Download or read book Asia Modernity and the Pursuit of the Sacred written by Joel S. Kahn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asia, Modernity, and the Pursuit of the Sacred examines a large number of Europeans who, disillusioned with western culture and religion after World War I, and anticipating the spiritual seekers of the counterculture, turned to the religious traditions of Asia for inspiration.
Download or read book Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia written by Tani E. Barlow and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia challenge the idea that notions of modernity and colonialism are mere imports from the West, and show how colonial modernity has evolved from and into unique forms throughout Asia. Although the modernity of non-European colonies is as indisputable as the colonial core of European modernity, until recently East Asian scholarship has tried to view Asian colonialism through the paradigm of colonial India (for instance), failing to recognize anti-imperialist nationalist impulses within differing Asian countries and regions. Demonstrating an impatience with social science models of knowledge, the contributors show that binary categories focused on during the Cold War are no longer central to the project of history writing. By bringing together articles previously published in the journal positions: east asia cultures critique, editor Tani Barlow has demonstrated how scholars construct identity and history, providing cultural critics with new ways to think about these concepts--in the context of Asia and beyond. Chapters address topics such as the making of imperial subjects in Okinawa, politics and the body social in colonial Hong Kong, and the discourse of decolonization and popular memory in South Korea. This is an invaluable collection for students and scholars of Asian studies, postcolonial studies, and anthropology. Contributors. Charles K. Armstrong, Tani E. Barlow, Fred Y. L. Chiu, Chungmoo Choi, Alan S. Christy, Craig Clunas, James A. Fujii, James L. Hevia, Charles Shiro Inouye, Lydia H. Liu, Miriam Silverberg, Tomiyama Ichiro, Wang Hui
Download or read book Theocracy Secularism and Islam in Turkey written by Christopher Houston and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel and lucid work, Christopher Houston clarifies a particular modern style and practice of politics that he calls anthropocracy. In the name of popular sovereignty, anthropocracies de-legitimize the rule of God(s) even as they re-deploy it to stabilize the rule of the representatives of the people, all the while obfuscating their political conscription of the divine. In distinguishing anthropocracy from varieties of other secular and laicist political arrangements, as well as from theocracy, this book also gives readers a brilliant solution to what it calls the Turkish puzzle, the dilemma over how to best describe and analyze state-religion and state-society relations in the Turkish Republic. This work convincingly undermines two orthodox presumptions about Turkish politics: the claim that Turkish modernity should be considered an example of secularity; and the accusation that the current AKP government should be interpreted as Islamic. On the contrary, it argues that both Kemalism and the AKP continue to institute an anthropocratic Republic.
Download or read book Daily Life of Women 3 volumes written by Colleen Boyett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 1309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indispensable for the student or researcher studying women's history, this book draws upon a wide array of cultural settings and time periods in which women displayed agency by carrying out their daily economic, familial, artistic, and religious obligations. Since record keeping began, history has been written by a relatively few elite men. Insights into women's history are left to be gleaned by scholars who undertake careful readings of ancient literature, examine archaeological artifacts, and study popular culture, such as folktales, musical traditions, and art. For some historical periods and geographic regions, this is the only way to develop some sense of what daily life might have been like for women in a particular time and place. This reference explores the daily life of women across civilizations. The work is organized in sections on different civilizations from around the world, arranged chronologically. Within each society, the encyclopedia highlights the roles of women within five broad thematic categories: the arts, economics and work, family and community life, recreation and social customs, and religious life. Included are numerous sidebars containing additional information, document excerpts, images, and suggestions for further reading.
Download or read book World Literature Decentered written by Ian Almond and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would world literature look like, if we stopped referring to the “West”? Starting with the provocative premise that the “‘West’ is ten percent of the planet”, World Literature Decentered is the first book to decenter Eurocentric discourses of global literature and global history – not just by deconstructing or historicizing them, but by actively providing an alternative. Looking at a series of themes across three literatures (Mexico, Turkey and Bengal), the book examines hotels, melancholy, orientalism, femicide and the ghost story in a series of literary traditions outside the “West”. The non-West, the book argues, is no fringe group or token minority in need of attention – on the contrary, it constitutes the overwhelming majority of this world.
Download or read book The Pursuit Acquisition of Health Wealth written by Gerard Jacobs and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pursuit and acquisition of health and wealth are part of the worldview that drives Singaporean society. It encompasses a strong work ethic in the pursuit to modernise and be a key player in the global economy. Health and wealth are defined in terms of an individuals well-being in the sense of good health and a continued assurance of material provision and security. This worldview stems from a syncretism with non-Christian religions that have reconceptualised themselves with the socioeconomic and political goals of Singaporean society. Subsequently they continue to be the authentic expression of the noblest longings of people that have become symbiotic with their daily expressions shaping their history and culture. The book attempts to show that while Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity have played a significant role in the growth of contemporary Singaporean churches, it has inadvertently presented a gospel that appeals to the deeply embedded dominant religious secular worldview of its society in the context of health and wealth.
Download or read book Makers of Modern Asia written by Ramachandra Guha and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first century has been dubbed the Asian Century. Highlighting diverse thinker-politicians rather than billionaire businessmen, Makers of Modern Asia presents eleven leaders who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems.
Download or read book Modern Times in Southeast Asia 1920s 1970s written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reveals how everyday experiences of being ‘modern’ (c. 1920s-70s) indexed continuity and change in the transition from colonialism to independence and after in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume recover modern times at the intersection of public and private domains, encompassing sex, religion, art, film, literature and urban space. The authors examine the conditions and representations of modernity, as shaped by elites and the governed, by actors, artists, novelists and non-fiction writers. Plural encounters in cities, through spiritual communities, art, high and popular culture saw Southeast Asians fashioning modern times in dialogue with global capitalism, consumer culture and second-wave feminism.
Download or read book Imagining Asia s written by Andrea Acri and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a continent lying to the east of Europe, Asia has been malleable to different spatial and temporal imaginations and politics. Recent scholarship has highlighted how the seemingly self-contained regional configurations of West and Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and East Asia carved by the Area Studies paradigm reflect changing (geo)political and economic interests than historical or cultural roots. This volume advances the question as to what Asia is, and as to whether there existed one or many Asia(s). It seeks to explore Asian societies as interconnected formations through trajectories/networks of circulation of people, ideas, and objects in the longue durée. Moving beyond the divides of Area Studies scholarship and the arbitrary borders set by late colonial empires and the rise of post-colonial nation-states, this volume maps critically the configuration of contact zones in which mobile bodies, minds, and cultures interact to foster new images, identities, and imaginations of Asia.
Download or read book Fieldwork and the Self written by Jérémy Jammes and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents new perspectives on Southeast Asia using cases from a range of ethnic groups, cultures and histories, written by scholars from different ethnicities, generations, disciplines and scientific traditions. It examines various research trajectories, engaging with epistemological debates on the ‘global’ and ‘local’, on ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, and the role played by personal experiences in the collection and analysis of empirical data. The volume provides subjects for debate rarely addressed in formal approaches to data gathering and analysis. Rather than grappling with the usual methodological building blocks of research training, it focuses on neglected issues in the research experience including chance, error, coincidence, mishap, dead ends, silence, secrets, improvisation, remembering, digital challenges and shifting tracks. Fieldwork and the Self is relevant to academics and researchers from universities and international organisations who are engaged in teaching and learning in area studies and social science research methods. “A rich and compelling set of writings about fieldwork in, and beyond, Southeast Asia”. — Lyn Parker, Emeritus Professor, University of Western Australia “A must-read for all, especially emerging scholars on Southeast Asia, and a refreshing read for critical ‘old hands’ on the region”. — Abdul Rahman Embong, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia “An impressive collection of essays by two academics who have devoted their academic life to anthropological fieldwork in Southeast Asia”. — Shamsul A.B., Distinguished Professor and UNESCO Chair, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia “The contributors share an unquenchable and passionate curiosity for Southeast Asia. They have survived the uncertainties and disillusionment of their fieldwork and remained first-grade scholars”. — Marie-Sybille de Vienne, Professor, National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations, Paris “A penetrating reflection on current social science research on Southeast Asia”. — Hans-Dieter Evers, Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow, University of Bonn
Download or read book Retelling Time written by Shonaleeka Kaul and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retelling Time challenges the hegemony of colonial modernity over academic disciplines and over ways in which we think about something as fundamental as time. It reclaims a bouquet of alternative practices of time from premodern South Asia, which stem from worldviews that have been marginalized. These practices relate to a range of classical and vernacular genres including alaṃkāra, theravāda, yoga, rāmakathā, tasawwuf, āyāraṃga, purāṇa, trikā-tantra, navya-nyāya, pratyabhijñā, carita, kūṭīyāṭṭam and maṅgala kāvya. These represent multiple languages such as Sanskrit, Persian, Pali, Prakrit, Awadhi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Bengali, as well as diverse streams, from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sufi Islam to logic, yoga, tantra, theatre, and poetics. Retelling Time questions the modern Eurocentric belief in an empty, homogenous, abbreviated, secular and irreversible time. It proposes instead that that premodern South Asia invested time with cultural function and value, which ranged from the contingent to the transcendent, the quotidian to the cosmic, the fleeting to the eternal, and the social to the spiritual. Accordingly, time was reworked --- stretched, melded, collapsed, recursed, rolled over, and even extinguished. Sacred, social, aesthetic, scientific, fictional, historical, and performative South Asian traditions are seen here in conversation with one other, mediated by an ethical paradigm. Their collective challenge is to decolonize our ways of knowing and being. This book will be of interest to scholars of South Asian history, philosophy of history, anthropology, literature, Sanskrit, post colonial studies, cultural studies, studies of temporality and of the Global South.
Download or read book Sacred Mandates written by Timothy Brook and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary discussions of international relations in Asia tend to be tethered in the present, unmoored from the historical contexts that give them meaning. Sacred Mandates, edited by Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes, redresses this oversight by examining the complex history of inter-polity relations in Inner and East Asia from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, in order to help us understand and develop policies to address challenges in the region today. This book argues that understanding the diversity of past legal orders helps explain the forms of contemporary conflict, as well as the conflicting historical narratives that animate tensions. Rather than proceed sequentially by way of dynasties, the editors identify three “worlds”—Chingssid Mongol, Tibetan Buddhist, and Confucian Sinic—that represent different forms of civilization authority and legal order. This novel framework enables us to escape the modern tendency to view the international system solely as the interaction of independent states, and instead detect the effects of the complicated history at play between and within regions. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines cover a host of topics: the development of international law, sovereignty, state formation, ruler legitimacy, and imperial expansion, as well as the role of spiritual authority on state behavior, the impact of modernization, and the challenges for peace processes. The culmination of five years of collaborative research, Sacred Mandates will be the definitive historical guide to international and intrastate relations in Asia, of interest to policymakers and scholars alike, for years to come.
Download or read book Considering the Asian Religions written by Wade Wheelock and published by TEACH Services, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here in one volume is a readable and well-grounded overview of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto. It also aims to be a guide for those who are considering the Asian religions as possible sources of spiritual enrichment. Knowing the basic features of those religious traditions is crucial for understanding both the ancient cultures and today's dynamic civilization of Asia - from India through Southeast Asia, from China to Japan. Based on sound scholarship but written for the general reader, Considering the Asian Religions focuses on the major historical developments in these traditions, with a concluding chapter on significant changes in modern times. It avoids encylopedic coverage, opting for clear explanations over exhaustive detail. Not limiting itself to a neutral recitation of facts, this book offers end-of-chapter evaluations from the standpoint of a Westerner committed to the core values of modernity - reason, cultural pluralism, and a more just and humane world for all. Those conclusions present both a challenge to some of the Asian religious beliefs and practices and a profound appreciation for ways they can be used to deepen and transform our own religious sensibilities.
Download or read book Tourism and Modernity in China written by Tim Oakes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-06-22 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how the experience of modernization is revealed in China's newly constructed tourist landscapes. It argues that in China's burgeoning ethnic tourist villages and theme parks can be seen all the contradictions, debasement, and liberating potentials of Chinese modernity. Tim Oakes uses the province of Guizhou to examine the Chinese tourist industry as an example of the state's modernization policies and how local people have engaged with these changes.
Download or read book Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity written by Weiming Tu and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen scholars from varying fields here consider the implications of Confucian concerns--self-cultivation, regulation of the family, social civility, moral education, well-being of the people, governance of the state, and universal peace--in industrial East Asia.
Download or read book Holy Things written by Nathan McGovern and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A common religious practice in Buddhist Thailand is asking "holy things" for help in return for an offering. These holy things include local spirits, Hindu gods, and famous Buddha images, which Thai people worship all in the same way. Some people, and even Thai Buddhists themselves, have argued that this is "syncretism"--a mixture of religions. Holy Things shows that what appears to be syncretism is actually an illusion. The worship of "holy things" is not a mixture of different religions, but the category of "holy things" is a mixture of different ways of talking about religion.
Download or read book Stating the Sacred written by Michael J. Walsh and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China’s constitution explicitly refers to its sovereign domain as “sacred territory.” Why does an avowedly secular state make such a claim, and what does this suggest about the relations between religion and the nation-state? Focusing primarily on China, Stating the Sacred offers a novel approach to nation-state formation, arguing that its most critical element is how the state sacralizes the nation. Michael J. Walsh explores the religious and political dimensions of Chinese state ideology, making the case that the sacred is a constitutive part of modern China. He examines the structural connection among texts (constitutions, legal codes, national histories), ostensibly universal and normative categories (race, religion, citizenship, freedom, human rights), and territoriality (the integrity of sovereignty and control over resources and people), showing how they are bound together by the sacred. Considering a variety of what he refers to as theopolitical techniques, Walsh argues that nation-states undertake sacralization in order to legitimate the violence of establishing and expanding their sovereignty. Ultimately, territorialization is a form of sacralization, and the foundational role of the sacred makes all nation-states religious states. Stating the Sacred offers new ways of understanding China’s approach to legality, control of the populace, religious freedom, human rights, and the structuring of international relations, and it raises existential questions about the fundamental nature of the nation-state.
