Footprints and Faith: Religion and the Landscape in Early Modern Britain and Ireland

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 169-183
Author(s):  
Alexandra Walsham
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
Dome Of The Rock ◽  
Tangible Evidence

The idea that divine beings, holy people and magical creatures leave behind permanent marks of their immortality on the surface of the earth is common to many cultures and spiritual systems. Throughout history curious hollows, cavities, and coloured stains on stone and rock have been explained as tangible evidence of the presence and intervention of deities, saints, prophets, angels and demons. The folk motif of the miraculous impression of a foot, hand or limb finds frequent expression within Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Footprint shrines and cults abound in the Middle East, India, south-east Asia and China, from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and Qadam Sharif in Delhi to Phra Sat in Thailand. Variously revered as the footmark of Buddha, Siva, Adam and St Thomas the Aposde, Sri Pada in Sri Lanka is perhaps the most compelling emblem of the polyvalency of this intriguing phenomenon and its capacity to range across the full spectrum of religious traditions.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret S. Graves
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Final Consideration

The conclusion places the art of the object into an expanded field, where it is shown to be contiguous with other visual and verbal artforms including architecture, painting, poetry, and rhetoric. It locates the peak of the allusive object in the pre-Mongol Middle East and speculates about its decline in the later medieval and early modern periods. It also considers the change in meaning that the subjects of the book have undergone as they transition from being objects of use to objects of display. The conclusion ends with final consideration of the nature of allusion and its implications for the intelligent art of the object.

scholarly journals Introduction: Publics and Participation in Early Modern Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. M. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
Institutional Variation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Important Shift

AbstractThe deconstruction of what is termed “the public sphere” in recent decades has resulted in an important shift in scholarly attention towards networks and forms of association. This article explores how greater sensitivity to the unstable and ephemeral nature of “publics,” combined with a stronger awareness of the role of cultural exchange, has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of early modern politics. Some analytical precision has, nonetheless, been lost. A justifiable emphasis on the artificiality of the territorial borders that have defined units of enquiry has occurred at the expense of deeper consideration of the cultural boundaries that dictated the terms on which people could participate in and shape public discourse. Study of the British archipelago can offer new ways of thinking about these problems. Linguistic and ethnic differences, the search for religious concord as well as the reality of confessional division, institutional variation, and the consequences of London's increasing dominance of the archipelago, are key facets of the reassessments undertaken here. The article concludes by reflecting on how interactions between varieties of “public” and other forms of association can nuance our understanding of early modern state formation.

Science Studies and Early Modern Ottoman Science

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 584-587
Author(s):  
B. Harun Küçük
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
The West ◽  
Scientific Texts ◽  
Local Perspective ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Geographies Of Science ◽  
Middle East History

This short essay focuses on three issues: how science studies may facilitate the rapprochement between the philological study of scientific texts and Middle East history; how it may help us reconsider ambiguous if not “black-boxed” terms such as the “state,” “Islam,” and the “West”; and finally, how it may build thematic and theoretical bridges with other histories and geographies of science currently emerging from a more global, and not merely local, perspective.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document