bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Fixed Easter Cycle in the Ethiopian Church
Authors: Gusarova Ekaterina V.
Published: May 2019

This article deals with the fixed Christian Easter and the feasts, which depend on it. Both moveable and fixed feasts are recorded in Christian calendars and synaxaria. Following the decisions of the First Oecumenical Council of Nicaea (AD 325) the Ethiopians celebrated mostly the moveable Easter and its cycle. At the same time in the Ethiopian Royal Chronicles is also recorded that the Ethiopian Kings and their armies celebrated the fixed Easter and its festivals, especially the Good Friday.
Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa on the Principle of ‘the More and the Less’ and Its Application to the Category of Substance
Authors: Biriukov Dmitry
Published: May 2019

Gregory of Nyssa at the outset of his ‘Against Eunomius’ cites Eunomius, where the latter speaks about “greater and lesser” activities. However, discussing this quotation later in the treatise, Gregory misinterprets the words of Eunomius. He reads Eunomius as if he applied the principle of ‘the more and the less’ not to activities but to substances. Such interpretation cannot be proved on the basis of what Eunomius actually wrote. Actually, the two opponents (Gregory of Nyssa and Eunomius) used the same Aris­totelian position, which prohibits the application of the principle of ‘the more and the less’ to the category of substance. This position was used by the two polemists in order to argue against each other. At the same time, Gregory developed his own philosophical system founded on the principle of ‘the more and the less’ in the course of this polemics with Eunomius.
Iconoclasts of the Imagination?
Authors: Fogleman Alex
Published: May 2019

The evidence of sixteenth-century catechetical texts complicates the prevailing narrative that iconoclasm and Ramism led to a reconfiguring of the art of memory in England. For one, the tradition of the memory arts itself contains contested positions for the role of images in the formation of memory, which is surveyed in the first portion of this paper. In the second section, it is shown where catechesis reveals continuity with classical conceptions of memory. Sixteenth-century catechists continued to view memory as a “storehouse” or “text” of the soul, the foundation upon which to build understanding and wisdom. Where conceptions of memory show signs of departure—the topic of the third section—the evidence suggests less a shift from an imagistic to an image-less memory, but instead, a condemnation of certain kinds of images combined with a renewed emphasis on the oral, audial, and dialogical aspects of memory.
In Signum Benevoli Affectus III Menasseh ben Israel’s Album Inscription for Nathanael Vechner
Authors: Postma Ferenc , Verheij Arian
Published: May 2019

In April 1653, Menasseh ben Israel entered an inscription in the album amicorum owned by the Silesian student Nathanael Vechner. This article, the third in a series on Menasseh’s album inscriptions, comprises a biographical sketch of Vechner, followed by a photograph, a transcription, a translation and an analysis of the inscription itself.
Itzik Manger and His Purimshpil
Authors: Gal-Ed Efrat
Published: May 2019

For Itzik Manger, purimshpil is a code word, symbolizing an authentically Yiddish expressive form. And for the reader, the term opens up a mode of approach to Manger’s literary practice.
Mayse-Bukh nr. 228—An early Purim-shpil?
Authors: Neuberg Simon
Published: May 2019

Story Nr. 228 is the only story in the Mayse-bukh whose plot is drawn from a well-known biblical episode. It has some unique features reminding of a text meant for public performance.
Preserving ‘Events that are Vanishing Like Smoke’: The Black Book as Community of Survivors and Writers 1943–1946
Authors: Zavadivker Polly
Published: May 2019

The Black Book (in Russian, Chernaia kniga) was an encyclopedic anthology compiled between 1943 and 1946 about Nazi crimes against Jews in occupied Soviet territory. This paper argues that the people who worked together to produce the book—editors and writers mainly based in Moscow, and survivors throughout Soviet territories—inadvertently created a community through the attempt to document the catastrophe. The creation of The Black Book allowed its compilers to express a sense of communal and familial responsibility, grieve for their losses, and demonstrate as Jews their loyalty to the Soviet state that had defeated the Nazis.
The General Linguistic Features of Modern Judeo-Arabic Dialects in the Maghreb
Authors: Arévalo Tania María García
Published: May 2019

The last few decades have witnessed extensive studies of and debates about modern Judeo-Arabic dialectics, especially in the larger cities in the Maghreb, where the spoken language has received particular interest. This article provides an overview of the linguistic features shared by several dialects—Moroccan, Tripolitanian, Algerian, Judeo-Berber and Tunisian—as well the issues they raise and their individual characteristics.
Through the Walls of Time: A Short Reflection on Writing Early Modern Intellectual History
Authors: Zwiep Irene
Published: May 2019

This short piece takes a longstanding problem from the history of ideas, viz. the use of contemporary concepts in descriptions of past phenomena, and discusses its implications for broader intellectual history. Scholars have argued that being transparent about anachronism can be a first step towards solving the issue. I would argue, however, that it may actually interfere with proper historical interpretation. As a case study, we shall explore what happens when a modern concept like ‘culture’ is applied to pre-modern intellectual processes. As the idea of cultural transfer is prominent in recent Jewish historiography, we will focus on exemplary early modern intermediary Menasseh ben Israel, and ask ourselves whether his supposed ‘brokerage’ (a notion taken from twentieth-century anthropology) brings us closer to understanding his work. As an alternative, I propose ‘bricolage,’ again a central analytical tool in modern anthropology but, as I hope to show, one with unexpected hermeneutical potential.
Rationalistic Messianism and the Vicissitudes of History: The Final Chapter of Joseph ibn Kaspi’s Tam ha-kesef
Authors: Sackson Adrian
Published: May 2019

Born around 1280, the Provencal Jewish philosopher Joseph ibn Kaspi was a prolific writer whose works touched upon a wide range of subjects. I present here an English translation of the eighth chapter of his final work, The Silver is Spent (Tam ha-kesef). In this chapter, Ibn Kaspi discusses the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Coloured by his Aristotelian philosophical outlook, the chapter has a number of interesting features, including its naturalistic approach to history, and the arguments presented for the rationality of belief in a future messianic era.
The Ghost of the Child: ‘Dos Kleine Menshele’ (The Little Man) by Mendele Moykher Sforim as an Early Stage of Modern Representation of Jewish Childhood
Authors: Wagner Rotem Preger
Published: May 2019

This article will point out one decisive station in the process of the artistic formation of the image of the Jewish child and childhood, starting with Mendele Moykher Sforim’s (Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh) first story in Yiddish, ‘The Little Man’ (Dos kleine menshele, 1864-1865). I will argue that the heart of this story harbours an extraordinary and novel (for its time) childhood scene, that blatantly confronts pre-modern perception of childhood with its modern representation, and marks a sharp turn in the status and role of childhood in Jewish literature.
The Discovery and Publication of Joseph Perl’s Yiddish Writings
Authors: Meir Jonatan
Published: May 2019

The attitude of Tarnopol satirist Joseph Perl (1773–1839) towards the Yiddish language has been discussed by a number of scholars. In particular, researchers have examined his views with regard to his most well-known satire, Sefer Megaleh temirin, which was printed in Hebrew in Vienna, 1819, with a partial Yiddish translation of the work appearing in Vilna, 1938. However, there remains much to be said concerning the creative process which guided Perl’s writing in Yiddish, as well as the later discovery and publication of his Yiddish works, both of which are chapters in the wider story of the development of Yiddish literature in the first half of the nineteenth century and the increasing scholarly interest in it at the outset of the twentieth century. This article briefly describes these multifaceted matters and then offers suggestions for the future study of Perl’s writing in particular, and maskilic Yiddish literature in general.
Images of Empire: Depictions of America in Late Imperial Russian Editorial Cartoons
Authors: Welch Behringer Paul J.
Published: May 2019

Although historians have paid much attention to American perceptions of Russia, few have looked at Russian views of the United States, particularly in the imperial period. This paper surveys editorial cartoons in Novoe Vremia, one of the few Russian newspapers to publish illustrations as commentary on international affairs. Novoe Vremia published cartoons depicting the United States in the years between 1898 and 1912 in the late imperial period, that is, beginning with the War of 1898 and ending with the abrogation of the u.s.-Russia commercial treaty. This paper finds evidence for the argument that Russian views of American empire and race relations persisted into the Soviet period. However, the Russian Revolution swept away the strong anti-Semitic overtones in many portrayals of the United States, at least in editorial cartoons.
Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia. Debt, Property, and the Law in the Age of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, written by Sergei Antonov
Authors: Kotsonis Yanni
Published: May 2019

Sergei Antonov’s book argues through deep research that Russian legal and lending practices showed the Old Regime to be more coherent beneath the surface of legalese and official pronouncement. That reality exists in the everyday practices of exchange, agreement, disagreement, and litigation.
Dismantling the Geotemporality of Europeanization: The First European Festival of Lesbian and Gay Film was Yugoslav
Authors: Kajinić Sanja
Published: May 2019

This paper draws upon my fieldwork at the Festival of Gay and Lesbian Film in Ljubljana to examine how “Europeanness” is used to ground the legitimacy of minoritarian organizations, but also to question the assumptions implicit in such claims to belonging. I argue that the discourse of Europeanness is used in similarly ambivalent ways in both Slovenian lgbt activism and official Slovenian politics: for political and institutional legitimization that also performs a distancing from the post-Yugoslav region. This discursive distancing serves to hide the constant processes of negotiation of belonging within the eu as well as ongoing practical cooperation and communication within the post-Yugoslav region. Attention to such strategic tensions opens up a possibility of formulating a critique of the discourse that posits Europeanization as the only possible future for the region and Europe as an imagined space of tolerance for minorities.
On the Other Side of an Ethnocratic State? lgbt Activism in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina
Authors: Selmić Adelita
Published: May 2019

This paper discusses the developmental dynamics of Bosnian and Herzegovinian (BiH) lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activism in the context of the European integration (Europeanization) process. Although the official politics of BiH authorities aspires towards the European Union (eu), the country’s political deadlock and the steady position of the potential eu candidate, have created conditions in which activism operates with declarative and financial support from European organizations while having very limited impact on policies and local institutions. In this set-up, lgbt activism and non-heterosexual sexualities are placed between the specific local context of an ethnocratic state and the Western European narratives of lgbt rights and freedoms. I draw upon a range of primary sources, including the material obtained through a series of semi-structured interviews with activists, to argue that, for the time being, the lgbt movement in BiH lacks either governmental, political or societal support. However, marginal sites of non-heteronormative resistance could potentially appear as a departure point for creating an intersectionality-sensitive political platform from which to struggle for a general civic and political equality and institutional accountability.
The State is Captured Before It Exists
Authors: Kanin David B.
Published: May 2019

Analysts of “State Capture” too often treat the phenomenon as an outside-in process. They identify firms or rent-seeking political entrepreneurs that take over, subvert, or otherwise bend political structures to serve their parochial interests. The key to solving the perceived problem is supposed to lie in better governance, strengthened judicial systems, civic education, and transparency in political and civic activities. This essay will suggest this construct involves a misunderstanding of the relationship between patronage networks and supposedly “legitimate” legal and constitutional institutions enshrined in a teleology of Democracy and Rule-of-Law performances. Patronage politics in the Balkans produces pragmatic social management patterns, not just theft by greedy firms and selfish individuals. This argument builds on Charles Tilly’s observation of the inverse relationship between Democracy and trust to explain why externally imposed programs of civic education and political reform designed to free a state from its perceived capture fail to do much more than recruit a thin sliver of local civic activists, scold “captured” populations, and undermine the credibility of international overseers.
Imposed State-Building
Authors: Shelest Hanna
Published: May 2019

For the past two years, there have been constant discussions about the possible ‘Bosnianisation’ of Ukrainian conflict management and peacebuilding, meaning both the Dayton process mechanism’s implementation and the possible ‘federalisation’ of Ukraine due to the Minsk agreements. While the two conflicts have significant differences in terms of roots, reasons and development, attempts at their resolution, as well as possible outcomes of the peace processes, have certain similarities. In this article, based on the constructivist approach and method of induction, the author compares the outcomes of the agreements reached in Dayton in 1995 and in Minsk in 2015 and analyses securitisation of state-building, ‘federalisation’ and identity issues during the peace negotiations, along with a state structure imposed by the external actors. Hereby we argue that the Dayton scenario in terms of the state-building is significantly different from what has happened in Ukraine due to their respective historical and ethnic backgrounds. Moreover, a peace agreement per se is not able to form a federal state if there are not sufficient preconditions for substantial decentralisation of the state.
The Western Balkans and Their Political Stabilization
Authors: Minić Jelica
Published: May 2019

There are many questions to be answered regarding the future of Western Balkan stability. What has been done in establishing stability in the region in the last two decades? How much has the overall context of stabilization of the region changed? a) what were the developments at the regional scene — internal reforms, bilateral relations, functioning of multilateral cooperation mechanisms? b) how much has the constellation of external partnerships changed, influencing the internal processes in the Western Balkan states and their mutual relations? c) what are the prevailing perceptions and concepts regarding possible developments in the future? Different approaches could be chosen in answering these questions. In this paper attention will mainly be paid to the existing pillars of stabilization. Besides accession to the eu, with its standard procedures and phases, and the Berlin Process as an innovative tool complementing the enlargement policy and providing it with an additional impetus, a special focus will be put on the regional mechanisms of cooperation which involve various actors (with different political relevance), layers of governance, sectors and scope of coverage, and with different levels of impact on stability in the region.
Reconsidering the Derivational Prefix of the Biblical Hebrew t-Stems through Feature Geometry
Authors: Hutton Jeremy M.
Published: May 2019

A recent publication (Hutton 2011) provided evidence and phonological rationale for Baden’s assertion (2010) that the derivational prefix of the Biblical Hebrew hitpaʿʿēl stem could assimilate not only to the normally recognized ‘dentals’ (t, d, and ṭ), but also, in certain ad hoc circumstances, to the affricates (s, z, and ṣ) and, eventually, to other classes of segments. This paper analyzes the process from the theoretical standpoint of feature geometry. An analysis informed by theoretical phonology suggests that the underlying derivational phoneme *t was unspecified with respect to voice and some other features. When this underspecified phoneme *t was placed in immediate contact with a segment exhibiting the same place of articulation and manner specifications, it was occasionally linked to the pharyngeal node of the following segment on an ad hoc basis. Along with commonly operational default rules, this linkage helps to explain cases wherein derivational *t assimilated to members of the set of coronal stops and affricates {d, ṭ [t
ʕ
], s [ts], z [dz], and ṣ [ts
ʕ
]}. Moreover, in a narrow set of instances, the segment *t was linked to the nasal articulator node of the following coronal /n/, or to the root node of a few other coronal phonemes (š [s], and possibly ś [ɬ] and l). Over time, these linkages proceeded up the feature tree as the feature spreading was increasingly generalized. This finding is basically consistent with the proposals laid out in Baden 2010 and Hutton 2011, but augments them slightly, providing a more unified, economical, and principled explanation.
Gender Neutralization in Hebrew
Authors: Gonen Einat , Rubinstein Doron
Published: May 2019

Classical Hebrew, as well as Modern Hebrew, distinguishes between the genders of nouns, and every noun, whether or not it is animate, is characterized as masculine or feminine. However in colloquial Modern Hebrew we witness a process of neutralization. In this paper we address one aspect of gender neutralization in Hebrew: the case of the numerals in colloquial Hebrew. The use of numerals in spoken Modern Hebrew is varied, and many speakers do not regularly distinguish numerals according to the grammatical gender of the modified noun, but rather use the unmarked ‘neutral’ form of the numeral, which in Hebrew is typically the feminine form. The object of this paper is to study gender agreement between Modern Hebrew numerals and the nouns they modify in a corpus of casual spoken Hebrew discourse. Previous studies have argued, within a variety of methodologies and frameworks, for a gradual ongoing neutralization of the gender distinction of numerals in this environment. In our research, we will explore the conditions and the scope of this neutralization. This study is based on the collection of recordings in the CoSIH “Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew”, and it analyzes the various usages of the numerals in this corpus. It presents the scope and nature of the neutralization process in colloquial Hebrew and shows that although there is a bias towards neutralization, this bias is not absolute and depends on particular circumstances.
Emphasis spread in the Djelfa dialect of Algerian Arabic
Authors: Slimani Khedidja
Published: May 2019

The paper documents Emphasis spread in the Djelfa dialect (DJ) of Algerian Arabic with a special examination of the emphatic segments /sˤ/, /tˤ/ and /ðˤ/. If a given word contains an underlying emphatic segment, the nearby segments are also realized with emphasis. The dialect, however, differentiates two types of emphasis spread: unbounded leftward spread that propagates from the emphatic segment till the beginning of the phonological word; and bounded rightward spread that is blocked by a set of segments /i/, /j/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. Of particular interest in the current investigation is the behavior of emphasis spread (ES) with respect to morpheme boundaries. While the left morpheme edge is realized with ES, the right morpheme boundary is deemed resistant to ES unless an underlying emphatic segment falls prior to a -V(C) suffix. This is well captured by the interplay between the markedness constraints FAITH [RTR] SUFFIX and SHARE (RTR).
Feminist Scholarship and Its Relevance for Political Engagement: The Test Case of Abortion in the US
Authors: Kamitsuka Margaret D.
Published: May 2019

This essay explores how gender studies in academe, including in religious studies, might remain relevant to ongoing feminist political engagement. I explore some specific dynamics of this challenge, using as my test case the issue of abortion in the US. After discussing how three formative feminist principles (women’s experience as feminism’s starting point, the personal is political, and identity politics) have shaped approaches to the abortion issue for feminist scholars in religion, I argue that ongoing critique, new theoretical perspectives, and attentiveness to subaltern voices are necessary for these foundational feminist principles to keep pace with fast-changing and complex societal dynamics relevant to women’s struggles for reproductive health and justice. The essay concludes by proposing natality as a helpful concept for future feminist theological and ethical thinking on the subject.
Macho Buddhism: Gender and Sexualities in the Diamond Way
Authors: Scherer Burkhard
Published: May 2019

Western Tibetan Buddhist movements have been described as bourgeois and puritanical in previous scholarship. In contrast, Ole Nydahl’s convert lay Karma Kagyu Buddhist movement, the Diamond Way, has drawn attention for its apparently hedonistic style. This article addresses the wider issues of continuity and change during the transition of Tibetan Buddhism from Asia to the West. It analyses views on and performances of gender, sexual ethics and sexualities both diachronically through textual-historical source and discourse analysis and synchronically through qualitative ethnography. In this way the article demonstrates how the approaches of contemporary gender and sexualities studies can serve as a way to question the Diamond Way Buddhism’s location in the ‘tradition vs modernity’ debate. Nydahl’s pre-modern gender stereotyping, the hetero-machismo of the Diamond Way and the mildly homophobic tone and content of Nydahl’s teaching are interpreted in light of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist sexual ethics and traditional Tibetan cultural attitudes on sexualities. By excavating the emic genealogy of Nydahl’s teachings, the article suggests that Nydahl’s and the Diamond Way’s view on and performance of gender and sexualities are consistent with his propagation of convert Buddhist neo-orthodoxy.
Deference or Interrogation? Contrasting Models for Reconciling Religion, Gender and Equality
Authors: Dustin Moira
Published: May 2019

Since the late 1990s, the extension of the equality framework in the United Kingdom has been accompanied by the recognition of religion within that framework and new measures to address religious discrimination. This development has been contested, with many arguing that religion is substantively different to other discrimination grounds and that increased protection against religious discrimination may undermine equality for other marginalized groups – in particular, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. This paper considers these concerns from the perspective of minoritized women in the UK. It analyses two theoretical approaches to reconciling religious claims with gender equality – one based on privileging, the other based on challenging religious claims – before considering which, if either, reflects experiences in the UK in recent years and what this means for gender equality.
Preparing for Life: Gender, Religiosity and Education Amongst Second Generation Hindus in Canada
Authors: Holtmann Cathy , Nason-Clark Nancy
Published: May 2019

A hallmark of Hinduism is its respect for religious diversity. Amidst religious pluralism in a multicultural Canadian society this strength poses challenges for the second generation. Drawing on qualitative interview data from 57 ‘1.5’ and second generation university students, this article examines the roles that Hinduism and gender play in the process of identity construction in visible minority groups. These young people were raised in families where traditional Hindu religious and cultural practices were valued by immigrants as they creatively adjusted to Canadian society. Parents tried to actively involve their children in their way of life but were largely unable to assist them in articulating the meaning of Hindu rituals and beliefs. As a result, young men and women are caught between the values of their parent’s generation and those implicit in Canadian educational institutions. The secularism of this educational system, permeated by religious illiteracy, contributes to tensions and ambiguities in identity construction.
Religion and Diasporic Dwelling: Algerian Muslim Women in Ireland
Authors: Shanneik Yafa
Published: May 2019

This article will look at the different conceptions of ‘home’ as narrated by Algerian Muslim women living in Ireland. It explores the dynamic processes of their self-identification(s) and their different forms of (re)creation of diasporic home(s) influenced by their religious, cultural, social and economic environment. I will use Thomas A. Tweed’s notion of ‘crossing and dwelling’ to analyse these essentialized identity constructions that become manifest in Tweed’s four ‘chronotopes’: the gendered body, the domestic home, the imagined homeland and the transnational and global cosmos. The conscious or unconscious negotiations and implications for belonging to a specific identity or community that can be observed among Algerian women in Ireland will be examined, together with the different pre- and post-migratory social, political and religious factors that influence such negotiations. This ethnographic study is the first of its kind and fills a gap in the study of Muslim migrants in Europe.
Gender, Colonialism and Rabbinical Courts in Mandate Palestine
Authors: Joffe Lisa Fishbayn
Published: May 2019

The distribution of powers between the state and religious groups plays an important role in shaping how controversies over multicultural toleration and women’s rights under religious law can be resolved. Some structures encourage dialogue while others make it difficult. In Israel, the presence of multiple systems of personal religious law limits the possibilities for the transformation of discriminatory religious laws. There is no civil marriage or divorce in Israel. When the modern State of Israel was created, exclusive power over family law disputes involving Jewish citizens was placed in the hands of rabbinical courts. This arrangement has been called one to retain the ‘status quo’. However, it was not a continuation of Jewish tradition or of the arrangements in place during the long period of Ottoman rule in Palestine. It reflected strengthened powers that had been given to rabbinical courts during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. This article will trace the ways in which British policies for colonial rule and the interests of Jewish religious leaders coalesced to create a regime of religious family law that is resistant to feminist demands for change.
Within, Without: Dialogical Perspectives on Feminism and Islam
Authors: Crabtree Sara Ashencaen , Husain Fatima
Published: May 2019

This paper offers an ontological and literary review of Muslim women’s religious practices across the Muslim ummah, in considering the development of an epistemology of faith and feminism within the Islamic schema. Our aim is to explore the diverse constructions of autopoiesis in reference to feminism, faith and spirituality in relation to Islam as both a religious and a cultural phenomenon. To this end, global examples of faith-based practice are reviewed, where issues of dominant and minority cultures and values refer to how Muslim faith practices are enacted within the local context. The authors use a dyadic, auto-ethnographic methodology to explore their own personal, political and spiritual positioning as feminists from a Muslim, immigrant and secular British background. The significance of women’s spiritual and feminist dimensions in the context of faith, nationhood and embodiment of ideological positions are analysed. Additionally, religious, cultural and geo-political implications of feminism and Islam are considered regarding identity, culture and tradition, and religious resurgence, together with forms of feminist resistance to religious doctrine. Finally, the search by women for spiritual authority and authenticity is discussed.
What Men Want? Initial Thoughts on the Male Goddess Movement
Authors: Green David
Published: May 2019

This article examines the sociological dynamics of a number of contemporary Pagan men who venerate goddesses. Rejecting both mythopoetic and normative Western social constructions of masculinity, the Male Goddess Movement (MGM) equates social problems with traits usually associated with masculinity such as aggression and competitiveness. The MGM is built around the interiorization of the female antitype as a form of liberation from these dogmas of masculinity. In this respect ritual practice centred on Goddesses becomes of central importance to the performance of non-essentialized and enchanted forms of masculinity. This interiorization and ritualization has importance for both theory and practice. In sociological terms the MGM marks a new form of gendered religious practice which deliberately resists epistemological labels such as ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’. Within Contemporary Paganisms it marks a new second wave of masculinist consciousness which, contrary to mythopoetic constructions of masculinity, seeks to dismantle essentialist forms of gender difference.
Religion, Migration and Gender Strategies: Brazilian (Catholic and Evangelical) Missionaries in Barcelona
Authors: de Araújo Silva Marcos , Rodrigues Donizete
Published: May 2019

This article reflects on gender strategies developed by Brazilian Pentecostal missionaries linked to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God/United Family, in the city of Barcelona, Spain. From a comparative study of the daily life of the missionaries, the paper discusses how ‘feminized’ and ‘manly’ character, respectively, define important boundaries between Catholic charismatic and Evangelical groups. The ethnographic data demonstrate how certain religious particularities of immigrants can act as a source of social differentiation that highlights opportunities and specific doctrinal strategies for women and men, in the context of diaspora.
Bazaar Pagodas – Transnational Religion, Postsocialist Marketplaces and Vietnamese Migrant Women in Berlin
Authors: Hüwelmeier Gertrud
Published: May 2019

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the East German Socialist government, thousands of former contract workers from Vietnam stayed in the then reunified Germany. Due to their resulting precarious economic situation, a large number of these migrants became engaged in small business and petty trade. Some of them, women in particular, have become successful entrepreneurs and wholesalers in recently built bazaars in the eastern parts of Berlin. Most interestingly, parts of these urban spaces, former industrial areas on the periphery of Germany’s capital, have been transformed into religious places. This article explores the formation of female Vietnamese Buddhist networks on the grounds of Asian wholesale markets. It argues that transnational mobilities in a post-socialist setting encourage border-crossing religious activities, linking people and places to various former socialist countries as well as to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Further, by considering political tensions between Vietnamese in the eastern and western part of Berlin, this contribution illustrates the negotiation of political sensitivities among diasporic Vietnamese in reunited Germany. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among female lay Buddhists, it focuses on entrepreneurship and investigates the relationship between business, migration and religious practices.
‘Mothering Through Islam’: Narratives of Religious Identity in London
Authors: Ryan Louise , Vacchelli Elena
Published: May 2019

This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore how these women use ‘conservative’ interpretations of Islamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particular the paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of and give meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest that the women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for teaching their children right and wrong, (ii) as a means of protecting children from the ‘moral’ dangers of British society, (iii) as an authoritative voice that reinforces parenting and (iv) as a means of critiquing specific aspects of both the traditional and British culture in which they live and daily negotiate their different cultural and religious belonging. In attempting to instil religious values in their Londonbased children, these mothers have to negotiate the hostility that Islam increasingly provokes in British society’s public arenas.
‘Cooking with Gordon’: Food, Health, and the Elasticity of Evangelical Gender Roles (and Belt Sizes) on The 700 Club
Authors: Cooper Travis Warren
Published: May 2019

This article examines evangelical gender paradigms as expressed through a 700 Club cooking segment facilitated by Gordon Robertson, the son of Pat Robertson – founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), The 700 Club, Christian Coalition, and one-time presidential candidate. Several themes converge within this cooking show, including health and nutrition, family ritual, and gender roles. Using the cooking segment as data, I draw on scholarship on body, gender, family and ritual to argue that evangelical discourses are labile in their responses to recent socio-cultural shifts and suggest that ‘Sunday Dinners: Cooking with Gordon’ defies caricatures of evangelical gender formation and signals a shift to soft-patriarchy and quasi-egalitarianism, at least within public, visual discourse. ‘Sunday Dinners’ underscores the centrality of the family in evangelical discourse – even as conceptions of gender are in flux – as it seeks to facilitate everyday rituals via cooking and eating together.
The Atlantic Return and the Payback of Evangelization
Authors: Napolitano Valentina
Published: May 2019

This article explores Catholic, transnational Latin American migration to Rome as a gendered and ethnicized Atlantic Return, which is figured as a source of ‘new blood’ that fortifies the Catholic Church but which also profoundly unsettles it. I analyze this Atlantic Return as an angle on the affective force of history in critical relation to two main sources: Diego Von Vacano’s reading of the work of Bartolomeo de las Casas, a 16th-century Spanish Dominican friar; and to Nelson Maldonado-Torres’ notion of the ‘coloniality of being’ which he suggests has operated in Atlantic relations as enduring and present forms of racial de-humanization. In his view this latter can be counterbalanced by embracing an economy of the gift understood as gendered. However, I argue that in the light of a contemporary payback of evangelization related to the original ‘gift of faith’ to the Americas, this economy of the gift is less liberatory than Maldonado- Torres imagines, and instead part of a polyfaceted reproduction of a postsecular neoliberal affective, and gendered labour regime.
Egyptian Activism against Female Genital Cutting as Catachrestic Claiming
Authors: Van Raemdonck An
Published: May 2019

This paper deals with questions of the politics of location in knowledge andnorm production within the context of Egyptian feminist activism for abandoningfemale genital cutting practices. It seeks to determine underlying schemesof international campaigning discourse and analyzes how these predicate andcomplicate Egyptian postcolonial activism. It draws on a broad literature studyin addition to fieldwork in Cairo consisting of in-depth interviews with activistsand policy makers. My focus is on the national Task Force against FGMfrom 1994 until 1999 and its subsequent cooptation by the National Council ofChildhood and Motherhood. I argue through the concept of catachresis thatlocation matters in setting the terms of anti-FGC discourse and its relation toreligion.
Narrating Identity: the Employment of Mythological and Literary Narratives in Identity Formation Among the Hijras of India
Authors: Loh Jennifer Ung
Published: May 2019

This article explores how the hijras and kinnars of India use mythological narratives in identity-formation. In contemporary India, the hijras are a minority group who are ostracised from mainstream society as a result of their nonheteronormative gender performances and anatomical presentations. Hijras suffer discrimination and marginalisation in their daily lives, forming their own social groups outside of natal families and kinship structures. Mythological and literary narratives play a significant role in explaining and legitimising behavioural patterns, ritual practices, and anatomical forms that are specific to hijras, and alleviating some of the stigma surrounding this identity. In this article, I focus on certain narratives that hijras employ in making sense of and giving meaning to their lives, including mythological stories concerning people of ambiguous gender and myths associated with Bahuchara Mata. I argue that these ontological narratives serve to bring hijra identity into being and play a crucial role in constructing and authenticating hijra identity in modern India.
Stained Glasses and Coloured Lenses: The Pussy Riot Case as a Critical Issue for Multidisciplinary Scholarly Investigations
Authors: Tolstaya Katya
Published: May 2019

The Pussy Riot performance and the ensuing case posed a challenge not only to power structures in Russia, but also to scholars studying post-traumatic post-Soviet Russia. The case exposed the complex of ideology, image- and myth-forming on all societal levels, not least regarding the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and church-state relations. This essay proposes a kaleidoscopic approach in order to ask how to get to the real persons beyond the images. At the same time it discusses epistemological limits of scholarly engagement with the ‘other’ by scrutinising the question of objectivity and normativity in the humanities and the deficit of approaches like the insider/outsider dichotomy and the linguistic and narrative turns. Given the heterogeneity of present-day Orthodoxy, there is no identifiable Orthodox ‘other’ or ‘insider’; and this leads to the question how to define ‘Orthodoxy’ itself. The essay thus identifies a paradox which is yet to be solved.
‘Black Robe, Golden Epaulettes’: From the Russian Dissidents to Pussy Riot
Authors: Vaissié Cécile
Published: May 2019

The arrest of the members of Pussy Riot, their imprisonment and their trial has attracted great interest worldwide, and some commentators pointed out that the young women in this feminist punk band could be considered as the heirs to the Russian dissidents. The article explores this link further and shows that the action which made this feminist punk band famous can indeed be seen as a continuation of the combat of dissidents who, as of the mid-1960s, fought for the genuine independence of the Russian Orthodox Church from the State, and who denounced the infiltration of the Church by the KGB, an infiltration that the Church itself has never publicly condemned. Therefore the various predecessors of Pussy Riot include an archbishop, priests, lay people such as Solzhenitsyn, young hippyish intellectuals and – already – feminist believers.
Miracles, Hinges, and Grammar in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty
Authors: Perissinotto Luigi
Published: May 2019

In §513 of On Certainty Wittgenstein asks “What if something really unheard-of happened?” But with this question he is not asking us to make a forecast, a prediction, or some sort of empirico-psychological prophecy about our possible reactions. As I will attempt to show, the question regarding the unheard-of is part of Wittgenstein’s philosophical method—which is to say, it is one of the instruments with which he combats what he sees as the principal source of the confusions of philosophy: mistaking the grammatical for the empirical or, as he also says, the conceptual for the factual. In this sense the question regarding the unheard-of can shed some light on the grammatical status of what he calls “hinges.”
‘Hinge Propositions’ and the ‘Logical’ Exclusion of Doubt
Authors: Schönbaumsfeld Genia
Published: May 2019

Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘hinge propositions’—those propositions that stand fast for us and around which all empirical enquiry turns—remains controversial and elusive, and none of the recent attempts to make sense of it strike me as entirely satisfactory. The literature on this topic tends to divide into two camps: either a ‘quasi-epistemic’ reading is offered that seeks to downplay the radical nature of Wittgenstein’s proposal by assimilating his thought to more mainstream epistemological views, or a non-epistemic, ‘quasi-pragmatic’ conception is adopted that goes too far in the opposite direction by, for example, equating ‘hinge propositions’ with a type of ‘animal’ certainty. Neither interpretative strategy, I will argue, is promising for the reason that ‘hinges’ are best not conceived as certainties (or uncertainties) at all. Rather, what Wittgenstein says in respect to them is that doubt is “logically” excluded, and where there can be no doubt, I contend, there is no such thing as knowledge or certainty either.
Intellectual Loyalty
Authors: Hazlett Allan
Published: May 2019

This paper sympathetically considers the idea that intellectual loyalty is a virtue. Intellectual loyalty is characterized as a species of loyalty, and some potential problems for the idea that intellectual loyalty is a virtue are considered: I argue that it is possible to be intellectually loyal and that intellectual loyalty is not a species of unappealing dogmatism. In defense of this, I draw connections between intellectual loyalty and Frankfurt’s idea of the unthinkable, Price’s idea of refusing to believe, and Wittgenstein’s idea of hinges.
Introduction to The Indonesian Legal System: Major Developments in the Past Decade
Authors: Setyowati Hesti , Toengkagie M. Harris S.
Published: May 2019

Abstract

Indonesia is an archipelagic country that has endured 350 years of western colonization. Its people comprise diverse ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, all living in more than 17.000 islands spread throughout the archipelago. The development of the Indonesian legal system are considered as unique since it comprises the legacy of colonization, combined with the customary laws of various tribes. It is heavily infl uenced by Islam-the religion of the majority of its citizens, and the people’s own perception of law and justice following the colonial era. The undisputable fact on the variety of ethnic groups, cultures and religions formulate the desire for national ideology which promotes a unity of such diversity. As the result, each of the laws is formulated with reference to the principle of unity and democracy carried out in accordance with the national ideology. 60 years after its independence, the Law in Indonesia has shown great strides in its development. All of the developments are claimed to fulfi ll its goal of achieving a modern nation with solid legal foundation, without sacrifi cing its national identity.
The Difference that Being a Minority Territory Makes—A Comparison of the Regulation of Immigrant Citizenship in Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid
Authors: Gebhardt Dirk
Published: May 2019

Contributing to the debate on immigrant incorporation in subnational minority territories, this chapter looks at how Catalonia’s status as a minority territory results in a specific model of immigrant citizenship. It draws on a comparison between the autonomous communities of Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid with the latter two territories representing the influence of the left-right axis.

An analysis of five elements of citizenship regulation reveals that Catalonia’s status as a minority territory has an influence on an inclusive citizenship philosophy and generous attitude towards granting political rights, while in the other areas (incorporation of cultural difference, newcomer integration and healthcare) the Catalan policies are less inclusive than those in Andalusia, the territory governed by the left.

While there is no conclusive evidence that being a minority territory makes Catalan policies more inclusive, the density of the Catalan regulation of citizenship is the most striking finding emerging from the comparison.
Constitutional and Regional Understandings of Citizenship in Italy: Between Inclusion and Exclusion
Authors: Ronchetti Laura
Published: May 2019

In recent years the issue of citizenship has been the focus of renewed interest by social scientists so much so that citizenship studies have become institutionalized as a field of research. The reasons for this rediscovery lie also in the binary, if not ‘antinomic’, connotations of the term citizenship: ‘constitutional’ and state citizenship, substantive and formal citizenship, state and ‘regional’ citizenship. It is precisely its amphibious inclusion/ exclusion nature that makes the concept of citizenship a critical point in modern constitutionalism. While there is much reflection on the transformation that the concept of citizenship is undergoing, particularly in light of migration as a structural phenomenon, this contribution focuses on ‘the borders’ of citizenship to examine the universal aspect of the forms of coexistence as delineated in the Italian Constitution.
Is There a Scottish Approach to Citizenship? Rights, Participation and Belonging in Scotland
Authors: Hepburn Eve
Published: May 2019

Had Scotland voted for independence in September 2014, it would have gained all the paraphernalia of statehood, including full rights over citizenship. But despite the “no”, can we still detect a Scottish citizenship without the machinery of statehood? This article examines Scotland’s ability to influence citizenship and migration policy from two perspectives. First, from a legal perspective, it examines the Scottish government’s limited control over citizenship, nationality and migration legislation, although it has a broader scope to develop its own approach to migrant integration. Next, the article considers citizenship from a broader political and sociological perspective, focusing on the extent to which the three facets of citizenship identified by Marshall in 1950—civil, social and political rights—have been decentralized with the creation of the Scottish Parliament. Finally, the article examines the ways in which the Scottish approach to citizenship has diverged from the uk (English) approach.