Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Zuckerman ◽  
John R. Shook
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
International Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Dramatic Rise ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Criticism ◽  
State Separation

The Oxford Companion to Secularism provides a timely overview of the new multidisciplinary field of secular studies. This field involves philosophy, the humanities, intellectual history, political theory, law, international studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, religious studies, and additional disciplines, all showing an increasing interest in the multifaceted phenomenon known as secularism. As the history of the term “secularism” shows, it has long been entangled with many related issues, such as unorthodoxy, blasphemy, apostasy, irreligion, religious criticism, agnosticism, atheism, naturalism, earth-centered -isms, humanism (and trans- and posthumanisms), rationalism, skepticism, scientism, modernism, human rights causes, liberalism, and various kinds of church–state separation all around the world. Secularism’s relevance also continues to grow due to the dramatic rise of irreligion and secularity in most regions of the world. These trends are leading more and more scholars from a variety of disciplines to investigate secular life and culture in all its varied forms.

The Oxford Handbook of Secularism

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
The World ◽  
Dramatic Rise ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Criticism ◽  
State Separation

The Oxford Companion to Secularism provides a timely overview of the new multidisciplinary field of secular studies. This field involves philosophy, the humanities, intellectual history, political theory, law, international studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, education, religious studies, and additional disciplines, all showing an increasing interest in the multifaceted phenomenon known as secularism. Conflicts and debates around the world more and more frequently involve secularism. National borders and traditional religions cannot keep people in tidy boxes anymore, as political struggles, doctrinal divergences, and demographic trends are sweeping across regions and entire continents. Simultaneously, there is a resurgence of religious participation in the politics of many countries. How might these diverse phenomena be interrelated, and better understood? As the history of the term “secularism” shows, it has long been entangled with many related issues, such as unorthodoxy, blasphemy, apostasy, irreligion, religious criticism, agnosticism, atheism, naturalism, earth-centered -isms, humanism (and trans- and posthumanisms), rationalism, skepticism, scientism, modernism, human rights causes, liberalism, and various kinds of church–state separation all around the world. Secularism’s relevance also continues to grow due to the dramatic rise of irreligion and secularity in most regions of the world. These trends are leading more and more scholars from a variety of disciplines to investigate secular life and culture in all its varied forms.

scholarly journals Reassessing Shamanism and Animism in the Art and Archaeology of Ancient Mesoamerica

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 394
Author(s):  
Eleanor Harrison-Buck ◽  
David A. Freidel
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Vital Matter ◽  
Analytical Tools

Shamanism and animism have proven to be useful cross-cultural analytical tools for anthropology, particularly in religious studies. However, both concepts root in reductionist, social evolutionary theory and have been criticized for their vague and homogenizing rubric, an overly romanticized idealism, and the tendency to ‘other’ nonwestern peoples as ahistorical, apolitical, and irrational. The alternative has been a largely secular view of religion, favoring materialist processes of rationalization and “disenchantment.” Like any cross-cultural frame of reference, such terms are only informative when explicitly defined in local contexts using specific case studies. Here, we consider shamanism and animism in terms of ethnographic and archaeological evidence from Mesoamerica. We trace the intellectual history of these concepts and reassess shamanism and animism from a relational or ontological perspective, concluding that these terms are best understood as distinct ways of knowing the world and acquiring knowledge. We examine specific archaeological examples of masked spirit impersonations, as well as mirrors and other reflective materials used in divination. We consider not only the productive and affective energies of these enchanted materials, but also the potentially dangerous, negative, or contested aspects of vital matter wielded in divinatory practices.

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

Reading Statelessness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndsey Stonebridge
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Political Sovereignty ◽  
History Of

Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the failure of human rights to address statelessness is well known. Less commented upon is how important literature was to her thought. This chapter shows how Arendt’s 1940s essays on Kafka connect the history of the novel to shifting definitions of legal and political sovereignty. Arendt reads The Castle as a blueprint for a political theory that is also a theory of fiction: in the novel K, the unwanted stranger, demolishes the fiction of the rights of man, and with it, the fantasy of assimilation. In a parallel move, Kafka also refuses to assimilate his character into the conventions of fiction. Arendt’s reading changes the terms for how we might approach the literature of exile and of human rights.

The Role of Religious Force in the Wukan Incident

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Social Management ◽  
The Village

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.

Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Cultural Goods ◽  
The Third ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic

Since prehistoric times, the Baltic Sea has functioned as a northern mare nostrum — a crucial nexus that has shaped the languages, folklore, religions, literature, technology, and identities of the Germanic, Finnic, Sámi, Baltic, and Slavic peoples. This anthology explores the networks among those peoples. The contributions to Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea Region: Austmarr as a Northern mare nostrum, ca. 500-1500 ad address different aspects of cultural contacts around and across the Baltic from the perspectives of history, archaeology, linguistics, literary studies, religious studies, and folklore. The introduction offers a general overview of crosscultural contacts in the Baltic Sea region as a framework for contextualizing the volume’s twelve chapters, organized in four sections. The first section concerns geographical conceptions as revealed in Old Norse and in classical texts through place names, terms of direction, and geographical descriptions. The second section discusses the movement of cultural goods and persons in connection with elite mobility, the slave trade, and rune-carving practice. The third section turns to the history of language contacts and influences, using examples of Finnic names in runic inscriptions and Low German loanwords in Finnish. The final section analyzes intercultural connections related to mythology and religion spanning Baltic, Finnic, Germanic, and Sámi cultures. Together these diverse articles present a dynamic picture of this distinctive part of the world.

scholarly journals Pierre Monbeig and the Formation of Geography in Brazil (1925-1957): Geohistory of Knowledge, Intellectual History and the Insertion of Brazilian Geography into the World-Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Alves de Lira
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
World Science ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
The World ◽  
University Professor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Intellectual Context

This paper aims to present the exemplarity of an intellectual meeting between a French intellectual, trained in history and geography at the Sorbonne, France (before spending time in Spain during the beginning of his doctorate), and the “Brazilian terrain”. From his training to his work as a university professor in Brazil, what I want to characterize is a transnational intellectual context in the domain of the history of science, using geographical reasoning as a reference. However, before becoming aware of these intellectual processes, it should be said that at the base of this context lies the Brazilian space. This kind of reasoning as a proposed methodology is named here the geohistory of knowledge. In this paper, I seek to present this methodology and its theoretical and empirical results, focusing on how the construction of contextualization can be related to space.

Access to Internet and Internet Shutdown: A Rights Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 08 (1&2) ◽  
pp. 7-14
Author(s):  
Ajay Kumar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Important Concern ◽  
The World ◽  
Current Scenario ◽  
History Of ◽  
Internet Freedom ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Union Territory ◽  
Different Parts

Access to the internet is fast becoming a basic right given the plethora of information available on the net these days. In the current scenario, the issue of internet shutdown has become an important concern in India. Internet shutdown affects people socially, psychologically and economically. On one hand, many democratic countries of the world are discussing about digital freedom and human rights, while on the other hand, some countries including India are continuously practicing Internet shutdowns in different parts of their countries. India has become the top country of the world in terms of the numbers of Internet shutdowns. The Internet has become such a prominent source of information for all of us that when Internet connectivity is suspended, many people are affected as they depend on the Internet services for various purposes. Internet shutdown is not only harmful to democracy and governance but also to the economy of the country. Internet shutdowns are direct violations of digital freedom and human rights. The main objective of this paper is to argue that access to internet is a basic right and highlight the problem of Internet shutdown in India and its adverse impact on the lives of Indians. In addition, this paper attempts to highlight a brief history of Internet shutdowns in India. The paper shows how frequent clampdowns on internet affects the economy, as has been the case of Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir thereby highlighting the case for internet freedom for the survival of the economy especially in Digital India.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
William Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
The Political ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Historical Past

V.S. Naipaul is one of the most internationally acclaimed twentieth-century writers from the Caribbean region. Yet it is usually assumed that he was neither much influenced by the Caribbean literary and intellectual tradition, nor very influential upon it. This chapter argues that these assumptions are wrong. It situates Naipaul’s life and work within the political, social, and intellectual history of the twentieth-century Caribbean. Naipaul’s work formed part of a larger historical debate about the sociology of slavery in the Caribbean, the specificity of Caribbean colonial experience, and the influence of that historical past on Caribbean life, culture, and politics after independence. The chapter closes with a reading of Naipaul’s late, retrospective book about Trinidad, A Way in the World.

18. Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
World War ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Human

This chapter examines the concept of human rights, which derives primarily from the Charter of the United Nations adopted in 1945 immediately after World War II. It first provides a brief account of the history of the concept of human rights before describing the international human rights regime. It then considers two persistent problems that arise in applying the concept of human rights to the developing world: the relations between the claim that the concept is universally valid and the realities of cultural diversity around the world; and the relations between human rights and development. In particular, it explores cultural imperialism and cultural relativism, the human rights implications of the rise of political Islam and the so-called war on terror(ism), and globalization. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the new political economy of human rights.

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