scholarly journals Method and Theory in Religious Studies: Retrospect and Prognostications

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Morny Joy

There is a distinct possibility that, in the twenty-first century, Religious Studies as a discipline could come into its own. Its multidisciplinary orientation, if handled with due critical awareness as to its own former grandiose ambitions and present entanglements, could provide insight into the various problems that beset contemporary existence. Religious Studies has been involved in a number of internal debates that have sapped its energies and prevented it from advancing theoretically in ways that would help it address these problems. In this article I survey some of the developments that have taken place in other disciplines that could be of benefit in helping Religious Studies take its place as a discipline that is relevant for the twenty-first century.Keywords: Religious studies, cultural studies, culture, postcolonialism, gender

Inner Asia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-171
Author(s):  
Hildegard Diemberger

AbstractIn this paper I follow the social life of the Tibetan books belonging to the Younghusband-Waddell collection. I show how books as literary artefacts can transform from ritual objects into loot, into commodities and into academic treasures and how books can have agency over people, creating networks and shaping identities. Exploring connections between books and people, I look at colonial collecting, Orientalist scholarship and imperial visions from an unusual perspective in which the social life and cultural biography of people and things intertwine and mutually define each other. By following the trajectory of these literary artefacts, I show how their traces left in letters, minutes and acquisition documents give insight into the functioning of academic institutions and their relationship to imperial governing structures and individual aspirations. In particular, I outline the lives of a group of scholars who were involved with this collection in different capacities and whose deeds are unevenly known. This adds a new perspective to the study of this period, which has so far been largely focused on the deeds of key individuals and the political and military setting in which they operated. Finally, I show how the books of this collection have continued to exercise their attraction and moral pressure on twenty-first-century scholars, both Tibetan and international, linking them through digital technology and cyberspace.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mary Elaine Vansant

Transferring work from one culture to another through translation or adaptation is a delicate process which requires careful consideration of both the positionality of the adapter and the intertextual reaction of the adapted work's target audience. In addition to traditional adaptation theories like intertextuality, the theatrical field of dramaturgy offers helpful insight into the adaptation process, especially as it relates to plays. This dissertation examines the ways that the combination of adaptation studies and dramaturgy, which Jane Barnette calls adapturgy, can inform intercultural adaptaitons of dramatic literature to create performable and effective theatre experiences for twenty-first century audiences. I achieve this goal by first examining two adapted plays: A Little Betrayal Among Friends by Caridad Svich, adapted from La traicion en la amistad by Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor, and Fever/Dream by Sheila Callaghan, adapted from La vida es sueno by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. I look at how dramaturgical and adapation theories can be applied to these plays via script analysis and contextual questioning. Then, using the skills gleaned from those two examples, I create my own translation and adaptation of Los empenos de una casa by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, and I reflect on my adapturgical process of doing so. In creating both a translation, titled How to Build a Noble House, and an adaptation, titled With the Temptation, a Way of Escape, I both preserve the unique traits of the Spanish Golden Age for performance in the twenty-first century and amplify Sor Juana's comedic and social intentions for a contemporary society. I believe that both of these considerations, alongside a reflection on the adapter's positionality and the intentions of the producing organization and production team for a live production, are invaluable to both the field of adaptaiton studies and of dramaturgy.


Author(s):  
van Waas Laura

This chapter focuses on the intersection of international refugee law and international statelessness law. While refugee law, policy, doctrine, and research evolved, it was not until after the turn of the twenty-first century that international statelessness law started to draw much attention and to begin to emerge as a field of its own. As global interest in statelessness grows, the interaction between statelessness and forced displacement has also come back under the spotlight. Thus, the chapter provides an insight into the relationship between statelessness and forced displacement. It starts by unpacking how statelessness can manifest itself as a cause or consequence of displacement, as well as how statelessness can be a complicating factor for refugee protection and durable solutions. The chapter then offers a brief overview of key norms relating to the protection of stateless persons and the prevention and resolution of statelessness, setting out the contours of international statelessness law. It also looks at the implications of the statelessness–displacement nexus by exploring the conceptual and practical questions that arise when a refugee is also stateless, and when a stateless person is also a refugee.


Author(s):  
Joseph D. Witt

This chapter examines the historical development of anti-mountaintop removal activism in Appalachia in the early twenty-first century. The chapter first examines how twenty-first-century groups such as Mountain Justice emerged out of decades of localized activism against strip mining in the area. It then outlines the theoretical influences from Appalachian studies and religious studies that have shaped this discussion of religion and place in Appalachia, including studies of Appalachian history and development, critical regionalism, and approaches to “lived religion.” Based on these theoretical concepts, the remainder of the book explores multiple religious threads in the re-imagining of Appalachian place by anti-mountaintop removal activists in light of a physically transformed topography.


Author(s):  
Cristina Leston-Bandeira ◽  
Louise Thompson

Exploring Parliament offers a fresh perspective on an ancient institution. It provides a real-life insight into the inner workings, impact, and relevance of twenty-first century Parliament. Short academic and practitioner chapters are combined with relevant and practical case studies, to provide an introduction to Parliament's structures, people, and practices. As well as covering the broader structure of UK Parliament, this text explains the role of small parties in law-making, the design and space of Parliament, and offers illuminating case studies on highly topical areas such as the Backbench Business Committee, the Hillsborough Inquiry and recent pieces of legislation such as the Assisted Dying Bill.


Through three editions over more than four decades, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics has built an unrivaled reputation as the most comprehensive and authoritative reference for students, scholars, and poets on all aspects of its subject: history, movements, genres, prosody, rhetorical devices, critical terms, and more. Now this landmark work has been thoroughly revised and updated for the twenty-first century. Compiled by an entirely new team of editors, the fourth edition--the first new edition in almost twenty years--reflects recent changes in literary and cultural studies, providing up-to-date coverage and giving greater attention to the international aspects of poetry, all while preserving the best of the previous volumesAt well over a million words and more than 1,000 entries, the Encyclopedia has unparalleled breadth and depth. Entries range in length from brief paragraphs to major essays of 15,000 words, offering a more thorough treatment-including expert synthesis and indispensable bibliographies-than conventional handbooks or dictionaries.This is a work that no reader or writer of poetry will want to be without.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Claudia Milian

At the core of this Cultural Dynamics special issue on “LatinX Studies: Variations and Velocities” are new conceptual approaches, epistemological workings, “keywords,” and modes of inquiry that enable us to theorize LatinX Studies and global LatinXness for the twenty-first century. Bringing together different research communities from art, art history, cultural anthropology, cultural studies, geography, history, journalism, and literature, this exploratory undertaking offers a working language on present-day LatinX preoccupations to seize what is happening contemporaneously in light of the field’s “X” and to disseminate it in a usable format like this journal. The volume’s contributors—Jill Anderson, Gloria Elizabeth Chacón, Nicholas De Genova, María DeGuzmán, Rene Galvan, Hilda Lloréns and Maritza Stanchich, Mark Overmyer-Velázquez, and Fredo Rivera—put forward new formulations and models for Latino/a Studies in considering LatinX geographies beyond the Americas; indigenous migrations and cultural production; Miami’s oceanic borderlands; environmental planetary problems and environmental knowledges; LatinX medical subjects; and deported exiles. The breadth of foci herein invites further problematization and dialogue with implications and relevance to other fields.


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