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Author: R. L. Gordon Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521296403 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
The essays in this volume explore different aspects of the relation between Greek myth and Greek thought between the Archaic period (Homer and Hesiod) and the Hellenistic period, highlighting both the continuities and the contrasts in the Greek interpretations and 'uses' of myth. With the exception of the essay by Louis Gernet, all bear traces of the authors; attempts to combine older views stemming essentially from Durkheim and his pupils with Levi-Strauss's version of structuralism. Because the potential field is unmanageably large this selection concentrates on four important areas: the value of Greek myth in revealing the underlying coherence of Greek views of divinity; the manner in which Greek myth constructed meanings for Greek culture as a whole by selecting and combining certain motifs derived from different areas of life; the relationship between myth and delicate areas of social existence such as the nature of the value of certain objects and the passage of individuals from one status to another; and finally, the role of the myth in providing 'forms' for breaking rules - both in order to confirm the norm and to provide symbolic and actuals means of escape from dominant social rules and meanings. This book should be of interest to students in a number of disciplines concerned with myth and ancient society.
Author: R. L. Gordon Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521296403 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
The essays in this volume explore different aspects of the relation between Greek myth and Greek thought between the Archaic period (Homer and Hesiod) and the Hellenistic period, highlighting both the continuities and the contrasts in the Greek interpretations and 'uses' of myth. With the exception of the essay by Louis Gernet, all bear traces of the authors; attempts to combine older views stemming essentially from Durkheim and his pupils with Levi-Strauss's version of structuralism. Because the potential field is unmanageably large this selection concentrates on four important areas: the value of Greek myth in revealing the underlying coherence of Greek views of divinity; the manner in which Greek myth constructed meanings for Greek culture as a whole by selecting and combining certain motifs derived from different areas of life; the relationship between myth and delicate areas of social existence such as the nature of the value of certain objects and the passage of individuals from one status to another; and finally, the role of the myth in providing 'forms' for breaking rules - both in order to confirm the norm and to provide symbolic and actuals means of escape from dominant social rules and meanings. This book should be of interest to students in a number of disciplines concerned with myth and ancient society.
Author: Ryan P. Burge Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers ISBN: 1506482015 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
The way most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to empirical reality, argues Ryan P. Burge. In 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, Burge strives to be an impartial referee and to overcome these caustic misperceptions by using both rigorous data analysis and straightforward explanations.
Author: David Sehat Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199793115 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 368
Book Description
In the battles over religion and politics in America, both liberals and conservatives often appeal to history. Liberals claim that the Founders separated church and state. But for much of American history, David Sehat writes, Protestant Christianity was intimately intertwined with the state. Yet the past was not the Christian utopia that conservatives imagine either. Instead, a Protestant moral establishment prevailed, using government power to punish free thinkers and religious dissidents. In The Myth of American Religious Freedom, Sehat provides an eye-opening history of religion in public life, overturning our most cherished myths. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, which had limited authority. The Protestant moral establishment ruled on the state level. Using moral laws to uphold religious power, religious partisans enforced a moral and religious orthodoxy against Catholics, Jews, Mormons, agnostics, and others. Not until 1940 did the U.S. Supreme Court extend the First Amendment to the states. As the Supreme Court began to dismantle the connections between religion and government, Sehat argues, religious conservatives mobilized to maintain their power and began the culture wars of the last fifty years. To trace the rise and fall of this Protestant establishment, Sehat focuses on a series of dissenters--abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene V. Debs, and many others. Shattering myths held by both the left and right, David Sehat forces us to rethink some of our most deeply held beliefs. By showing the bad history used on both sides, he denies partisans a safe refuge with the Founders.
Author: Laura Feldt Publisher: Walter de Gruyter ISBN: 1614511721 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
Wilderness is one of the most abiding creations in the history of religions. It has a long and seminal history and is of contemporary relevance in wildlife preservation and climate discourses. Yet it has not previously been subject to scrutiny or theorising from a cross-cultural study of religions perspective. What are the specific relations between the world’s religions and imagined and real wilderness areas? The wilderness is often understood as a domain void of humans, opposed to civilization, but the analyses in this book complicate and question the dualism of previous theoretical grids and offer new perspectives on the interesting multiplicity of the wilderness and religion nexus. This book thus addresses the need for cross-cultural anthropological and history of religions analyses by offering in-depth case studies of the use and functions of wilderness spaces in a diverse range of contexts including, but not limited to, ancient Greece, early Christian asceticism, Old Norse religion, the shamanism-Buddhism encounter in Mongolia, contemporary paganism, and wilderness spirituality in the US. It advances research on religious spatialities, cosmologies, and ideas of wild nature and brings new understanding of the role of religion in human interaction with ‘the world’.
Author: Jean Pierre Vernant Publisher: ISBN: 9780942299175 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
"In this groundbreaking study, Vernant declinates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece. Myth and Society takes us far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon, and revels to us a fundamentally other culture--one of slavery, of blood sacrifice, of perpetual and ritualized warfare, of ceremonial hunting and ecstasies."--Publisher's description.
Author: Burton L. Mack Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 0300227892 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
This book is the culmination of a lifelong scholarly inquiry into Christian history, religion as a social institution, and the role of myth in the history of religions. Mack shows that religions are essentially mythological and that Christianity in particular has been an ever-changing mythological engine of social formation, from Roman times to its distinct American expression in our time. The author traces the cultural influence of the Christian myth that has persisted for sixteen hundred years but now should be much less consequential in our social and cultural life, since it runs counter to our democratic ideals. We stand at a critical impasse: badly splintered by conflicting groups pursuing their own social interests, a binding common myth needs to be established by renewing a truly cohesive national and international story rooted in our democratic and egalitarian origins, committed to freedom, equality, and vital human values.
Author: Johann Jakob Bachofen Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 9780691017976 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
The Swiss thinker J. J. Bachofen is most often connected with his theory of matriarchy, or "mother right," but that concept is only a small part of his contribution to our understanding of cultural history. This book includes an autobiographical essay and selections from An Essay on Ancient Mortuary Symbolism, Mother Right, and The Myth of Tanaquil. ?
Author: Alan Watts Publisher: Tuttle Publishing ISBN: 9780804830553 Category : Myth Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
"This dynamic collection of edited transcripts begins with Not What Should Be, But What Is! In this powerful talk on the contrasts between classical Eastern and traditional Western mythologies, Watts questions whether the image of a divine patriarch is still intellectually plausible in light of our ever growing understanding of the universe. He then takes a revealing look at the mystical origins of Christianity in Jesus - His Religion, Or the Religion About Him? and explores how Christianity has diverged historically from those teachings in a brilliant and well researched critique of the Church. In Democracy in the Kingdom of Heaven Watts then carries his inquiry one step further, and asks if indeed a monarchical religion still makes sense in a democratic society. Watts takes a fascinating look at the ultimately anthropomorphic quality of man's view of his god in Images of Man. Here he is only half kidding when he says that "In the beginning there was Man, and he created God in his image," pointing to the highly subjective nature of our inquiry into the highest orders of reality. In the final chapter, Religion and Sexuality, Watts again looks at organized religion, but with more than a touch of humor as he suggests that churches today are sexual regulation societies, and precious little else. To make this point Watts asks, "How else can you get thrown out?" He then goes on to discuss the social implications of the Church's investment in moral issues, and demonstrates that this may in fact be a ploy to cover up for the lack of any substantial religious teaching in organized religion today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Jason Ānanda Josephson Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226412342 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.
Author: R. L. Gordon
Author: R. L. Gordon
Author: Ryan P. Burge
Author: David Sehat
Author: Laura Feldt
Author: Jean Pierre Vernant
Author: Burton L. Mack
Author: Johann Jakob Bachofen
Author: Alan Watts
Author: Jason Ānanda Josephson
Author: John Baines