Anthropology of Religion

This book is an essential collection addressing key challenges in studying violent extremism. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, terrorism literature has expanded, aiming to understand, prevent, and predict evolving threats. However, early research often lacked academic rigor and empirical depth. As the field has developed, more thorough studies have appeared, but the focus is often reactive, centered on recent attacks and ideological waves, and tends to remain isolated from other disciplines. The urgent need for policy relevance has limited deep theoretical exploration. Despite these challenges, valuable contributions have come from criminology, psychology, sociology, social psychology, and communications theory. Yet, sociological theory is still underused in terrorism studies. This book highlights the importance of a sociological approach to understanding violent extremism. It promotes using established theoretical frameworks to gain deeper insights into the social dynamics of these phenomena. The book features interdisciplinary case studies and theoretical developments, showing the value of sociological perspectives in addressing current issues in violent extremism. The book aims to provide researchers with a theoretical “toolbox” that can be deployed in their own work, encouraging the use of sociological theories to improve the understanding of violent extremism and develop effective countermeasures. It emphasizes viewing violent extremism as a result of complex social processes embedded in societal structures.

Гуцуляк О. Б. Предок скіфів Борисфен та його дочка (ірано-кельто-слов’янські міфологічні паралелі) // Євразійська історія крізь віки : наукова конференція присвячена пам’яті Любові Гераськової : матеріали міжнародної наукової конференції, 13-14 травня 2025 р. / упоряд. Я. В. Пилипчук. – Київ-Вінниця : ТВОРИ, 2025. – С. 59-68.

Nous exprimons dans ce travail l’hypothese que les pratiques de l’habiter dans tout espace architectural se font sur des lieux physiquement et materiellement definis, mais nous supposons que grâce a l’imaginal1, un dedoublement de ces lieux est fait. Ce dedoublement se produit grâce a un modele imaginaire (pas dans le sens d’irreel) qui influence au quotidien toutes les pratiques sociales et spatiales. Ce modele imaginal est le point de confluence des systemes de representations symboliques, de la vision du monde, de la cosmogonie, du religieux, etc. Notre etude sera focalisee sur l’espace commercial medinal et plus specifiquement sur les souks aux abords de la mosquee Ezzitouna. Le choix de l’activite, a interroger dans cette etude, vient de notre conviction profonde que l’espace du commerce est un lieu fortement impregne par l’imaginaire habitant, aussi l’enjeu economique, qui s’y deroule, laisse aux habitants le libre cours a l’utilisation de divers stratagemes afin de «se defend...

Thèse présentée à la Faculté de Théologie afin d'obtenir le grade de docteur par Francky ADELE, O.F.M. Cap. Sous la direction du Prof. Philippe LEFEBVRE, O.P. Fribourg 2015 REMERCIEMENT Je remercie Dieu appelé Zanahary, Dieu Créateur, en malgache, les Razana, Ancêtres qui nous permettent d'exister. Je tiens à exprimer ma reconnaissance à l'Ordre des Frères Mineurs Capucins, en particulier les deux provinces, la province suisse et la province malgache, de m'avoir permis d'effectuer cette recherche. Je tiens à exprimer ma reconnaissance à la faculté de théologie de l'Université de Fribourg qui reconnaît la possibilité et l'existence des autres sensibilités théologiques surtout dans le cadre de l'inculturation comme la théologie malgache. Fribourg qui m'a accueilli et hébergé au nom de la province suisse des Capucins tout au long de mes études. Mes remerciements les plus sincères vont particulièrement au Professeur Philippe LEFEBVRE, mon directeur de thèse, qui a pris la peine de relire mes manuscrits, m'a beaucoup aidé de ses précieux conseils surtout dans le domaine biblique et m'a accompagné tout au long de cette investigation. Je remercie également mon confrère, le professeur Adrian HOLDEREGGER, qui m'a aidé dans le domaine administratif pour me faire venir ici dans le cadre de cette études, il m'a aussi beaucoup aidé mes études avec ses conseils. Je remercie le professeur Robert JAOVELO-DZAO, qui m'a accompagné surtout dans la première partie de mon travail, qui est la partie malgache. Mes remerciements vont aussi à tous mes confrères du Couvent des Capucins à Fribourg avec le responsable, fr. Bernard MAILLARD, en particulier les frères Masseo CALOZ et Marc VERDON, qui m'ont aidé dans la langue française. Enfin, je voudrais exprimer ma gratitude à tous ceux qui, de près ou de loin, ont contribué à la réalisation de cette recherche. Je tiens à noter que les imperfections et les limites de ce travail sont imputables à moi seul : ce que j'ai écrit dans cette thèse m'engage moi-même et non les personnes citées dans ces remerciements. ACM : Aspects du Christianisme à Madagascar. C'est une revue de l'Université Catholique de Madagascar à Ambatoroka-Antananarivo. AG : Ad Gentes : Décret du concile Vatican II sur l'activité missionnaire de l'Eglise.

Pain is a strange beast. The assessment and understanding of pain presents the greatest of challenges for students of pain and patient history (ancient and modern alike). The lived experience of pain evades the historian of disability, the ancient historian, and the archaeologist. It often eludes even the palaeopathologist, who might be able to recognise the physical markers of an ancient ailment on human remains but misses altogether the pervasiveness of chronic suffering in the individual’s lived experience and relationships. Even modern pain specialists, who rely exclusively on quantitative neuroscientific tools, such as fMRI results, for the exploration of pain cannot quite fully comprehend nor qualify its impact on the everyday life of the individual sufferer(s). This study targets narrative strategies and the individual experience of pain in the ancient world, with an extra focus on gout-induced pain in the first and second centuries CE. To that end, this chapter surveys key literary and epigraphic
evidence from this period. The main aim is to showcase the high impact
that gout-related pain has on the ‘lived bodies’ of sufferers.

“LUZAGA: En el día que nacieron los cielos” es una extensión o digamos “separata” del trabajo de investigación “Cómo descifré la lengua ibérica – Celtibérica” de Enrique Cabrejas. En este nuevo estudio se adentra en profundos asuntos específicos de la Hermenéutica ibérica que encierra el Bronce celtíbero de Luzaga y que nunca fueron abordados ni estudiados con anterioridad. Pone de manifiesto cuestiones sorprendentes e insospechadas de la inédita herencia subyacente transmitida desde la liturgia helenística a la posterior cristiana. Las comparativas entre helenismo y cristianismo que todavía estando presentes y fosilizadas, han pasado inadvertidas hasta la actualidad.

Die Anthropologie des Christentums untersucht, wie Christ*innen weltweit ihren Glauben verstehen und praktizieren. Auf der Grundlage langfristiger ethnografischer Forschung und systematischer Vergleiche bieten Anthropolog*innen eine von Vertrautheit mit dem Feld und Aufmerksamkeit für den kulturellen Kontext geprägte Auseinandersetzung mit verschiedenen christlichen Lebensmodellen von Pfingstkirchler*innen in Papua-Neuguinea bis hin zu Katholik*innen in Brasilien. Der Beitrag führt in dieses boomende Forschungsfeld ein, indem drei aktuelle Debatten nachgezeichnet werden, die sich auf das Verhältnis von Christ*innen zur Zeit, zu Gott und zu sozialen Anderen beziehen.

This study examines the role of Muhammadiyah Regional Board of Banten in preventing Islamic radicalism. Banten province is a place where Islamic radicalism has a long history, from NII (Indonesia Islamic Nation), a mastermind in a bomb attack, and even the executant in a suicide bombing. It shows Banten has a great potential in producing any Islamic radicalism movement, and the responsibility on this potential not only in government hand but also in a social community or Islamic community organizations. The study argues that Muhammadiyah, as one of largest Islamic mass organizations in Indonesia has a significant contribution in preventing Islamic radicalism by doing moderation ways as PWM (Muhammadiyah Regional Board) of Banten has been doing in Banten. Muhammadiyah in Banten has been preventing radicalism, among others by way of educational institutions under this organization and da’wah activities. These activities show that Muhammadiyah, particularly in Banten, not only has done...

En los mitos, el cerro Chaparrí del departamento de Lambayeque (Perú) es un ancestro petrificado cuya forma revela la manera en que se petrificó: colocándose el corazón invertido sobre la cabeza. Pero, además, la corporalidad extendida de Chaparrí alberga otros dos corazones en los que se asume reside su agencia e intencionalidad. Pequeñas piedras del cerro son incluidas en las “mesas” de los maestros curanderos para convocar o hacer actuar a Chaparrí. A partir de nuestra etnografía reflexionamos sobre esta corporalidad fractal del ancestro, planteando la posibilidad de extender la discusión a otros contextos.

Combining psychological and anthropological work indicates that sleep, dreaming, and the imagination are involved in regulating mood and updating individual and collective knowledge. Psychologists often implicitly assume that all dreamers share their naturalistic model of dreaming while ethnographers often emphasize the spiritual explanations of dreaming inherent in the worldviews of their hosts. Applying cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion to the ethnography of dreaming and the imagination suggests that these capacities have adaptive value for learning, emotional adjustment, and the flow, revivification, and recalibration of knowledge traditions. A general anthropological approach to sleep, dreaming, and the imagination can surmount oversights that result from disciplinary and subfield foci and emphases.

A total of 33 questions, without omitting the most difficult ones, were entrusted to 30 experts who accepted the challenge of answering with solid and reasoned arguments, but expressing themselves in simple language, accessible even to laymen.

This paper presents some results of a qualitative interview study with contemporary magicians that was carried out in two phases in German-speaking countries. The greater part of the data was collected in 2004-2005 and covered a broad range of topics. The topics presented here include (1) paranormal experiences of magicians, (2) evaluation of magical practice, and (3) magic in the laboratory. To deepen these aspects, material from the first phase of 11 interviews was supplemented with extended interview data from four additional interviews in 2023. The experienced phenomena can be categorized as 'situation influencing,' 'weather influencing,' 'psychokinesis and RSPK,''ESP,' and 'synchronistic events.' The evaluation of magic is a central problem. Similar to parapsychology, displacement effects or trickster effects are observed. Furthermore, the possibilities of evaluation largely depend on the goals of the magicians, making it difficult to assess the success of magical operations. The preconditions for successful magic are (1) motivation, (2) an empathic relationship with the goal, (3) no doubts about the effectiveness, and (4) not wanting or suffering too much. Dedicated magicians could interest parapsychologists because they are trained to focus their minds-which could be advantageous when searching for gifted participants. However, motivation could be a problem. In any case, magicians could provide valuable advice on the conditions for producing paranormal effects, working with altered states of consciousness, and having the 'right mindset' to perform successfully in parapsychological experiments.

Szent Anna kultuszának írásos emlékei a kora újkori Magyarországon * Kísérleti jelleggel kezdtem kutatni Szent Anna Kárpát-medencei tiszteletét. Vajon mi volt a szerepe Jézus nagyanyjának a barokk kor lelkiségében? Speciálisan a nagyanyák tiszteletére számíthatott csak, vagy tágabban meghatározható csoportnak, esetleg minden kereszténynek kiemelt tiszteletére számíthatott? Legendája alapján ő az anyaságra vágyók, anyák és nagyanyák segítője. Szent Anna nemcsak a Szűzanya édesanyja, hanem háromszoros tisztes özvegyként, Jézus Krisztus öreganyja, dajkája, a szentatyafiság matriarchája, és így a keresztény nagycsalád, nemzetség oltalmazója, a gyermekáldás patrónája is. 1 Kultusza rendkívül sokrétű. A középkor után Szűz Márián kívül csak neki alakultak ki búcsújáró kegyhelyei Magyarországon. 2 Templomainkban gyakori a képe, 3 az Anna név kedveltsége folyamatos, elterjedt keddenkénti kiemelt tisztelete. Középkorvégi magyar nyelvű kódexeink már tanúsítják tiszteletét. Legendája olvasható a Teleki-, Érdyés Debreceni kódexben, latinul Temesvári Pelbártnál is. Szekvenciáját és himnuszát a Pozsonyi és Szegedi kódex tartalmazza. Képi ábrázolásai közül a Mettercia (Szűz Mária gyermekével együtt édesanyja, Szent Anna ölében) szintén gyakori. Több kézműves mesterségnek volt patrónusa, a szegedi szabócéh által készített ereklyetartó máig fennmaradt. Érdekes vonás, hogy tisztelete gazdasági kérdésekben is megelőzi férjéét, Szent Joákimét. Szent Anna életének fontos eseményei legendája szerint kedden történtek: kedden született, kedden fogant, kedden szülte Máriát, kedden halt meg. Kedden bizonyos asszonyi munkák: szövés, fonás, varrás végzése tilos volt. Legendája végéről csupán egyetlen mondatot idézek Illyés András tolmácsolásában:

This was the PowerPoint I gave in English and Indonesia at the Universitas Diponegoro (UNDIP) in Semarang on 11 November 2024 to celebrate the 239th anniversary of Diponegoro's birth in the Women's Quarters (Keputren) Yogyakarta Keraton on 1 November 2024. It attempts to explain the nature of the prince's charisma and talents as a leader by looking his upbringing and life experiences.

Here is the full text of Living, Minding World, published complete at last. The central project of this book was to investigate the implications of modern science for serious existential and religious thought, so its concluding chapter reviews the social and cognitive functions of religion from a historical perspective before summarizing the contribution to these functions from current science, as the author sees them. The main body of the book is taken up with a survey of relevant, current science which sometimes jumps ahead of the existing consensus to anticipate where the author believes the research is going. For example, it accepts Nicholas Humphrey’s theory of phenomenal consciousness as the working of a mind which has evolved some capability to monitor its own operations. It accepts and argues for the view of the so-called 'Third Way' movement that genetic change is not entirely random but partly influenced by life-style choices of the living organisms – eg through sexual selection, the Baldwin effect, and epigenetic mechanisms.
One key thesis of the book is the author's view that current science – notably computer science – is mistaken in regarding information as the fundamental content of human thought and communication. It introduces the notion of 'suggestion' as a term of art roughly meaning 'attempted influence'; it considers information as a suggestion that some coded statement is 'true'; and it goes on to reject the dualist theory of 'mind' by arguing that what we call 'mind' is really a process of 'minding' – ie of processing suggestions (competing influences). The crucial points about suggestion are:
a) that it is a weak form of causation exerted by one system on another, which influences without determining the receiving system's behaviour; and
b) that in itself, it is neither true or false, though it may be evaluated and compared with alternative suggestions in many other ways. 
Taking 'suggestion' as a fundamental idea, it becomes possible to understand how human consciousness could emerge in a physical system without supernatural assistance. It becomes possible to understand the seeming intelligence and creativity of Nature as Spinoza did: as a spontaneous property of Nature itself, without the volition of an external Creator. It becomes possible to understand and weigh the suggestions from current science that organized human groups, human society as a whole, the biosphere of planet Earth, and even perhaps this entire universe, are living, minding systems with which relationship is possible.

L'azione politica del proletariato non solo è un'azione di classe tendente all'emancipazione e allo svincolamento di una classe dalla sua soggezione e schiavitù ad un'altra ma è anche, contemporaneamente e in una prospettiva più ampia, lotta per l'emancipazione di tutta la società, lotta per la liberazione di tutti gli uomini. Ogni conquista, ogni vittoria del proletariato è quindi anche, dialetticamente, una conquista e una vittoria di tutti, anche degli altri.

relevant in connection with the growing cultural and civilizational confrontation between Russia and the United States of America and its allies. The relevance of the topic is also conditioned by the return of the Russian society to tradi-tional values, including religious values, insufficient study of the relationship and interaction of law and religion as value-normative phenomena through the prism of church law. Purpose is to identify the relationship of traditional values with Russian secular law and church law of the Rus-sian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Objectives: to characterize traditional values as a social phenomenon and the object of legal research; to iden-tify the importance of Orthodoxy as a factor determining the legal tradition; to determine the specifics of the relation-ship between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church at the present stage; to establish the relationship between canonical and church law, the law of the secular (secular) state; to determine the facets of the correlation of tradition-al values with Russian secular law and church law of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in the course of the evolution of the legal tradition of Russia. Methodology is represented by theoretical approaches formed within the framework of the theory of state and law, axiology of law, legal culturology, church law, including methods of analysis, comparativistics, reconstruction of ideas and theories, logical, historical, theological, formal-juridical, etc. Results. The results are of theoretical and applied nature and consist in a summarized view of the correlation of canon law, church law of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) with secular law, the relationship of traditional values with Russian secular law and church law of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). Conclusions. The interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state in the concrete-historical period determines the influence of the religious component of traditional values. The ecclesiastical law of the Russian Orthodox Church, having in its basis the canon law and functionally connected with the law of the state in the concrete-historical period, affects the transformation of traditional values, their preservation and protection.

Este trabalho tem o objetivo de investigar o fenômeno religioso nos espaços públicos e privados, no âmbito educacional, social e político. No Brasil, desde o período colonial até os dias de hoje, o Ensino Religioso (ER) sofreu inúmeras alterações devido à dinâmica entre profissionais da área da educação e a sociedade. Diante disso, é necessário rever os conceitos relacionados à educação religiosa nas escolasem um Estado laico. Contudo, a Constituição Federal de 1988 garante ao sujeito a liberdade de discernimento sobre os assuntos referentes à fé. Refletiremos, neste estudo, sobre os motivos que levam os estudantes a participarem das aulas de Ensino Religioso e o interesse em conhecer mais sobre o sagrado (Deus). Discutiremos, também, grades curriculares alternativas, para que os professores possam apresentar aos alunos os mais diversos temas do Ensino Religioso.

The article tells the story of the remains of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family, who were killed in Ekaterinburg in 1918, discovered in 1979, found again in 1991, solemnly buried in 1998, and canonized as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. Thoroughly researched in the cause of official criminal investigation and identified with genetic tests in several labs in Russia and abroad, the royal remains have not been recognized by the Church. The failure to reach a consensus on the veracity of the remains of the Romanovs occurred in parallel with the inability to decide what to do with the mummified body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, a contemporary of Nicholas II who has been kept in a mausoleum in the Red Square since the 1920s. Though, after 1991, voices have been raised for removing his body from this symbolic center of the country, no consensus has been reached so far as to where to move it and why. Revisiting Verdery's famous work, the present article argues that such a movement necessitates a political commitment to voicing new notions of belonging and citizenship. The liminal status of these two bodies proves that the contemporary state in Russia is a continuation of both the Soviet and imperial state programs, not a new political structure like other post-socialist countries. Based on the works by Kantorowicz and Cherniavsky, this research develops the concept of popular theopolitics and aims to examine how people's political and religious ontologies make use of the Tsar's image.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo analisar o discurso de um egresso do sistema carcerário e pastor de denominação cristã-pentecostal, deslindando o sentido dado pelo protagonista à sua experiência de conversão religiosa, identificada como fator de reintegração social. A metodologia adotada foi a Análise do Discurso de orientação francesa. O estudo examinou quais eram os efeitos de sentido que circulavam no discurso contido em uma produção testemunhal, acerca da experiência de conversão religiosa, considerada como "decisiva" para o processo de reintegração social. O que apreendemos imediatamente é que a existência do sujeito cristão-pentecostal surge a partir do embate religioso que significa "o velho homem", que vivia segundo a natureza humana, e "a nova criatura", que passou a existir com Deus. Assim, o interlocutor, a princípio, é induzido a se deparar com a causalidade entre "andar" com "pessoas do tráfico", "usar drogas" e "viver na criminalidade". Além disso, o sujeito religioso (re)produz uma degradação física que compromete a sua vida e, por deslizamento, a vida da sua família. A partir daí, verificamos uma FD de alguém que "já está fora" do tráfico, até porque a relação de causalidade normalmente é produzida por um senso comum, sobretudo, pelo discurso religioso. Nessa confluência, as representações imaginárias, como por exemplo, a figura do "diabo", são recorrentes no discurso próprio de conversão religiosa. Assim, o "chamado" de Deus, não diferente dos contos de fadas, em que o antagonista ocupa a centralidade do conflito, é marcado comumente pelas adversidades, quer dizer, quando até o "diabo" tende a se manifestar. O sujeito pastor, por sua vez, só pode recontar a sua experiência devido à sua capacidade de ocupar o lugar de quem, outrora, foi um "criminoso". O que justifica um discurso organizado de forma a estabelecer, nessa recontagem, ou memória, a visão do diabo e depois a visão de Deus como o ponto mais alto no processo de conversão. Tudo aquilo que o narrador ouve ou vê contribui, por deslizamento, para que outras pessoas na mesma situação enxerguem ali a "salvação". Nessa narrativa, os discursos sobre o bem versus mal, Deus versus Satanás, constroem de maneira bastante convincente o único lugar possível com o qual o interlocutor deve se identificar e ser movido a ocupar: o lugar do crente.

En el presente trabajo nos proponemos abordar la participacion de los jovenes en la vida institucional del Club Everton de la ciudad de La Plata, desde el ano 2000 hasta la actualidad. Principalmente tomaremos tres aspectos inherentes a los clubes sociales, deportivos y de fomento que son concebidos en nuestra cultura. El primer aspecto se refiere a los origenes de los clubes de la ciudad, teniendo en cuenta que son los escenarios en el que la juventud es definida material y simbolicamente, el segundo tiene que ver con las generaciones y por ultimo el la incidencia que tienen las y los jovenes en el presente y futuro del club.

Les Judéens et les Israélites de la Bible ne correspondent pas nécessairement à l’image que l’on se fait des Juifs à partir du Moyen-Âge. Ainsi, cette étude se penche non pas sur les Judéens bibliques, mais sur le processus qui a mené à l’émergence de communautés juives hors du territoire de l’Israël antique. Bien qu’il existe un lien culturel entre les Israélites et les Judéens de l’époque royale et les Juifs après la destruction de Jérusalem par les Romains, ces deux mondes demeurent distincts, tant sur le plan historique que culturel. Il est crucial d’établir une distinction entre l’ère des cultes sacrificiels de l’Antiquité et le monde des religions monothéistes. Dans les anciens empires, le culte servait avant tout d’instrument politique, visant à unifier les populations sous un pouvoir souverain, en s’appuyant sur des coutumes et des symboles communs. Parallèlement, les croyances populaires occupaient une place prépondérante dans la vie quotidienne. Il est donc essentiel de distinguer le culte sacerdotal officiel des pratiques populaires.
Cette étude se concentre sur les Juifs plutôt que sur le judaïsme. Le terme « judaïsme » est un concept moderne, dont la signification théologique n’a pris forme qu’au XVIIIe siècle, dans le cadre de l’étude des religions. Le judaïsme rabbinique, selon ses écrits, ne traite pas tant des croyances et des opinions que d’un ensemble d’actes autorisés ou interdits. Cela ne signifie pas que, parallèlement, des courants mystiques comme le hassidisme et la kabbale ou des penseurs rationalistes comme Maïmonide n’ont pas cherché à appréhender le judaïsme sous d’autres facettes

Resumen: El artículo parte de la siguiente pregunta: en un contexto de diversificación religiosa, ¿cuáles son los rostros actuales de la religiosidad popular urbana? Para responder a la interrogante se acude a datos -recientemente recogidos en el marco de una investigación mayor-donde los creyentes exponen sus maneras de construir su sentido religioso. Se reproducen extractos de entrevistas que dibujan cuatro agentes de la religiosidad popular: el proactivo, el recreador-consumidor, el semiinstitucional y el paraeclesial. El análisis de los textos busca mostrar la elasticidad de la religiosidad popular y sus nuevas expresiones en un contexto urbano contemporáneo.

A mezuzah is a prominent Jewish symbol that designates a Jewish dwelling space, a reminder of the Jew’s covenant with God. This study focuses on the Trans Pride Mezuzah (TPM), designed to celebrate trans and nonbinary Jewish homes. The research delves into the motivations behind the creation and use of this unique queer Judaica item, exploring various social interpretations associated with this object and how they contribute to our understanding of gender and religious identity, the body, community, and space. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that the TPM represents and embodies an intersection between the trans/nonbinary community and the renewal of Jewish tradition. The decision of where to hang the mezuzah and the recitation of the prayer blessing reflect movement along the inside/outside axis. This movement encapsulates experiences of social exclusion, the essence of nonheteronormative gender identities, and bodily otherness while also expressing pride, Jewish affiliation, and sense of belonging. This research contributes to the understanding of contemporary religiosity and anthropology of material culture in queer contexts, expanding our knowledge in these areas.

This study will explore the phenomenon of ‘queer religious expressions’ (QRE) through a methodology based on queer theory, focusing on a Chinese example of a ‘new religious movement’ (NRM): that of Hu Tianbao and the Cult of the Rabbit God. Not only have the connections and relationships between queer/LGBTQ+ people and religion not been extensively explored within scholarly research until recently, Chinese queer religion in particular has been largely overlooked. This project sets out to be a primary step in addressing this gap in knowledge in order to lay the groundwork for further research in this area.

There has already been some research into a Western queer religion in the example of the Cult of Antinous. In this study, we not only focus on Rabbit God, but also look into queer theory’s place and development within Chinese contexts in order to utilise it in examining the Rabbit God QRE in question. Questions of how queer theory is translatable or relevant within Chinese contexts, as well as the intersectional dynamics between being Chinese, queer, and religious, will be explored and analysed. The interesting interplay between virtual and physical practices of religions will also be examined.

The study demonstrates how the experiences of followers of the modern Cult of the Rabbit God (with the Taiwanese temple of Weiming Tang) are not only informed by their unique position within a country of competing forces of tradition and modernity, West and East, identity and practice, but also their ability to forge an independent queer religious experience for themselves and on their own terms.

Supervised by Dr Shanon Shah.

In this paper, we propose a new conceptual framework that views the universe as a self-regulating, living organism. By drawing parallels between biological systems and cosmic structures, we suggest that galaxies act as cells, stars and black holes serve as the nucleus, and planets function as organelles within this cosmic body. The universe’s energy exchange, matter recycling, and balance-maintenance processes are analyzed through the lens of biological systems. This theory seeks to offer insights into the interconnectedness of the universe, emergent properties, and self-regulation at cosmic scales, while exploring philosophical implications and scientific possibilities.

Cette réflexion explore la place du mythe dans le cheminement vers la posthumanité en soulignant plusieurs enseignements, perspectives et interrogations fondamentaux. Voici quelques points clés de son analyse :
- Rôle des Mythes dans l'Évolution Humaine :
Patrice Cardot souligne que les mythes ont joué un rôle crucial dans l'évolution humaine en offrant des récits qui structurent la compréhension du monde et de la place de l'humanité dans celui-ci. Les mythes de résurrection, de renaissance et de transformation sont centraux dans de nombreuses traditions spirituelles et religieuses, symbolisant le dépassement de l'humain vers un état supérieur.
- Métamorphoses et Posthumanité :
Les récits mythologiques de métamorphoses, comme ceux d'Actéon transformé en cerf ou de Daphné en laurier, illustrent le désir humain de transcender les limites biologiques. Cardot voit dans ces récits une préfiguration des aspirations transhumanistes à dépasser les contraintes du corps humain.
- Science et Mythe :
Patrice Cardot interroge la relation entre science et mythe, suggérant que les avancées technologiques et scientifiques modernes peuvent être vues comme une continuation des récits mythologiques de transformation. Les projets technologiques visant à créer des intelligences artificielles ou à atteindre l'immortalité numérique sont comparables aux quêtes mythiques d'immortalité et de transcendance.
- Conscience et Lumière :
En s'appuyant sur des philosophes comme Alain de Libera, Cardot explore la métaphysique de la lumière et de la conscience. Il suggère que la lumière, en tant que "présentoir du réel", peut offrir une nouvelle compréhension de la conscience et de la perception, essentielle pour envisager une posthumanité.
- Interrogations Philosophiques :
Patrice Cardot soulève des questions fondamentales sur le sens de l'existence et la quête d'immortalité. Il interroge les implications éthiques et philosophiques des technologies visant à transcender les limites humaines, soulignant les tensions entre le désir de transcendance et la préservation de l'humanité.
- Science-Fiction et Réflexion Ontologique :
À travers des œuvres de science-fiction comme celles d'Isaac Asimov, Patrice Cardot explore des scénarios futurs où l'humanité est confrontée à des choix critiques concernant son évolution. Ces récits offrent des cadres pour réfléchir aux implications des technologies avancées sur l'identité et le destin humains.
- Corps et Conscience :
Cette réflexion aborde la question du corps et de la conscience, soulignant l'importance du corps sensible dans la définition de l'humanité. Il interroge les implications des technologies visant à se passer du corps, comme les avatars virtuels ou les consciences artificielles.
- Nouvelle Herméneutique :
Enfin, cette réflexion propose une nouvelle herméneutique qui intègre les découvertes scientifiques modernes avec les récits mythologiques. Il suggère que les élucidations scientifiques, comme l'intrication quantique, peuvent offrir de nouvelles grilles de lecture pour comprendre la conscience et la résurrection.

En résumé, Patrice Cardot voit dans les mythes une source d'inspiration et de réflexion pour envisager l'avenir de l'humanité. Les mythes offrent des récits puissants qui structurent notre compréhension du monde et de notre place dans celui-ci, tout en posant des questions fondamentales sur la nature de la conscience, de la transcendance et de l'immortalité.

This article examines the evolving role of Bektashism in Albania, particularly its alignment with Israel and its implications for relations with the Islamic world, Iran, and Turkey. It explores how Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, in collaboration with Bektashi leader Baba Edmond Brahimaj (Baba Mondi), has pursued policies that distance the Bektashis from its traditional Islamic institutions while fostering closer ties with Israel. The article highlights key events, such as the establishment of a Bektashi state in Tirana, the hosting of the Iranian Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization, and the expulsion of Iran’s diplomatic mission, as part of a broader strategy to align Albania with Israeli and U.S. interests. It also discusses the persecution of Sunni and Shia Muslims in Albania, the influence of Gülenists in the Albanian Muslim Community, and the Bektashi sect’s shift from Iranian-version of Shia Islam to a pro-Israeli stance. The article argues that these developments reflect a deliberate effort to create a "Shia-Zionist" Islam that serves Israeli geopolitical goals, while isolating the Bektashis from the broader Muslim world. Critics, including Turkish and Albanian analysts, view the Bektashi state project as a tool of Israeli influence aimed at dividing Muslim unity and countering Iran’s regional influence. The article concludes by questioning whether Bektashism is being weaponized as a political instrument against Islam, Iran, and Turkey in the Balkans.

The past two decades have seen a revival of large-scale surveys of African attitudes and opinions, focusing especially on African attitudes to politics and religion. However, at present, works dealing with the methodological challenges inherent in such survey works are still limited. This paper illustrates the insights derived from the qualitative seam of 'paradata' generated separately through personal observations, discussions and field notes of field workers administering a survey on religious practices and beliefs in the religiously mixed region of southwest Nigeria. In the main, the study's field observations and reflections suggest that concerns over the confidentiality of data and the high social status of the world religions sometimes push respondents toward clear identification with Islam or Christianity. This seems to be the case especially where individuals are interviewed in a family context, with interviews in professional and peer groups apparently more open to alignment traditional practices. Besides, field notes further illustrate that respondents' understanding of 'traditional religion' is fluid, and not all respondents consider all forms of traditional practice as an equivalent, or rival, to the world religions.

Экономическая антропология возникла как проекция рыночной модели экономики и рыночной рациональности на любую жизнедеятельность. Данная статья вносит вклад в переосмысление этой дисциплины в регистре “эмных” культурно-специфических понятий исследуемых сообществ. При том что в современной России за пределами административного языка реестра домовладения категория “домохозяйство” является “этной”, она представляет исторически важную часть “эмного” значения экономики. Статья привлекает внимание читателя к генеалогии понятия “экономика” в аристотелевском “искусстве управления домом” (ойкос), в новозаветной “икономии” – божественном управлении миром как Своим домом — и во вполне “эмном” российском “домострое”, который восходит к наставлениям Московской Руси XVI в., соединяющим язык “ойкономии” и “икономии”. Статья следует за Аристотелем в рассмотрении и того и другого как этики, точнее, к суждению на основании состояния исключения. Эта формулировка обрела популярность в антропологии суверенной власти благодаря К. Шмитту и Дж. Агамбену. Но состояние исключения касается также (если не в первую очередь) работы наших собственных аналитических понятий. Мы как этнографы часто имеем дело с исключительным, единичным, нетипичным, следующим духу, а не букве репрезентативности. В статье предлагается “ойкономическая” антропология в единстве предмета и метода исследования.

This article is an introduction to the issue’s special theme on “Economic Anthropology of Household Outside Metropolitan Areas in Contemporary Russia”. This article contributes to rethinking economic anthropology in terms of culturally specific categories under study. It does so by revisiting the role of household in the genealogy of “economy,” and specifically by looking at Russian terms domokhozaistvo and domostroi. The article shows how domokhozaistvo harks back to oikonomia as Aristotile’s “art of running household” and the new testament’s divine management of the world as god’s home. In turn, domostroi evokes the name of the 16th century Moscow courtly instructions that combine these classical Greek and Christian connotations. The article also suggests thinking through the implications of the Aristotilian categorical foundation of the “economy” in ways in which it is part to an oikonomic ethical judgement based on the state of exception. This allows us, on the one hand, to rethink economic anthropology as part of the anthropology of ethics, and, on the other, to reconceptualize its ethnographic methodologies which “case studies” frequently follow the non-typical and are not necessarily representative.

In this chapter, we will journey to eleven global contexts to investigate some concrete examples of the interplay between religion and urban life. Readers who have not experienced these cities first-hand may wish to explore them as we do in my classes – by visiting them virtually using Google Street View. Crucially, my conception of religion is not limited to beliefs, creeds, and texts, but also incorporates material things, buildings, technological devices, and embodied practices (Langer this volume). Correspondingly, I do not understand religion’s influence to be confined to private domains; it is an active force shaping – and shaped by – urban life at large.

Drawing on ethnography and conceptual scholarship in the environmental
humanities, this article proffers two perspectives and a suggestion for
attaining a historically and culturally situated engagement with climate
change in Bhutan. I adopt (1) a Deep Time perspective to present Bhutan’s mountains as geological makers of climate and as earth-regulators of indigenous environmental flows (of water, sediment, soil) that enable and nourish life in both higher and lower altitudes and alluvial plains.  I then draw on an ethnographic narrative to posit that (2) anthropogenic
climate change, as it encounters Bhutanese cosmologies and wisdom
traditions, is not morally neutral – as the climate sciences may apprehend
it – but is experienced, interpreted and responded to by Bhutanese
communities as the (un)doings of a living, listening and agential landscape.  his then leads me to call for (3) a more situated, more capacious, and more inclusive study of climate change in Bhutan that complements the globally dominant technical-secular-scientific sense of climate change

This essay investigates the ontological foundation of freedom through the late metaphysical writings of F.W.J. Schelling, focusing on his `Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom` and the `Ages of the World`. It argues that freedom is not primarily a function of rational subjectivity, but an expression of the deeper structure of being itself — a being that unfolds through tension, contradiction, and becoming.
Schelling’s concept of freedom emerges from a divine duality: a dark, unconscious ground and a conscious, self-revealing spirit. The tragic potential for evil and fragmentation is not accidental but intrinsic to this structure. The world is not a finished order but a site of becoming, where spirit actualizes itself through nature and history.
This vision is crystallized in Schelling’s ontological formula: “Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” Nature and spirit are not separate substances, but two expressions of a single, dynamic unfolding. The essay thus repositions freedom as a metaphysical rhythm — the movement through which being becomes manifest in time, embodiment, and ethical responsiveness. The study situates Schelling in dialogue with Kant, Hegel, and contemporary phenomenology, offering a powerful reinterpretation of freedom as the visible and invisible motion of being — a unification of spirit, nature, and temporal existence.

Come ha scritto una volta il filosofo della medicina e della biologia francese Georges Canguilhem, non esiste e non esisterà mai una “pillola concezionale” – ovvero un presidio artificiale di qualche tipo che ci permetta di realizzare a piacimento qualsiasi genere di invenzione. Si tratterebbe infatti di un’invenzione intrinsecamente paradossale, un’invenzione che «sarebbe essa stessa facilitata dall’invenzione preliminare di ciò che essa si pone il fine di produrre». Detto altrimenti, l’invenzione della ‘pillola per inventare’ sarebbe debitrice dello stesso potere da cui dipende la sua invenzione.

In the Central Himalayan Region of Garhwal, traditional drummers known as Bājgī, Aujī, Ḍholī, Bansī, or Dās are particularly known for their performance in rituals involving Devī-Devtās (local Hindu deities). Their drumming practice is deeply intertwined with and integral to community life and spiritual ceremonies. Various ritual practices involve divine embodiment by a deity who temporarily embodies a person, often accompanied by drumming rhythmic instruments, known as ḍhol-damauñ. This paper examines the intricate drumming practices found in Garhwal, exploring rhythms, instruments, and the drummers' personal involvement in facilitating worship practices and how they play and define their music. Central to this investigation is the exploration of Ḍhol Sāgar, a written text encapsulating the musical repertoires, drum history, and practice specific to the region. Thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in the Garhwal Himalaya, utilizing semi-structured interviews and analysis of published references to Ḍhol Sāgar. This paper sheds light on drummers as instruments, the importance of ritual drumming, and Ḍhol Sāgar as a written text and as a sonic experience, demonstrating its continued relevance in the contemporary drumming practice in Garhwal. Specifically, it documents the history and origin of ḍhol-damauñ and how drumming practice informs and is informed by the local cosmology. The paper contributes to the broader academic discourse on the relationship between religion, music, and ritual.