Download or read book Sacred and Profane Beauty written by Gerardus Leeuw and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerardus van der Leeuw was one of the first to attempt a rapprochement between theology and the arts, and his influence continues to be felt in what is now a burgeoning field. Sacred and Profane is the fullest expression of his pursuit of a theological aesthetics, surveying religion's relationship to all the arts -- dance, drama, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. This edition makes this seminal work, first published in Dutch in 1932, newly available. A new foreword by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona analyzes the continuing relevance of van der Leeuw's thought. Van der Leeuw's impassioned and brilliant investigation of the relationship between the holy and the beautiful is founded upon the conviction that for too long the religious have failed to seriously contemplate the beautiful, associating it as they do with the kingdom of sensuality and impermanence. Similarly it has been alien to literati and aesthetes to reflect upon the holy, for they choose to consider this physical world to be permanent, and therefore to be glorified through beauty alone. In truth, as van der Leeuw undertakes to show in Sacred and Profane Beauty, the holy has never been absent from the arts, and the arts have never been unresponsive to the holy. Whether one considers the Homeric epics, the dancing Sivas and Vedic poems, the sacred wall paintings of ancient Egypt, the primitive mask, or the range of sacred arts developed out of Latin and Byzantine Christianity, primordial creation in the arts was always directed toward the symbolization and interpretation of the holy. The fact that in our day this original connection is obscured and the artistic impulse is more generally regarded as wholly individualistic and autonomous does not contradict van der Leeuw's thesis; indeed, the breakdown of the unity of the holy and the arts is central to his thesis. Van der Leeuw was the rare thinker who combined profundity of insight, grace of style, and a willingness to take daring intellectual chances. In Sacred and Profane, he describes each of the arts in its original unity with the religious and then analyzes its historical disjunction and alienation. After a penetrating investigation of the structural elements within the arts which illumines a crucial dimension of the religious experience, van der Leeuw points toward the reemergence of an appropriate theological aesthetics on which a reunification of the arts could be founded.
Download or read book The Study of Religion under the Impact of Fascism written by Horst Junginger and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of religion under the spell of fascism has not received due attention. One reason for the noticeable lack of interest was the political involvement of many historians of religions. Among those who had good reason to leave the era of fascism untouched, we find prominent figures in the field. Another obstacle to examining the past impartially has been the connection with religious and other worldviews which render historical accounts in the study of religion an intricate matter. The articles in this volume provide evidence of the great complexity of the problems involved. Laying the groundwork in many cases, they shed new light on a dark and poorly-lit era of the academic study of religion in Europe.
Download or read book Religious Studies Theology and the University written by Linell E. Cady and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2002-10-10 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection explores the highly contested relationship of religious studies and theology and the place of each, if any, in secular institutions of higher education. The founding narrative of religious studies, with its sharp distinction between teaching religion and teaching about religion, grows less compelling in the face of globalization and the erosion of modernism. These essays take up the challenge of thinking through the identity and borders of religious studies and theology for our time. Reflecting a broad range of positions, the authors explore the religious/secular conceptual landscape that has dominated the modern West, and in the process address the revision of the academic study of religion and theology now underway.
Download or read book Man Meaning and Mystery written by Hjelde and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At an international symposium in Norway, the 100 years’ anniversary of the academic study of religion was celebrated. This volume contains the papers that were presented at this conference. A major part of the papers deals with the situation of this discipline around the turn of the last century, focussing especially on the work of the Dutch-Norwegian scholar W. Brede Kristensen (1867-1953) and on other founding fathers in the Scandinavian countries. Other contributors discuss methodological questions relating to the idea of a phenomenology of religion. Furthermore, an attempt is made to compare the study of religion at the end of the twentieth century with the situation a hundred years earlier, and to trace some of the lines of development. The book includes a bibliography of publications by W. Brede Kristensen.
Download or read book Science Religion the Humanities and Hope written by Anne Runehov and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Discovering Religious History in the Modern Age written by Hans Kippenberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-03 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Kippenberg is a fine scholar of real integrity. His book is a readable and practical introduction to the rise of the study of religion and culture in Europe as well as an intriguing piece of cultural theorizing. It is serious without being pompous, intelligent without being at all impenetrable, and fresh without being strange."--Ivan Strenski, University of California, Riverside
Download or read book Hermeneutics Politics and the History of Religions written by Christian Wedemeyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-08 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume comprises papers presented at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of Joachim Wach's death, and the centennial of Mircea Eliade's birth. Its purpose is to reconsider both the problematic, separate legacies of these two major twentieth-century historians of religions, and the bearing of these two legacies upon each other. Shortly after Wach's death in 1955, Eliade succeeded him as the premiere historian of religions at the University of Chicago. As a result, the two have been associated with each other in many people's minds as the successive leaders of the so-called "Chicago School" in the history of religions. In fact, as this volume makes clear, there never was a monolithic Chicago School. Although Wach reportedly referred to Eliade as the most astute historian of religions of the day; the two never met, and their approaches to the study of religions differed significantly. Several dominant issues run through the essays collected here: the relationship between the two men's writings and their lives, and in Eliade's case, the relationship between his political commitments and his writings in fiction, history of religions, and autobiography. Both men's contributions to the field continue to provoke controversy and debate, and this volume sheds new light on these controversies and what they reveal about these two `scholars' legacies.
Download or read book Embodying Xuanzang written by Benjamin Brose and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2023-09-30 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-year pilgrimage from China to India, his transmission and translation of hundreds of Buddhist texts, and his training of a generation of masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Xuanzang’s life and legacy are the stuff of legend. In the centuries after his death, stories of his epic adventures and extraordinary accomplishments circulated in texts, images, songs, and plays. These mythic accounts recast the erudite pilgrim, translator, and court cleric as a magical monk who traveled not between China and India but between heaven and earth. Beset by bloodthirsty demons, this deified version of Xuanzang navigates the perilous paths of the netherworld to reach a pure land in the west. His purpose is to acquire a cache of sacred scriptures with the power to safeguard the living and deliver the dead. Along the way, he is guided and protected by a mischievous monkey, a lazy pig, a demonic monk, and a dragon horse. This imaginative and compelling tale received its fullest and most influential treatment in the famous sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West. In this engaging exploration of the confluence of myth, narrative, and ritual, Benjamin Brose uncovers the hidden histories of Xuanzang’s many afterlives. Beginning in the eleventh century and continuing to the present day, devotees have summoned Xuanzang and his band of misfit pilgrims to perform exorcisms, guide the spirits of the dead, and possess the bodies of insurgents. Embodying Xuanzang traces the postmortem travels of China’s greatest pilgrim and reveals the narrative and performative roots of China’s best-known novel.
Download or read book Between Three Worlds written by John C. Stephens and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-02-10 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the motif of the spiritual journey and its evolution in Western literature. A spiritual journey can be broadly defined as a search for the divine. Such a search can occur either internally as a psychological process or in some cases may involve an actual geographic journey. Spiritual journeys can be conducted by individuals or groups. In exploring this topic, various kinds of texts will be reviewed, including autobiographies, novels, and short stories, as well as myths, folktales, and mystical writings. The book classifies spiritual journey narratives into four categories: theological journeys, mystical journeys, mythopoetic journeys and allegorical journeys. Representative texts have been selected in the history of Western religious literature that illustrate the basic features of each of these four categories.
Download or read book Syncretism in Religion written by Anita Maria Leopold and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Syncretism - the fusion of different beliefs into one religious system - has long been controversial in scholarship. It is widely held that religion, culture and ethnicity are pure entities that may become mixed in encounter and lead to impure, hybrid forms. 'Syncretism in Religion' presents a selection of essays committed to solving the problems of syncretism. The essays reflect the full breadth of religious traditions that could be called syncretistic. An overview of the historical background of syncretism is given, alongside classical readings from the history of religion, definitions of syncretism in relation to theories of power, and an assessment of the future of the subject. This volume brings together the work of authors who have made significant contributions in the field, some appearing for the first time in English. It will be of interest to any student or scholar of religion, philosophy or anthropology concerned with the dynamics of cultural contact and change.
Download or read book Raffaele Pettazzoni and Herbert Jennings Rose Correspondence 1927 1958 written by Domenico Accorinti and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raffaele Pettazzoni (1883–1959), Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Rome and one of the leading historians of religions in the twentieth century, maintained a long correspondence with Herbert Jennings Rose (1883–1961), the gifted Canadian scholar who was Professor of Greek at St Andrews and is best known for his work in the field of ancient religion and folklore. These letters, spanning the years 1927 to 1958, bear witness to the close relationship between the two scholars and focus on two of Pettazzoni’s books, both translated by Rose: Essays on the History of Religions (1954) and The All-Knowing God (1956). They also shed light on Pettazzoni’s initiative to the foundation of the journal NVMEN (1954), and reveal Rose’s brilliant personality.
Download or read book The Emergence of the Science of Religion in the Netherlands written by Arie Molendijk and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the emergence of the science of religion in the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century. The emphasis is on processes of institutionalization, professionalization, and internationalization on the one hand, and on contemporary discussions about method and conceptualization on the other.
Download or read book Fifty Key Thinkers on Religion written by Gary Kessler and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty Key Thinkers on Religion is an accessible guide to the most important and widely studied theorists on religion of the last 300 years. Arranged chronologically, the book explores the lives, works and ideas of key writers across a truly interdisciplinary range, from sociologists to psychologists. Thinkers covered include: Friedrich Nietzsche James Frazer Sigmund Freud Emile Durkheim Ludwig Wittgenstein Mary Douglas Talal Asad Søren Kierkegaard Providing an indispensable one volume map of our understanding of religion in the west, the book is fully cross-referenced throughout and provides authoritative guides to important primary and secondary texts for students wishing to take their studies further.
Download or read book The Pursuit of the Sacred written by John Chitakure and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalization has taken the world by storm and has facilitated the unprecedented migrations of the peoples of this world. Whether we like it or not, we will meet foreigners in our communities, schools, universities, buses, and other public places. But, when people migrate they take their religions with them. If people of different religious traditions are to live side by side amicably, interfaith dialogue becomes imperative. But, for people to be able to speak about their own religions with enlightenment and listen to other people's religious beliefs with respect, they must have some basic knowledge of how faiths and believers operate because for some people, religion is inseparably intertwined with their economics, politics, and everyday lives. This book clearly and concisely introduces religious studies to the reader. It makes a strong case for the quest and study of world religions and explores the challenges, controversies, and methodological issues in the study of religions. It also explores other pertinent religious issues such as beliefs, rituals, myths, sacredness, morality, the problem of evil, and interreligious dialogue. Although written from a classroom perspective, this book can be useful to any reader who would like to acquire knowledge of religious issues.
Download or read book Studying Religion written by Russell T. McCutcheon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely used as a primer, a text and a provocation to critical thinking, 'Studying Religion' aims to develop students' skills. The book clearly explains the methods and theories employed in the study of religion. Essays are offered on a range of topics: from the history and functions of religion to public discourse on religion and the classification of religions. The works of key scholars - from Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Otto to Mircea Eliade, James G. Frazer, and Sigmund Freud - are analysed and explored. 'Studying Religion' represents a shift away from the traditional focus of describing the exotic or curious religious 'Other' to an examination of how religious behaviours and institutions are studied. The book will be invaluable to students of religious studies.
Download or read book Researching New Religious Movements written by Elisabeth Arweck and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cutting-edge analysis of American and European new religious movements explores the controversies between religious groups and the majority interests which oppose them. It asks how modern societies can best respond to new religious movements,
Download or read book Beauty and Holiness written by James Alfred Martin, Jr. and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this broad historical and critical overview based on a lifetime of scholarship, James Alfred Martin, Jr., examines the development of the concepts of beauty and holiness as employed in theories of aesthetics and of religion. The injunction in the Book of Psalms to "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness" addressed a tradition that has comprehended holiness primarily in terms of ethical righteousness--a conception that has strongly influenced Western understandings of religion. As the author points out, however, the Greek forbears of Western thought, as well as many Eastern traditions, were and are more broadly concerned with the pursuit of beauty, truth, and goodness as ideals of human excellence, that is, with the "holiness of beauty." In this work Martin describes a philosophical stance that should prove to be most productive for the dialogue between aesthetics and religion. Beginning with the treatment of beauty and holiness in Hebrew, Greek, and classical Christian thought, the author traces the emergence of modern theories of aesthetics and religion in the Enlightenment. He then outlines the role of aesthetics in the theories of religion proposed by Otto, Eliade, van der Leeuw, and Tillich, in the cultural anthropology of Geertz, and in the thought of Santayana, Dewey, Whitehead, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. In a global context Martin explores the relation of aesthetic theory to religious thought in the traditions of India, China, and Japan and concludes with reflections on the viability of modern aesthetic and religious theory in the light of contemporary cultural and methodological pluralism. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
