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Rereading minor women characters of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata through their contemporary adaptation in the novels of Kavita Kane Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Nisha Tyagi, Kumar Gautam Anand
This study explores the changes in the portrayal of minor women characters in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to that of the contemporary fictional narratives of Kavita Kane. Women’s struggle, except in the Vedic period, expresses their endeavor for self-reliance and individuality. It also carries their subsequent efforts to camouflage or appropriate the patriarchal norms to be at peace with society
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The Naha Confucius Temple lawsuit and religion-making in Japan’s courts of law Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Ernils Larsson
This paper critically examines the process of “religion-making” as it occurs in Japanese courts of law, through an analysis of the recent Naha Confucius Temple case. The case concerned a small Confucius temple built on public land in Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa. The mayor of Naha had decided to waver lease for the land, since he considered the temple to be an “educational institution”
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Contextualism in Ayatollāh Borūjerdī’s Jurisprudential Methodology Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Rahim Nobahar
This article sheds light on the fiqhī methodology of Ayatollāh S. Hosain Tabātabāī Borūjerdī (1875-1961). According to the author, one of the most prominent features of his methodology is a broad contextualism. Bringing evidence from Ayatollāh Borūjerdī’s major writings, the article explains different aspects and dimensions of his contextualist approach. It explains how he has moved away from a pure
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Draupadi and the paradigm of woman empowerment in Hinduism Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-01-20 Kalyani Hazri
This article aims to bring insights from the philosophy of Hinduism to contribute to contemporary issues related to justice/injustice, empowerment, and liberation. To make important observations, and raise significant questions in this direction, it analyzes and discusses in detail the character of Draupadi from the Indian epic The Mahabharata. The article invites critics to debate the potential for
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The world religions paradigm: Why context matters in religious studies Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Beverly Vencatsamy
The World Religions Paradigm (WRP) has long served as the predominant framework for teaching Religious Studies globally and in South Africa. However, criticisms of the WRP highlight its tendency to marginalize non-Christian, non-Western, and non-white perspectives. This article examines these critiques in the context of South Africa, particularly in light of the events of 2015–2016, when the #MustFall
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Mapping a good society model in Ayatollah Khomeini’s religious political thought: Possibilities and challenges Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Arash Hasanpour, Ali Rabbani
This article identifies the components of a good society in the thought of Ayatollah Khomeini. Over several decades, he experienced a voluntary and compulsory odyssey-like journey, the result of which was theorizing about a good society and Islamic government. From the young Ayatollah Khomeini to the late “Imam” Khomeini, several images are attributed to him. We find that the good society can be realized
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Heidegger as a Colonial Thinker: Puritanism and Germany’s Errand into the Wilderness Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Markus Weidler
In the turbulent 1930s, Martin Heidegger gave a lecture on “Logic as the Question Concerning the Essence of Language.” Upon close inspection, this text expounds a form of covenantal thinking guided...
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“The Cult of Greta Thunberg”: De-legitimating Climate Activism with “Religion” Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Jere Kyyrö, Tuomas Äystö, Titus Hjelm
Contemporary climate activism has often been called a “religion” or a “cult.” We investigate what is done with climate religion discourse (CRD), by whom, and to what ends. Our case study concerns F...
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Customary Arbitration: Religion, Culture, and Law in Igboland Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2023-05-10 Johnson Ifeanyi Okeke
The Igbo traditional religion provides institutions for the amicable, natural, and lasting resolutions of conflicts within Igboland. One of such institutions is the Igbo customary arbitration mecha...
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“Muskets and Rainbows”: Why a Mormon Leader’s BYU Speech Failed, Metaphorically Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-12-29 Adrian Hale
The use of metaphors in religious rhetoric can be persuasive, inclusive, and edifying. They can also be belligerent, harmful, and divisive. This paper investigates the backlash against the use of a...
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Politics of Constructing Islam in the Everyday Lives of Young Bangladeshis: Asserting Majoritarian Islam, and the “Good / Bad Muslim” Narrative Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Mubashar Hasan, Srinjoy Bose
This research paper examines how Bangladeshi youth perceive the role of Islam in their everyday lives and how this, in turn, informs broader political participation and radicalism. The emphasis is ...
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Traditional Secularism v. Modern Secularism A Word on the Nature of Fiqh and the Related Constitutional System Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Mohammad Rasekh
This research attempts to put forward an argument against the claim that the current legal/political system of Iran is undergoing a re-secularization process. It is argued, by focusing on concepts ...
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Called to God: Event, narration and subject formation in the vocation of a Catholic nun Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Anu K Antony, Rowena Robinson
The literature emphasizes institutional formation in the process of a young woman becoming a nun or sees her motivations as stemming from expectations of social and economic mobility. This article ...
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Islamic Fundamentalism and Gender: The Portrayal of Women in Iranian Movies Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-09-21 Ehsan Aqababaee, Mohammad Razaghi
Various political groups were involved in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, which led to the downfall of the Pahlavi regime. However, Islamic Fundamentalists gradually seized power and eliminate...
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Intersectional Stratification: Race, Religion, and Status Attainment Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Hannah R. Evans, Jerry Z. Park
Research repeatedly shows that stratification occurs through racial classification and systemic racism. Scholars have also shown that stratification in wealth, education, and occupational attainmen...
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Child Adoption among Igbo Christians in Nigeria: A “Paradox”? Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-09-15 Fabian U Nnadi, Kingsley I Uwaegbute
This article argues that the practice of child adoption among Igbo Christians of Nigeria is some kind of “paradox.” This is because, Igbo Christians reject and practice child adoption at the same t...
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“The Exodus into the Utterly-New”: Between Hope and Despair Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-09-08 Agata Bielik-Robson
Nur um des Hoffnugslosenwillen is uns die Hoffnung gegeben.
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Book Review: Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Pyramid Root Cause Model Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-09-07 Md. Didarul Islam
Understanding the very nature of what drives a person to be a militant is an unfinished dilemma in academic literature, which subsequently paved the way for hundreds of academic articles and books. Bangladesh being no exception has also been witnessed militancy over the last few decades. In unpacking the nature of militancy in Bangladesh and what causes militancy in it, Shafi Md Mostofa (2021) in his
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Race-religion constellation: An argument for a Trans-Atlantic Interactive-Relational Approach Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-07-12 Josias Tembo
In this article, I argue that a trans-Atlantic account of the constellations of race and religion demands that we understand racist thinking to be constituted by complex conceptual formations and relations. The failure to identify the conceptual complexity and interactive relations in racist thinking has led to universalist and exclusionary definitions of racist thinking and limited conceptions of
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Anthroposophical climate science denial Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-07-01 Sven Ove Hansson
Climate science denial has a perhaps surprisingly strong standing in anthroposophy. Anthroposophical deniers of climate science usually do not contest the existence of global warming, but they ascribe it to “cosmic” processes that are largely described in astrological terms. Thoroughly refuted claims that ongoing global warming depends on variations in solar activity have been adopted by anthroposophists
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Introduction to the special issue on racism and religion Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Mehek Muftee, Per-Erik Nilsson
In November 2019 the Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism at Uppsala University arranged an international conference on the theme of Racism and Religion. It was the first of its kind to be held in Sweden, drawing together the disciplines of Racism Studies and Religious Studies in order to highlight some of today’s most urgent and compelling issues and questions.
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Representing Tibetan Buddhism in books on spirituality: A discourse-historical approach Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-06-01 Maria Sharapan
This article looks into how Tibetan Buddhism is framed in terms of East-West dichotomy in six popular books on Buddhism and spirituality. Discourse Historical Approach is employed to uncover the rhetorical representation of Tibetan Buddhism to the readers. A critical post-colonial perspective offers an insight into various power dynamics, arising from these representations, structured according to
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Catholic-maya sacrificial commitments Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-05-20 Andrés Dapuez
In their annual festival in an eastern village of the Yucatan state, participants verbalized, discussed, and disputed two main understandings of Catholic commitment after a Catholic priest asked his parishioners to reconsider the effects of their ritual offerings. His teachings about compromiso signaled other ritualized practices, which compose the concept: promises and sacrifices. In direct contrast
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Religious nationalism, racism, and raza hispánica (“Hispanic race”) in Constantino Bayle’s, S.J. (1882–1953) missiology (A publication history approach) Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Rady Roldán-Figueroa
This article focuses on the career of the Jesuit priest, Constantino Bayle, as a historian of Spanish Catholic missions and promoter of state-sponsored arrangements that institutionalized nationalist religious historiography. He encoded religious nationalism and racist categories in academic discourse and terminology, elevating in this way racist assumptions and renewed imperialist aspirations to the
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On the religious state, the secular state, and the religion-neutral state Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Warren S Goldstein
One of the most pressing questions of our age is the relationship between established and disestablished religions and the state. It underlies many of the conflicts across the globe including the treatment of the Rohingya by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar, Muslims under Modi’s Hindu nationalism in India, and Palestinians under the Jewish State of Israel. Many of the world’s conflicts are often driven
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Book Review: Jörg Rüpke, Religion and its History: A Critical Inquiry Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-25 Kevin Schilbrack
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Book Review: Ali Shariati Expanding the Sociological Canon Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Akbar Nour
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Nature and the native Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Timothy Bowers Vasko
Critics of climate collapse and colonization in the Americas rightly identify the origin of these twin crises in early modern political theologies. They seek to combat these crises with new political theologies of nature that pay greater reverence to “native” peoples’ ecological knowledge. But in doing so, these critics subtly, perhaps unwittingly, recall elements of the colonial power they criticize
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Book Review: Ali Shariati Expanding the Sociological Canon Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-23 Mehdi S Shariati
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Bringing back the social into the sociology of religion: A response to Jean-Pierre Reed Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-20 Veronique Altglas
This piece is a response to Jean-Pierre Reed’s review of Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion published in Critical Research on Religion. Aside from his appreciation for the contributions of this volume, Jean-Pierre Reed’s critique concentrates on three fundamental issues in relation to the agenda for a critical sociology of religion we advance: scientificism, interdisciplinarity
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Indigenous Secularism and the Secular-Colonial Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-19 Ryan Carr
Many non-Indigenous people assume that secularism—the belief that religion and politics are and should be different spheres of life—is foreign to Native American experience. This partly explains why the topic of Native conversions in early New England has always been so controversial, since conversion implies the differentiation of religion from politics. Be that as it may, history shows that Indigenous
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Manifestos of White Nationalist Ethno-Soldiers Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-04 Per-Erik Nilsson
The 2010s was a decade during which self-acclaimed “ethno-soldiers” murdered what they consider as enemies of whiteness and the West in a spectacular mediatized and gamified fashion. Three attacks carried out against Jewish and Muslim places of worship are of particular interest here. October 9, 2019, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the twenty-seven-year-old German citizen Stephan Balliet
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Child marriage and sexularism in Sweden: Constructing the nation racializing migrants Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Edda Manga
This article investigates the discourse on child marriage as reflected in the entire corpus of official investigations Statens Offentliga Utredningar (SOU) and government bills (Prop.) proposing legislative measures against child marriage in Sweden since the first motions on the issue were drafted in 2001. It analyzes them as instances of sexularism: a form of secularism where the secular is construed
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Thinking Europe’s “Muslim Question”: On Trojan Horses and the Problematization of Muslims Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-25 Sarah Bracke, Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar
Understanding the ways in which Muslims are turned into “a problem” requires an analytic incorporating the insights gained through the concepts of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism into a larger frame. The “Muslim Question” can provide such a frame by attending to the systematic character of this form of racism, explored here through biopolitics. This article develops a conceptualization of Europe’s
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“Light cleaveth unto light”: Intermarriage discourse, LDS women of color, and the new racism Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-24 Nazneen Khan
Fifty years after Loving v. Virginia, oppositional attitudes toward interracial relationships are still advanced by religious institutions in the United States. Extant social science literature characterizes these attitudes as generated largely by Evangelical and Christian nationalist traditions where members harbor negative attitudes toward interracial relationships. Hidden behind this characterization
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Contesting religious boundaries at school: A case from Norway Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-22 Elise Margrethe Vike Johannessen
This article examines the experiences of Norwegian high school girls with Muslim backgrounds in learning about Islam in religious education (RE). The empirical material consists of observations from a high school class in Norway and interviews with girls in the class. The findings support previous reports that Islam as a topic may be challenging for students with Muslim backgrounds. They also suggest
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Book Review: Md Nazrul, Islam and Md Saidul, Islam. Islam and Democracy in South Asia: The Case ofBangladesh Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-23 Md. Didarul Islam,Ayesha Siddika,Shafi Md Mostofa
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The heathen, the plague, and the model minority: Perpetual self-assessment of Asian Americans as a panoptic mechanism Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-22 Yuen-Yung Sherry Chan
Incidents of racism against Asians have been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic turned global in early 2020. Employing Foucault’s concept of panopticism and Kathryn Lofton’s insights on the function of religion to demarcate group boundaries, this article argues that American religion constructs Asian American stereotypes to limit the discursive space within which Asian Americans may negotiate their
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Book Review: American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-20 Jean-Pierre Reed
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Book Review: Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-15 Eleni Pothou
Matteo Di Placido has recently obtained his PhD in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milan – Bicocca, Italy, with a dissertation on what he calls the “pedagogies of salvation” of modern forms of yoga. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Political Science and the Center for Ideas and Society of the University of California Riverside (UCR) during the Spring and Summer quarters
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Book Review: The Sage Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-15 Bryan Turner
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Book Review: Spiritual Subjects Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-14 Beyza Hatun Kızıltepe
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Elusive hope in a secular age Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-14 Andre C. Willis
Hope is ever elusive. To describe it compellingly from the inside is to dive into an abyss of despair, look up (and around), and make metaphors from the recognition of a stranded togetherness. Rich depictions of the mystery we call “hope” emphasize its gravity rather than its immensity. They give it form without any definite shape and reveal its substance without drawing strict boundaries. In short
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Introduction: A pebble in the mouth and a boulder on the horizon Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-14 Bradley Onishi
The trademark virtue of Newheiser (2019)Hope in a Secular Age is how it simultaneously carries on conversations with a multitude of scholars and discourses. Something would be worrisome if it did not. No work can approach the theme of hope in the 21st century without a nuance and complexity that removes it from charges of both obliviousness and nihilism. As the respondents in this symposium note in
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Book Review: The Critical Study of Non-Religion: Discourse, Identification and Locality Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-10-12 Tremlett Paul-François
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Visualizing the soul: Diagrams and the subtle body of light (jism laṭīf) in Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s The Mirror of Souls (Mirʿāt al-arwāḥ) Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-13 Eyad Abuali
Light is a discursive tool that Sufis have drawn upon over the centuries in order to elucidate systems of thought and practice. In medieval Islamic thought, light was closely associated with the soul as well as conceptions of sight and the eye. It also occupied an important place in cosmology. By the twelfth- and thirteenth-centuries, Sufis began to consider notions of light more systematically, creating
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On the undisclosed transfer of abusive Catholic priests: A field theoretical analysis of the sexual repression within the Catholic Church and the use of legitimate language Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-12 André Armbruster
Catholic priests who sexually abused minors were transferred to other parishes without disclosing the actual reason for their transfer. Based on reports from Ireland, Germany, and the USA, and relying on Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus, this article demonstrates that first, the practices of denying and withholding information even to fellow priests are consequences of the repression of sexuality
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Butler, Chakrabarty and the possibilities of radical postsecular politics Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-12 Jakub Ort
This article interprets critiques of secularity and the related concept of history as progress in the work of Dipesh Chakrabarty and Judith Butler. At the same time, it defends their approach against the criticism voiced by Gregor McLennan. It shows that the postsecular conception of the politics of both authors is not just an attempt to open public space to a wider range of religious and cultural
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Resolving the conflict between traditional Islam and human rights: A comparative study of Mahmoud Mohammed Taha’s and Mohsen Kadivar’s views Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-12 Masoumeh Rad Goudarzi
In the recent decades, many Muslim intellectuals have devoted their intellectual efforts to reconstructing the jurisprudence through a new interpretation of Islam in order to solve the problem of human rights. While they have mostly tried to find a solution based on Ijtihad in derivation of Shari’a, Mahmoud Mohammad Taha and Mohsen Kadivar have asked for structural Ijtihad, presenting reversed and
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Electric light and the visualization of Catholic power in Spain during the Restoration Era (1874–1931) Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-12 Daniel Pérez-Zapico
This article analyses the contested adoption of electric lights by the Spanish Catholic church during the Bourbon Restoration era (1874–1931). Through a careful reading of primary sources, namely Catholic popular magazines, and official documents, it will show how Catholic authorities and practitioners resisted, negotiated and, ultimately, engaged with electricity in religious spaces. The article argues
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Enlightening religion: Light and darkness in religious knowledge and knowledge about religion Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-08 Jeremy Stolow, Birgit Meyer
This introduction elaborates how the relationship between religion and light can and should be addressed as a key theme for the critical study of religion. It synthesizes the principal arguments of the 6 articles collected in this special journal issue and locates them in a broader theoretical framework, focussing especially on the politics of knowledge production.
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Book Review: White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-08 Matteo Di Placido
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Speaking “religion” through a gender code: The discursive power and gendered-racial implications of the religious label Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-06 Rabea M Khan
Drawing on the scholarship of Critical Religion, this article shows how the modern category “religion” operates through a gender code which upholds its discursive power and enables the production of religious—and therefore racial—hierarchies. Specifically, it argues that mentioning religion automatically makes gender present in discourse. Acknowledging religion as an inherently gendered category in
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Giuseppe Giordan and Adam Possamai (eds), The Social Scientific Study of Exorcism in Christianity Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-06 Richard Cimino
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M. A. Muqtedar Khan, Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-05-05 Ömer Faruk Koç
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Offshoring the invisible world? American ghosts, witches, and demons in the early enlightenment Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-02-01 Craig Koslofsky
The fierce debate about the reality of spirits and the “Invisible World” which flared up in the 1690’s helped define the early Enlightenment. All sides in this debate—from Spinoza and Balthasar Bekker to John Beaumont and Cotton Mather—refashioned familiar metaphors of light and darkness and connected them with the world beyond Europe in surprising new ways. This article shows how this key controversy
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When silence is “yeelen” (light): Exploring the corporeality of the mind in a nocturnal solo zikr practice (Odienné, Ivory Coast) Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-02-01 André Chappatte
In the town of Odienné (Ivory Coast), Madou forges his faith in God by performing long sessions of solo zikr (recollection of God) after midnight. This article ethnographically explores the theme of light in this Sufi practice of concentration as an experiential form of being. It first describes how the light and darkness of the penumbra of the night co-initiate what I call “the devotional place” of
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Japanese divine light in Kinshasa transcultural resonance and critique in the religiously multiple city Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-01-21 Peter Lambertz
The Japanese “new religions” (Shin Shūkyō) active in Kinshasa (DR Congo) nearly all perform healing through the channeling of invisible divine light. In the case of Sekai Kyūseikyō (Church of World Messianity), the light of Johrei cannot be visually apprehended, but is worn as an invisible aura on the practitioner’s body. This article discusses the trans-cultural resonances between Japan and Central
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The Ancient Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual: An Application of the Ecological Anthropology of Roy Rappaport Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-01-14 Amy L. Balogh
This article presents the ancient Mesopotamian Mīs Pî ceremony as a case study in the relationship between ritual and the natural world using Roy Rappaport’s framework of Ecological Anthropology as a guide. Rappaport’s premise is that human populations do not operate independently but are instead, “ecological populations in an ecosystem that also includes the other living organisms and the nonliving
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Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind: Light and luminous being in Islamic theology Critical Research on Religion Pub Date : 2021-01-12 Christian Lange
For theologians, to conceive of God in terms of light has some undeniable advantages, allowing a middle-of-the road position between the two extremes of thinking about God in terms of a purely disembodied, unfathomable, unsensible being, and of crediting Him with a body, possibly even a human(oid) body. This paper first reviews the reasons why God, in early medieval Islam, was never fully theorized