bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Unsolved Riddle of International Constitutionalism
Authors: de la Rasilla del Moral Ignacio 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe extremely diverse contributions present in the volume edited by Nicholas Tsagourias, Transnational Constitutionalism: International Law and European Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 377) are contextualized through an exploration of some of the different strands of international legal doctrine that have been making use of the constitutionalist vernacular in recent years. These strands include among others, the growth in European Union-related constitutionalist discourse and the emergence of a transnational comparative legal realm at the cross-roads of the European and the international spheres; the historical lineage and the contemporary appeal of the constitutional vernacular in the field of international organizations; and the phenomenon of the fragmentation of international law along with the upholding, in reaction to that fragmentation, of a hierarchy of international legal norms. It also includes an examination of the emergence of alternative vocabularies that sustain a “fragmented/societal” model of constitutionalism on the basis of systems-theory as well as an examination of a constitutionalist value ridden perspective of the international legal order that, in mirroring recent developments, attempts to “restate” a classic teleologically conceived narrative of progress without yet leaving the realm of positivism. This article, which confronts “in fine” the “international community school” with its critics, does not aim to provide a complete deconstructed genealogy of each converging strand of doctrine that one might locate behind the current appeal of constitutionalist talk at the dawn of a post-hegemonic era. Yet it is hoped that it might serve as a reminder of the multifaceted factors that lie behind the contemporary renewal of the international constitutionalist arena and, thus, help to strengthen the latter’s potential as a benchmark for diagnosing the legitimacy deficit(s) of international law.
The Interrogative Model: Historical Inquiry and Explanation
Authors: Brook Eric 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article commends Jaakko Hintikka's interrogative model of reasoning as an aid to historiography in relation to historical inquiry and explanation. After an initial discussion of David Hackett Fischer's appeal to the "logic of historical thought" in terms of his overlapping complementary emphases with Hintikka's interrogative model, a critical evaluation is given of Fischer's brief but strong comments regarding the role of why-questions in historical explanation. From there the main part of the article is given over to how the interrogative model provides an account of the nature of explanation in general using Hintikka's recently published work on explanation theory. The theory of explanation that uses the interrogative model is applied to historical explanation and illustrated in the way the interrogative model serves a descriptively-valuable role in historiography by reference to historical inquiry and explanation in Herodotus.
Kant's "Naturalistic" History of Mankind? Some Reservations
Authors: Zammito John 
Published: July 2010

AbstractAmong many important claims, Allen Wood in Kant's Ethical ought proposes that Kant's philosophy of history can be grasped as a "naturalist" approach, grounding human nature in biology. I suggest some reservations. First, I question Kant's conception of biology as (a still emergent) science. Second, I question Kant's extension of his notion of "natural predisposition" to reason and freedom. Third, I question the naturalism of Kant's philosophy of history by suggesting the excessive role providence must play in Kant's account. The upshot is to find Kant's philosophy of history one of the less persuasive elements in his system of thought, despite Wood's energetic effort at a contemporary reconstruction.
Towards a Philosophy of the History of Thought?
Authors: Kuukkanen Jouni-Matti 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThere are a large number of disciplines that are interested in the theoretical aspects of the history of thought. Their perspectives and subjects may vary, but fundamentally they have a common research interest: the history of human thinking and its products. Despite this, they are studied in relative isolation. I argue that having different subjects as specific objects of research, such as political or scientific thinking, is not a valid justification for the separation. I propose the formation of a new integrated field of study, the philosophy of the history of thought. Its most fundamental questions can be taken to be: 1) What is the basic theoretical unit in the history of thought? 2) How does change take place and how can it be described? 3) What kind of reasons are there for change? Why is there a change in a particular case? The existing confusions around the commitments and basic vocabulary used in contemporary historiography makes the establishment of this field important. Recognizing that there is such a discipline is necessary in order to enable concentration on the fundamental theoretical issues. It is likely that progress on theoretical questions and better awareness of the implicit commitments would have a positive impact on historical practice.
Jesus in South Africa—Lost in Translation?
Authors: Smit Dirkie , Mouton Elna 
Published: July 2010

AbstractWithin South African circles, Jesus is seen, interpreted, and understood in diverse and complex ways. It is almost impossible to provide any representative overview of these many ways in which the message concerning his person and work has been and still is being appropriated and claimed in South African churches and communities. This paper briefly surveys four of the dominant discourses about Jesus in contemporary South African society; namely, Jesus in the popular news and newspaper debates, academic circles and scholarship, the worship and spirituality of congregations and believers, and public opinion concerning social and political life. In all cases, major trends are pointed out, which raises the question of whether these developments perhaps involve forms of betrayal, and ways in which the figure and message of Jesus may be lost in these diverse forms of translation.
Is Not All Contextual Understanding of the Gospel Syncretism?
Authors: Vroom Hendrik 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis critical question includes the ideas: 1) that the right understanding of the gospel is pure and should be without influence of other worldview traditions or cultures; 2) the rejection of all forms of syncretism as illegitimate; 3) that some have the authority to judge between good and wrong understandings of the gospel. The article rejects both the idea that only one interpretation of the gospel is legitimate, and the idea that it is impossible to apply criteria for good and wrong contextualization; and so develops an argument in favor of a 'weak' form of syncretism that is plausible in both the tradition and the context, and understandable by the hearers of the Word.
Czech Perspectives on Buddhism, 1860–1989
Authors: Rozehnalová Jana 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe article discusses the development of concepts of Buddhism in Czech culture from the end of the nineteenth century until 1989. The analysis is based on scholarly contributions but also looks at a number of popular works written by Czech authors. Its main intention is to trace the background of particular views on Buddhism and its interpretations within the changing contexts of philosophical and political interests.
The Mobilization of Religion in the EU (1976–2007): From "Blindness to Religion" to the Anchoring of Religious Norms in the EU
Authors: Grötsch Florian 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article argues that in the European Union (EU) we can observe a process of changing attention for religion and a change in the mobilization of religion. In focusing the analysis on how religion appears in legislation texts, religion is understood in these texts as a resource that can be mobilized by different actors and in different notions. In order to understand the process of mobilization, in a first step the article illustrates the historical frameworks that are formed by national and international laws on religion, as well as their legacy. In a second step the paper discusses the process of mobilization of religion in the EU in three episodes: the first episode (1976) is marked by a lawsuit based on religious freedom and the non-discrimination concerning religion with regard to public servants. The subsequent phase is framed by the so-called "Declaration on the status of churches" (1997) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (2000). Finally, the third episode is marked by the Treaty of Lisbon (2008), of which article 6 (TEU) and article 17 (TFEU) will be reviewed. It is shown that the attention on and the mobilization of religion has changed in the EU from an individually based mobilization to a political involvement.
Islam and the West: Two Dialectical Fantasies
Authors: Nirenberg David 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article discusses two prominent and seemingly very different schools of thought about the historical relationship of the West to Islam—the first of which we might call a 'clash of civilizations' and the second an 'alliance'—in order to show the common roots of both in Christian dialectics. As an example of the first school, the article focuses on Pope Benedict XVI's 2006 Regensburg lecture on the European synthesis of 'faith' and 'reason,' with its attempt to define Islam as a religion of faith and not of reason. As an example of the second, it focuses on five centuries of European debate over the contribution of Arabic poetry to the birth of a modern and rational European poetic subjectivity. The article suggests that dialectics of inclusion and exclusion are inseparable from each other, and concludes by pointing to some contemporary political implications of this inseparability.
Roman Catholicism and Religious Pluralities in Portuguese (Iberian) History
Authors: Dix Steffen 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe religious history of Portugal is usually told as the history of a monolithic Catholic belief-system that excludes other religious options. Contrasting this tendency, there is also a political—anticlerical—construction that regards the Catholic tradition as the origin of economic, intellectual, or even ethical backwardness. Taken together, these presuppositions make it difficult to provide an impartial description of the religious situation in Portugal, both contemporary and historical. The present article intends to challenge those theological and political agendas and to replace their historical narratives with a more pluralistic picture of religion in Portugal.
Western Religion and the Self-Canceling of Modernity
Authors: Benavides Gustavo 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe extreme character of western modernity is the result of the interaction of two contradictory processes. On the one hand, the cultivation of interiority, reflexivity, and thus of subjective freedom, which antedates Christianity, and which is also found in other cultures, but which Christianity intensified by equating religion with 'faith.' On the other, the need to assert one's freedom against the attempts on the part of a church, which, while promoting the exploration of the sinful subjectivity of all Christians—understood primarily as believers—sought to control all of reality, external and internal. While the emergence of a reflexive, tolerant self has led many in the West to the abandonment of its traditional institutional religion, that same tolerant reflexivity renders difficult dealing with the demands of groups—Christian and non-Christian—that seek to abolish modernity.
Political Church, Procedural Europe, and the Creation of the Islamic Other
Authors: Mavelli Luca 
Published: July 2010

AbstractTaking the cue from the controversial speech of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in 2006, this paper explores the connection between the apparently divergent positions taken by the Catholic Church and the European secular establishment on the question of European identity and Islam. The argument is advanced that the proceduralism of the European secular establishment contributes to breed its nemesis, a conservative politicised church, but also converges with it in identifying Islam as 'the Other.' It is thus asked whether a critical valorisation of Europe's emotional attachments may not actually strengthen its capacity to embrace the 'difference' represented by Islam.
Templeisation: Continuity and Change of Hindu Traditions in Diaspora
Authors: Baumann Martin 
Published: July 2010

AbstractReligions that are involved in processes of migration face a double challenge: they need to adapt to the new environment due to the different socio-cultural and legal setting; at the same time, a faithful maintenance of ritual practice, religious concepts, worldview, and norms is a prerequisite for the continuation of the very tradition, warding off assimilation. Recent scholarship in social and cultural studies subsumed these processes under the newly 'discovered' term of diaspora. This article employs the term to analyse aspects of religious dynamics caused by constraints of living home away from home. We adopt the neologism “templeisation” introduced by Vasudha Narayanan studying Hindu immigrants from India in the USA, in order to scrutinise incipient changes among Hindu Tamils from Sri Lanka in continental Europe. Templeisation points to a decisive shift of religious observance and ritual practice from the home to the temple, accompanied by a shift in authority away from women and mothers to men and priests. Are these shifts also observable for the Tamil Hindu diaspora in Germany and Switzerland?
From Religion to Spirituality—Megatrend in Contemporary Society or Methodological Artefact? A Contribution to the Secularization Debate from Psychology of Religion
Authors: Popp-Baier Ulrike 
Published: July 2010

AbstractAfter a short discussion of important issues concerning the secularization debate and the three meta-narratives involved in this debate (decline, transformation, rise), the following question is addressed: in modern societies, has 'religion' given way to 'spirituality' on the individual level? After a critique of different conceptualizations of spirituality for empirical research and a sample discussion of survey data (results of the European Values Study for the Netherlands between 1980 and 2000), the answer is negative. The suggestion is that spirituality appears as a megatrend in the mass media marketing commodities and in the publications of social scientists trying to attract a broader audience. But the so-called spiritual trend at the level of individual 'religious' orientations is the result of a questionable terminological construction or a questionable interpretation of survey data or arises from a combination of the two.
Max Yergan, Marxism and Mission during the Interwar Era
Authors: Anthony David Henry 
Published: July 2010

AbstractFrom 1922 through 1936 Max Yergan, an African-American graduate of historically Black Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina represented the North American YMCA in South Africa through the auspices of the Student Christian Association. A student secretary since his sophomore year in 1911, with Indian and East African experience in World War One, Yergan's star rose sufficiently to permit him entry into the racially challenging South Africa field after a protracted campaign waged on his behalf by such interfaith luminaries as Gold Coast proto nationalist J.E.K. Aggrey and the formidable Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Arriving on the eve of the Great Rand Mine Strike of 1922, Yergan's South African years were punctuated by political concerns.
Entering the country as an Evangelical Pan-Africanist influenced by the social gospel thrust of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American Protestantism that reached the YMCA and other faith-friendly but nondenominational organizations, Yergan became favorably disposed to Marxist and Marxist-Leninist doctrine in the course of his South African posting. Against the backdrop of the labor agitation of the post World War One era and the expansion and transformation of the South African Communist Party that occurred during the mid to late nineteen twenties, Yergan's response to what he termed "the appeal of Communism" made him an avatar of a liberation theology fusing Marxist revolution and Christianity. This paper details some of the trajectory of that momentous and profound personal evolution.
The Catholic Church's Role in the Disintegration of the Spanish Colonial Empire. The Case of the Viceroyalty of New Granada
Authors: Bidegain Ana Maria 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article analyzes aspects of the complex process that led to independence in the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. It focuses on the role of religion and of social actors that have not been sufficiently taken into account in traditional historiography. The latter has paid much attention to political and economic aspects, but has disregarded other important changes that propelled the independence process, profound socio-cultural transformations and events that indicate the complexity of the process. First of all, this was not just a revolution from above and the historical periodization has to be reworked as a result of the Borbonic Reforms, with their leaning toward enlightenment. We must not consider the military uprisings as the starting point of the emancipation from the Spanish crown. Even though the colonial societies did not follow the same path as the European bourgeois revolutions with their proposed liberal perspectives, important changes did indeed happen, in which all social groups were implicated. From both the religious and particularly the women's historical perspective we can see the important transformations that took place. Examples are provided of how women of the popular classes triggered the process. Likewise, women amongst the educated elite, large sectors of the Creole clergy and some educational institutions were important agents of the ideological changes, by propagating new ideas. All these, in turn, paved the way for the further diversification of the ideological and religious landscape of Latin America during the independence period.
'Gagner les Nations à Jésus': Entreprises Missionnaires et Guerre Spirituelle en Afrique
Authors: Fancello Sandra 
Published: July 2010

AbstractDepuis les Indépendances africaines des années 1960, et le régime d'alliance entre des Églises « officielles » et les Partis uniques, jusqu'au nouveau régime de libéralisation religieuse des années 1990 initié par les Conférences nationales, les entreprises missionnaires, issues de l'époque coloniale, mais aussi les nouvelles Missions internationales, ont à négocier leur rapport avec le pouvoir politique. Cette contribution interroge l'évolution contemporaine de la notion « d'Église missionnaire » dans ses rapports complexes avec certaines formes de nationalisme religieux, et l'extension dans ce contexte du sens même de la « mission » comme régénération morale de la nation.
For God and Queen: James Gilmour Among the Mongols, 1870-1891
Authors: Lodwick Kathleen 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThe Rev. James Gilmour, London Missionary Society, spent twenty years in Mongolia, but never converted any of them to Christianity. A keen observer of Mongolian society he published Among the Mongols in 1883 vividly describing their lifestyles and customs. Termed "one of the best books ever written about Mongolia" it remains in print as a lasting legacy to Gilmour's lonely toil in one of the world's most remote missionary locations. Durant les vingt années qu'il a passées en Mongolie pour la London Missionary Society, le Révérend James Gilmour n'a pas fait un seul converti au christianisme. En 1883, ce fin observateur de la société mongole publia Among the Mongols, un livre dans lequel il décrivait leur modes de vie et leurs coutumes. Considéré comme « l'un des meilleurs ouvrages jamais écrits sur la Mongolie », le livre est l'héritage tangible du parcours solitaire de Gilmour dans l'une des contrées missionnaires les plus reculées au monde.
The Limits of the Civilizing Mission: A Comparative Analysis of British Protestant Missionary Campaigns to End Footbinding and Female Circumcision
Authors: Lau Bryony 
Published: July 2010

AbstractDrawing on international relations theory, this article examines why a British missionary campaign against footbinding in China at the turn of the 20 th century succeeded, while a similar campaign against female circumcision in Kenya in the 1920s failed. It argues that the diff erent outcomes can be explained by the incentives new elites had in swiftly changing political climates to adopt, adapt or reject foreign norms promoted by missionaries. Whereas Chinese reformers recast footbinding as a source of China's weakness, the emerging nationalist elite among the Kikuyu in Kenya argued for the continuation of female circumcision as part of anti-colonial resistance. Cette contribution interroge, à l'aide de la théorie de relations internationales, les raisons pour lesquelles une campagne dirigée par des missionnaires britanniques en Chine, à la veille du XXe siècle, contre les pieds bandés réussit, alors qu'une campagne similaire menée durant les années 1920 contre l'excision féminine au Kenya échoua. Ces résultats opposés s'expliquent par le choix que fi rent les nouvelles élites locales d'adopter, d'adapter ou de rejeter les normes étrangères introduites par les missionnaires. Alors que les réformateurs chinois réinterprétèrent les pieds bandés comme une source de l'impuissance de la Chine, la nouvelle élite nationaliste kikuyu au Kenya vit dans la pratique de l'excision féminine un moyen de résistance contre le colonialisme.
Entre Repli Communautaire et Fait Missionnaire. Deux Mouvements Religieux (Chrétien et Musulman) Ouest-Africains en Perspective Comparative
Authors: Samson Fabienne 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article proposes a comparative analysis of two West African religious movements which a-priori do not seem to have anything in common, the Mouvement Mondial pour l'Unicité de Dieu (a Senegalese neo-islamic group) and the Centre International d'Evangélisation (a pentecostal movement from Burkina Faso). It argues that despite confessional and contextual diff erences, both are involved in the same process of remoralisation of their environment. Both are urban youth movements with a strong missionary component. ey both constitute autonomous moral spaces which produce and promote totalising religious identities in a clear breach from a profane society they consider impure. ey also share jihadist or evangelistic views on the need to conquer and dominate the national as well as international fields, convinced as they are of their mission to "re-enchant" the world. Cet article met en perspective comparée deux mouvements religieux ouest-africains a-priori antinomiques, le Mouvement Mondial pour l'Unicité de Dieu (groupe islamique néo-confrérique sénégalais) et le Centre International d'Evangélisation (mouvement pentecôtiste burkinabé) afi n de démontrer qu'au-delà des clivages confessionnels et des diff érences contextuelles, tous deux sont impliqués dans un même processus de remoralisation de leur environnement. Mouvements de jeunes urbains, ils ont ainsi comme caractéristique commune le fait missionnaire. Ils constituent chacun des espaces moraux autonomes, producteurs d'identités religieuses totalisantes et souvent en digression par rapport à une société profane jugée impure. Mais ils sont également très fortement inscrits dans un esprit conquérant jihadiste ou évangéliste et cherchent à s'imposer dans un champ religieux national puis international, convaincus de leur mission de réenchantement du monde.