Two issues central to the transition from the Kory to the Chos n dynasty in fourteenth-century Korea were social differences in ruling elites and the decline of Buddhism, which had been the state ...religion. In this revisionist history, Juhn Ahn challenges the long-accepted Confucian critique that Buddhism had become so powerful and corrupt that the state had to suppress it. When newly rising elites (many with strong ties to the Mongols) used lavish donations to Buddhist institutions to enhance their status, older elites defended their own adherence to this time-honored system by arguing that their donations were linked to virtue. This emphasis on virtue and the consequent separation of religion from wealth facilitated the Confucianization of Korea and the relegation of Buddhism to the margins of public authority during the Chos n dynasty.
In this provocative book Éric Rebillard challenges many long-held assumptions about early Christian burial customs. For decades scholars of early Christianity have argued that the Church owned and ...operated burial grounds for Christians as early as the third century. Through a careful reading of primary sources including legal codes, theological works, epigraphical inscriptions, and sermons, Rebillard shows that there is little evidence to suggest that Christians occupied exclusive or isolated burial grounds in this early period.
In fact, as late as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church did not impose on the faithful specific rituals for laying the dead to rest. In the preparation of Christians for burial, it was usually next of kin and not representatives of the Church who were responsible for what form of rite would be celebrated, and evidence from inscriptions and tombstones shows that for the most part Christians didn't separate themselves from non-Christians when burying their dead. According to Rebillard it would not be until the early Middle Ages that the Church gained control over burial practices and that "Christian cemeteries" became common.
In this translation ofReligion et Sépulture: L'église, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquité tardive, Rebillard fundamentally changes our understanding of early Christianity.The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquitywill force scholars of the period to rethink their assumptions about early Christians as separate from their pagan contemporaries in daily life and ritual practice.
Funerary Practices in Serbiais the first book to offer a concise yet highly informative study of the historical development and current state of funerary practices in Serbia. It explores the ...historical roots of contemporary funerary practices in the country and provides illuminating insight into how death is "managed" in Serbia today.
This is a book about death, comprehensive in its discussion of strategies for coping with loss and grief in rural northern Russia. Elizabeth Warner and Svetlana Adonyeva bring forth the voices of ...those for whom caring for their dead is deeply personal and firmly rooted in practices of everyday life. Thoroughly researched chapters consider lamenting traditions, examine beliefs surrounding natural symbols, and parse sensitive and profound funereal rituals. "We remember, we love, we grieve" is a common epitaph in this part of the world. As contemporary Russia contends with the Soviet Union's legacy of dismantling older ways of life, the phrase ripples beyond individual loss-it encapsulates communities' determination to preserve their customs when faced with oppression. This volume offers insight into a core cultural practice, exploring the dynamism of tradition.
What is the function of clerical leadership in Alevism based on sociocultural and political understandings? To answer that complex question, Deniz Cosan Eke examines the political, cultural, and ...religious debates surrounding Alevis and the Alevi movement in relation to the ideas and claims of the Turkish state, Alevi communities in Turkey, and migrant Alevi communities in Germany. The book, which focuses on the emergence of collective emotions in religious rituals, the struggle of religious groups in migration processes, and the leadership role of clergy in social movements, is of great interest to a wide readership.
For Native Americans, religious freedom has been an elusive goal. From nineteenth-century bans on indigenous ceremonial practices to twenty-first-century legal battles over sacred lands, peyote use, ...and hunting practices, the U.S. government has often acted as if Indian traditions were somehow not truly religious and therefore not eligible for the constitutional protections of the First Amendment. In this book, Tisa Wenger shows that cultural notions about what constitutes "religion" are crucial to public debates over religious freedom.In the 1920s, Pueblo Indian leaders in New Mexico and a sympathetic coalition of non-Indian reformers successfully challenged government and missionary attempts to suppress Indian dances by convincing a skeptical public that these ceremonies counted as religion. This struggle for religious freedom forced the Pueblos to employ Euro-American notions of religion, a conceptual shift with complex consequences within Pueblo life. Long after the dance controversy, Wenger demonstrates, dominant concepts of religion and religious freedom have continued to marginalize indigenous traditions within the United States.
This edited volume presents a selection of essays dedicated to funerary practices from Belgium to the north of Portugal. It aims at filling gaps in the documentation and helping to better understand ...the relationships between these Atlantic regions during the Bronze Age.
Economy and ritual Gudeman, Stephen; Hann, Chris
2015., 20150115, 2015, 2015-03-03, Letnik:
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According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies ...in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people’s economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.
Diverse processes of democratic participation - and exclusion - are closely bound by ritual acts and complexes. This collection is the result of collaborations and conversations between international ...researchers who have focused on the use of those cultural resources identifiable as “ritual” as they reassemble democracy. The main question integrating the collection concerns the ways in which the performative qualities of ritual resources achieve their potential as forms of personal and political empowerment in our changing and challenging world.
