Search Results (137)

The Alevis of Anatolia and the Balkans and the Alawites of Syria and southeastern Turkey are two distinct ethnoreligious communities frequently conflated in both media and scholarly literature, despite their divergent historical origins, theological differences, and varying sociocultural formations. While their shared histories of marginalization and persecution, certain theological parallels, and cognate ethnonyms contribute to this conflation, it largely stems from a broader tendency within mainstream Islamic frameworks to homogenize so-called heterodox communities without sufficient attention to their doctrinal and cultural specificities. This paper, grounded in a synthetic analysis of current scholarship, maps the key historical, theological, and sociocultural intersections and divergences between Alawite and Alevi communities. Situated within the broader framework of intra-Islamic diversity, it seeks to move beyond essentialist and homogenizing paradigms by foregrounding the distinct genealogies of each tradition, rooted, respectively, in the early pro-Alid movements of Iraq and Syria and in Anatolian Sufism. In addition, the study examines the communities’ overlapping political trajectories in the modern era, particularly their alignments with leftist and secular–nationalist currents, as well as their evolving relationship—from mutual unawareness to a recent political rapprochement—prompted by the growing existential threats posed by the rise of Sunni-Salafi Islamist movements. Full article

Japanese scholarship occupies a special place in the study of Old Uyghur philology, Central Asian history and religions on the Silk Road. The German volume edited by J. P. Laut and K. Röhrborn in 1988 provides an overview of Japanese studies of Old Uyghur Buddhism and presents some representative works published up to 1988. For publications subsequent to 1988, an appendix to Laut and K. Röhrborn’s volume by M. Ölmez can be mentioned, though it provides minimal elaboration on Buddhist publications. The present paper offers a comprehensive review of notable contributions to the study of Old Uyghur Buddhism published in Japanese in recent years, which are challenging to access for scholars unacquainted with the Japanese language. It focuses exclusively on publications released between 2000 and 2024 in Japanese, with no English translations available at the time of submission of this paper. Full article

Monastic life presents a contrast to many aspects of modern existence (the rule of ideology, consumerism, various forms of negativity, dominance of the virtual, forgetfulness). The following essay explores this contrast and its presence throughout the long history of monasticism, with a focus on early Northern and Western monasticism on the one hand, and the modern Benedictine tradition on the other. The counter-cultural dimensions of monastic life range from special landscapes and sacred space to the function of time, and from the transcendental role of prayer to the earthy nature of hard work. Not only do the traditions of monastic scholarship and the books gathered in monastic libraries help preserve the memory and reinforce the special counter-culture of monasteries, but the monasteries remain to this day places of healing and sources of hope. The poem “Pilgrimage” composed in 1929 by Austin Clarke captures the character of monastic life not only as something contrary, but as an essential way of life, which has survived from the founding of medieval Clonmacnoise up until today. Full article

The very latest scholarship on the Swiss Reformation has urged us to resituate the conceptual origins and first articulations of a Reformed Covenant theology in the Zurich of Zwingli, Jud, Pellikan, and Bullinger, rather than in the Geneva of Calvin and Beza. Using insights from the recent literature of early modern memory, book history, and art history, this article provides a critical new reading of the preface, text, and paratext of the 1531 folio edition of the Zurich Bible. In doing so, it elucidates how, working with a humanist conception of historical memory, an early Reformed Covenant theology was articulated through its rhetorical juxtaposition of an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism. In line with recent work on the role of historical models in early Reformed Bible culture, I contend that the language of historical memory holds the key to understanding this Reformed rearticulation of Covenant theology and its intended effect on readers of the Zurich Bible. Insights from this reading shed light on the Zurich origins of Reformed Christianity’s ambivalent history of defining itself vis-a-vis an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism, with implications for understanding Protestant discourses on Israel, Judaism, idolatry, antijudaism, and antisemitism. Full article

Scholarly discussion on Bonaventure’s Christology has tended to favor its Trinitarian, historical, and epistemological dimensions. Of note is Bonaventure’s notion of Christ as medium metaphysicum: the very depth and center of history according to knowing, learning, and mystical desire. What is perhaps less considered with respect to these topics, but nevertheless evident in contemporary scholarship, is the extent to which Bonaventure’s Christological structure informs an essential relation between creation and glorification. This essay explores these topics with attention to contemporary Bonaventure scholarship to offer insights on the ongoing importance of Bonaventure’s Christology for posterity, especially as it relates to a Bonaventurian theology of creation. Full article

This concept paper introduces the Contextual Critical Historical Inquiry and Analysis (CCHIA) framework—a critical synthesis tool designed to advance historical contextual inquiry in urban studies. The study aims to develop a structured methodological framework that integrates historical and critical approaches to enhance the analysis of urban phenomena. To develop this framework, we employed a two-fold strategy, conducting a literature search of the social sciences and urban studies using databases including Google Scholar, Web of Science, JSTOR, and Scopus. First, we screened Google Scholar to identify relevant scholars and works published between 1883 and 2024. Second, a content analysis of 58 peer-reviewed articles (2000–2024) was then performed. The concept paper follows a five-stage, 26-step framework integrating four history-focused concepts—interpretive history, historical perspective, historical context, and historical contextualization—alongside three critical approaches: critical discourse analysis, comparative historical analysis, and critical urban theory. By synthesizing these elements, the suggested framework equips researchers to systematically decode the historical and societal forces shaping urban phenomena. CCHIA challenges traditional urban scholarship by leveraging interdisciplinary insights from the social sciences, addressing context as a theoretical perspective for understanding urban formation, and as a critical influence on academic writing. The contribution of CCHIA lies in linking historical analysis to contemporary urban challenges—enabling researchers to focus on previous literature analysis findings to address the current situation’s challenges. The CCHIA framework offers an adaptable toolkit for producing socially engaged and context-sensitive urban textbooks. Full article

Black Theology of Liberation, particularly in South Africa, has always been for Black people in the world and produced theological reflections through the lens of Black people. In the evolving scholarship on BTL, there has been challenges in its middle class positionality toward the Black poor and oppressed. The Church Land Programme in Pietermaritzburg was presented with a similar challenge on its positionality in its work on land reform. The CLP’s shift from an organisation working on behalf of the Black poor to working with them may provide suggestions for BTL’s methodology and positionality. This article analyses the Church Land Programme’s community-led publications and how these provide innovative methodological choices for Black Theology of Liberation scholars. Firstly, it explores the Church Land Programme’s history, strategic shifts, and publication partnerships within communities. Secondly, is analyses the publications’ use of stories from within communities. Finally, it discusses new methodological choices in Black Theology of Liberation through lessons from the Church Land Programme’s shift and resultant publications. The results reveal that narratives from below can be promoted in Black Theology of Liberation’s methodology. Full article

The spatiality of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings has always been a topic of investigation within the field of Romantic art history. This research has been conducted with the objective of gaining insight into the ideas and reasoning of the Greifswald painter. The influence of new insights into Caspar David Friedrich’s spatiality construction has led the scholarship to trigger different ways of interpreting his paintings and artworks. The aim of the proposed study is to analyse the architectural spatiality as defined by Friedrich in his paintings that have Eldena Abbey as their main architectural reference, using a methodology that uses 3D digital modelling as its main tool, in order to understand if the painter used any spatial compositional patterns in these paintings. Another objective of this study is to verify the potential of 3D modelling as an analytical tool for the architectural spatiality of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings. An analysis of the spatiality of the church designed by Frederich has been carried out through the reconstruction of the central nave of the religious space, as an example of the compositional patterns that will eventually be detected in his representation of Eldena Abbey. In this research, 3D modelling is a fundamental analytical tool used for reconstructing the spatiality of the church as represented by Friedrich in three artworks that have Eldena as their main reference for the architectural motif. This research uses the projection of the apparent contour to reconstruct the position and size of the depicted architectural elements within different reconstruction scenarios. The possibility of using a compositional benchmark as the ratio between the width of the column and the following intercolumnar distance allows using the identification of compositional patterns within the analysed artworks in order to understand how Friedrich conceived architectural space within them. Full article

The history of religions during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been closely tied to the classification of Indigenous religions. However, recent scholarship in the field of religion has increasingly drawn on the work of subaltern and postcolonial historiography as a way of disrupting the European canon and dislodging Indigenous and non-western ways of knowing and being from the tyranny of the classical taxonomies of religion. Recent approaches to religious diversity have been challenged for reproducing imperial hierarchies of religion—assuming an accommodationist approach to Indigenous religions while also rendering invisible the internal diversity, fluidity, and adaptive orientations within Indigenous religions. In this paper, I contend that in the postcolonial context, Indigenous religions uncouple themselves from traditional taxonomies of religion, and, in particular, I propose religious complexity as a suitable framework and approach for accounting, contending with, and reporting on religious change in postcolonial South Africa. I explore questions about how to account for, ‘classify’, or ‘measure’ change related to everyday African Indigenous religious efforts and practices in the aftermath of and in response to colonialism, where conventional ideas about religious authority and affinity are displaced by Indigenous practices that can variously be described as simultaneously vital, viral, or feral. Full article

The study of mysticism has been at an impasse for many years, wavering between naïve realism around a common core hypothesis and critical questioning of the category of mysticism and its imposition. In this article, we review key 20th century developments in the study of mysticism to understand why the term was largely abandoned and unpack the contours of this impasse. Specifically, we probe the literature to ask (i) how has mysticism been defined and (ii) who counts as a mystic? Our primary data are key pieces of scholarly literature on mysticism, including interdisciplinary studies and disciplinary literature from religious studies, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. This review draws on a metatheoretic perspective of critical realism and is not meant to be comprehensive but rather analytical, seeking to identify patterns in scholarship. We find that each question is answered by studies along an axis, wavering between two ideal–typical poles. On the first question, we find scholarship ranging along an axis of essence between extreme poles of a reified vs. relativized substance of mysticism. On the second question, we find studies on an axis of access, varying between a rarified concept of mystical elites and a laified concept of mystical knowledge open to all. Putting studies along these axes yields a definitional space of mysticism that is compatible with critical realism and allows for the general study of mysticism to continue in a more nuanced, post-critique way. We also find that the category of experience lies at the origin or intersection point of both axes, and is a source of many problems in the general study of mysticism. Full article

By all accounts, Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) is virtually synonymous with process thought, including its more specific expressions as process philosophy and theology. This is most often assumed with little regard for the origins of modern process thought itself. Nicholas Rescher, reflecting on this fact, has called the pluralization of the field the “cardinal task” of all process proponents. This charge, given nearly thirty years ago, remains unfulfilled. Despite the fact that other candidates are available, the preeminence of this singular figure, and subordinately his later interpreter Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), has led to what may be called “The Whitehead/Hartshorne Factor” in virtually all aspects of process thought. This has functioned as a limiting factor in the promotion of processual ideas, a phenomenon noted during the earliest years of modern process history. This historiographical review will outline the features of these limitations and suggest a broader process approach that works to the benefit of its theological branch in particular. This paper dares to ask the “heretical” question, what would process philosophy and theology look like without Whitehead? Ironically, with the most recent analysis of Whitehead scholarship, the answer is hidden in plain sight. Full article

Mendoza’s History of the Great Empire of China constitutes a notable contribution to the history of the literary relationship between China and Spain. First published in Rome in 1585, the work has exerted a profound influence on international scholarship over the past four centuries. From the perspective of the evolution of Western perceptions of China, contemporary scholars have primarily assessed this text on the basis of Mendoza’s elevation of Europe’s admiration of China from a material to a spiritual dimension. This paper introduces a new perspective on Mendoza’s significant contribution to the field of Chinese studies. Not only is his work a valuable source of information about China, but it is also a pioneering form of missionary ethnographic writing. This approach, here termed as ‘Sacred Orientalism’, served to elevate Europe’s idealised and sacred imagination of China to new heights. This paper demonstrates, among other things, how Mendoza used his two main reference works, Cruz and Rada, to reach such Sacred Orientalism. Furthermore, this paper also examines the factors that led to the emergence and acceptance of this distinctive mode of writing about China in 16th-century Europe. Full article

The present article considers the intersection between genre and covenant in scripture in order to locate historical covenants and to trace their complex textual boundaries. Standing on the shoulders of Smith, Wellhausen, and Gunkel, the joint legacy left behind by Martin and Albrecht Noth is equally significant for both Biblical and Islamic studies. Nothian scholarship laid solid foundations for reconstructing the history of tribal traditions. Both of them together created a common frame of reference for studying primary and secondary themes (Themen), literary and documentary forms (Formen), introductory and concluding formulas (Formeln), and theological and political perspectives (Tendenzen), in addition to geographical, transitional, and framing devices (Schemata). In spite of this shared scholarly heritage, it appears that both Biblical and Qurʾānic studies have either been talking at cross-purposes or have reached a critical crossroads, as has happened in the case of covenant. All things considered, genre and tradition criticism allow us to move forward beyond the Methodenstreit in covenant studies. Full article

Rather than simply claiming the “unorthodox” or “pluralistic” mindset of an early modern Muslim thinker, this intellectual micro-history aims to show the complexity of Shāh Walī Allāh’s (d. 1762) thought-world. This article follows him to Mecca and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage. While pilgrimage is traditionally included in the fundaments of Islamic practice, it is also important to realize that the majority of Muslims have not historically participated in this pilgrimage. Due to the physical limitations of travelling as the Muslim community rapidly expanded in the 7th century onwards, we have nearly a thousand years until the 18th century where only a select few Muslims, usually wealthy enough to make the arduous journey, participated in the yearly practice. This created a complex culture of pilgrims in the Holy Cities with the cities functioning as informal circles of scholarship. Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī engages in this knowledge production process while carrying out the mandatory rituals associated with the Hajj pilgrimage. Thus, this article shows that the complex interplay of Walī Allāh with Meccan and Medinan scholars is a highly dynamic process with unexpected outcomes as specific sacred geography interacts with the conceptual (and genealogical) categories that scholarly pilgrims bring with them to this intellectual encounter. In doing so, we catch a glimpse of the 18th century through a very particular set of Indian Sufi eyes. Full article

The article examines the exhibition history of hand-painted ceramic objects from the “Fajans” factory in Włocławek and the politics of regional contextualization during the period of détente in the 1970s and 1980s. It extends both existing scholarship on transnational art history in socialist Europe and the notion of cultural diplomacy, approached here in the context of regional politics and economic frameworks. The paper highlights the peripheral networks and movements that developed in relation to the socialist cultural politics of working-class artistic engagement and artistic practice as labor. Questions of cooperation between Poland and other socialist states are of particular interest, as are the implications of détente for East Central Europe. The reconstruction of the transnational circulation of “Fajans” objects is based on a comparative analysis of international “Fajans” exhibitions, using documentation from the archives of the Faience Department of the Museum of the Kujawy and Dobrzyń Land, as well as from the archives of the city of Novi Sad. Based on the researched material and the conceptual framework of transnational art history, the article proposes a concept of regional cultural diplomacy. Full article