scholarly journals This Show Was Religious?!: Online Reactions to Religion in Lost and Battlestar Galactica Finales

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-314
Author(s):  
Charlotte Howell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Battlestar Galactica ◽  
Popular Television ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Religious Elements

As the American populace is increasingly identifying as non-religious, religious representation is surprisingly also increasing on television, leading many to discuss the limits and boundaries of acceptable representations of religion through the cultural forum of television. The series finales of Lost and Battlestar Galactica serve as a particular pair of case studies I place in discussion with each other about religious-representational and generic concerns. Online reactions in discussion forums or comment sections to the religious elements in these finales generally occur in one of two ways: negative reactions that set the religious endings in opposition to the genre expectations viewers had for the shows or generally positive reactions that focus on the religious themes as successful affective tools that provided adequate or at least justified narrative closure. In both discursive strains, the tone was overwhelmingly respectful and occasionally aware that those entering into the discussions were engaging in larger cultural debates, providing one site of exploring the changing role of religion in popular television through a study of expectations of science fiction narratives and their conclusions.

scholarly journals Surviving a zombie apocalypse: Leadership configurations in extreme contexts

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A Buchanan ◽  
Markus Hällgren
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Day Of The Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Extreme Contexts ◽  
Social Science Fiction

What can the classic zombie movie, Day of the Dead, tell us about leadership? In our analysis of this film, we explore leadership behaviours in an extreme context – a zombie apocalypse where survivors face persistent existential threat. Extreme context research presents methodological challenges, particularly with regard to fieldwork. The use of films as proxy case studies is one way in which to overcome these problems, and for researchers working in an interpretivist perspective, ‘social science fiction’ is increasingly used as a source of inspiration and ideas. The contribution of our analysis concerns highlighting the role of leadership configurations in extreme contexts, an approach not previously addressed in this field, but one that has greater explanatory power than current perspectives. In Day of the Dead, we observe several different configurations – patterns of leadership styles and behaviours – emerging, shifting and overlapping across the phases of the narrative, each with radically different consequences for the group of survivors. These observations suggest a speculative theory of leadership configurations and their implications in extreme contexts, for exploring further, with other methods.

Religion and the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-249
Author(s):  
Kenneth Dean
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Made In

Abstract This paper uses three case studies—(1) community building by Methodist Chinese in Sibu, Sarawak; (2) the construction of transnational temple networks originating in Chinese temples in Sibu; and (3) hybrid spirit medium processions in Kalimantan—to explore aspects of the role of religion within the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Analytic approaches to Chinese religion proposed by Weber and Mauss are discussed, and an argument is made in favor of following the spread of civilizational techniques into hybrid social and ritual formations.

scholarly journals Peran Agama Dalam Masyarakat Multikultural

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Siti Rohmaniah
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Academic Environment ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Special Character ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Different Cultures

Multiculturalism is the recognition that different cultures can exist in the same environment and benefit each other. Multicultural societies have become a special character of the nation more specifically in Indonesian society, and have been discussed in various activities, seminars, discussion forums and in academic environment. Multicultural society is a society consisting of several kinds of cultural communities with all its advantages, with little difference in the conception of the world, a system of meaning, values, forms of social organization, history, customs and habits The role of religion will constructively make religious ties more stringent, often even exceeding the bondage of blood and nasab or ductility relationships. Then because of religion, a community or society will live in unified harmony and peace and unity. Conversely, destructively, religion also has destructive power, destroys unity and can even break the bond of unity. It makes a conflict with a religious background difficult to predict the end. The religion has the potential to generate an internal and external conflicts that ultimately can harm the community itself.

scholarly journals Russian Orthodoxy and Political Culture Transformation

1993 ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
James W. Warhola
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Culture Transformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role

Russian Orthodox Christianity has served as a major if not principal taproot of Russian culture, and has done so in varying forms and to varying degrees since the formal adoption of the Eastern Orthodox rites as official religion by Prince Vladimir of the Kievan Rus' in June of 988 A.D.1 The specific role of Russian Orthodoxy in the governance of Russia has been closely investigated.2 In addition, the political role of religion, particularly Russian Orthodoxy, during the Soviet era has been the subject of close scholarly examination.3 This paper focuses on the changing role of Orthodoxy under current conditions.

Maurice and Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-174
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Fordoński
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
British Society ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role

This chapter explores the role and representation of religion in the text of Maurice and in critical readings of the novel. Concentrating primarily on the text itself, the chapter offers close readings of those parts of the novel where religion/religions play a part, stressing their importance in the structure of the novel. This analysis retraces the influence of religion (predominantly Christianity but also ancient Greek and pagan religious thought) on the main characters’ psychological development and behaviour, especially on the way they try to deal with irreconcilable demands of religion and their own psyche. The chapter thus reflects on Forster’s attitude towards religious institutions and the changing role religion played in early twentieth-century British society and among Edwardian writers. The chapter also considers the role of religion in the reception of the novel, both in scholarship and among twenty-first-century readers. The chapter concludes by considering questions of reception and the relevance of Maurice to twenty-first-century (queer) readers as concepts of homosexuality have undergone considerable changes in parts of the world.

The promises and pitfalls of collective bargaining for ending the victimization of trade union activists: Lessons from France

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 536-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Guillaume ◽  
Sophie Pochic ◽  
Vincent-Arnaud Chappe
Keyword(s):  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Organizational Responses ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Union Activists ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Over Time

The broadening of the anti-discrimination legislation and the growing use of litigation have put pressure on organizations to respond to the law by elaborating formal rules and, in the case of France, negotiating collective agreements on union rights. This article addresses the issue of union victimization by investigating the various organizational responses to anti-discrimination law. By focusing on in-depth case studies over a long period of time, it offers new insights into the processes whereby law is internalized and how they interact with litigation over time, and also highlights the active, contested and changing role of HR professionals and trade unionists in the shaping of organizational responses.

scholarly journals Party Ideology and the Changing Role of Religion: From “United Front” to “Intangible Cultural Heritage”

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Hetmanczyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Factor ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
Party Ideology ◽  
United Front ◽  
The One ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Religious Actors

AbstractIn recent years, religious policy in China has faced an increasingly dynamic panorama of religious actors. The implementation of particular policies has proven to be at times pragmatic, at times incoherent and arbitrary. This may be interpreted as an intentional strategy that allows for a certain flexibility arbitrarily to tolerate or to suppress religious activities. At the same time, it can just as well be a result of institutional incoherence and incompetence. As this incoherence has the potential of endangering the legitimacy of religious politics, authorities resort to ideology as a means to solve these contradictions by integrating religion as a growing social factor, while still leaving space for flexible and sometimes inconsistent administration. The present paper shows that religious policy is framed into two directions: on the one hand, the inherited United Front approach is modified by a gradual revaluation of religion. On the other hand, what used to be labeled “superstition” is transformed into a resource for propagating cultural nationalism and patriotism.

scholarly journals Citizenship and Religious Freedoms in Post-Revolutionary Egypt

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 516
Author(s):  
Mohamed Fahmy Menza
Keyword(s):  
Open Door ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Modern Nation State

The majority of the social and political forces that spearheaded and actively participated in the 2011 and 2013 waves of uprisings catapulted the demands to reestablish ‘citizenship’ as one of the main foundations of a new social contract aiming at redefining state–society relations in a new Egypt. Meanwhile, the concept of citizenship has been increasingly featured in the discourse and practice of a wide variety of state actors and institutions. In fact, Egypt’s experiences with the modern nation-state project concerning the conceptualization of citizenship, and the subsequent implications on religious freedoms and the role of religion in the polity at large, has gone through various ebbs and flows since the beginning of the 20th century. The concept of citizenship as such has faced a plethora of challenges and has been affected by the socioeconomic and political trajectories of state–society relations during the Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and, most recently, Sissi regimes. Dilemmas of geographical disparities and uneven access to resources and services, in addition to issues of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities such as Coptic Christians, Shiites, Nubians, Bedouins, or on the basis of gender, are among the main accompanying features of the neoliberal order that was introduced and then consolidated first by Sadat’s Open Door and then Mubarak’s state-withdrawal policies, respectively. To what extent did the conception and practice of citizenship rights and religious freedoms—as defined by state and non-state actors—change after the demise of the Mubarak regime? In addition, what is the role of the Egyptian civil society vis-a-vis the state in this process of conceptualizing and/or practicing citizenship rights and religious freedoms in the new Egypt? Focusing on the aforementioned questions, this paper aims at shedding some light on the changing role of religion in the Egyptian polity post 2011, while also highlighting the impact of the sociopolitical and economic ramifications witnessed within the society on the scope of religious liberties and citizenship rights as a whole.

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