Religion in the Making : The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion /
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This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of scientific research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most obvious is the development of an increasingly autonomous science of religion (with founding fathers like Max Müller and C.P. Tiele). However, within anthropology (Tylor, Frazer), sociology (Durkheim, Max Weber), and psychology (William James), religion also came to be seen as a separate entity to be studied comparatively. To capture this wide field this book focuses on the emergence of the discourse on religion in a broad academic context, among different disciplines. The emphasis is on general socio-historical developments, rather than on individual biographies. Part I deals with the institutionalization of science of religion in France, Britain, and the Netherlands. Part II focuses on boundary disputes between the emerging \'sciences of religion\'. Part III examines new conceptualizations of religion underlying the new endeavour (\'ritual\', \'magic\', \'survival\').
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Papers from a conference held May 22-24, 1997 at the University of Amsterdam. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004379039 :
0169-8834 ;
The Pragmatics of Defining Religion : Contexts, Concepts and Contests /
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This volume promotes a pragmatic, anti-essentialist and anti-hegemonic approach to the problem of the definition of religion. It argues that definitions of religion are context-bound strategies for pursuing a variety of purposes, extra-academic as well as academic. Religions being immensely varied, complex and multi-functional phenomena, they need to be studied by several academic disciplines from many different perspectives. It is, therefore, legitimate and useful that many definitions of religions are developed. The volume has contributions from scholars in Philosophy of Religion, the Comparative Study of Religions, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion and Psychology of Religion. It has chapters on the polemics of defining religion in modern contexts, the history of the concept of religion, and the methodology of its definition; it includes several definition proposals.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004379091 :
0169-8834 ;
Creation, covenant, and the beginnings of Judaism : reconceiving historical time in the Second Temple period /
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This study examines the relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature. Numerous sources from that period express a belief that Jewish history began with an act of covenant formation and proceeded in linear fashion until the exile, an unprecedented event which severed the present from the past. The authors of Ben Sira, Jubilees , the Animal Apocalypse , and 4 Ezra responded to this theological challenge by claiming instead that Jewish history began at creation. Between creation and redemption, history unfolds as a series of static, repeating patterns that simultaneously account for the disappointments of the Second Temple period and confirm the eternal nature of the covenant. As iterations of timeless, cyclical patterns, the difficult post-exilic present and the glorious redemption of the future emerge as familiar, unremarkable, and inevitable historical developments.
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1 online resource (xii, 216 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-208) and index. :
9789004281653 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A study of the life and works of Athanasius Kircher, "Germanus incredibilis" : with a selection of his unpublished correspondence and an annotated translation of his autobiography...
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Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century's struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology... The list goes on. Kircher's books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004216327 :
1871-1405 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Machiavelli's Art of Politics.
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In Machiavelli's Art of Politics Alejandro Bárcenas offers a reexamination of Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought in order to propose a concise and historically accurate portrayal of his ideas and intellectual context. This study provides a nuanced view of the complexities of Machiavelli's thought by analyzing his classical background, taking into particular consideration the influence of Xenophon, and his view of the ideal ruler as someone who creates the conditions for a flourishing human life. In addition, Bárcenas explains why Machiavelli defends a republican political order that encourages citizens to live according to their own laws while serving a common good and revises his legacy through the writings of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin and Maurizio Viroli.
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Description based upon print version of record. :
1 online resource (173 pages) :
9789004298026 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Luke the Chronicler : The Narrative Arc of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles in Luke-Acts /
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This book proposes a fresh understanding of the literary composition of Luke-Acts. Picking up on the ancient practice of literary mimesis , the author argues that Luke's two-part narrative is subtly but significantly modeled on the two-part narrative found in the books of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. Specifically, Luke's gospel presents Jesus as the promised, ultimate Davidide, while the Book of Acts presents the disciples of Jesus as the heirs of the kingdom of David. In addition to the proposal concerning the composition of Luke-Acts, the book offers compelling insights on the genre of Luke-Acts and the purpose of Acts. .
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1 online resource (304 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004540279
9789004540286
The divine courtroom in comparative perspective /
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Contributors to The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective treat one of the most pervasive religious metaphors, that of the divine courtroom, in both its historical and thematic senses. In order to shed light on the various manifestations of the divine courtroom, this volume consists of essays by scholars of the ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, Talmud, Islam, medieval Judaism, and classical Greek literature. Contributions to the volume primarily center upon three related facets of the divine courtroom: the role of the divine courtroom in the earthly legal system; the divine courtroom as the site of historical justice; and the divine courtroom as the venue in which God is called to answer for his own unjust acts.
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Includes papers presented at a conference held "on February 5-6, 2012, the Leonard and Bea Diener Institute of Jewish Law and the Yeshiva University Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, 'The Divine Courtroom,' at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law." :
1 online resource (vi, 308 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004281646 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Knowledge, Art, and Power : An Outline of a Theory of Experience /
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In Knowledge, Art, and Power: An Outline of a Theory of Experience John Ryder presents an original theory of experience rooted in the American pragmatic naturalist philosophical tradition. The operative assumption of the book is that a clearer understanding of experience provides a richer conception of human being. Beginning with the Deweyan idea of experience as the mutually constitutive engagement of an individual with her environing conditions, the theory posits that there are three general dimensions that condition all of our experience - cognitive (knowledge), aesthetic (art), and political (power). All other constituents and forms of experience, such as language, emotions, ethics, religion, and others, are conditioned by these three general threads that define the fabric of experience and of human life.
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1 online resource. :
9789004429185
9789004429178
Practicing pragmatist aesthetics : critical perspectives on the arts /
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This is the first collection in English devoted exclusively to pragmatist aesthetics. Its main aim is to employ the resources of that rich and exciting tradition in studying artistic phenomena such as film, sculpture, bio-art, poetry, the novel, cuisine, and various body arts. But it also attempts to provide a wider background for such studies by sketching the history of pragmatist reflection on the aesthetic and by discussing some of the main positions that this history has produced: the aesthetic conceptions of C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Joseph Margolis, Richard Shusterman (somaesthetics in particular), and others.
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1 online resource (vi, 224 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401210812 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
We Have Always Been Transcultural: The Arts as an Example /
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Wolfgang Welsch demonstrates for the first time that transculturality - the mixed constitution of cultures - is by no means only a characteristic of the present, but has de facto determined the composition of cultures since time immemorial. The historical transculturality is demonstrated using examples from the arts. While transculturality was often viewed with reservation where political, social, or psychological levels were at stake, it was rather welcomed and appreciated in the field of art. The book therefore demonstrates the historical prevalence of transculturality via all areas of art and does so with respect to all cultures and continents of our world.
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1 online resource (238 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004697829
Under the Adorned Dome, Four Essays on the Arts of Iran and India : Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series /
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These essays are the revised and updated version of four lectures given in the Yarshater Lecture Series, at SOAS in London in 2013. They concern some aspects of the arts from pre-modern Iran and India, namely, the "making of" of Persian illustrated manuscripts, the iconography of Kashan wares, the use and re-use of luster tiles in Ilkhanid Iran, and the glazed tiles made in three Indian sultanates (Delhi, Bengal and Malwa). These four topics share concepts of influence and impact, although inflected on different modes. The productions they embody represent many poles of influence, even if working on different scales, from the extensive diffusion of products, techniques, and systems to almost isolated productions.
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1 online resource (270 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004549722