Культурология
Различные книги в жанре КультурологияChange within Tradition among Jewish Women in Libya
In the first major study of women in an Arab country�s Jewish community, Rachel Simon examines the changing status of Jewish women in Libya from the second half of the nineteenth century until 1967, when most Jews left the country. Simon shows how social, economic, and political changes in Libyan society as a whole affected its Jewish minority and analyzes the developments in women�s social position, family life, work, education, and participation in public life.Jews lived in Libya for more than two thousand years. As a result of their isolation from other Jewish centers and their extended coexistence with Berber and Arab Muslims, the Jews of Libya were strongly influenced by the manners, customs, regulations, and beliefs of the Muslim majority. The late nineteenth century witnessed a growing European cultural and economic penetration of Ottoman Liibya, which increased after the Italian occupation of Libya in 1911. Italian rule continued until a British Military Administration was established in 1942-43. Libya became independent in late 1951. The changing political regimes presented the Jewish minority with different models of social and cultural behavior. These changes in the foci of inspiration and imitation had significant implications for the position of Jewish women, as Jewish traditional society was exposed to modernizing and Westernizing influences.Economic factors had a strong impact on the position of women. Because of recurring economic crises in the late nineteenth century, Jewish families became willing to allow women to work outside the home. Some families also allowed their daughters to pursue vocational training and thus exposed them also to academic studies, especially at schools operated by representatives of European Jewish organizations.Although economic and educational opportunities for women increased, the Jewish community as a whole remained traditional in its social structure, worldview, and approach to interpersonal relations. The principles upon which the community operated did not change drastically, and the male power structure did not alter in either the private or the public domain. Thus the position of women changed little within these spheres, despite the expansion of opportunities for women in education and economic life. Change was slow, evolutionary, and within the framework of traditional society.
What Is Art For?
Every human society displays some form of behavior that can be called “art,” and in most societies other than our own the arts play an integral part in social life. Those who wish to understand art in its broadest sense, as a universal human endowment, need to go beyond modern Western elitist notions that disregard other cultures and ignore the human species’ four-million-year evolutionary history.This book offers a new and unprecedentedly comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance, is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethical viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and fundamental characteristic of the human species.In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that “make special,” and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech and toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as means of making socially important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been essential to human survival.Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this original synthetic approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origins, nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and integrates a number of divers fields: human ethology; evolutionary biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural anthropology; “primitive” and prehistoric art; Western cultural history; and children’s art. The final chapter, “From Tradition to Aestheticism,” explores some of the ways in which modern Western society has diverged from other societies–particularly the type of society in which human beings evolved–and considers the effects of the aberrance on our art and our attitudes toward art.This book is addressed to readers who have a concerned interest in the arts or in human nature and the state of modern society.
The Religious Other
One of the biggest challenges for relations between religions is the view of the religious Other. The question touches the roots of our theological views. The Religious Other: Hostility, Hospitality, and the Hope of Human Flourishing explores the views of multiple religious traditions on how to regard otherness. How does one move from hostility to hospitality? How can hospitality be understood not simply as social hospitality but as theological hospitality, making room for the religious Other on theological grounds? What is our vision for the flourishing of the Other, while respecting his otherness? This volume is an exercise in constructive interreligious theology. By including Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic traditions, it approaches these challenges from multiple perspectives, highlighting commonalities in approach and ways in which one tradition might inspire another.
Contributors: Vincent J. Cornell, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Richard P. Hayes, Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Deepak Sarma, Stephen W. Sykes, Dharma Master Hsin Tao, Ashok Vohra
The Crisis of the Holy
All the world's religions are experiencing rapid change due to a confluence of social and economic global forces. Factors such as the pervasive intrusion of globalizing political and economic developments, polarized and morally equivalent presentations seen in the media, and the sense of surety demanded in and promised by a culture dominated by science are some of the factors that have placed extreme pressure on all religious traditions. This has stimulated unprecedented responses by religious groups, ranging from fundamentalism to the syncretistic search for meaning. As religion takes on new forms, the balance between individual and community is disrupted and reconfigured. Religions often lose the capacity to recall their ultimate purpose or lead their adherents toward it. This is the situation we call «the crisis of the holy.» It is a confluence of threats, challenges, and opportunities for all religions. This volume explores the contours of pressures, changes, and transformations and reflects on how all our religions are changing. By identifying commonalities across religions as they respond to these pressures, The Crisis of the Holy recommends ways religious traditions might cope with these changes and how they might join forces in doing so.
Contributors: Vincent J. Cornell, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Sidney H. Griffith, Maria Reis Habito, B. Barry Levy, Deepak Sarma, Michael von Bruck
The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion: Volume 1
The landscape of American religion is changing dramatically, Millennials are dropping out of church, and new experimental types of Christianity such as the Emerging Church are coming to the fore. But what is the future of religion in America, and what role will Millennials play in that? The results of three years of scholarly inquiry, this collection of essays looks at the Emerging Church and Millennial religious responses and seeks to define and explore both phenomena, always on the lookout for their intersection. Bringing together a diverse collection of scholars in theology, sociology, history and comparative religion, this book highlights the importance of both the Emerging Church and the Millennial generation's future for religion.
The Construction of Exodus Identity in Ancient Israel
Collective identity creates a sense of «us-ness» in people. It may be fleeting and situational or long-lasting and deeply ingrained. Competition, shared belief, tragedy, or a myriad of other factors may contribute to the formation of such group identity. Even people detached from one another by space, anonymity, or time, may find themselves in a context in which individual self-concept is replaced by a collective one.
How is collective identity, particularly the long-lasting kind, created and maintained? Many literary and biblical studies have demonstrated that shared stories often lie at the heart of it. This book examines the most repeated story of the Hebrew Bible–the exodus story–to see how it may have functioned to construct and reinforce an enduring collective identity in ancient Israel. A tool based on the principles of the social identity approach is created and used to expose identity construction at a rhetorical level. The author shows that exodus stories are characterized by recognizable language and narrative structures that invite ongoing collective identification.
A Phenomenology of Pentecostal Leadership
While books on famous and infamous Pentecostal leaders abound, the corpus of research on Pentecostal leadership is sparse. This is unfortunate, as strong and innovative leadership has been instrumental for the exceptional growth of the movement–and for countless examples of abusive behaviors in Pentecostal congregations. To promote effective leadership while avoiding the destructive effects of autocratic leaders, it is necessary to better understand the dynamics of leadership within Pentecostalism. This is the purpose of the book, and Truls Akerlund fills a gap in the present knowledge on Pentecostal leadership–first by discussing the extant literature on the topic and then by exploring the meaning of such leadership through a phenomenological analysis of the experiences of pastors in Pentecostal congregations. The author describes a general structure of Pentecostal leadership with essential characteristics of the phenomenon, locates Pentecostal leadership within the broader streams of organizational and religious leadership research, and points out crucial discussions and implications to be addressed in Pentecostal organizations.
A Sociology of Mystic Practices
This book investigates the process of spiritual borrowing between the emergent church (EC) and the Christian mystical tradition. From its inception, the EC has displayed interest in mystic practices, but the exact nature of this interest or how these practices are appropriated and reinterpreted in the EC context has not been researched. My research shows that the emergent church is appropriating Christian mystic practices by investing these practices with their own theological content. The practices themselves are changed to fit in their new context, showing that EC belief shapes EC behavior. My study adds a new case study perspective to the sociological examination of the process of spiritual borrowing, especially through close inspection of how a spiritual practice changes to fit a new theological context. Additionally, my book contributes to the study of the complex relationship between belief and behavior.
Who Do the Ngimurok Say That They Are?
How do missiologists describe the cosmologies of those that Christianity encounters around the world? Our descriptions often end up filtered through our own Western religious categories. Furthermore, indigenous Christians adopt these Western religious categories. This presents the problem of local Christianities, described by Kwame Bediako as those that «have not known how to relate to their traditional culture in terms other than those of denunciation or of separateness.»
Kevin Lines's phenomenological study of local religious specialists in Turkana, Kenya, not only challenges our Western categories by revealing a more authentic complexity of the issues for local Christians and Western missionaries, but also provides a model for continued use of phenomenology as a valued research method in larger missiological studies. Additionally, this study points to the ways that local Christians and traditional religious practitioners interpret Western missionaries through local religious categories.
Clearly, missionaries, missiologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars need to do a much more careful job of studying and describing the contextually specific phenomena of traditional religious specialists before relying on meta-categories that come out of our Western theology or older overly simplified ethnographies. The research from this current study of Turkana religious specialists begins that process in the Turkana context and offers a model for future studies in contexts where traditional religion and Christianity intersect.
Localism in the Mass Age
In the United States the conventional left/right distinction has become increasingly irrelevant, if not harmful. The reigning political, cultural, and economic visions of both the Democrats and the Republicans have reached obvious dead ends. Liberalism, with its hostility to any limits, is collapsing. So-called Conservatism has abandoned all pretense of conserving anything at all. Both dominant parties seem fundamentally incapable of offering coherent solutions for the problems that beset us. In light of this intellectual, cultural, and political stalemate, there is a need for a new vision.
Localism in the Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto assembles thirty-one essays by a variety of scholars and practitioners–associated with Front Porch Republic–seeking to articulate a new vision for a better future. The writers are convinced that human apprehension of the true, the good, and the beautiful is best realized within a dense web of meaningful family, neighborhood, and community relationships. These writers seek to advance human flourishing through the promotion of political decentralism, economic localism, and cultural regionalism. In short, Front Porch Republic is dedicated to renewing American culture by fostering the ideals necessary for strong communities.