http://www.aarweb.org/Meetings/Annual_Meeting/Past_and_Future_Meetings/2003/abstracts.asp
2003 AAR Abstracts
A280
Noted oral historian Clifford Kuhn will conduct a workshop on "Best Practices in Collecting Oral Histories." Kuhn is past president of the Oral History Association. The session will be limited to 25 participants. Contact Barbara DeConcini to register for the workshop. There is no cost, but we hope some participants will agree to conduct interviews as part of the AAR Oral History Project.
A23
Panel: From Side Show to Center Stage: Mainstreaming the Study of Religion at Major Research Universities
Diane Winston, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Presiding
Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University
Robert Sullivan, University of Notre Dame
Angela Zito, New York University
Donald Miller, University of Southern California
James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia
Since 1998, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ funding for academic research on religion has centered on support for centers of excellence and interdisciplinary hubs at major research universities. The Trusts’ goal, funding ten such centers that focus on areas including international relations, urban civil society, media, and democracy, was accomplished last year. This panel will feature five center directors: James Hunter, Center for Religion and Democracy, University of Virginia; Don Miller, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California; Robert Sullivan, Erasmus Institute, University of Notre Dame; Robert Wuthnow, Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University; and Angela Zito, Center for Religion and Media, New York University. The panelists will discuss activities and projects at their centers, the center model as a template for other universities, and research opportunities for doctoral students, post-doctorates, and faculty from other institutions.
A24
Panel: Introduction to the AAR
Richard Amesbury, Valdosta State University, Presiding
Kimberly Rae Connor, University of San Francisco
Carey J. Gifford, American Academy of Religion
Susan E. Henking, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Methodist Theological School in Ohio
Mark Lloyd Taylor, Seattle University
This session provides an orientation to AAR structures, programs, publications, and services. Brief presentations will be given, and ample opportunity for questions and discussion will follow. Panelists will include: Academy Series Editor Kimberly Rae Connor, University of San Francisco; AAR Director of Academic Relations Carey J. Gifford; AAR Board of Directors Secretary Susan E. Henking, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Status of Women in the Profession Committee member Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Methodist Theological School in Ohio; Regions Committee Chair Mark Lloyd Taylor, Seattle University; and the newly-elected student director.
A25
Panel: New Directions in the Study of Art and Religion: The Case of Self-Taught/Outsider/Vernacular Art
Norman J. Girardot, Lehigh University, Presiding
Paul Ivey, University of Arizona
Charles Russell, Rutgers University
Jenifer Borum, City University of New York
David Parker, University College Northampton
Carol Crown, University of Memphis
Jeffrey Hayes, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Erika Doss, University of Colorado, Boulder
S. Brent Plate, Texas Christian University, Responding
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Georgetown University, Responding
This joint session seeks to explore some of the new methodological horizons emerging in the study of art and religion. It brings together scholars in art history and religious studies who have a specific interest in understanding religious experience and practice in relation to the increasingly prominent, and often controversial, phenomenon of self-taught/outsider/vernacular art. This is a kind of art that often has explicit and implicit connections with specific religious belief systems and with multi-cultural forms of religiously expressive behavior and experience (especially creative, psychotic, and/or “visionary” experience). What is needed is a more fully interdisciplinary, comparative, cross-cultural, and collaborative approach to the curious matter of “art” and “religion” as related to self-taught/outsider art. It is the intent of this joint session to explore some of these issues from both a broad theoretical perspective (Ivey, Russell, Borum, Parker) and from the standpoint of particular case studies (Crown, Hayes, Doss).
A26
Medicine, Immortality, and Yoshino
Michael Como, College of William and Mary
This paper takes as its point of departure recent archeological discoveries from the Nara period suggesting widespread use of rites of sacrifice, purification and spirit pacification that were derived from Chinese sources. The paper focuses on a series of legends constructing Yoshino as both a site for Buddhist ascetic practice and the abode of female immortals. The paper demonstrates that these female immortals were claimed as ancestors by a cluster of kinship groups that were at the forefront of the introduction of both the Buddhist tradition and Chinese conceptions of medicine and immortality to the Japanese islands. The paper argues that although Yoshino has long been studied as a key site of interaction between ascetic Buddhist practitioners and local kami, the region is best understood as an example of how Chinese conceptions of medicine and immortality underlay the formation of cults of Buddhas and kami alike.
Caitya Comparisons in Indian Buddhist Texts: A Reevaluation of the Evidence for a Cult of the Book in Indian Mahayana
David Drewes, University of Virginia
This paper reevaluates the evidence for an institutional cult of the book in Indian Mahayana Buddhism. In his well-known article “The Phrase ‘sa prthivipradesas caityabhuto bhavet’ in the Vajracchedikā”, Gregory Schopen reads a number of passages that have previously been interpreted as saying merely that places in which people memorized or worshipped sutras are “like” caityas (shrines), as in fact saying that such places are “true” or “real” caityas. On the basis of this reading, Schopen argues that there was an institutional cult of the book in Mahayana Buddhism. This paper examines a group of passages scattered throughout Indian Buddhist literature that unambiguously compare particular people or places to caityas. By pointing out important similarities between these passages and those cited by Schopen, this paper argues that the latter do in fact merely compare particular places to caityas and suggests that an institutional cult of the book never existed.
Beef, Dog, and Other Mythologies: Connotative Semiotics in Mahāyoga Tantra Ritual
Christian K. Wedemeyer, University of Chicago
Scholars have long debated how the antinomian elements referred to in the Mahāyoga Tantras are to be interpreted. Some have maintained that they are to be taken literally; others that they encode one or several meanings other than the literal. However, both camps interpret these statements as examples of natural language and, in so doing, miss much of the richness and relevance of this tradition’s discourse and ritual. I argue that this discourse is better considered as an example of what Roland Barthes has called “mythical speech” or “metalanguage,” in which signs (a signifier-signified union) from natural language function as signifiers in a higher-order discourse. I suggest that employing a Barthian perspective-thus moving beyond the rather unilluminating question of realist referentiality-enables a more sophisticated understanding of signification in Mahāyoga Tantra discourse and the ways in which it enables the realization of the aims of Mahāyoga Tantra ritual.
Negotiating with the Pali: Lao Buddhist Homiletics and the Kammāvacā Nissaya
Justin McDaniel, Ohio University
The Nissaya manuscripts are the oldest evidence we have of vernacular sermon notes in Southeast Asian Theravada Buddhism. Nissayas work by drawing selected passages and terms from both canonical and non-canonical Pali source texts and explaining the source according to their own contemporary needs. I will offer a close reading of the Kammavācā Nissaya in order to explicate the standard features of the nissaya genre. This reading, with a particular emphasis on rhetorical style, commentarial services, choice of source texts and physical features of the manuscripts, reveals the relationship nissaya authors had with the classical Pali scripture of Theravada Buddhism, as well as with their intended audience. It also reveals their use in an aural/oral educational and ritual context. In the conclusion, I offer some suggestions on how modern pedagogical, translation and homiletic practices in Thailand and Laos can be traced to the textual practices evinced by nissayas.
Unraveling the Paradox of “Canonical Apocrypha” in Chinese Buddhism
Kyoko Tokuno, University of Washington
This paper focuses on a category of Chinese Buddhist texts that may be paradoxically called “canonical apocrypha” or indigenous scriptures that gained the same status as the translations of Indian scriptures. These scriptures were preserved in various editions of Buddhist canon since the medieval period in East Asia. The presence of such texts in Buddhist canon begs a question as to why they were spared of the same fate as other indigenous scriptures that were censored by Buddhist bibliographers and kept out of circulation. This paper explores the textual, contextual, and historical factors that contributed to the production and preservation of these scriptures, some of which played seminal roles in the formation of Chinese Buddhist thought and practice. The exploration is also tantamount to illuminating the dynamics of the conception and practice of scripture and canon in medieval Chinese Buddhism and beyond.
A27
Ethical Foundations for Ameliorative Economic Policies: An Illustration of Why Religion Matters for Social Ethics
Albino Barrera, Providence College
Religious thought has enormous impact on views regarding poor relief and inequality. This paper illustrates this by contrasting Malthusian and Thomistic thought. Using natural theology, Malthus reconciles his dismal finding of a woeful human economic condition with his belief in a beneficent Creator by arguing that God created a world of scarcity to compel people to apply themselves in work and striving. Since scarcity is part of an immutable natural law, meliorative social policy is futile as poverty and inequality are embedded within the workings of nature itself. In sharp contrast, Aquinas’s natural theology argues that God’s order of creation is one of material sufficiency contingent on the human beings” reasoned exercise of freedom. Thus, unaddressed poverty is prima facie evidence of moral failure. Far from being part of natural law, material deprivation is an aberration of God’s intended order that needs to be rectified through activist social policies.
Religious Realism and Inequality in Comparative Analysis
James L. Rowell, University of Pittsburgh
Religious realism is based upon re-examination of the moral principles of Reinhold Nieburhr’s thought, as it is measured against the thought of Martin Luther King Jr., B.R. Ambedkar, Mohandas Gandhi, and Rammohun Roy. Comparative analysis of their thought offers a compelling litmus test for evaluating a realistic religious viewpoint. It reflects a paramount concern for inequality, and the modern critique of religion. This critique, comprised of secular philosophy and critical science places harsh scrutiny upon religious beliefs. If something is believable, it must be plausible, realistic, and not just an inefficacious, reified abstraction, as Marxism would contend. Religious realism accepts the Marxist challenge as well as the secular and scientific critique, in an effort to revitalize the religious view. It also explores religious ethics as it responds to the problems of inequality, industrial economics, and of scientific and rational critique.
Religion, Inequality, and the Common Good: Why Democracy Needs Religion
Joseph S. Pettit, DePaul University
This paper defends two claims. First, the commitment of different religious traditions to advancing the common good is an important and neglected resource for understanding the public role of religion within a democracy. The paper seeks to show that Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all affirm, each from their own traditions, that individuals should act to increase the common good as an act of religious commitment. Second, this commitment to the common good provides compelling resources for understanding and confronting recent and dramatic increases in inequality, especially economic inequality, both within the United States and globally. The paper also shows how these religious commitments to the common good enable one to defend an understanding of democracy as a social ideal emphasizing mutuality, in contrast to an understanding of democracy that is more individualistic in character, concerned more with maintaining property rights than promoting mutuality.
Colored Justice: A Comparison of the Understandings of Social Injustice in Rawls and King
Randall H. Miller, Graduate Theological Union
Critics of modern theories of justice have charged that neo-Kantian theorists largely ignore or discount the pervasiveness of social injustice as a significant context for theorizing about the role and function of justice in contemporary social settings. In an effort to investigate the merits of this claim, this essay contrasts and compares the theoretical approaches of John Rawls and Martin Luther King, Jr. in three key areas: the infringement of rights and liberties, the unequal distribution of social advantages, and the danger of social disruption. While acknowledging the importance of his work, I contend that Rawls’ theoretical framework is simply inadequate for understanding the full dimensions of social injustice. In contrast, King’s theoretical approach, which I have labeled “contextualized universalism,” explicitly validates social and historical contextualization and considers both the systemic and lived crises of social injustice.
A28
Inheriting the Investigations: Wittgenstein, Cavell, and Philosophy of Religion’s Discipline
Thomas Arnold, Harvard University
In the latter half of the twentieth century the philosophy of religion appropriated Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations in large part to settle how religious language might legitimately be verified or explained. This paper considers how the field might receive the text as an exploration of the desires, fantasies, and disappointments at work in our reflection upon language. Drawing on Stanley Cavell’s work, the paper argues that the concept of the “ordinary” invites readers of the Investigations to put our interests and ideals about language into question, lest they steer us from the ordinary lives in which religious concepts develop. To connect this approach more explicitly to the philosophy of religion I shall discuss the treatment of naming in Investigations §39-§41 and juxtapose it with de Vries’s discussion of the religious character of naming. The paper concludes by suggesting the Investigations might further the field’s incorporation of psychoanalytic and existential concerns.
Religious Experiences and Religious Beliefs in Light of the Private Language Argument
Thomas Carroll, Boston University
Much recent debate over how to understand religious experiences has centered on the issue of whether or not, or to what extent, religious traditions and beliefs frame religious experiences. Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations contains resources that may be appropriated to better understand religious experiences despite the topic not being directly addressed. The standard, fideistic reading of Wittgenstein on religious belief stems primarily from sources that are less reliable than Philosophical Investigations for discovering Wittgenstein’s thought. In this paper, I argue (1) in Philosophical Investigations, there is no basis for the view that Wittgenstein’s thought about religion is fideistic, (2) Wittgenstein’s position on the nature of religious experience should likewise not reflect fideism, and (3) an interpretation of Wittgenstein on the nature of religious experience, in light of Philosophical Investigations and with emphasis on Wittgenstein’s remarks on pain and private languages, will instead reflect the public nature of religious forms of life.
Nonsense and the Mystical: Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Language and New Approaches to Negative Theology
Kaitlin Magoon, University of Chicago
The recent reexamination of Negative or Apophatic Theology has often appealed to the writings of modern philosophers on the issue of the limits of knowledge and language. This paper suggests that by reading Wittgenstein’s later work in the Philosophical Investigations in the light of his early thought in the Tractatus, it becomes clear that his work should be considered an added contribution to how philosophers of religion should understand the tradition of Negative Theology. Specifically, Wittgenstein’s own attempts to explore the possible limits of thought and language helps in deciphering the relationship between “mystical thought” and the via negativa.
The Unorthodox Wittgenstein of the Investigations and Consequences for Category Formation in Religious Studies
Ludger Viefhues, Yale University
Exploring Affeldt’s and Putnam’s non-“orthodox” reading of Wittgenstein I will analyze two claims related to Wittgenstein’s own philosophical method. First, our capacity to follow each other’s words depends on the degree to which we are “attuned” (cf. Cavell) into each other’s understanding of what can be humanly said or doubted. Secondly, like criteria which are only appearing in the processes of justification, shared linguistic forms of life are only appearing in the process of speaking. It is speaking together that creates linguistic community based on a multiplicity of voices attuned and constantly attuning in multiple linguistic interactions. Using Donald Lopez’s Prisoners of Shangri-La, I will finally discuss how this unorthodox vision of language allows us to see not “clashing civilizations,” but multiple processes of attunement and distanciation by scholars and practitiones creating a complex and dynamic picture of multiple linguistic and religious identities.
A29
A Silk Purse out of a Sow’s Ear: Contributions of Psychological Anthropology and Neurobiology to the Study of Transcendence and the Body
Rebecca Sachs Norris, Merrimack College
The study of religious experience, mediated through psychological anthropology, brings transcendence and neurobiology together to inform a new understanding of the transmission and development of religious experience. This paper presents the argument that religious states are transmitted and learned though the body, that particular qualities of perception and memory are necessary for this process, and that neurobiology and cognitive science provide material to support this claim. Scientific and experiential perspectives can coexist without having to either present a reductionist argument that all states of experience are merely biochemical interactions, or regard experience as faith-based and therefore untouchable through scientific means. Psychology, sociology, and anthropology (particularly psychological anthropology) elucidate and complexify discussion of religious states; neurobiology deepens this discussion by including an objective view of the processes taking place in the brain that enable these states.
New Neuroscientific Views of the Unconscious: Implications for Religious Studies
Kelly Bulkeley, Graduate Theological Union
This presentation will look beyond the twentieth century work of James, Freud, and Jung to consider recent neuroscientific findings on the unconscious operations of the human brain/mind system and their relevance for human religiosity. Particular attention will be given to three neuroscientists whose research has especially provocative implications for religious studies: V.S. Ramachandran, Mark Solms, and Antonio Damasio. The presentation will challenge religious studies scholars to develop a more sophisticated and up-to-date understanding of brain-mind science. At a minimum, we need to know enough to be able to critique the reductionistic, anti-religion claims that some neuroscientists put forth. Beyond that, we have an opportunity to initiate new investigations of classic themes in our field (e.g. mysticism, ritual, healing, cultural creativity, symbol and myth, gender and sexuality). Not since the early part of the twentieth century has leading scientific psychological research provided such fertile material for religious thought and reflection.
The Gendered Brain and Mystical Experience: Neuro-Physiological, Psychological, and Social Narrative Views of Sex-Differences in Religious/Mystical Experiences
Alice Maung-Mercurio, Luther Seminary
This study combines the observations of the physiological measurement of brain activity during peak (mystical) religious experiences, and bio-psycho-social contributions to the fields of gender/gender development and religious/mystical experience. The publications Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (which showed measurable changes in brain activity during deep meditation or prayer - Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg, 1999), and Zen and the Brain (James Austin, 1999) are compared. The meditative state of experienced Buddhist meditators and praying activity of Franciscan nuns were observed. In addition, Lene Sjorup’s and Theodore T. Y. Hsieh’s studies of gender differences in religious experience are viewed. Hsieh measures differences in brain function/attenuation and constructs a religious system model to interpret these findings, and Sjorup notes statistically significant differences in males’ and females’ verbal (narrative) reports of mystical experiences. A new model based on additional studies helps to view the interplay of gender and religious experience.
A30
Political/Spiritual Kabir
Linda Hess, Stanford University
“There are two types of Kabir songs,” an Indian NGO worker told me. First, he explained, there are religious songs. Then there are songs of social commentary--criticizing caste, hypocrisy, violence, etc. In a collaborative project with Kabir folk singers, his organization intended to foreground Kabir’s social criticism. Among Kabir’s “clientele”--singers, listeners, readers, Kabir Panthis, other nirgunis, religious specialists, scholars, artists--there is often a sharp divide between political and spiritual. Are Kabir’s admirers mainly interested in his inward or his outward gaze? Is one of these aspects the real Kabir, the other merely incidental, even embarrassing? Can the study of Kabir-attributed poetry reveal what he was mainly interested in? Or is there no author to grasp, only social history--how different people in different times and places interpret him? This paper argues that, while the tension will persist, the broad stream of Kabir poetry suggests that political and spiritual are inseparable.
Kabir’s Sadhana
Purushottam Agrawal, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Kabir according to himself was a bhakta (religious devotee, practitioner). Being a bhakta presupposes a system of sadhana. (spiritual practice). Does Kabir propose a new kind of sadhana? If so, what is its nature and what are its implications? Can we claim to “recover” Kabir (as all modern attempts to “read” him tend to do) without going into the issues arising out of sadhana? Most attempts to “discover” or “recover” him have ignored this vital question, and hence become attempts to appropriate him for chosen contemporary political projects. I wish to address the questions of epistemology inherent in Kabir’s notion of sadhana and their implications.
The Inner Citadel of Caste: The Dalit Critique of Kabir in Hindi Criticism
Milind Wakankar, State University of New York, Stony Brook
This paper attempts to trace the shifting representations of the work of the fifteenth century “poet-saint” Kabir in key Hindi critical texts written from within a nationalist frame. I argue that in his epoch-making book on Kabir (1942), Hazariprasad Dwivedi (1907-1979) can be seen to have inverted the tendency of such critics as Ramchandra Shukla (1884-1941) to deride the mystical element in the popular (exemplified for Shukla in Kabir). Dwivedi did this by claiming that it was now the popular as mystery that was to be installed at the core of nationalist discourse as the inner citadel of “individual religious questing” (vyaktigat dharm-sadhana). From the point of view of the recent dalit (“untouchable”) critique of Dwivedi put forward by Dharmvir, it would seem as though Dwivedi may well have transferred the strife within culture to its conflictual core, which “is” caste.
The Weaver of Dignity: Low-Caste Theology in the Songs of Kabir
Nancy M. Martin, Chapman University
Kabir is extremely popular among Hindu and Muslim low-caste communities in western Rajasthan. This paper will offer an analysis of oral song traditions of Kabir recorded among these communities in this region and explore the theological reflection therein. The songs sung in Kabir’s name within these communities are not directed against religious leaders and those of upper castes, as might be expected; the sharp critique found in the Bijak is not present. Instead the songs reflect perspectives of low-caste people speaking to each other, with encouragement and challenge, of what it means to follow a path of devotion to God as a person of low caste. They assert an alternate value system which affirms the dignity of all, regardless of wealth or birth status, and speak of religious realization and of the struggles of following a religious life in a world that neither understands nor appreciates devotion.
A31
Challenging the Globe: Theological Spatiality and Space Theory
Emily Askew, Vanderbilt University
I advocate the use of place theory as a theological hermeneutic. Many disciplines have turned to place theory in the last two decades, including Anthropology, Philosophy, Cultural and Critical Geography and Postcolonial theory. I am suggesting that it is time for theological consideration of this useful interpretive lens. Place theory identifies geography as a fundamental constituent in the social construction of meaning. Particularly, place theorists recognize that geographic boundaries, as culturally constructed, reinforce ideological agendas for right action within those boundaries. That is, geographic boundaries enforce particular social practices that in turn reinforce geographic boundaries. Because geography is a significant factor in global social justice issues among many other concerns, I contend that all theologians must become more intentional in their use of it in theological reflection, beyond that done by theologians whose interests are primarily ecological. I use Postcolonial Theory to articulate the usefulness of place for theologians.
Religio-Economic Systems and the Powers: Toward a Theology of Economic Transformation
Ray C. Gingerich, Eastern Mennonite Seminary
This essay attempts to open a religio-political space to address an issue that theology far too frequently fails to engage. At the intersection of religion and the social sciences, it expands Walter Wink’s development of “the powers” to construct a theology for understanding global systems, specifically capitalism. Market capitalism, within this framework of thought, is a world religion possessing global hegemonic domination. Capitalism, like all powers and all religions, is a human construct. Like all powers it can be transformed, not magically nor metaphysically, but through the Way of the Cross-the socio-political legacy of Jesus as embodied in alternative communities of nonviolence with open economic systems. Historical incidents of such embodiment are found in the first century (CE) communities of The Way and among Anabaptists subsequent to the German Peasants’ Revolts.
Theology and Culture in the Belly of the Whale: Post-liberalism as a Contextual Response to Globalization in North America
Larry Golemon, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Globalization theory relies on various notions of “culture” to capture the dynamic “flows” (Appadurai) that shape new forms of human life, through time-space compression, disembeddedness, and radical connectivity (Giddens, Harvey, Robertson, Tomlinson). Numerous global theological flows (Schreiter) have been developed to engage these larger dynamics, but what about local strategies of engagement, particularly in North America? In this paper, I argue for postliberal theology as a set of local strategies for engaging globalization flows and effects. First, I revise the postliberal understanding of “culture” (Lindbeck) in a way that addresses postmodern critics (Tanner), by employing revisions of Geertz and a reflexive view of “social practices” (Dykstra, Bass, Wolf). Then I explore two local strategies for engaging globalization: 1) narrativity and symbolic extension, and 2) interpretive and dialogical practices, as shaped by public criteria of meaning and the rule theory of doctrine.
A32
Panel: Deconstructing Captivities: Native Women in the Contact Zone
Eva Garroutte, Boston College, Presiding
Laura E. Donaldson, Cornell University
Michelene Pesantubbee, University of Iowa
Joel W. Martin, University of California, Riverside
Vera B. Palmer, Dartmouth College
Mary C. Churchill, University of Colorado, Boulder, Responding
The importance of American Indian women within their respective nations made them key targets in the historical project of Christian missionization. Euro-American missionaries even spoke of “getting the race” through the influence of Native women on their families and communities. Recently, however, some ethnohistorians have disputed this sentiment by arguing that Native women acted as the particular conservators of their various cultural and spiritual traditions rather than privileged conduits for assimilation. This panel focuses on Native women’s creative responses to the traumas and exigencies of the “contact zone,” a social space where people who are divided geographically and historically come into contact with each other, often under conditions of severe inequality and intractable conflict. The presenters will re-consider such figures as Catharine Brown (Cherokee), Kateri Tekakwitha (Mohawk) and Nancy Ward (Cherokee) in the light of emerging indigenous perspectives on them.
A33
Emergent Issues in the Study of African Medicine
Jude Aguwa, Mercy College
In recent times a whole lot of interest has surfaced around African medicine. Contrary to the predictions by some expatriate scholars many years ago, African medicine has not only survived in the present time but it also is being counted as a promising contributor in solving Africa’s current health problems. This has placed the question of research at the very center of the discussion. By examining the effects resulting from earlier negative depictions of African medicine, one can appreciate the development that has exposed the facts about its validity and potentials. This paper will focus on these emergent issues which have historical, cultural and religious implications and on that basis review some conditions for continuing developments.
Healing Rituals in the Suburbs: African-Based Healing among Middle-Class Americans
Mary Ann Clark, University of Houston
Research on Afro-Caribbean healing rituals has focused on their use in immigrant and lower income communities. In these communities such rituals have often substituted for mainstream medical treatments that are either unavailable or unaffordable. However as these religious traditions move into middle-class and non-immigrants communities, their rituals and techniques of healing have found their way into the lives of white middle-class people. I will explore the ways that Afro-Caribbean healing paradigms are understood by clients and healers in ethnic and economic groups not usually associated with these practices. I will look at rituals performed by practitioners of these traditions for two clients and will examine the understanding of these rituals from the view points of both the practitioners and the clients, the effects reported by the practitioners and the clients, and describe the clients’ long-term evaluation of their treatments.
The Drop of Oil That Puts out the Fire: The Yoruba Orisa Sopanna in the New Age of Smallpox
Mei Mei Sanford, College of William and Mary
The Yoruba deities (orisa) each image and control an area of human experience with its gifts and dangers. Saponna (Obaluaye) is both the source and healer of infectious disease: smallpox, malaria, and most recently, AIDS. What insights do his worship, stories, and praise poetry offer about the climate and control of disease as we confront the return of smallpox, and about the psychological and moral dimensions of human involvement with smallpox--in its eradication, treatment, and political use? The power of Obaluaye story and practice to illuminate the physical elements of disease, and the psychological and moral dimensions of those who wield it, make Obaluaye religion an essential source of information and critique in the new age of smallpox.
A Lusty and Paying Ghost: Voodoo Queen Marie Laveaux’s Tomb as a National Shrine of Healing
Ina Johanna Fandrich, Louisiana State University
Hundreds of visitors arrive daily at the tomb of Marie Laveaux, New Orleans’ legendary Voodoo Queen, flooding the small, old St. Louis Cemetery #1 located just above the French Quarter. During her long lifetime (1801-1881), Laveaux was famous for her supernatural power and healing skills. Though controversial her services were in high demand among all sectors of New Orleans’ population, the rich, the poor, men, women, young, old, slaves and slave masters alike. Today, more than 120 years after her death, her extraordinary popularity has not diminished. The tourist industry cashes in on the ever more popular cemetery tours, and desperate individuals still bring offerings of flowers, money, and liquor while hoping for a miracle in exchange. This paper explores how Laveaux’s tomb has become a secret national shrine of healing.
A35
Panel: Postmodern Medievals? Late Modern Appropriation of Medieval Devotional Culture in Interdisciplinary Perspective
Stephanie Paulsell, Harvard University, Presiding
Candace Hull Taylor, University of California, Davis
Patricia Donohue White, Duquesne University
Stephen Katz, University of California, Berkeley
Elizabeth Drescher, Graduate Theological Union
Readers of late medieval English devotional culture from a variety of disciplinary locations (theology, literature, history, Christian spirituality) take up, by way of direct engagement with texts by figures such as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe as well as with mystery plays and texts for spiritual direction, how postmodern readings of the period, its figures and texts can be “true” in some meaningful sense to both the original context and the contemporary moment. Influenced by the recent scholarship of Amy Hollywood, Grace Jantzen and Carolyn Dinshaw--itself indebted to postmodern philosophies and methodologies--the panelists consider late medieval spiritual figures and texts both as they have lived and as they may continue to live in the spiritual practices of Christians.
A36
Repositioning Power: How Mandala Installation Affects the Reading of Shingon Ritual Spaces
Pamela D. Winfield, Temple University
This paper discusses three possible display strategies for esoteric Shingon mandalas, and shows how each configuration affects the reading of the ritual space. When the Two World Mandalas are hung facing one another as they are at Kōyasan and Tōji, they empower both the ritual space and the initiate through telescoping architectural spaces and a series of criss-cross iconographic correspondences. When they are hung frontally as at Kokubuji in Osaka, they empower the subordinate deities flanking the main image or honzon, increasing their potency in a kind of ritual technology upgrade. Finally, when individual elements from the mandalas are reworked into wholly novel configurations such as on the ceiling of Hasedera in Nara, imaginative apotropaic and thaumaturgic associations emerge.
Medieval Japanese Cult of Shōtoku Worship
Kenneth Lee, Stetson University
I examine the medieval Japanese cult of Shōtoku worship (Taishi shinkō) and how various groups used Shōtoku to legitimize their claims to authority. I explain how the image of Shōtoku as a cultural and religious icon continued to have a powerful influence on the Japanese people during the Insei (1086-1185) and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods. With the decline of feudalism and the rise of the warrior class during the Kamakura period, new ruling authorities adopted Shōtoku worship as an effective ideology to legitimize their claims of authority over both political and religious sectors. As the Shōtoku cult continued to flourish along with the honji suijaku culture (the assimilation of native Shinto kamis into the Buddhist pantheon) in medieval Japan, the Fujiwara court, the shogunate, and temple establishments promoted their own way of worshiping Shōtoku as an ideal regent, ideal general, and ideal Buddhist king, respectively.
Zen Monks and the Diplomacy of Foreign Conquest in Late Sixteenth-Century Japan
Nam-lin Hur, University of British Columbia
Did Japanese Buddhism, represented by two Gozan Zen monks, promote killing for the glory of the Divine Country? It seems that, in late sixteenth-century Japan, they did. Keitetsu Genso (1537-1611) and Seisho Jotai (1548-1607) conducted Japan’s state diplomacy during the period between 1592 and 1598, when the Hideyoshi regime invaded Korea on the pretext of conquering Ming China. Their involvement was threefold: (1) they articulated the idea of the Divine Country, which was used to justify Hideyoshi’s foreign aggression; (2) they conducted the cease-fire negotiations (which ended in failure) with Ming China; and (3) they appeased Korean war victims by offering memorial services. Based on an analysis of written and visual material pertaining to these two monks, this paper explores the extent and manner of their diplomacy and assesses the implication of their activities for Japanese Buddhism.
Rebirth in the Pure Land or God’s Sacrificial Lambs? Interpretations of the Atomic Bombings by True Pure Land Buddhism (Hiroshima) and Catholicism (Nagasaki)
Yuki Miyamoto, University of Chicago
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have often been discussed from within a discourse based upon nation-state boundaries. When then curator Martin Harwit at the Smithsonian Institution proposed an exhibition of images of the bombing as seen from the ground, a number of WWII veterans opposed this plan as “anti-patriotic.” However, examining testimonials of minority groups, such as Korean, Okinawan, and Japanese-American hibakusha (A-bomb victims) challenges this nation-state discourse: how can we think of the atomic bomb incident as taking place in a total war, which was fought in the name of nation-states, even while the victims did not necessarily fall within nation-state boundaries? As an alternative reading of this historical event, I propose to turn to religious interpretations: that of Mitsudera Shigenobu (True Pure Land Buddhism) and that of Nagai Takashi (Catholicism). Religious interpretations, I argue, provide us with perspectives that interpretations bound by nation-state frameworks have disregarded.
A37
“Your Wish Is My Command”: The Peril and Promise of the Bible as “Letter from the Beloved”
Hugh Pyper, University of Leeds
Kierkegaard uses the metaphor of the letter from the beloved to exhort his reader to immediate obedience to the demands of the biblical text as the reader perceives them. This zeal seemingly exonerates the reader from the consequences of any errors in his or her reading. This is worryingly close to providing a justification for terrorist acts sincerely but erroneaously carried out in the name of the bible. In his poem “Fears and Scruples” Robert Browning uses the same metaphor to express doubt over any claim to authority by scripture. The argument of this paper is that the figure of the silent woman later in Kierkegaard’s text opens up a more nuanced understanding of authority and obedience which may offer a course between the apparently unthinking obedience of JYF and the melancholy offence displayed by Browning and “A.”
Violence and Secularization, Evil and Redemption
Martin Beck Matuštík, Purdue University
We pray to be delivered from evil, hoping not only to avoid temptation to do iniquity, but that evil deeds will be atoned. In our prayers and hope, do we grasp how radical is the “radical evil” that darkens our intellect and weakens our will? Kant argues that evil must be imputed to the weakness of human will, thereby attesting to the dignity of human freedom and rational will’s innate orientation to do good. Building on Kant and using Kierkegaard’s distinction between aesthetic and ethical, I will consider that there is nothing redemptive or holy in war on evil. Yet by translating the religious mode of sin into the moral language of radical evil, does not Kant muddle the issue? Relying on Kierkegaard’s religious grasp of evil, I want to consider that there is nothing wholly secular about violence. Finally, I will meditate on some postsecular consequences of radical evil.
Kierkegaard on Violence and Transcendence: An Ethics of the Sublime
Vanessa Rumble, Boston College
This essay takes its point of departure in Charles Bellinger’s exposition, in Genealogy of Violence, of the many respects in which Kierkegaard anticipates Rene Girard’s understanding of the origin and mechanisms of violence. Both view violence as arising from the absence or refusal of a transcendent telos for human desire. The essay questions, first, whether Kierekgaard’s own writings might be characterized as not only diagnosing violence but also valorizing it. Second, it is suggested that Kierkegaard’s philosophy shares this tendency with that of Levinas and Lacan, all proponents of what might be characterized as a “sublime ethics.” A conception of a sublime, conflict-based ethics is elaborated in contrast to an “ethics of the beautiful,” based on Kant’s Critique of Judgment, and the value and dangers of the sublime aspects of Kierkegaard’s, Levinas’, and Lacan’s writings are discussed.
A38
The Concept of the Public in Korean Neo-Confucianism and Its Modern Transformation
Seung-Hwan Lee, Seoul, Korea
Korean people are often said to have no clear distinction between public/private. Recent studies often trace the reason back to the Confucian & Neo-Confucian culture which prevailed in Korean society for more than five hundred years until the dawn of modern period. However, when we look closely into the Confucian tradition, we can find various mentions made by Confucian scholars emphasizing the rigorous distinction between public/private. The Neo-Confucian thought was based on the sharp distinction between Heavenly Principle/Human Desire which was functionally identical with the distinction between public/private. With these questions in mind, in this paper, I examine the concept of gong in Confucian tradition as well as its modern variation which can be understood as public in English. In doing so, we will arrive at a better understanding of the question, “Do we Koreans really have no clear distinction between public and private?”
The Religion and the Rise of Civil Society
Don Baker, University of British Columbia
Scholars who analyze the rise of democracy in the twentieth century often link democracy to the emergence of a civil society. The birth of a civil society is usually attributed to businessmen organizing to resist government intervention in their affairs. However, religious organizations sometimes pose a similar challenge to the state. When believers fight for religious freedom, demanding limits on a government’s jurisdiction, they too are carving out space for civil society to emerge.
The Irrelevance of the Tragic in Korea’s Religious Consciousness
Hong-Bin Lim, Korea University
Compared with the ancient Greek literary tradition, we have to recognize that neither our Korean cultural nor religious tradition could be influenced by the tragic worldview. Hegel also, who drew his attention to the complicated problem of the tragic in his lifetime, maintained that we are living nowadays in the post-tragic age. But he was convinced by the hermeneutic relevance of the tragic regarding the malaise of the western modern society. This difference between cultures is of crucial importance. It will bring to light some useful parameters of my paper. This will make the element of the tragic relevant to the research of public rationality in Korean society. I will defend a view that there are some relationships between Korean development of public rationality and the non-existent element of the tragic.
Theology of Accompaniment in Post-Minjung Korea
James T. Bretzke, University of San Francisco
As a member of a research group studying religion and civil society in East Asia, I studied in Korea, an emerging new local theology related to both Minjung theology and also traditional Korean Confucian values. This emerging theology is termed by its principal practitioners as a “theology of accompaniment” and my research focuses on how this theology is articulated and practiced in ministry among the farm workers and the urban poor. My research involved field visits and interviews with people strongly involved in a variety of voluntary religious associations, organizations and movements, who see themselves as modern (e.g., progressive), and who expressed a deep concern about social justice which relates also to how they see themselves as citizens, as members of a state, including a responsibility to interact with others who are not necessarily part of their same religious group, thus involving issues of tolerance, pluralism, gender, and harmony.
A39
Panel: Clergy Sexual Abuse: Theological and Gender Perspectives
David James Livingston, Mercyhurst College, Presiding
Donald Cozzens, John Carroll University
Marie M. Fortune, Seattle, WA
Merle Longwood, Siena College
William Schipper, Saint John’s University
Elaine Graham, University of Manchester, Responding
There has been a plethora of journalistic writings on the current sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, not only in this country, but in other parts of the world as well. The recently published Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church by the Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe (2002) is one of the most notable. Other writings have approached this crisis from a social scientific perspective, such as A. W. Richard Sipe’s Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis (1995), while others have provided a broader historical perspective, such as Philip Jenkins’ Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Crisis (1996). While acknowledging the value of these perspectives, the members of this panel will be particularly concerned to address the sexual abuse issues in terms of what their impact may have in understanding constructions of masculinity in churches and in the wider society.
On Being a Father without a Script
John Blevins, Emory University
This paper will explore the challenges that gay men with children face in creating an identity as father. The paper will do so in two important ways: 1) by using queer theoretical perspectives to demonstrate how most of our cultural understandings about healthy human development and parental responsibility inevitably require a heterosexual conception of the family; and 2) by analyzing the religious rituals of a particular Christian community in Atlanta to bless the lives of a queer family-- parents and children-- who worship there.
A40
How Prevalent Are New Religious Movements in the American South? A Regional Look at NRMs, with an Exploration of Some Problems with NRMs Methods and Demography
Timothy Miller, University of Kansas
New religious movements are less prevalent in the American South than they are in other parts of the country, with fewer movement headquarters, fewer local organizations, and fewer members per capita than are found the rest of the country. This paper provides documentation for the proposition that NRMs are less prevalent in the South than elsewhere. It then examines several possible explanations for the relative paucity of NRMs in the South. Finally, it examines demographic and methodological problems raised by the study: How are accurate demographic data on NRMs obtained? Just how are NRMs operationally defined? How can our geographic understanding of religion, and especially NRMs, be improved?
The Communication That Heals: Spiritualism and the New Age Movement at Cassadaga, Florida
Phillip C. Lucas, Stetson University
The Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, an independent Spiritualist community located in east central Florida, has been an anomalous fixture on the Florida cultural and religious landscape since its founding in 1893. In 1981, the camp terminated its erstwhile affiliation with the nation’s largest and oldest Spiritualist umbrella organization, the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. The community is now unaffiliated with any larger Spiritualist association, leaving it free to pursue its spiritual vision in a peculiarly eclectic manner. This paper focuses on an interpretation of the community’s ritual life and its healing/therapeutic work. In addition, I uncover the extent to which the Cassadaga community has assimilated New Age beliefs and practices, while at the same time resisting certain aspects of New Age religion. Throughout the paper, I focus on the camp’s efforts to maintain a coherent self-representation as a Spiritualist community, given its members’ eclecticism and doctrinal flexibility.
Graceland Too: The Ambiguity of Elvis Devotion in the American South
Gregory L. Reece, University of Montevallo
Located near Memphis, Tennessee, Graceland Too is a private “museum” dedicated to Elvis Presley. It has become a favored stop on the Memphis to Tupelo pilgrimages of Elvis devotees. Through its appearance on internet Web sites (including one sponsored by CNN) and in academic accounts of Elvis faith it has gained wider recognition and occupies the ambiguous status of being a symbol of devotion and an ironic joke. Following a description of Graceland Too, including an account of its origins and history, this paper elaborates on the ambiguous reception of Graceland Too by academic / journalists as well as by Elvis fans and tourists. It is hoped that an analysis of the ambiguous reception of Graceland Too may shed some light on the ambiguous reception of Elvis devotion in general.
Walking the Line: Native Pipe and Sweat Ceremonies in Prison
Lee Irwin, College of Charleston
The subject of this presentation is the movement among native prisoners to have access to native religious practices, specifically pipe ceremonies, sweats, and prayer and drum sessions. These practices form the basis of a native spirituality movement that supports a wide range of diverse native traditions and has been organized around a few basic ceremonies now recognized as primary expressions of native religious identity. Beginning in the early 1970s, this movement has fought for recognition in the prisons, in the courts, and in the popular press. Many individual cases will be reviewed, including the seven years struggle of the Trapp vs DuBois suit by native prisoners in Massachusetts. Also covered are the formation of various native societies for the purpose of offering spiritual advisers to prisons, the National Native American Prisoners Rights Advocacy Coalition, and several United Nations proposals in relations to native prisoner’s religious rights.
Unwitting Collaborators: Mary Baker Eddy, Her Critics, and the Development of Christian Science Theology
Amy E. Lorion, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Mary Baker Eddy’s critics argued with her as vocally and publicly as possible. Not one to pass up a good fight, Eddy responded to these challenges just as vocally and publicly as her critics, continually nuancing her basic tenets to explain away the seeming contradictions many were all too happy to point out. This debate played a pivotal role in the development of Christian Science as it appeared at the time of Eddy’s death in 1910, as Eddy worked out the ideas and nuanced the language that would become Christian Science doctrine. Studying both her critics” comments and Eddy’s responses, including resulting revisions to Science and Health, allows us a view into the development of Christian Science theology as well as insight into how one religious founder turned an antagonistic environment to her advantage, involving her most vocal critics in the development of the very theological system they disparaged.
A41
The Earth Charter: Past Challenges and Future Prospects
Rick Clugston, Center for Respect of Life and Environment, Washington, DC
This presentation will: describe the origins of the Earth Charter and movements from the United Nations Earth Summit at Rio, afterward; analyze the intricacies of the international drafting process and highlight the wide-ranging kinds of consultations that emerged around the Charter in draft form; and trace the journey of the Charter from Rio and discuss its reception at the WSSD. It will conclude with a discussion of the future directions of the Charter and highlight its educational uses.
Religion and Ethics at the United Nations’ Earth Summit in Rio, 1992
Heather Eaton, St. Paul University
The Earth Summit 1992 marked a distinct direction in United Nations and global affairs. A global consciousness, worldview and agenda was taking shape. The official event was attended by more world political leaders than prior or since, and was paralleled by a citizen forum of over ten thousand people. The agenda for both was sustainable living on earth. This presentation is part of a collaborative effort to present some of the religious and ethical dimensions from Rio to Johannesburg. Three aspects of each will be presented. One, a spatial anthropology; that is the efforts leading up to and during the Rio events, the rise of democracy, and a global citizen’s movement. Two the unprecedented inter-religious collaboration with and participation in global affairs. Three is a discussion of the rise of a “global green and justice-focused worldview.”
Religion and Ethics at the United Nations’ Sponsored World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2002
Bron Taylor, University of Florida
In September 2002 the United Nations’ World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. This presentation, accompanied by photographs, analyzes religion and ethics at the WSSD in three stages. The first analytical stage will provide a spatial anthropology of the site to analyze power relationships. The second stage reviews the critical ethical issues contested at Johannesburg, noting along the way how diverse religions played central roles in presenting them. The third stage focuses on the role of religion in promoting a global ethics of sustainability, focusing especially on the progress of what I call “spiritualities of connection” with the earth, within Civil Society at large, and even in the official UN venue itself. I argue that at the Summit there was, haltingly and in a nascent and fragile way to be sure, signals of what political theorist Dan Deudney calls “Terripolitan Earth Religion.”
The Search for Viable Global Ethics in and around the United Nations
Mary Evelyn Tucker, Bucknell University
This presentation explores historically the search for a viable global ethics, focusing especially on this quest at the United Nations, and among the individuals and groups engaged with it. It will outline some of the historical movements in this direction around the founding of the UN, especially with its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It will then discuss the movement toward an ethics of sustainability that has several facets including the work of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Earth Charter arising from the Rio Earth Summit, the Global Ethics drafted by Hans Küng, and the interest of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in engaging the world’s religions for environmental protection. The presentation will concluded by highlighting some of the obstacles and opportunities to the engagement of religions in each of these projects.
A42
Religion, Ritual Sacrifice, and the Iconic Serial Killer
Jane Caputi, Florida Atlantic University
The contemporary serial killer is a simultaneously feared and admired criminal and popular icon. It is primarily in the popular and imaginative fictionalizations that the core meanings of this killer’s ascendancy to iconographic status are revealed. That meaning is a religious one. These characteristic themes include: immortality, godlike identifications, and related motifs of genius, ritual sacrifice, misogyny and gender ambiguity (involving masculine incorporation of the feminine). Historically, both the quest for immortality and a foundational misogyny are inherent to blood sacrifice according to Nancy Jay. My presentation will explore these themes of divinity and sacrifice as they occur in popular narratives including: Psycho, Seven, The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, and several British and American television productions. I also comment on the elaboration of an alternative anti-patriarchal mythos of female divinity in the story of a woman confronting and ritually slaying a serial killer in The Cell.
Spectacles of Sacrifice in a Theater of Terror: Religion and the Cinema of Adolescence, from Reefer Madness (1936) to Scream (1996)
Jon Pahl, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
David Considine’s identification of a particular genre of film, the “cinema of adolescence,” does not develop the religious significance of this marketing trend. The genre developed and succeeded, however, precisely because these films both play upon, and create, conventions of discourse and practice that resolve the “crises” of youth by depicting normative connections for adolescents to selective institutions and communities that are invested with transcendent, even salvific, significance. A close analysis of four films, Reefer Madness (1936), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Halloween (1978), and Scream (1996) can reveal both the continuity and development of these conventions in American popular culture. The implications for the study of religion, and especially the global problem of religious violence, will be explored in conjunction with the findings of Girard, Juergensmeyer, Lincoln, Schwartz, and others.
Terror, Violence, Natality, and Revelation: Bowling For Columbine and the Culture of Fear
Whitney Bauman, Graduate Theological Union
The Bush administration portends to end violence and terror through the “War on Terror.” Some would argue that the Bush Administration is actually ruling with terror and thereby creating domestic and international violence. This is what Michael Moore’s movie Bowling for Columbine and Barry Glassner’s book, The Culture of Fear suggest. Using Hannah Arendt’s theories of terror and violence this paper explores how the findings in Moore’s and Glassner’s works give evidence to the statement that the government of the United States is moving toward a “rule-by-terror” model, based upon Arendtian understandings of terror and violence. Finally, this paper will explore how Arendt’s concept of “natality” (compared here with the “newness” or “natality” of God’s on-going revelation) might help us as a nation, “think what it is we are doing” and create an open space for dialogue by which true democracy, “rule-by-people” might emerge.
Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence
Kent Brintnall, Emory University
This paper reads Quentin Tarantino’s film Reservoir Dogs alongside Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Love. By comparing how these respective texts depict and valorize the brutalized male body, the paper exposes the erotics inherent in the veneration of the crucified Christ as well as the theological anthropology subtending Tarantino’s film. In addition, through its methodological approach which treats cinematic and theological texts as equivalent sources of knowledge, the paper demonstrates the potential value of a genuinely interdisciplinary approach to religion and film.
A43
Gnostic Mythology in Disney’s Pinocchio
Tony Chartrand-Burke, Wilfrid Laurier University
The right film can work wonders for helping students understand difficult concepts in religion. Disney’s Pinocchio at once provides a visual metaphor for the Gnostic version of the creation of humanity and conveys the anxiety that must have been felt by prospective Gnostics as they came to the realization that their well-known and beloved traditions could yield such disconcerting interpretations. This paper details the parallels between the creation myth of the Apocryphon of John and the Blue Fairy’s animation of the puppet in Pinocchio, and discusses the pedagogical value of making such parallels.
Constituting and Confronting Evil: Satan, Postmodernism, and the Mythological Language of Film
Andrew DeJohn, University of Chicago
The proliferation of the postmodern affect has brought with it the dissolution of the meaning of language itself and the myths that used to make sense of evil in the world. This is most starkly illustrated in American society’s near complete jettisoning of the concept of Satan. Twentieth century postmodern society has also seen itself face to face with its own historicity and the patent existence of horrific evil in the world. This paradoxical predicament we find ourselves in, then, is one in which we still feel the presence of terrible evil but have lost the ability, the rational language to describe and cope with it. Where rationality and postmodernism have failed, however, particular language has been able to provide a means for constituting and confronting evil: the mythological language of film.
Tolkien and Tillich: A Theological Reading of the Mythology of Evil in The Lord of the Rings
Stephen Butler Murray, Skidmore College
In his epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien articulates a dynamic vision concerning the mythology of evil. While one might point to the figure of the demigod Sauron or his legion of fallen followers, it is the malevolent work of his creation, the One Ring, which embodies corruption as the core of Tolkien’s perspective on evil. Most remarkable about this understanding is that the One Ring does not prey upon the wearers’ weaknesses, but attacks their most noble qualities. It is through the content of their character that they are undone. I would like to explore Tolkien’s corruptive aspect of evil through the lens of Paul Tillich’s explanation of what happens to an uncentered self due to the conditions of existential estrangement. I shall discuss Tillich’s doctrine of evil in conversation with Tolkien’s narrative, focusing on topics such as despair and the individual’s loss of a “world.”
“It Came to Me”: Gift and Reciprocity in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings
Kathryn Blanchard, Duke University
A few years before JRR Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring was published, Marcel Mauss published his Essai sur le Don in which he explored the nature of gift giving in non-industrialized cultures, theorizing that people give out of self-interest and reciprocate out of obligation; moreover, he believed gifts had spirits and lives of their own. Tolkein’s books and Peter Jackson’s films provide a striking embodiment of Mauss’s principle; the lesser rings of the title are gifts that put recipients under obligation to the giver, while the “one ring” of power illustrates the way a gift desires to return to its original master. But the evil ring is a non-gift, in a corrupt and broken gift cycle, carried on through theft and betrayal rather than gratuitous gift and spontaneous reciprocity. Narrative and film let us explore the theme of gift in a way that Mauss’s oft-criticized scholarship might not.
Irving Singer’s Reality Transformed and Its Import for the Study of Religion and Film
Greg Watkins, Stanford University
Scholarly work in the area of religion and film has been predominately unsophisticated at the theoretical level, especially by the standards of contemporary film theory. Irving Singer’s recent book, Reality Transformed: Film as Meaning and Technique, serves as an explanation of that theoretical difficulty at the same time that it etches out its own philosophical synthesis of the formalist and realist schools of film theory. While a humanist himself, Singer’s insistence on the place of the imagination in all aesthetic experience leads him to describe superlative works of art as those which present us with an otherwise “absent world” that has been given meaning through insightful representations of it. The essentially imaginative space of that meaningful yet absent world allows for both humanistic and religious interpretation.
A44
Religious Freedom Debates in the Pueblo Dance Controversy
Tisa Wenger, Southern Methodist University
This paper examines the contested category of religion in the Pueblo dance controversy of the 1920s as a contribution to the history of U.S. policies on Native American religious freedom. In this controversy, competing groups of reformers battled over attempts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to regulate Native American dances. All the reformers in the controversy framed their arguments about the Pueblo dances in terms of what they agreed was the all-American value of freedom of religion, but because they disagreed over what counted as religion, they also disagreed over whether or not the Pueblo ceremonies merited that protection. The controversy demonstrates that religious freedom debates are informed by competing definitions of religion, which are therefore crucial for understanding the history of government policies towards Native American religious practices.
America’s Sacred Ground and the Marketplace: Rediscovering the Religious and Moral Roots of Economic Freedom
Barbara A. McGraw, Saint Mary’s College of California
The "individualism" preserved by the founders in the U.S. Constitution was not intended to be self-sufficient individual pursuit of happiness. Rather, individualism was based on the idea that God’s primary relationship is with each individual person. And the purpose of freedom was to ensure that individuals are free to be and do good according to conscience imbued with God, so that they could build the good society from the ground up. The theories of Adam Smith, the "father" of capitalism, complement these goals. However, they have been misunderstood, resulting in a distorted contemporary U.S. economic policy at home and globally based on an ethic of selfishness. But Smith never intended to carve out of economic life intrinsic moral values. We find, instead, that Smith’s ideas for economic freedom were morally and religiously grounded in much the same way as the American political system was grounded by the American founders.
Taking Worldviews Seriously across the Curriculum: Why Training Public School Teachers to Teach about Religion Is Not Enough
Perry Glanzer, Baylor University
Various authors such as Charles Haynes, Warren Nord, Robert Nash, and Martin Marty have argued that efforts need to be made to ensure that public educators integrate religion into the curriculum in a constitutionally appropriate way. This paper contends that broadening the focus of the discussion from “integrating religion” to “understanding and examining worldviews” is necessary if educators are going to understand and sympathize with the major moral argument undergirding the case for teaching religion in public schools. We need to acknowledge that education takes place within “a tournament of narratives” and that justice in a liberal democracy requires that public school educators must be trained how to show fairness to various worldviews. Without the realization of these points, religious perspectives will always be seen as the province of special interests or a viewpoint to be shown special accommodation and not a class of worldviews that must be shown justice.
Public Activism for American Muslim Civil Liberties after September 11
Hajer Ben Hadj Salem, Mahdia, Tunisia
This paper is an attempt to study the impact of the USA Patriot Act on American civil liberties in general and on American Muslims in particular. It will deal with some aspects of public activism by Muslim public affairs organizations, human rights advocates and other ethnic and faith-based groups, who, in their solidarity with the Muslim community (perhaps, the group that was affected most by the implementation of the Patriot Act), forged a communal bond uniting and strengthening American society. This activism has provided a mode for unifying the American public, providing appropriate tools for citizens to question any further restrictions on their civil liberties, while at the same time maintaining a patriotic stance. In this way, non-governmental and community organizations have provided an alternative patriotism to that put forth in the Patriot Act, one that aims to create solidarity and not mutual suspicion.
Mandatory Monotheism and Some Problems of Religious Freedom in Bali
June McDaniel, College of Charleston
Indonesia is often called the largest Muslim nation in the world. However, it is not a theocracy. Its government policy is tolerance for religions that believe in one Almighty God (the first requirement of the pancasila instituted by President Sukarno at Indonesian independence), and non-tolerance towards other religions. Traditional Balinese religion is animistic with Hindu elements. In order to fit the government requirements, the religion was deliberately restructured by Balinese intellectuals into a monotheistic form of Hinduism with one God, a sacred text, and prophets. This paper explores some of the problems of this political and religious compromise, based on both text and fieldwork. Is it religious freedom if the government imposes religious requirements, but does not mandate belief in a single religion? Is it monotheism if practitioners largely ignore the God? Can a politically motivated theology be called religious? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such a church-state relationship?
A46
The Many Augustines
Robert P. Kennedy, Saint Francis Xavier University, Presiding
Kim Paffenroth, Iona College, Presiding
Paul Rigby, Saint Paul University
James K.A. Smith, Calvin College
Brad Green, Baylor University
Charles A. Wiley, Princeton Theological Seminary
Our session will consider several of the many different roles that Augustine plays in our readings of him. We will be looking at him from the perspectives of psychology and postmodernism, as well as the difference between Catholic and Protestant readings of him.
A47
Relics of National Sacrifice: Toward a Typology
Robert Alvis, Elmhurst College
This paper examines the use of relics in the inculcation of national identity. For my purposes the term relic refers to the physical remains of exemplary individuals, implements they may have employed, or residual memories of heroic action tied to specific locales. Relics of national identity are those so understood by a broad cross section of the national group in question. My approach centers on a close reading of the representations, erasures, and amendments associated with relics in one region (the city of Breslau/Wrocaw and its environs) occupied in succession by two nations (German and Polish), concentrating in particular on the period from 1871 to 1970. I consider the formal language of monuments, hegemonic interpretations of their significance, and alternative narratives emerging from disempowered parties. My analysis bears in mind the larger history of the region and the interests of the agents responsible for the symbols I scrutinize.
Stealing, Hoarding, Guarding: Nagas and the Three Types of Buddha Relics in the Pali Vamsas
Kristin Scheible, Harvard University
Within the literary landscape of medieval Theravada Buddhism, namely in the Pali vamsas (chronicles), nagas (mythical snake-beings) determine the value of relics through theft and hoarding, and they serve to locate and guard relics. In this paper, I will look at these functions and suggest certain connections that arise between the nagas and particular relics representative of the three categories inherent to the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Some are relics of the body (sarira), stolen and swallowed by nagas but eventually enshrined in stupas for human veneration. Some are relics of use (paribhogika), such as the tree the Buddha used as a parasol and gave to nagas to worship. Others are relics of place (uddesika). The relationship between nagas and relics, specifically in accounts of relic enshrinements in the medieval Sri Lankan Pali vamsas, will shed light on the broader topic of relics and sacred space.
Transgressing Claims to Sacred Space: The Advantage of Portable Relics in the Christological Conflicts in Syria-Palestine in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries
Cornelia B. Horn, University of St. Thomas
Based on evidence gleaned from doctrinally diverse sources (Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian) of Late Antique provenance, this study claims that the feature of portability proved to be the decisive moment in an attempt of anti-Chalcedonians in fifth-century Syria-Palestine to redefine their understanding of the necessary relationship between the Sacred and spatial confinement. Based on the hagiographic and biographic tradition surrounding the figure of Peter the Iberian and his dealings with relics, this study critially investigates the dynamics behind a development that allowed relics to become the effective means of constructing new sacred space for a newly emerging anti-Chalcedonian Church in Late Antiquity. The international frame of reference created by the diverse origins of the relics (Persian, Armenian, Syrian, Phoenician, and Palestinian) and by the geographically diverse creation of alternative new sacred space (primarily Egypt and regions of Palestine) allowed the emerging church to redefine its territorial perspective in a global direction.
Osiris’ Head: Relics and Metonymy in Ancient Egypt
Scott Noegel, University of Washington
Though overlooked in comparative studies on relics, there is a great deal of evidence for relics in ancient Egypt, especially within the cult of Osiris. Osiris, a god of vegetation whose cult centered at Abydos, eventually gained widespread popularity as a chthonic deity associated with the flooding of the Nile, the deceased pharaoh, and the judgment of the dead. Osiris’ mythological traditions included a dismemberment and “re-memberment” of his body, and an eventual sexual union between Osiris and his wife (and sister) Isis, an act resulting in the birth of Horus, a god incarnate in the pharaoh. One later finds a temples dedicated to Osiris throughout Egypt, each claiming to possess one of the god’s members. This paper examines the metonymic meaning of Osiris’ relics from the perspective of the Egyptian political and administrative system to offer broad theoretical and historical insights into the value and purpose of relics generally.
The Treasure of the Ka’bah: Relics and Territory in Islam
Brannon Wheeler, University of Washington
Muslim tradition records an account of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandfather, who in the midst of uncovering the Well of Zamzam, recovers a buried treasure of swords, armor, and two golden gazelles. Some scholars link this discovery to the “Treasure of Qusayy” or the hidden Ark of the Covenant buried along with other implements from the Jerusalem temple when it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The story of this discovery and its link with other accounts of treasure and text burials is closely associated with traditions regarding the relics of the Prophet Muhammad (hair, nails, footprints, artifacts), relics of earlier prophets (Adam, Abraham, Moses), and Islamic law related to territory and ritual practices. Suggestive comparisons can be made with reference to the bodies of the Buddha, Sumerian Me, and Surfing movies.
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Dialectics of Conscience: Subjectivity and Ethics in Ghazali
Ebrahim Moosa, Duke University
This paper first explores the various ways that al-Ghazali construes human subjectivity in terms of heteronomy, autonomy and theonomy. I demonstrate that Ghazali’s notions of the self and selfhood is never really far from his epistemological concerns. This takes place especially after his intense engagement with tasawwuf (mysticism) when he is keen to infuse notions of subjectivity in the study of law and ethics. I argue that a whole new apparatus related to subjectivity and selfhood begins to mediate his conceptions of the law. Ghazali inflects notions of aesthetics (dhawq) and understandings of theonomy, by means of fiqh al-nafs in his exploration of ethics. Examples of how he applies this to the realm of practice will be presented.
Al-Ghazali on Love of God
Eric Ormsby, McGill University
In the presentation I intend to analyze al-Ghazali’s discussion with reference to his predecessors and his successors. I am interested in his strategic approach, beginning firmly in self-love and love of the visible and progressing through love of the invisible to a form of transfigured dalliance with God Himself. I shall also examine his strategies for establishing his case that such love is not only possible but essential and comment more generally on his hortatory techniques in the Ihya” at large. I shall also compare and contrast Abu Hamid’s discussion with his younger brother Ahmad (d. 1126) more radical views on divine love and shall try to show both the affinities and divergences within the two brothers” thought. Finally, I mean to explore the relationship between both thinkers” views and examine the question of whether Ahmad’s thought may represent the oft-mentioned but never- proved “esoteric” teaching of his older brother.
MS London, British Library OR 3126: An Unknown Work by Al-Ghazali on Metaphysics and Theology
Frank Griffel, Institute for Advanced Study, Yale University
Ms. London, British Library Or. 3126 is of all we know the unique example of a text that claims to be written by the influential Muslim theologian al-Ghazali. The beginning of the text which would establish a clear claim of authorship is lost. The authorship can only be determined through cross-references to other works. The titlepage of the ms. was added later and it identifies the text as the Maqasid al-falasifa of al-Ghazali. This text is not al-Ghazali’s well-known Maqasid, but a comprehensive exposition of metaphysics and theology. The subject is introduced in Avicennan terms, but follows clearly al-Ghazali’s views on theology. The paper will discuss briefly the history of the ms., the evidence for al-Ghazali’s authorship, and focus on the importance of this text for the ongoing reevaluation of his teachings in theology.
Al-Ghazali on the Real Religious Science: An Introduction to the Jurisprudence of the Heart (Fiqh Al-Qalb)
Timothy J. Gianotti, University of Oregon
Al-Ghazali begins his compendium, Reviving Religious Knowledge (ihy‘ ‘ul’m al-d’n), with the Book of Knowledge simply because, in his own words, “it is the most important”. It is “most important” for at least two reasons: because it challenges, in a very radical way, conventional conceptions of religious knowledge in Islam, conceptions that al-Ghazali believed had to be overturned if Islam, as a spiritual system was to save its own soul in his day, and because it serves as a general introduction to the science that al-Ghazali regarded as the most crucial. This is the Knowledge of the Way of the Afterlife devoted to preparing the individual for the ultimate, and immanent, encounter with the Divine. Although he was by no means the first Muslim sage to focus on this science of psycho-spiritual formation, al-Ghazali was among the first to systematize it and develop it as a pedagogical discipline.
A Medieval Struggle over Quranic Interpretation: Ibn Taymiyyah’s Critique of al-Ghazali’s Metaphysics in the Mishkat al-Anwar
James Pavlin, Rutgers University
The Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche of Lights) is considered to be an extremely important essay explaining al-Ghazali’s esoteric interpretation of the well-known Light Verse of the Quran (24:35). In this essay al-Ghazali describes how the Light Verse can be interpreted to reflect a metaphysical reality that is based primarily on the neo-Platonic tradition as received by the Muslim philosophers. This philosophic tradition came under harsh scrutiny by the fourteenth-century Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyyah. His specific analysis of the Mishkat al-Anwar appears in his Bughyat al-Murtadd.The purpose of this paper will be to show how Ibn Taymiyyah defined the two competing hermeneutics, that of the hadith traditionists and that of the philosophers, by focusing on his criticism of particular passages of al-Ghazali’s Mishkat al-Anwar.
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Panel: Confucianism in Contemporary China: Portents, Prospects, and Ambiguities
Mark Csikszentmihalyi, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Presiding
Mark Allen Berson, Hamline University
Vivian-Lee Nyitray, University of California, Riverside
Thomas Selover, University of Saskatchewan
As a spiritual tradition, Confucianism seems at times to be a form of civil religion, or even religious civility. For much of its history, it has been integrally related to familial responsibilities and government service. After 80 years of cultural critique, and in the context of a perceived need for stable civility, Confucianism seems to be making a public comeback in contemporary mainland China. Aspects include discourse about “governing by virtue” (dezhi), human rights and responsibilities, family policy, the moral compass, and Chinese cultural nationalism. Government investment in promoting Confucian studies has led to a monumental new research center in Qufu, Confucius” birthplace. Our panel will explore these signs of renewed interest in Confucian resources in China and assess the political, social and religious implications of the Sage’s new lease on life.
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Panel: Contesting Religions: Prospects and Perils in a Global Context
Ebrahim E. I. Moosa, Duke University, Presiding
Madhu Kishwar, Centre for Studies in Developing Societies, Delhi
Maysoon Melek, United Nations Population Fund
Avishai Margalit, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Enrique Dussel, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico
This forum presents emerging international voices in the study of religion who are articulating new critical and constructive interpretations of religion and its function and role in contemporary societies. The forum will consider changing trends in the study of religion around the world as well as global developments in religions themselves that indicate a need for continual revision of categories of analysis, scholarly roles and the public function of religions and their interpreters. A central concern will be the ways in which these international developments challenge and criticize approaches dominant in the western academy. Participants include: Avishai Margalit, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Madhu Kishwar, Dehli University; Maysoon Melek, United Nations Population Fund; Enrique Dussel, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico; and Ebrahim E. I. Moosa, Duke University.
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Panel: Surviving and Flourishing: Challenges and Opportunities of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession
David Kyuman Kim, Connecticut College, Presiding
Mary C. Churchill, University of Colorado, Boulder
Andrew Sung Park, United Theological Seminary
Joretta L. Marshall, Eden Theological Seminary
Luis G. Pedraja, Memphis Theological Seminary
Marcia Y. Riggs, Columbia Theological Seminary
How can racial and ethnic minority scholars survive and flourish in the midst of the economic downturn, the controversy on affirmative action, and limited growth of religion departments and theological schools? What are the lessons learned in job seeking, promotion and tenure, publishing, and career development for minorities? How have we balanced multiple commitments in the academy and in our communities? How can we nourish and renew ourselves to avoid burnout, ill health, and fatigue? This special forum provides an opportunity for conversations to launch a survival guide for racial and ethnic minorities. Panelists include Mary Churchill, University of Iowa; Andrew Park, United Theological Seminary, Ohio; Joretta L. Marshall, Eden Theological Seminary; Luis G. Pedraja, Memphis Theological Seminary; and Marcia Y. Riggs, Columbia Theological Seminary.
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Panel: The Use and Abuse of Adjunct Faculty in Religious Studies
Mark Lloyd Taylor, Seattle University, Presiding
Elizabeth Pullen, Drew University
John Curtis, American Association of University Professors
Carey J. Gifford, American Academy of Religion
Julie J. Kilmer, Elmhurst College
Since the mid-1970s, the number and percentage of faculty teaching on contingent (adjunct, part-time) appointments has increased dramatically - 100% by some estimates - even as tenured and probationary (tenure-track) faculty appointments continue to decrease. This session aims to begin a more intentional, public conversation within the AAR about issues raised by these trends. Stories of several different types of adjunct experience will frame presentations of empirical data on faculty staffing patterns. A variety of resources, including a new statement by the American Association of University Professors, will be shared and discussed. Concerns about systematic injustice in the treatment of those laboring in what has been called the academic "sweatshop" will be articulated. Implications for the future of teaching and scholarship within religious studies, especially for current and prospective graduate students, will be considered. Consciousness raising, survival strategies, and ameliorative actions for current adjuncts will be explored.
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Teaching a Key Concept: A Workshop
Patricia O’Connell Killen, Pacific Lutheran University
To gain the most from this session, participants should come with three copies of a brief narrative description of an activity or assignment they have used to teach a key concept. This can be one that worked well, one that did not work as well as anticipated, or one that worked once and then was less successful the second time around. The description should include 1) title, level, short description of course and its main objective, 2) description of activity or assignment, 3) purpose of the activity, and 4) what happened, 5) how the professor concluded that the activity or assignment worked well or less well in meeting its goal. Participants may (not must!) send their narrative description to the facilitator ahead of time via e-mail: killenpo@plu.edu.
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Panel: Rethinking Comparative Ethics: A Diverse Division of Labor
Pia Altieri, The University of Chicago, Presiding
Francisca Cho, Georgetown University
John Grim, Bucknell University
Anna L. Peterson, University of Florida
Darlene Fozard Weaver, Villanova University
Robin W. Lovin, Southern Methodist University, Responding
William Schweiker, University of Chicago, Responding
What becomes of “comparative ethics” when we can stipulate neither the entailments of “comparison” nor “ethics”? Is it an enterprise worth engaging? Or one no longer relevant and responsible? Simply put, comparative ethics lingers in methodological limbo. But scratch the surface of many scholarly pieces, particularly those in History of Religions/Area Studies, Anthropology, Theological Ethics, or Method/Theory, and you’ll find “comparative ethics” glimmers-though often, only implicitly. Is there any commonality to such glimmers? And if so, to what end? This panel investigates how scholars from diverse disciplines and fields might join forces, focus their questions and target their analyses with an eye toward cross-culture communication and understanding. It asks how and why an interdisciplinary division of labor might responsibly re-think comparative ethics in contemporary cross-cultural contexts.
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Panel: Better People? Eugenics and the Church in U.S. History
Amy Laura Hall, Duke University, Presiding
Sharon M. Leon, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
Dennis Durst, Saint Louis University
Christine Rosen, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC
Stephen G. Ray, Louisvile Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Responding
This year marks the completion of the sequencing of the human genome. Enabling supposed advances in pre-implantation and prenatal diagnosis, the Human Genome Project invites a new way of conceiving reproduction. As diagnostic techniques emerge, we will become a society ever more capable of eradicating those who do not fit the economic and aesthetic calculations of post-industrial capitalism. This panel of scholars will discuss the history of Christianity’s relationship to the eugenics movement in the U.S. from the Roman Catholic, Evangelical and Mainline Protestant perspectives. By attending to the texts and voices of those within the U.S. churches who grappled previously with eugenic science, we may gain a perspective otherwise ignored by standard, ahistorical models of bioethics. We may question more soberly the uses to which a society such as ours will put genomic science and learn from the mistakes and courage of Christians from the early twentieth century.
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Panel: Reviewing The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins
Teresa M. Shaw, Claremont Graduate School, Presiding
Vincent L. Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University
Wietse de Boer, Miami University of Ohio
Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton, University of Virginia
Lamin Sanneh, Yale University
Philip Jenkins, Pennsylvania State University, Responding
Philip Jenkins’ The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford 2002) presents a vivid portrayal of Christian communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, areas seldom in the forefront of American scholarly or pastoral attention. Yet, these communities will come to dwarf the Christian communities of America and Europe. And the story is not simply about numbers, but about styles of Christian belief and practice that sometimes diverge sharply from those embedded in American and European communities. In characterizing this development as “one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide,” Professor Jenkins not only offers a picture of the present and future but also one of the past, the history of Christianity from which he draws powerful comparisons to illuminate the current development. This panel will examine the claims presented in this book, claims about the past as well as about the dramatic changes occurring now.
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Testimonies, Transition, and Trasnational Mexican Communities
Ethan Sharp, Indiana University, Bloomington
Formulating and relating personal testimonies have been essential to the exercise of faith and the formation of church communities in Pentecostal and other Protestant strains of Christian tradition. Through fieldwork in Mexico and among Mexican im/migrants in the US, I have found that testimonies have also become important forms of expression for Catholic Mexicans. My paper begins to account for the emergence and significance of testimonies among Mexicans. I consider two phenomena: the “privatization” of Christian experience through the influences of Pentecostalism and new pastoral strategies of the Catholic Church, and the “transnationalization” of communities through continued migration and ever strengthening social ties between sites in Mexico and the U.S. I argue that the testimony, or testimonio, is a medium of cultural change: through the testimonio, Mexicans develop faiths, assert identities, and form communities that are more adaptive to transnational life.
The Orthodox (Eastern) Christian Churches in the American Religious Landscape: The Questions of Nature and Identity
Alexei Krindatch, Russian Academy of Science
The Orthodox Christian Churches in the USA have been organized as ethnically-based denominations. Historically, a high priority has been given to the preservation of the ethnic heritage of their members. These “Church-based” ethnic barriers are alive despite the fact that currently a substantial proportion of Orthodox Churches” membership and clergy are US-born. The paper examines the “profiles” and policies of American Orthodox Churches and the role that they play in the integration of affiliated ethnically diverse Eastern Christian communities into the wider American society. The original author’s data were obtained from national survey of congregations of six Orthodox Churches with Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Albanian, Syrian and native Alaskan ethnic backgrounds. The data from the nationwide “Faith Communities Today” study allowed for comparisons with Roman Catholic parishes and congregations of Liberal, Moderate and Evangelical Protestant denominations.
The Renaissance of Jewish Religious Life in Contemporary Cuba
Dana Evan Kaplan, University of Miami
Judaism as an active religious sect went into what Teresita Pedraza, referring to religion in Cuba generally, calls a “dormant state.” Today, Cuban American Jews find themselves a distinct subgroup within the American Jewish community. While as many as 90% of the community left, a small group of Jews motivated by ideology, family ties, or love of country, stayed throughout the first four decades of the Castro Revolution. The vast majority of the Cuban Jewish community stood to lose their livelihoods. At the time of the greatest economic troubles for the people of Cuba, religious life began to revive. The contours of a new Cuban Jewish identity begin to emerge from the shadows of Fidelistic Communism. Their history is a fascinating one which has never before been told in full. This paper is the story of those who remained.
Latino and African American Muslim Communities
Abbas Barzegar, University of Colorado, Boulder
While the phenomenon of growing African American conversion to Islam has long been known, little to no attention has been given to the rising role of Islam in the Latino American community. This study highlights the dynamics of the growing communities of Latino Muslims in the United States. We find that both Latino and African American communities incorporate Islam into their lives as a holistic religious system, and by doing so, combat the various obstacles that have hindered these historically disenfranchised groups. We also find that both communities identify with Islam on both religious and ethnic terms. The convergence of material and religious identities seems to contribute to the development, maintenance, and growth of the communities. Recognizing the role of indigenous Muslim American communities as positive social forces comes at an increasingly important time in our history where the relationship between the Islamic and western worlds is becoming increasingly tense.
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Philosophy of Religion Section and Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Michiko Yusa, Western Washington University, Presiding
James W. Heisig, Nanzan University
Yoshio Tsuruoka, University of Tokyo
John C. Maraldo, University of North Florida
Thomas P. Kasulis, Ohio State University
This session will include four papers bringing various features of Kyoto School thought into dialogue with western medieval, modern, and contemporary thought. Discussion will draw on, and to some degree introduce work by main figures associated with the Kyoto School (Nishida, Nishitani, Suzuki, Watsuji, Ueda), proposing fruitful exchange with some related ideas in the western tradition.
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Love’s Limits: Religious Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement
Roger S. Gottlieb, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. is the best known and most respected American example of the use of religious ideas to guide a political struggle. As such it reveals something of the strengths and weaknesses of the role of religious non-violence in progressive political movements. Specifically, it shows that the essentially spiritual understanding of human identity is necessary but not sufficient for comprehending and fundamentally transforming a condition of oppression. After developing these claims, this essay will conclude with some modest suggestions about how the rival theoretical vocabularies and political styles of secular and spiritual progressive political movements can be of service to each other; and briefly apply that model to the present-day anti-war movement.
When Karl Rahner Meets Ashis Nandy: Christian and Postcolonial Resources for Nonviolent Resistance in India
Susan Abraham, Harvard University
The mystical theology of Karl Rahner advocates the attitude of Indiferencia as the attitude of one seeking unity with the Word in the World. When Rahner is pushed to clarify how such an attitude can counter violence, he seems to waver and falter. However, dismissing Rahner’s mystical theology as wholly irretrievable is not the only option in my view. Investigating his mystagogical sources leads us to a more practical way of articulating Indiferencia. This move is occasioned by the postcolonial theorist Ashis Nandy whose Christian reading of nonviolent strategy has Franciscan roots. Since Rahner can be shown to draw extensively from Franciscan-Bonaventurean sources, this paper will argue that his mystical theology requires amplification of precisely those strands that emphasize historical and ethical engagement. Indiferencia is shown to be resilient in this regard.
The Art of Peacemaking and Global Action to Prevent War
Sharon D. Welch, University of Missouri, Columbia
In this paper I argue that our understanding of nonviolence can be enhanced through the work of postcolonial comparative religious ethics. I will describe the task of postcolonial comparative religious ethics, and then take as a test case of such comparative work a critical comparison of three approaches to peace-making and nonviolence, the “art of peacemaking” as articulated by Desiderius Erasmus, the Engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh, and the critiques of western social justice movements and the alternative proposals for nonviolent action found in the work of the Zen philosopher Masoa Abe.
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Samvada as a Literary and Philosophical Genre
Laurie Louise Patton, Emory University
In this paper I argue that the term “samvada” in Sanskrit literature might well be classified as a loose kind of genre, if we define genre as “a type of literary work characterized by a particular form, style, or purpose” (OED). I will show that samvada has a particular force in narrative and epic literature which is carried over into philosophical thought. Samvada’s semantic basis seems to be a “rule-governed conversation” that mediates a conflict or dispute. I discuss the various meanings of samvada throughout the literature and examine briefly examples of samvada, so named by Hindu texts themselves. Samvada remains, in all of its different forms, a kind of “structured conversation as the best response to disagreement.” Such consistency in form and connotation may qualify samvada as an indigenous genre. As such, the term has intriguing descriptive and normative possibilities for future thinking in Hindu philosophy and literature.
Sarcasm as Strategy: The Dialogics of the Yajnavalkya Debates
Steven Lindquist, Concordia University
This paper traces the use of sarcasm attributed to Yajnavalkya, a figure most well-known from the Brihadaranayaka, throughout early Indian literature. While many have viewed this aspect of Yajnavalkya’s speech as something unique or peculiar to this figure, this paper argues that Yajnavalkya’s sarcasm has a history. I propose that this history allows us to trace the form and function of this dialogical strategy and I suggest a typology for understanding the statements attributed to Yajnavalkya. This typology, I argue, allows us to view the rise of Yajnavalkya as an religious authority in a particular Brahmanical ritual tradition, that is to say, we can see this tradition being made. I conclude by discussing a few possible reasons why this developed dialogical strategy, prevelant in the White Yajurvedic tradition, did not persist in later Brahmanical religious dialogics.
Generous Sacrifice: Buddhist Responses to the Purusasukta
David Gray, Rice University
Buddhists have been portrayed as rejecting the Vedic worldview. Contrary to this common view, I will argue that there were multiple Buddhist perspectives on and points of engagement with the Vedic worldview, which suggests that Buddhists and Hindus were involved in an ongoing dialogue. I will do so by examining two responses to the Purusasukta (RV 10.90), preserved in the Pali Agaññasutta and the Sanskrit Karandavyuhasutra. Examining changing Buddhist responses to this text, I will argue that Buddhists were engaged in a process of adaptation involving the transformation of discursive categories borrowed from the Vedic tradition. This involved the transformation of sacrifice into generosity, a value given great emphasis in Buddhist discourse. This was a crucial step in the development of the Mahayana ideal of the bodhisattva, an ideal which, as exemplified in the Karandavyuhasutra, reveals influence from theistic trends within Hinduism.
Monological Gods, Dialogical Selves: Canon and Monotheism as Strategies for Interreligious Debate in Nineteenth-Century India
Robert A. Yelle, University of Toronto
The interreligious debate between British and Hindus in nineteenth century India was enabled by the prior agreement of each side to abide by certain terms. Religion came to be defined increasingly as a de-ritualized monotheism embodied in a written canon: the dialogue depended on a monologue. On the British side, this reflected earlier Protestant condemnations of Catholic custom and “idolatry,” which were subsequently transferred to Hinduism. On the Hindu side, the acceptance of this normative definition of religion was not merely an imitation of the British, but also reflected some indigenous developments, as an examination of the case of the early Bengali reformer Rammohun Roy shows. Both sides illustrate the logic of monotheism and canon as the foundational gestures of universal discourses translating, asymmetrically, between selves and others.
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The Politicization of Gender in Bangladesh
Christi Caldwell, Cambridge, MA
This report is a study of the politicization of gender development work in Bangladesh, with specific reference to the work of the Grameen Bank and its replication projects. It seeks to determine the origins and effects of gender development’s usherance into the political arena. In exposing the forces propelling the gender issue into the context of political dissent, the study reveals that gender’s politicization is the key impediment to a new gender paradigm in Bangladesh. Gender is relegated to the already-loaded arenas of Islamic identity, cultural imperialism, modernization, secularism and syncretism versus re