What appears striking about Jonathan Coe’s humour in The Rotters’ Club (2001) is how different or separate it is from postmodernism’s textual or ontological playfulness such as defined by Linda ...Hutcheon, Lance Olsen or Patrick O’Neil. The Rotters’ Club is, among others, a social and historical novel bent on recording the noble and futile battles of the 1970s in England and its humour is then constantly related to a ruthless assessment of the past and to the loss of a series of sustaining illusions. Surprisingly, humour seems to function primarily as a narrative red-herring for the light tonality of the opening chapters leaves the reader totally unprepared for one of the characters’ violent death from an IRA bombing. Not black but bleak, Coe’s humour following this tragic incident eases the didacticism of a novel striving to recapture the particular politics, culture and mores of a bygone era. The bitterness of lost illusions, social as well as romantic, may explain the ambiguity of the novel’s humour, a politeness of despair displayed so as to laugh in order to avoid crying. It will be the purpose of this paper then to try and unravel the complexity of The Rotters’ Club’s humour, desperate yet humanist, cynical yet committed.
This article examines how magic and nature become representations of both “the Sami” and “Sami shamanism” in animation films Frozen 2 and Klaus, in the television crime series Midnattssol (Midnight ...Sun) and in three Eurovision Song Contest contributions partly by Sami artists, containing joik. With a methodological ludism approach and with material theory, the article asks how “the Sami” and shamanism are made relevant as spiritual or religious categories within popular cultural products, and how (and why) spirituality is being constructed and communicated on a more general level in a time of eco-crisis, where there is a growing global interest in perceived shamanistic and animistic perceptions of the world, nature, and ourselves.
In recent years, the "material turn" has gained prominence in the humanities and social sciences, and it has also stimulated a shift toward a rediscovery of materiality in the scientific study of ...religion\s. The material turn aims to dissolve conventional dichotomies and, by emphasizing the concept of assemblage, insists that humans and things are fundamentally co-constitutive. This "New Materialism" addresses ontological alterity, and it radically decenters static anthropocentric arrangements and the position of the human subject as such. The insider-outsider distinction, however, as well as the emic-etic categorization, are based on fundamental dichotomies between the researcher and the researched, and between descriptive and analytical understandings of human beings. This article discusses the possibility and significance of a non-anthropocentric approach to religion, and examines to what extent it is analytically helpful to apply the insider-outsider and emic-etic distinctions while pursuing the goal of dissolving hierarchical and binary thinking. It furthermore argues that these issues can be properly answered only with reference to their methodological implications.
The article analyzes the book Quando as montanhas conversam When the mountains speak, written by Gloria Kirinus, based on the ludic aspect, which promotes the conquest of starting readers, inviting ...them to enter another reality and to accept the specificities of the space created. When infants let themselves to get involved by quality poetical texts, as the analyzed in this study, they develop their potentialities and acquire new knowledge in an amused way that transforms poetry into a valuable resource that should be better explored in the classroom as well as in Brazilian children's homes. Adapted from the source document
“Sámi Religion: Religious Identities, Practices, and Dynamics” explores expressions of ‘’Sámi religion’’ in contemporary cultures, the role it plays in identity politics and heritagization processes, ...and the ways the past and present are entangled. In recent years, attitudes towards ‘’Sámi religion’’ have changed both within religious, cultural, political, and educational contexts as a consequence of what can be called the ‘’Indigenous turn’’. Contemporary, indigenous religion is approached as a something that adds value by a range of diverse actors and for a variety of reasons. In this Special Issue, we take account of emic categories and connections, focusing on which notions of ‘’Sámi religion’’ are used today by religious entrepreneurs and others who share and promote these types of spiritual beliefs, and how Sámi religion is taking shape on a plenitude of arenas in contemporary society.
The study presents one of the most significant ex-Yugoslav poetry styles after the Second World War-ludism-in the context of Hungarian authors from Vojvodina gathered around the literary magazine Új ...Symposion (1965-1992, Novi Sad). They were under the pressure of the ambivalent political ideology of SFR Yugoslavia. Hungary has no tradition of ludism, which is one of the significant differences between the poetry of Hungarian poets in Hungary and those in Vojvodina (Serbia) in the period after the Second World War. The study shows the main poetical characteristics of ludism, its South Slavic authors (Tomaž Šalamun, Iztok Geister Plamen, Ivan Slamnig, Branko Maleš, Delimir Rešicki, Vojislav Despotov, Vladimir Kopicl, Vujica Rešin Tucić etc.), and the works of Hungarian "Symposionists" (István Domonkos, Katalin Ladik, Ottó Tolnai, Ottó Fenyvesi). The ludism was accused of blurring the borders between popular culture, subculture, alternative and high culture. The study shows the artistic results of this method (e.g. the poetics of video and collage). The Symposionist authors were accused of being "cosmopolitans", "anarchists", "nihilists" and similar by the officials in Vojvodina. The art of Symposionists did not change the political system of Vojvodina during the period of SFRY and after it but it did provide an alternative space for artistic freedom.
This article sketches a taxonomy of methodological approaches operative in the study of religion. A fairly recent proposal by anthropologist André Droogers who suggests these are not mutually ...exclusive will also be presented. Opportunities and challenges opened up by Droogers’ model will be explored for its relevance across the broad spectrum that constitutes the contemporary scholarly study of religion, including theological studies.
Drawing on my experience of a Muslim version of exorcism in urban Macedonia, this article continues a methodological discussion of the implications of being an atheist anthropologist when researching ...religion, a situation known as 'methodological atheism'. Methodological atheism is often linked to the problem of suspending one's intellectual disregard of people's religions as delusions. This article will argue instead that there are barriers to participation in religious rituals that are not covered by questions of disbelief. The notion of 'dispositional atheism' is discussed against the backdrop of the anxieties, uncertainties, and inhibitions experienced by an atheist anthropologist caught up in a moment of religious intensity.
O presente artigo analisa a obra poética Quando as montanhas conversam, de Gloria Kirinus, a partir do aspecto lúdico, que propicia a conquista do leitor infantil, convidando-o a ingressar em uma ...realidade à parte e a aceitar as especificidades do espaço criado. Ao deixar-se envolver por textos poéticos de qualidade, como o analisado neste estudo, o infante desenvolve suas potencialidades e adquire novos conhecimentos de maneira divertida, o que transforma a poesia em um valioso recurso que merece ser melhor explorado, tanto em sala de aula quanto nos lares das crianças brasileiras. The article analyzes the book Quando as montanhas conversam When the mountains speak, written by Gloria Kirinus, based on the ludic aspect, which promotes the conquest of start readers, inviting them to enter another reality and to accept the specificities of the space created. When infants let themselves to get involved by quality poetical texts, as the analyzed in this study, they develop their potentialities and acquire new knowledge in an amused way, what transforms poetry in a valuable resource that should be better explored, as well in the classroom as in Brazilian children homes.
The usual options scholars have when dealing with religious truth claims—methodological atheism, theism and agnosticism—are criticized for being restricted to the contrast between science and ...religion. They represent researchers' perspectives that are not helpful in studying believers' truth claims. Furthermore, they are associated with positivist or neo-positivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism is presented as an alternative point of departure that connects well with current constructivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism invites fieldworkers to use their human capacity for play by identifying temporarily, in a serious way, with believers' claims of true knowledge. This posture is described and explored in a case study of a Dutch healer, Jomanda.
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