scholarly journals Legitimating New Religiosity in Contemporary Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-35
Author(s):  
Irina Sadovina
Keyword(s):  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Holistic Medicine ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Medical Claims ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Alternative Spirituality ◽  
And Gender

Attitudes toward alternative spirituality in Russia are shaped by legislative limitations on religious freedom, the state’s traditionalism, and Russian Orthodox anticultism. Nevertheless, public personalities associated with new religious movements persist and flourish. Oleg Torsunov, popularizer of Vedic Psychology and holistic medicine, is a striking example. Despite ongoing controversies about his religious affiliation, medical claims, and gender ideology, Torsunov continues to attract followers. This article examines why public figures such as Torsunov seem unsinkable in hostile cultural environments. Mapping the heated discursive landscape surrounding Torsunov, I argue that the secret to this resilience is a “legitimation lattice”—the strategy of grounding one’s authority in several sources of legitimacy. Torsunov’s lattice is composed of different interlocked strips: science, Indian spirituality, personal charisma, and common stereotypes. This structure increases the resilience of controversial public figures in two ways: by making their legitimation strategies flexible and by allowing them to emphasize mainstream values as needed.

Starring Women

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara E. Lampert
Keyword(s):  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
Atlantic Seaboard ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
Celebrity Culture ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
And Gender

Star actresses and dancers were among the most publicly visible, celebrated, and often polarizing female public figures in the early United States. This book examines the careers and celebrity of the women and girls from Europe and America whose fame drove the growth and transformation of theater between 1790 and 1850 from the Atlantic seaboard to the trans-Appalachian West. Starring women introduced new repertoire—melodramas, breeches roles, dance pantomime and ballet—that catalyzed debates about social ownership of American culture, regional and national identity, and women’s place in public life. This book transforms existing understandings of early U.S. theater and culture by examining a broad cohort of understudied figures and argues that women stars were vital to the development of transatlantic and U.S. entertainment, celebrity culture, and gender ideology. Most significantly, starring women lived and performed the tensions and contradictions of changing nineteenth-century gender roles. As this book demonstrates, even while they achieved unprecedented levels of wealth and prominence through the “starring system,” the patriarchal family structures that governed women’s lives and careers conditioned their participation in the industry. The celebrity culture that expanded from the 1820s demanded that starring women conform to new standards of sentimental domestic femininity, even as the structural realities of their lives defied such standards. Starring women were exceptional figures who mapped the margins of a narrowing white middle-class domestic ideal.

Mars, G. 55 testing of researcher in 125–6; value Mason, J. 63 of work in 124–6 Maynard, M. 32, 101 Meerabeau, L. 100 Oakley, A. 15, 94, 97 methodologies: autobiography 21; Okely, J. 94, 96; and Callaway, H. 96 collective memory 21; covert Opie, A. 101 17–18, 46–7, 56, 164, 169–70, Owens, D. 100 198–9; desk work/fieldwork balance 57; disengagement 122; Parker, C. 134, 135, 138 formal interviews 170; in-depth Patrick, J. 58 interviews 117; interest in 92–3; Payne, G. et al. 92 non-participant 117; participant Pearson, G. 35, 64 observation 21, 34–6, 39, 137–40, Peritore, N.P. 28 142–4, 170–1; physical danger 3, 8–9, 43, 61–2, 132, qualitative/quantitative 13, 14, 21, 147, 203; in communities under 23, 61–2, 87, 115, 117, 129–30, threat 11; experience of 74–81; and 147, 149; reflexive 12, 16, 56–7, extremism 156, 163; gender 89, 114, 116, 143, 144; symbolic 20 dynamics of 12; and health 11–12; Milgram, S. 17 intimidation/destabilisation 137; Morgan, D. 18, 38, 57 negotiation of 67–8; and Morris, S. 45 participant-observer role 137–40; Mungham, G. 50 participant/researcher sharing of Mykhalovskiy, E. 108 12–13; personal 11–12; preparation for/anticipation of 69–70, 72; National Front 56 reduction in 62–3; at religious New Religious Movements (NRMs) festival 137–42; on the streets 148, 150, 153, 154, 162, 163 10–11; threat of 68; vs psychological New Reproductive Technologies 184–6; and vulnerability of (NRTs) 92 researcher 63–4 nursing home 114–15; as policing 26–7, 40–1; and bouncers 48, alien/unsettling 118; 49, 51; and cult of masculinity 31; contamination/escape from 126–7; danger 26, 27–9, 32; and danger emotional strains in 123–4; initial from above 37–9; enduring emotional responses to 118–23; fieldwork in 29–32; and fear 32, membership issues 119–23; negative 33–7; and gender identity 26, 27, feelings for 126–7; punishment 28, 33–4, 40; and group solidarity strategies 121–2; researcher/staff 27; insider/outsider relationship interaction 119–20; setting of 117; 27–8, 35, 38, 40; and local staff/patient interaction 119, population 34–6; and protectiveness 121–2, 125; structure of 118; and 28–9, 36; research sites 27; seeing

2002 ◽  
pp. 219-219
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Home ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Group Solidarity ◽  
Local Staff ◽  
Physical Danger ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Participant Observer

scholarly journals nexus between church and gender

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angeline Savala
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Church Mission ◽  
The Bible ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Church

Interface between the Bible and ideas about gender and church mission work in Africa is a phenomenon that calls for discussion within theological forums. Despite both men and women being active in church activities, the early church depicts men as being at the forefront while women quietly participated. Concerning the missionary era, men publicly were the leaders as women followed or privately served as the personal assistant or as administrators. In addition, looking now at the contemporary church, in the traditional (orthodox) churches, the so-called historical or mainstream churches, men take the top leadership roles while women deputize them. However, this position is being challenged by the new religious movements and Christian ministries movements where women are usurping the top leadership positions. This paper therefore seeks to paint a seemingly more balanced account of gender roles that would benefit men and women alike by exploring historical and theological leadership roles and gender in the church.

Paradigm Shift: New Religious Movements and Quests for Meaning and Community in Contemporary Israel

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-22
Author(s):  
Yaakov Ariel
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Open Market ◽  
Yom Kippur War ◽  
Yom Kippur ◽  
And Gender

Since the 1970s a growing number of Israelis have moved to seek spiritual fulfillment and communal attachments in new religious movements. The crisis of secular modernist Zionist Israel, which started after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, allowed new religious movements to find a fruitful ground for their activities. Many of these new groups developed within the Jewish tradition, often attracting followers based on different ethnic, political and gender sensitivities. Non-Jewish religious movements have also competed in an increasingly open market of spiritual and communal choices in Israeli society. The groups that have done particularly well are those that do not present "foreign deities" as part of their messages. New religious movements have helped Westernize and democratize Israeli society, turning Israel into a nation where individuals have the freedom to join or create new spiritual communities based on their preferences.

Proclaiming Liberation: The Historical Roots of LGBT Religious Organizing, 1946––1976

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Rachelle White
Keyword(s):  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender

The intersection of queer identities and religious allegiance has constituted a lively source for emerging new religious movements. This article examines the roots of the contemporary flourishing of religious fellowships for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) practitioners, focusing on the "gay church movement" of the late 1960s and early 1970s. These predominantly gay religious fellowships initiated models for religious organizing that facilitated continued proliferation across religious affiliation.

An Empirical Critique of Re-Sacralisation

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The Public ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Sufficient Detail ◽  
Alternative Spirituality ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractThis article examines the evidence that largely secular societies are experiencing a process of re-sacralisation. It first dismisses four diversions: taking examples from societies that have never been secular; exaggerating the demographics and religiosity of migrant minorities; missing the fact that religious institutions can only hope to have public influence if they can make a secular case for their preferences; and mistaking notoriety for popularity. It then shows that adherence to Christianity continues to decline apace as does specifically Christian belief. None of the candidates for replacement-non-Christian religions, new religious movements and alternative spirituality-has come at all close to filling the gap left by the Christian churches. Furthermore there is no evidence that governments wish to reverse the standard accommodation to religious diversity and secularity: anything in private; little or nothing in the public sphere. There is no evidence that the population at large wishes it were otherwise. On the contrary. As religion has become more controversial, religion enjoying public influence has, like religion itself, become less, not more popular. Finally, the article argues that the current scarcity of religious people, and the unusual characteristics of those who remain religious, make it ever less likely that there will be a religious revival. So that sufficient detail can be presented, the argument concentrates on the United Kingdom.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document