-towards-death” continues to determine his phenomenology of being. This, as I will argue, unnecessary overdetermination haunts all his subsequent readings of Greek ideas of aletheia and phusis (nature). I then argue that the 1946 Letter on Humanism carries forward this tendency and inscribes within French thought a latent logic of death that sets up the later turn toward antihumanism and the “death of the subject.”
A22-10
Religion and the Social Sciences Section and Anthropology of Religion Group
Theme: Ethnographies of Media: Performance, Audience, and Meaning
Contesting Spirits: Native Traditions in the Spiritual Marketplace
Christopher Chesnek, University of California, Santa Barbara
This paper explores the New Age spiritual marketplace as a site of cultural contact between Native American traditions and Western culture. More specifically it asks the question: in what ways does the 'free market' mentality of the marketplace violate traditional Indian restrictions on the circulation of religious knowledge and the performance of ceremonies? It argues that the assumptions of the marketplace derive from Christianity, the New Age movement, and the West's conception of 'religion.' Consequently, shoppers assume that 'religion' deals with exclusively benevolent forces, is individualistic, psychological, and therapeutic in its goals, and should be available to everyone. In contrast, Native Americans see 'religion' as involving powers that are helpful but also potentially dangerous, and conseqently their traditions are often surrounded by restrictions. Unfortunately, critics of the sale of Native traditions often overlook these fundamental incompatibilities because of their focus on Western theories of power, discourse, and the other.
Movie House: Viewing Christianity in an Emotional Borderland
Kevin O'Neill, Stanford University
Anchored in cultural anthropology and based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork, this paper builds on a variety of methodologies in the social sciences and humanities to analyze the composition and consumption of a 13 minute documentary film. During the summer of 2003, the film was viewed repeatedly by roughly 2,000 evangelicals in a onetime move house -- now evangelical church -- located in Guatemala City. The essay argues that the film places its “model reader” in an emotional borderland, between transcendent collectivities and translocal histories particular to Guatemala City. The film, that is, provides a privileged example of how and where religion, media, and culture intersect in and amidst transnational spaces to contribute to the reterritorialization of evangelical experience in and, arguably, beyond Guatemala City.
Hollywood and Evangelical Identity
Patton Dodd, Boston University
Icon Productions’ marketing strategy for The Passion of the Christ—show it to evangelical Christian leaders, win their approval, and rely on them to encourage the masses to come—was as controversial as it was ingenious. Though some early critics felt evangelicals would turn on a decidedly violent and quite Catholic film, evangelicals embraced the opportunity to be Hollywood insiders and help support Mel Gibson’s Passion Play. But while films such as The Passion may momentarily license evangelicals as cultural players, it also shapes they way they are perceived and the way they perceive themselves. This paper will place this recent phenomenon in historical context and address several pressing questions. How do evangelicals define themselves in relationship to Hollywood films that intersect with their religious lives? What do these films do to the evangelical mind? Are evangelicals having a say in Hollywood, or is Hollywood delineating the contours of evangelicalism in America?
From Victim to Witch: Discourses of Dis/Empowerment in 1990s Teenage Witchcraft
Hannah Sanders, Curry College, Milton
This paper addresses recent discourses of female victimisation in media texts and dialogues of British teen girls identifying as Witches. This teenage subculture has been fuelled in part by mainstream media's increased investment in the representations of young women / teen girls as sites of magicality, most notably as practitioners of Witchcraft. Central to these representations are shows like the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and the film The Craft (1996). Narratives regarding female victimisation and emergent adult identity are constructed as the basis upon which a 'magical,' powerful identity for the characters is formed. The portrayal of victimisation and its resolution through Witchcraft is a central trope of inspiration for teenage practitioners of Witchcraft. Drawing upon my study of these two media texts and my recent internet research with female British Teen Witches, I describe the means, forms and resolutions this transformatory model of empowerment offers.
A22-11
Study of Islam Section
Theme: <s>Public Discourses on Islam in American Society after September 11?</s>-CANCELLED
The panel will present the different components of the public discourse on Islam in American society. It will present non-Muslim and Muslim narratives in public space and discuss their intersections and tensions. The originality of the panel resides in presenting together the two sides of the phenomenon of public discourse on Islam ( Muslim and non-Muslim), which more often tend to be presented and discussed separately.
The panelists will address the following questions: What are the main topics? Who are the main agents of American public discourse on Islam? What has changed since September 11?
A22-12
Study of Judaism Section
Theme: Jewish Thought: Culture and Curriculum
Teaching Philosophy to the Multitude: The Thought of Nissim B. Moshe of Marseilles
Alan Verskin, Princeton University
In his work Ma‘aseh Nissim (c.1315-20), Nissim b. Moshe of Marseilles devises a program for teaching philosophy to the multitude. He considers this project of education to be necessary for two reasons. First, a basic knowledge of causality will enhance societal stability. Second, a respect for philosophy will lead to a respect for philosophers. He is also, however, aware of the dangers of teaching philosophical opinions which might cause heresy and the abandonment of the Law. Taking into account all of these factors, he devises an educational system which teaches rational, pseudo-rational, and irrational doctrines to the multitude.
Metaphor, Transformation, and Transcendence: Toward an Understanding of Kabbalistic Imagery in the Book of Zohar
Ellen Haskell, Franklin & Marshall College
One of the most distinctive features of kabbalah, a complex form of medieval Jewish mysticism, is the way it uses vivid, shifting images to address divinity’s radical alterity. Are such images to be understood as mutually identified expressions for gradations of divinity, lacking individual nuance and leading to a path of action rather than contemplation? Or do their differences and connotations serve a purpose in esoteric contemplation, transforming kabbalistic concepts of God, self and world? An interdisciplinary approach using metaphor theory demonstrates that individual images do bear distinguishable and purposeful connotations, and that the play of these juxtaposed connotations in the mind can significantly alter a reader’s experience and perception of reality. This project presents scholarly tools for understanding the experiential quality of Zoharic imagery and offers several text cases where such tools enhance our understanding of the kabbalistic experience.
The Prophetic Narrative as a Basis for Religious Socialism in Weimar Germany: Jewish and Christian Attempts to Navigate between Historicism and Dialectical Theology
Marc Krell, University of Arizona
While current scholarship has uncovered an “anti-colonial’ impulse” demonstrated by members of the Wissenschaft des Judentums toward their Protestant colleagues, Jewish and Christian socialists in the Weimar period engaged in a joint challenge to the colonialist discourse of bourgeois culture associated with Religionswissenschaft. These theologians attempted to infuse social and political institutions with spiritual meaning by drawing upon a shared discourse of religious socialism located between the liberal historicism of Religionswissenschaft and the dialectical theology of Neo-Orthodoxy. This common discourse was predicated on the prophetic narrative that affirms a provisional synthesis between the sacred and the profane manifest in the divine demand for justice.
The Art of Writing: The Diaries of Mordechai Kaplan
Kenneth Koltun-Fromm, Haverford College in Pennsylvania
Mordechai Kaplan’s diaries of the 1920s and 30s offer a window into the cultural anxieties of a tormented and lonely American Jewish thinker. The art of writing, as Kaplan understands this process, is a human capacity and desire to transfer one’s personality to others. Kaplan's journal reveals how writing becomes an aesthetic performance – a material expression that leaves an enduring trace of an engaged and embodied life. Yet the art of writing to secure an enduring material presence exposes the religious anxiety of being itself, and the very possibility of inheritance. Kaplan’s desire to embody a trace of personal existence reveals how journal writing becomes an archive of personal identity. This paper will explore Kaplan’s understanding of writing as aesthetic performance and its relation to archiving the self. I also want to suggest how these diaries reflect the cultural dilemmas facing Jews in the 1920s and 30s in America.
A22-13
Women and Religion Section
Theme: Women and Religious Performance
Performance Anxiety: Religious and Gender "Performance" in the Attire of Ancient Female Christian Ascetics
Kristi Upson-Saia, Duke University
As part of an overall project of sexual reform, many Christian authors of the ancient Mediterranean urged female Christian ascetics not to adorn their bodies for the benefit of male viewers. An ascetic woman’s unembellished appearance, which demonstrated not only her renunciation of physical sexual intercourse, but also her turn from “womanly” sexual enticement, demarcated her to such a degree that “changing clothes” became the metaphoric way of describing her vow. The renunciation of alluring dress and adornments, however, was not without its problems. When female ascetics altered their appearance with the intent to minimize their allure, they simultaneously disrupted markers of gender. This unintended result caused anxiety for Christian leaders who desired to maintain gender categories while eliminating sexual signals. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity will provide a lens through which to analyze ascetic women’s changing appearances and the responses these appearances invoked in (male) Christian leaders.
Troubling Performativity: Creating Subversive Religious Identities
Julie J. Kilmer, Olivet College
Troubling Performativity: Creating Subversive Religious Identities
Julie J. Kilmer
Olivet College
In revealing the promises of the subversive Judith Butler asks us to step beyond the Foucauldian and Derridian interpretation that ‘everything is socially constructed’ to consider the specific foreclosures and exclusions through which identity occurs. According to Butler, thinking about emergence suggests thinking about possibilities. She claims that some of these formative practices are subversive and in a sense revolutionary. If the performative is read as ‘ritual practice’ as Butler claims, then it is important to examine religious rituals that shape religious identity. It is necessary to examine the specific formative practices within ritual practices that shape the religious subject. One way this can be reviewed is through the study of performative worship acts. As a result of this analysis I suggest her theory does offer valuable insights in exploring the links between worship acts and the formation of religious identity.
Black Bodies Moving in Sacred Space: African American Liturgical Dance
Kimberleigh Jordan, New York University
ABSTRACT
In this paper, I examine liturgical dance as a church-based form of popular and concert dance at the intersection of Black arts, culture and religion and that the historical roots of liturgical dance are simultaneously Africanist, Pentecostal and American modern dance. While liturgical dance in African American faith communities has developed through the artistic and spiritual leadership of women, it is also as a crucial site for contemporary controversies regarding women’s bodies. The final section of the paper is a brief case study of the Allen Liturgical Dance Ministry, founded in 1978 in Jamaica, Queens, New York. It is a richly generative site for the analysis of contemporary women’s artistic and religious leadership and for liturgical dance production.
Dark Side of the Sacred: Pomba Gira in Brazil
Kelly E. Hayes, Indiana University/Purdue University
Of the many entities of the Afro-Brazilian spirit world, the bawdy she-demon called Pomba Gira is perhaps one of the most notorious and beloved. The small temples in which one or more of her various incarnations—Queen of the Cemetery, Lady of the Crossroads, Mistress of the Night—are venerated may be found throughout the city of Rio de Janeiro, but most especially in the crowded neighborhoods that throng the urban periphery. In my paper I detail the historical emergence of this popular spirit entity, and, drawing on several years of fieldwork, examine contemporary beliefs and practices associated with Pomba Gira.
A22-14
Afro-American Religious History Group
Theme: Unmasking the Body with Passion and without Fear: Black Religions and Black Materiality as Social Constructs of Food, Health, and Identity
Unmasking the Body With Passion and Without Fear: Black Religions & Black Materiality as Social Constructions of Food, Health and Identity
Historically, the bodies of Americans of African ancestry have been mediated by a variety of socially and culturally constructed notions of religion, identity and health. In the process, a complex system of rituals and resistance have been employed as black people attempted to appropriate cultural, religious and political salvation, as well as mediate their own visible signifiers of gender. With diverse lenses of the phenomenology of the body as a subtext, this panel situates black materiality and black religiosity as a singularly underexplored site for critical examinations of race, respectablity, and gendered body ethics.
“That Hardy Race of Pioneers”: Constructions of Race and Masculinity in AME Church Histories, 1865-1900
Julius Bailey, University of Redlands
This paper examines the ways nineteenth-century AME ministers described the bodies of the early denominational itinerants to communicate and construct notions of race and masculinity. These leaders tried, with some difficulty, to reconcile their embrace of popular notions of masculinity with their own growing allegiance to the “politics of respectability.” Many AME historians understood their ecclesiastical positions, educational achievements, and formalized attire as connoting status and influence and looked to the past for exemplars of physical force. Through AME denominational histories and periodicals such as the AME Church Review and the Christian Recorder, ministers depicted the physiques, dress, and oratorical abilities of their forefathers to answer the current challenges to their own manhood and frame theological discussions of masculinity.
The Body as Menagerie: African-American Narratives of Supernatural Affliction
Yvonne Chireau, Swarthmore College
Historical evidence for black Americans’ perspectives on the body can be found in a diverse number of sources, but none perhaps are as poignant as the narratives of sickness and healing that emerge out of the Conjuring tradition. In these accounts, physical affliction is conceived as an embodied state that possesses distinctive symptoms - the most salient of which is the supernatural intrusion of minute creatures in the body itself. Not only do these accounts reveal how blacks understood physical affliction, but they also show how those who observed and interacted with the afflicted symbolized pain. Furthermore, because the narratives are also articulations of religious beliefs, they underscore how both body and spirit are simultaneously implicated in traditions of health and sickness among black Americans.
Homoeroticism, the Body, and the African-American Heterosexual Male Quest for Meaning in the Black Church
Stephen Finley, Rice University
In this paper, the author argues that a complex confluence of issues prevents most African American heterosexual males from finding meaning in the Black Church. These issues are related to an understanding of God as a gendered being and mediated by a masculine body that was socially and culturally constructed. This Black male heterosexual body is one that is perceived to be impervious and totally amoured in order to withstand the historic circumstances that made it a site of conflict and attack. As a result, most Black men don't go to church, since to worship in the Christian sense is to be feminized and symbolically entered by another male. This dynamic makes it exceedingly difficult for African American mean to find meaning in the Black Church and is a possible explanation for why most Black men do not attend church.
The Riddle of the Bean Pie: Religion and Food in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975
Edward E. Curtis, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
This paper examines the role of food in the Nation of Islam’s religious culture during the 1960s and 1970s. It explores dietary guidelines issued by Elijah Muhammad, intellectual discussions of food inside the movement, businesses created to provide believers with clean and healthy food, Nation of Islam cartoons about food, practices of food preparation and consumption, and the testimonies of members who were healed by following Elijah Muhammad’s guidelines. The paper also analyzes the culture of food in the context of the movement’s more general set of ethics concerning the black body, and shows how the culture of food represented a particular form of black resistance during the 1960s and 1970s. Sources utilized include various accounts from movement literature, contemporaneous ethnographies, and oral histories.
A22-15
Asian North American Religion, Culture, and Society Group
Theme: Reformulations of Religion and Spirituality in Asian America
Buried in Time's Memory: Nostalgia, Cosmopolitanism, and the Asian American Religious Imagination
David Kyuman Kim, Connecticut College
The paper discusses nostalgia as a form of critical reflection (in contrast to memory and history). Nostalgia functions as longing and desire for “home” in light of experiences of alienation, displacement, and estrangement, especially given the over-determining influences of religion. As a means of interrogating the complex and often ambiguous relationship between identity, religion, race, and empire, the paper will ask the following: In an age of migration and mobility, how does home begin with an identification with a particular physical place/space and time/history and evolve into an idea, a metaphor, or even a state of mind? How is the idea of home tied to religious life and experience? How can we understand nostalgia as a form of complicity with as well as resistance to the imperia of discourses of race and religion? Can nostalgia generate creative responses, rather than subjection, to cultural nationalism, diasporas, exile, and racialized religion?
The Moral Minority: Race, Religion, and Conservative Politics in Asian America
Jane Naomi Iwamura, University of Southern California
Recent scholarship views religion as a positive force that encourages
immigrants’ political engagement and eases their adjustment to American
life. However, few researchers have studied the substantive political
orientations that are associated with religious attendance and affiliation
for immigrants. The findings we will present (based on data from the
2000-2001 Pilot National Asian American Political Survey) suggest that
attendance at religious services is not only associated with increased
political participation among Asian American immigrants but also with a
socially conservative outlook. Here, we will tease out the implications of
this finding, as well as speculate on the attraction conservative politics
holds for the Asian American faithful. While the political behavior and
attitudes of Asian American evangelicals seem to mirror that of the larger
American evangelical movement, they differ in significant ways. As a
striking point of comparison, we will also discuss the
Cultural Oppression and Losing One’s Spiritual Voice: A Case for Elderly Japanese-American Women
Naoki Okamura, Claremont School of Theology
A phenomenological research on a group of elderly Japanese American Christian women and their spirituality uncovered multiple oppressive influences during their life journeys, namely, 1) sexist tendencies of traditional Japanese religious cultures, 2) racism of white America against Japanese Americans, 3) negative sexual stereotypical images on Asian women, and 4) ageism of contemporary American culture. These oppressive influences, that are mostly cultural in nature, have deterred the research participants from expressing and addressing human being’s most basic concerns such as one’s self worth and one’s central philosophy of life. The researcher calls this a ‘spiritual silence’ and it produces many negative consequences in their lives, including self-denial, blind faith on authorities, isolation, self-hatred and depression. Three distinct perspectives, developmental psychology, literary analysis, and feminist theology are used to provide the interpretative frame works for this study.
A22-16
Confucian Traditions Group
Theme: Contemporary Relevance of Neo-Confucianism
This panel aims to explore the contemporary significance (or lack thereof) of neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming period of China.
Why Be Moral? The Cheng Brothers’ Neo-Confucian Conception of Morality and Happiness
Yong Huang, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Why Be Moral?: The Cheng Brothers’ Neo-Confucian
Conception of Morality and Happiness
This examine examines the neo-Confucian Cheng brothers answer to the ancient question of “why I should be moral” first raised by Glaucon in Plato’s Republic. The question is related to the issue of happiness and morality. The Chengs argued that one could and should take delight in being moral, since human nature is good. So the things a superior person in performing often require them to endure certain physical pain. The Chengs would agree with Aristotle that to take pleasure in virtuous action is the mark of true virtue, since only virtuous person can do that and one need to go through self-cultivation to become a virtuous person.
Boston Daoxue?
John Berthrong, Boston University
This essay seeks to articulate a contempporary Boston Daoxue. I will narrate a contemporary, North American Confucian philosophical discourse that, while based on its Asian ancestors, is carried out in a completely different voice-for instance, in a different language (English) and with the input of a different set of canonical resources. In order to give this novel restatement of tradition a firm location in one major phase of the development of Confucian thought, I locate Boston Daoxue within Zhu Xi's (1130-1200) tradition of daoxue or 'teaching of the way' but will make use of a radically different set of resources, including thinkers as diverse as Xunzi (ca. 310-211 BCE; who was excluded from Master Zhu's vision of the orthodox 'teaching of the way') and the great Korean scholar, Yi Yulgok (1536-1584).
Learning to Look for Harmony
Stephen Angle, Wesleyan University
In other writings, I have argued that a central feature of neo-Confucian sagehood is the commitment to view the world as susceptible to harmony. After briefly reviewing this finding, the present paper explores neo-Confucian ideas about moral self-cultivation from the vantage point of contemporary, global philosophy. I engage in both historical and philosophical projects. At one level, I explicate the techniques of self-cultivation, and their underlying justification in views of moral psychology and metaphysics, of several neo-Confucian thinkers. At the same time, I engage with this material critically and constructively. Drawing on ideas from the ancient West as well as more recent writings, I work to build the most coherent, persuasive case I can for the relevance of neo-Confucian moral pedagogy to us and to our world today.
Can We Pick Up on the Discourse of the Sages?
Eske Mollgaard, St. Lawrence University
This paper considers if the essential dimension of Confucian and Neo-Confucian discourse can be adopted by contemporary scholars and philosophers. The paper first identifies five features of the essential dimension of Confucian discourse, or what I call the discourse of the sages. I show that this discourse is: (i) driven by “concern” (you), (ii) pure drive or act, (iii) a means of regulating the world, (iv) empty of specific doctrinal content, and (v) a form of spiritual exercise. I then discuss recent Western appropriations of Confucianism and argue that in regard to the essential dimension of Confucian discourse these appropriations have not been successful. Finally, I suggest how then the central features of Confucian discourse may be adopted by contemporary scholars.
A22-17
Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group
Theme: Sacred Tops, Manly Bottoms: Readings of Ron Long's Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods
Ronald Long's book MEN, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND THE GODS (The Haworth Press, 2004) makes a substantive and significant contribution to the study of gay men's religious experience. As its subtitle indicates, this book is 'an exploration into the religious significance of male homosexuality in world perspective,' something which, in itself, is seldom attempted. In its daring search for a genealogy of religious perspectives on male homosexuality, it offers some audacious theoretical and methodological insights. In his far-ranging discussion of the centrality of different religious views of masculinity, and in his analysis of this dynamic with respect to American gay culture, Ron Long pushes the limits of the field. This panel will also be a way of honoring Ron Long for his pioneering work with the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group.
A22-18
Mysticism Group
Theme: The Mystical Experience: Natural or Supernatural?
Dust and Wind: The Relationality between Natural and Supernatural in James Loder's Model of Mysticism for Social Transformation
Sandra Costen Kunz, Princeton Theological Seminary
What is the role of the body in experiences that are classified 'mystical'? Can such experiences be accounted for wholly in terms of biological processes? If not, what supernatural action is involved in mystical experience and through what natural human capacities does such action influence human experience? My paper will examine the answers to these questions suggested by the work of James Loder, Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary for three decades. I will focus upon his intensification model of visionary experiences which have the power to transform culture in contexts of crisis.
Henri Bergson’s Trans-Natural Mysticism
G. William Barnard, Southern Methodist University
This paper critically examines the work of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, especially his investigations into the origins of mystical experience. Drawing first upon Bergson’s early work in Matter and Memory, the paper notes how Bergson’s radically unique, non-mechanistic understanding of consciousness and matter offers a fruitful way to understand both paranormal and mystical experiences. The paper then looks into Bergson’s more explicitly theistic understanding of mysticism (as articulated in his final text, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion), noting that Bergson’s theism is inextricably linked to the evolutionary theory proposed in Creative Evolution – a theory in which God is understood as open-ended cosmic creativity – the élan vital. In the Two Sources, the élan vital also takes on the qualities of divine love, a love that the mystics are said to bring into the world as part of humanity’s evolutionary journey.
"Spiritual Senses," Natural, and Supernatural in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theological Aesthetics
Mark McInroy, Harvard University
This paper argues that Hans Urs von Balthasar’s reinterpretation of the doctrine of the ‘spiritual senses’ functions as the key to his understanding of the relationship between the natural and supernatural in his mystical theology. Three discrete theses are advanced: 1) Balthasar makes use of a Barthian theological anthropology to modify the doctrine of the spiritual senses such that it integrates corporeality into the mystical encounter with God. 2) Though the spiritual senses are typically associated with incremental stages of ascent in the soul’s progression toward God, Balthasar thematizes a bi-directional kenosis in the spiritual senses whereby human strivings are ‘flattened’. 3) The spiritual senses are the fundamental ‘bridge’ term between natural and supernatural orders through which Balthasar nuances the relationship between the natural capacities of the human being and the revelation of divine beauty in ‘mystical’ encounter.
Interstitial Spatiality, Relationality, and Spiritual Freedom: A “Natural” Whiteheadian Perspective on Mystical Experience
Luke Higgins, Drew University
In this essay I will employ Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophical conceptions of interdependent becoming and interstitial spatiality to develop a “natural”, relational interpretation of mystical experience. While the metaphor of making ourselves an “open space” or empty vessel for the divine is both compelling and important, it becomes problematic when framed within a traditional “supernatural” account of mysticism that privileges a “vertical” conception of humanity’s relationship to the divine. Making space for the divine is better understood as making space for the relationships, both interpersonal and ecological, that constitute our ongoing process of becoming. This interpretation will avoid the individualistic, escapist, and apolitical emphasis of certain “supernatural” accounts of mystical experience. I will develop a pneumatological understanding of mystical experience as the creative-receptive “spacing” of our world that will retain a notion of the mystical shedding of self or ego while grounding mystical experience in life’s concrete relationality.
A22-19
Religion and Ecology Group
Theme: Issues of Science, Simplicity, and Sustainable Community in the Quakers, Mennonites, and Amish
This session covers a rich range of issues related to ecology and the Mennonites, Amish and Quakers. The majority of papers discuss current practices and theology, conceptions of community, farming, relations to animals and science/natural history. One notable exception is the paper on Philadelphia Quakers on Religion and Natural History which is a more historical discussion centered on Philadelphia.
Earth Visions: Philadelphia Quakers on Nature and Religion
Ellen Ross, Swarthmore College
From its inception the Religious Society of Friends cultivated a relationship between the study of the natural sciences and religion. Quaker founder George Fox encouraged schools to teach natural history. In the study of Quaker connections with the natural sciences, the Philadelphia area plays a particularly important role. Philadelphia was the center of botanical and medical learning in America until about 1835. In the area, Bartram Gardens, Tyler Arboretum, and Longwood Gardens, among others, reflect the work of Quaker naturalists. Scholars have remarked upon the significant number of Quakers in the history of the natural sciences, but there has been no systematic study of the relationship between the religious and scientific in the writings of Quaker theologians and naturalists. This paper, part of a larger work on the history of Quakers and nature, seeks to address this lacuna, and also explores historical and contemporary models of Quaker conservation and transformation.
The Gospel of All Creatures Then and Now
Trevor Bechtel, Bluffton University
This paper develops an undernoticed theme, The Gospel of All Creatures, in the work of the 16th century Anabaptist Pilgram Marpeck. I argue that Marpeck provides possible resources for a contemporary Mennonite understanding of community that would significantly revalue the role and place of animals in the reign of God. Rather than locating Marpeck's ideas of social justice inside the framework of 16th century apocalypticism, I argue that a postmodern appraisal of Marpeck's Gospel of All Creatures will locate it inside the framework of 16th century ecological mysticism and read that mysticism through late 20th century retrievals of it. Once this theme is developed in this way I compare it to the contemporary Mennonite theologies of creation found in Gordon Kaufman, Tom Finger, and Scott Holland among others. In conclusion I suggest possibilities for a new Anabaptist/Mennonite theology of creation which integrates mysticism and community.
From Subsistence to Factory Farming: Rethinking Mennonite Conceptions of Community as an Ecological Response
Sally D. Smith Holt and Darla Schumm, William Jewell College
The Mennonite Historical Society of Canada notes that traditionally Mennonites have responded to the challenges of ecological crises by employing a “simple life approach” as articulated by E. F. Schumacher in his 1973 'Small Is Beautiful' treatise. While we concur that simple living is a useful model for addressing ecological and environmental issues, we assert that it is no longer a sufficient approach for Mennonites to utilize when addressing the ecological concerns of the twenty-first century. Rather, we suggest that Mennonites must draw on another aspect of their heritage when constructing a response to current ecological crises. We argue that in light of the changes brought about by the influence of industrialized farming in contemporary Mennonite farming communities, Mennonites must reexamine and expand their definition of community to include non-humans and the ecosystem as a whole.
Community, Nature, and Religion in Salvadoran and Old Order Amish Agrarian Communities
Anna Peterson, University of Florida
This paper examines the ways religiously-based environmental ethics are lived out in two communities striving for ecological and cultural sustainability, a largely Catholic village in El Salvador and an Old Order Anabaptist settlement in the Midwestern U.S. The paper addresses gaps in two different fields. First, very few scholars in environmental studies and policy have examined the values underlying efforts for greater ecological sustainability or the larger religious and cultural narratives in which these values are embedded. On the other hand, scholars of religious studies who work on environmental ethics and eco-theology have rarely looked at the ways values are articulated, embodied, and transformed in the actual practices of religious people. These gaps must be addressed if we hope to understand the relationship between values and practices, and especially if we hope to direct people’s behavior and community life to encourage more socially just and environmentally healthy patterns of living.
Countercultural Simplicity: Theology and Practice among Amish and Quakers in Indiana
Marie Vandenbark, Indiana University East
The ways of Amish people represent a countercultural alternative to mainstream consumerist lifestyles. Converging with and diverging from the Amish in a myriad of instructive ways, Quakers offer another, perhaps more easily received, witness for simplicity. There is no one Quaker version of simple living, either in theory or practice, but rather a shared recognition that “life must be lived from a center.” A recent sampling of Quaker and Amish versions of simple living in central/east-Central Indiana reveals the various operative meanings of simplicity in these communities as generally non-conflictual and supportive of an ecological ethic. Nuances of humility and equality, suffering and joy in the theological realm resist easy polarization into a right and wrong way. Amish hymns reveal intimacy and immediacy of relationship to God and neighbor. Quakers across a spectrum of life experiences connect inner and outer aspects of plainness through practices of ecological and social care.
A22-20
Religious Freedom, Public Life, and the State Group
Theme: Religion and Public Life: Here and There
No abstract. See individual paper abstracts.
Who Does God's Work? George W. Bush on Here and There
Jillinda Weaver, Emory University
This paper compares the rhetoric of George W. Bush on a domestic policy issue, faith-based initiatives, to his rhetoric on a foreign policy issue, the war on terror. The argument is made that this comparison reveals a decisive double standard in terms of who does the will of God. In terms of the domestic policy issue, Bush goes to the edge of admitting that the government is incapable of doing God's work (in this case 'compassion) and that the government's role must therefore be limited and must serve to support those agencies that are capable of doing this work. In terms of the foreign policy issue, the government is the agent of God's will, bringing what God intends for all people, freedom, to the oppressed peoples of the world. Potential explanations for this difference in the relationship of the government to God's work are explored.
Pluralizing the Jeremiad: Narrative and Religious Diversity in Contemporary American Public Life
Andrew Murphy, Valparaiso University
The United States has always invited descriptions that reflect its cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity (immigrant nation, melting pot, salad bowl), but never have such labels been more relevant than today. I argue that integrating previously marginalized religious groups into a common American future will require renewed attention to the ways in which such groups narrate themselves and their place within a larger understanding of American religion and public life. The paper begins by exploring a family of late 20th-century narratives that laments the declining centrality of traditional Christianity to American public life (e.g., Neuhaus, Bork, Bennett, Elshtain). I argue that such critiques, their intense focus on loss and decline and their romanticized view of past Protestant hegemony, ignore clear evidence of contemporary American religious vitality. I close by reflecting on styles of religio-political narratives that might open rather than shut down narrative space for a religiously pluralistic American future.
Religion, Public Life, and the State in Putin's Russia
Alexei Krindatch, (Graduate Theological Union
Despite post-Communist “religious revival” Russian society remains largely agnostic. The proportion of Russians who declare themselves “religious” grew from 25 % in 1985 to 62 % in 2004, but the share of practicing believers who attend church on a regular base and fulfill religious requirements remains as low as in early 1990s. However, religious identity and religious organizations are playing increasing role in country’s social and political affairs. Two aspects of “popular religiosity” are of importance. First, religious self-identification reflects neither a personal belief system nor a regular religious practice. Religion is perceived as part of the traditional cultural environment and component of ethnic identity.
Second, under decline of public confidence in the state institutions, mass media, and political associations the Russian Orthodox Church enjoys “intuitive” sympathy and confidence of both religious and agnostic population. As of Church – State and inter-religious relations, “Russian model” seemed to crystallize under Putin’s regime.
Sukarno’s Indonesia: A Muslim Alternative to Western-Style Democracy and the Islamic State
Kristin McLaren, University of Ottawa
This paper examines the unique approach to nationalism advocated by Indonesia’s first president Sukarno, who proclaimed independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945. Although largely overlooked as a Muslim leader, Sukarno was a devout follower of Islam and based his nationalist vision on Islamic principles, applied to Indonesia's unique context of ethnic and religious diversity.
Sukarno did not believe that an independent Indonesia should be an Islamic state, as he felt that strict adherence to Shari’a would create a government apparatus that was too rigid. This did not mean, however, that he was a secular nationalist; instead, Sukarno, calling for itjihad, sought to “translate the spirit of Islam into legislation” (Sukarno, 1966: 334).
This national vision, rooted in Islamic modernism, but not based on Shari’a law, thus represents a uniquely Indonesian alternative to the Islamic state as advocated by Arab-inspired reformers as well as to Western models of government.
A22-21
Religion in Latin America and the Caribbean Group and Ritual Studies Group
Theme: Rethinking Popular Religion
The Case of María Tiburcía, Mexican Itinerant Preacher and Curandera: The Recuperation of Theology for the Study of Latin American Religion
Jennifer Hughes, Mt. Holyoke College
This paper reconstructs the story of an eighteenth-century Mexican mystic and itinerant preacher, María Tiburcía, drawing on the testimonies and documents that form part of the unpublished 1782 Inquisition case against her. An exceptional example of lay women’s ritual and homiletic leadership, María Tiburcía deftly defends herself against accusations that she is a “superstitious curandera” and that she has deceived the large crowds that follow her. In interpreting the practices of this mestiza mystic, I seek to identify and avoid common pitfalls in the study of Latin American popular religion: the juxtaposition of ecclesial authority and local/popular authority; the effort to delineate Christian from “traditional” or “native” practices; and lingering scholarly doubts about the authenticity and integrity of popular religious knowledge.
"I Get Goosepimples!" Transnational Ritual: The Transfiguration of the The Salvadoran Divine Savior of the World
Jeanette Reedy Solano, California State University, Fullerton
La Bajada (the Lowering) of the Divine Savior of the World, which dates back to 1525, is one of the oldest continuously-celebrated Christian rites in the Americas. Each year on the Feast of the Transfiguration more than 30,000 Salvadoran immigrants and their U.S. born children gather together in Exposition Park in Los Angeles to celebrate The Day of the Salvadoran by commemorating this annual civic-religious event.
Drawing on four years of documentation of the event, 600 surveys, and ethnographic interviews, I present a theological and symbolic reading of the celebration. I am most interested in teasing out the participants' construction of meaning while witnessing the event and critically appraising the power of popular religion as it is actualized by Salvadoran immigrants in a radical new context north of the border. Latino popular religion creates a unique sacred space for bicultural transnationals to express their struggles. Visuals will augment the presentation
Whose Popular Religion? (Re)Construing Catholic Ritual Practice in Mexico’s Maya Highlands
Ruth J. Chojnacki, University of Chicago
In highland Chiapas, Mexico, recent Maya converts to Catholicism have indigenized canonical liturgical forms in a double sense: on the one hand, their own lay leaders reconstructed the liturgy to, on the other hand, reclaim their ancestral land and thus negotiate the global economy as Mexico figures in it. In form and content, Maya biblical exegesis regards the intellectual demands imposed by the text as analogous to bodily exertions required by the land. Contextually driven in this way, this novel ritual practice elude both “popular” and “official” as interpretative categories, challenging the utility of the rubric “popular religion."
Discerning the Fire: "To Connect to the Mystery in Which We Trust" Maya Ritual Space, Sacred Time, and Ways of Knowing
Jean Molesky-Poz, Santa Clara University
Practioners of ancestral Maya spirituality in the Guatemalan highlands translate the concept faith in Ki’che’ to “kojonik” which has two meanings: “to connect to the mystery in which we trust,” and, “to put on,” signifying to offer ceremonial materials to the fire. Rituals, to give thanks, are the cornerstones of Maya spirituality. In a Mayan ceremony, the ritual space becomes a landscape, map, and center of sacrifice, knowledge and sustenance. Within the constructed quatrefoil ritual image-space, in the naming the 260-day calendar and feeding of the flames, the fire, the central element of the ceremony, becomes a tool of contemporary spiritual discernment.
A22-22
Roman Catholic Studies Group
Theme: New Angles from Ethnography and History in the Study of U.S. Catholicism
Reconceptualizing Catholic Studies: Perspectives from the Study of "New Nuns"
Amy Koehlinger, Florida State University
In the 1960s, Catholic sisters calling themselves “new nuns” created organizations dedicated to “new works,” centered in non-Catholic arenas for the redress of racial injustice. Harnessing “human dignity” conciliar language to confront segregation in the post-war Church, sisters laid bare the gap between Catholic progressive reforms and social traditionalism. Until recently, sisters have occupied a marginal position in the historiography of American religious life. This is unfortunate because they, like the “new nuns” of the 1960s, complicate both simplistic models of gender in the field of North American religion and exceptionalist narratives of Catholicism in the field of Catholic Studies.
A Theology of Taste: First Communion as Embodied Ritual
Susan Ridgely Bales, Princeton University
Using ethnographic research with First Communicants, I focus on children’s sensory knowledge of the sacrament, primarily taste, to argue that children's sacramental theology varies widely from that of their parents and teachers. Yet every piece of knowledge they gained about the Church, its symbols, and its ritual gestures served, they believed to move them further from the “child’s world” and closer to true membership in the church. Centering children, who are struggling to divine the hosts' taste, learn the liturgy, and perform required ritual gestures, forces scholars to attend to the ritual’s embodied realities.
Wither the Parish? Considerations of the Impact of Mexican and Mexican-American Transnationalism
Luis Enrique Murillo, Trinity University
Based on an ongoing project examining transnationalism in the lived religion of Mexican and Mexican American Catholics on both sides of the border over fifty years, this paper suggests reconceptualizing and refocusing on the parish as a unit of analysis. To understand the parish in a transnational context, the usual focus on a localized ritual calendar should be replaced with centering on baptismal and marriage ceremonies. Moreover, understanding the impact of Mexican and Mexican American Catholics upon the U.S Catholic experience means recognizing their self-understanding as members of two parishes, one in Mexico and one in the U.S.
The New American Catholicism: Old Catholics and Internet Evangelism
Julie Byrne, Duke University
The Old Catholic Church is just one of many U.S. independent Catholic groups whose strong Internet presence has led to a resurgence of visibility and membership. I argue that we do not see clearly the whole picture of contemporary U.S. Catholicism without considering the appeal of Web pages that ushered thousands of Internet seekers—mostly former Roman Catholics— toward some degree of affiliation with independent congregations. Those Web pages illumine how Old Catholic groups refashion their founding proposition—that Roman primacy constituted a departure from true Catholicism—into an advertisement for a more free, democratic, liberal, and ultimately American version of Catholicism.
A22-23
Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Theme: Empire, Globalization, and Religion: Interactions with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri
Empire or Globalatinization: Religion, Post-Colonial Sovereignty, and the Politics of Resistance
Arvind Mandair, Hofstra University
In different ways globalization theory and post-colonial theory have raised questions about the capacity of the nation-state to function within the national interest. Hardt and Negri argue that nation-state sovereignty is in decline and that Empire * a new supranational and deterritorializing form of sovereignty * has superseded it. Post-colonial theorists regard this transition to Empire as 'profoundly colonial'. Yet neither theory explains where sovereignty resides if not in the nation-sate. Jacques Derrida's notion of a global fiduciary, which he propounds through the enigmatic term globalatinization, is helpful here. Derrida's exposure of the fiduciary as a central mechanism of globalization reveals ways for post-colonial subjects to reconfigure the notion of sovereignty without automatically eliminating the role of religion or the religious. Derrida's theory contains the seeds of a potentially more fruitful resistance to the politics of commitment that continues to chain post-colonial subjectivity to the treadmill of identity politics.
Secularization and the Multitude: An Alternative Theology of Empire
Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College
Drawing on Hardt and Negri’s political philosophy of globalization, this paper will sketch a theology of Empire that moves beyond both the (neo-)conservative apologetics for American exceptionalism and Christian triumphalism and the reactionary liberal strategy of political opposition and theological deconstruction. The former has proven itself either to be hopelessly naïve or desperately cynical by remaining dogmatically wed to its utopic visions in spite of the hard lessons of history, both past and present. The latter, though concerned with the long-term consequences of American hegemony and the ideology that undergirds the doctrine of military preemption, has failed to acknowledge how its own commitments to, and the current global tendency towards, indeterminacy, hybridity, and mobility reflect their own position of privilege on the global stage.
Facing Narcissism and Embracing Borders in the Midst of Empire
Michele Saracino, Manhattan College
With the proliferation of globalization and the inauguration of empire, boundaries are becoming increasingly indefinable. The development of multinational corporations, transcontinental travel, and communication technology has led to ambiguous borders and hybrid identities, which obscure the subtleties of difference and the recognition of the Other. In this paper, it is suggested that individual and group instances of narcissism exacerbate this already volatile situation. Avoiding the emotional liminality of boundaries, wielding a posture of entitlement, and clinging to stories of being victimized are all symptoms of narcissism. After exploring the impact of narcissism on the negotiation of difference in the midst of empire, possibilities for healing the damaged interpersonal and inter-religious relationships that result from narcissism are outlined. Insights from contemporary continental theorists, such as Emmanuel Levinas on the politics of entitlement, as well as from clinicians, such as Heinz Kohut on the treatment of narcissism, are integrated into the discussion.
