Books on the topic 'Traditional gender beliefs'

This volume – which stems from an international conference held at the University of Graz on March 2, 2020, just before the outbreak or the COVID-19 pandemic – represents a small, but specifically targeted contribution to a field of research and discussion that has increasingly come to the fore in the last two decades, regarding the practice of covering or veiling womens’ heads or faces over different times and places. “Dress is never value free”, as anthropologists state, and veiling functions as an assertion/communication of relationship dynamics in terms of gender, social and cultural identity, phases and stages of life (puberty, marriage, death) or of religious beliefs – even reaching to a typical dichotomy of our times, the female condition between tradition and modernity.

Traditional histories of Europe's initial Christianization have focused on clerical preaching and the establishment of church institutions. However, by looking through the lens of gender at Christianity as men and women alike came to live it on a daily basis, historians can gain a better idea of the extent of women's participation in historical religious changes. Men and women carried Christianity to Europe—in the form of beliefs, rituals, and doctrines, but also as objects, relationships, spaces, and daily routines—over many centuries.

This chapter provides an overview of emerging adults’ views on gender and gender roles. The authors describe their findings regarding who emerging adults believe benefits more from marriage, men or women. Little consensus seemed to exist regarding how emerging adults viewed the connection between gender and marriage; the authors propose that this is a reflection of our current culture, which continues to move toward gender neutrality and the dismissal of gender differences. The authors also explore how emerging adults believe gender roles will play out in their own marriages. A specific paradox whereby emerging adults aspire to an egalitarian role balance yet tend to end up in traditional gender roles is discussed.

This is the first data chapter. In this chapter, respondents who are described as true believers in the gender structure, and essentialist gender differences are introduced and their interviews analyzed. They are true believers because, at the macro level, they believe in a gender ideology where women and men should be different and accept rules and requirements that enforce gender differentiation and even sex segregation in social life. In addition, at the interactional level, these Millennials report having been shaped by their parent’s traditional expectations and they similarly feel justified to impose gendered expectations on those in their own social networks. At the individual level, they have internalized masculinity or femininity, and embody it in how they present themselves to the world. They try hard to “do gender” traditionally.

Although microfinance started as a movement to improve women’s economic well-being through increased female entrepreneurship in particular, its impact on women’s attitudes toward and participation in the labour market is not fully understood. We fill this gap by combining data on branch locations of the major microfinance institutions in Bangladesh with household survey data and implement a spatial regression discontinuity design. Our estimates suggest significant effects of access to credit on women’s work; attitudes towards gender, social and employment norms; and psychosocial well-being. Access to credit increases labour force participation in terms of paid employment and traditional economic participation. Relatedly, respondents are more likely to be prevented from working by their husbands or other household members. They are also more likely to express traditional beliefs in relation to gender, social, and employment norms. Finally, access to credit leads to a loss in life satisfaction, financial satisfaction, health satisfaction, and overall happiness.

Chinese-language girls’ schools in British Malaya and Singapore grew out of the national modernization movement in late Qing and early Republican China, and therefore also contained the contradictions of the “woman question” of that period. These schools were sites of modernization and politicization for overseas Chinese women, introducing non-gender-specific curricula, notions of gender equality, and ideals of national citizenship. Arguably, they may have done more to usher in modernity for girls and women than contemporaneous English schools in Malaya and Singapore, challenging the received wisdom that modernizing change was a Western-driven movement. At the same time, these schools sometimes perpetuated traditional gender role expectations even more energetically than occurred in China, because those beliefs were associated with the cultural heritage that they were supposed to uphold, especially in a Western imperial milieu. Chinese political and social modernization hence became associated with cultural conservatism.

This concluding chapter highlights some of the connections between the traditional styles and genres of the performing arts across Sumatra, paying attention to the impact of indigenous religions and Islam as well as classification of the musical instruments and ensembles. It also considers how the musical arts are linked to myths and legends, and how myths and art forms are related to indigenous religious beliefs. Finally, it discusses Hindu myths and art forms; Muslim-associated myths and legends and art forms; Chinese myths and art forms; dances and music-dance relationships; connections between the performing arts in Sumatra's Malay subgroups and social classes; gender factors; signal items of Sumatran identity and local uniqueness; and major changes in the performing arts since around 1900. The chapter suggests that more research into the whole of greater Sumatra is needed in order to elucidate the extent to which an understanding of these connections can contribute to a concept of Sumatra's performing arts as a unified whole.

This chapter begins by providing a historical context for the Millennial generation. Growing up is different in the 21st century than before; it takes much longer. Given how many years youth take to explore their identities before they emerge into adulthood with stable jobs and committed partners, the chapter reviews what we now about “emerging adulthood” as a stage of human development. The chapter also highlights a debate in social science as to whether Millennials are entitled narcissists or a new civically engaged generation that will re-energize America. The chapter concludes with an overview of another debate, whether Millennials are pushing the gender revolution forward or returning to more traditional beliefs.

There is much we can learn about conservation from native peoples, says Gene Anderson. While the advanced nations of the West have failed to control overfishing, deforestation, soil erosion, pollution, and a host of other environmental problems, many traditional peoples manage their natural resources quite successfully. And if some traditional peoples mismanage the environment--the irrational value some place on rhino horn, for instance, has left this species endangered--the fact remains that most have found ways to introduce sound ecological management into their daily lives. Why have they succeeded while we have failed? In Ecologies of the Heart, Gene Anderson reveals how religion and other folk beliefs help pre-industrial peoples control and protect their resources. Equally important, he offers much insight into why our own environmental policies have failed and what we can do to better manage our resources. A cultural ecologist, Gene Anderson has spent his life exploring the ways in which different groups of people manage the environment, and he has lived for years in fishing communities in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Tahiti, and British Columbia--as well as in a Mayan farmtown in south Mexico--where he has studied fisheries, farming, and forest management. He has concluded that all traditional societies that have managed resources well over time have done so in part through religion--by the use of emotionally powerful cultural symbols that reinforce particular resource management strategies. Moreover, he argues that these religious beliefs, while seeming unscientific, if not irrational, at first glance, are actually based on long observation of nature. To illustrate this insight, he includes many fascinating portraits of native life. He offers, for instance, an intriguing discussion of the Chinese belief system known as Feng-Shui (wind and water) and tells of meeting villagers in remote areas of Hong Kong's New Territories who assert that dragons live in the mountains, and that to disturb them by cutting too sharply into the rock surface would cause floods and landslides (which in fact it does). He describes the Tlingit Indians of the Pacific Northwest, who, before they strip bark from the great cedar trees, make elaborate apologies to spirits they believe live inside the trees, assuring the spirits that they take only what is necessary. And we read of the Maya of southern Mexico, who speak of the lords of the Forest and the Animals, who punish those who take more from the land or the rivers than they need. These beliefs work in part because they are based on long observation of nature, but also, and equally important, because they are incorporated into a larger cosmology, so that people have a strong emotional investment in them. And conversely, Anderson argues that our environmental programs often fail because we have not found a way to engage our emotions in conservation practices. Folk beliefs are often dismissed as irrational superstitions. Yet as Anderson shows, these beliefs do more to protect the environment than modern science does in the West. Full of insights, Ecologies of the Heart mixes anthropology with ecology and psychology, traditional myth and folklore with informed discussions of conservation efforts in industrial society, to reveal a strikingly new approach to our current environmental crises.

Every language has some means of categorizing objects into humans, or animates, or by their shape, form, size, and function. The most wide-spread are linguistic genders—grammatical classes of nouns based on core semantic properties such as sex (female and male), animacy, humanness, and also shape and size. Classifiers of several types also serve to categorize entities. Numeral classifiers occur with number words, possessive classifiers appear in the expressions of possession, and verbal classifiers are used on a verb, categorizing its argument. Genders and classifiers of varied types can occur together. Their meanings reflect beliefs and traditions, and in many ways mirror the ways in which speakers view the ever-changing reality. This volume elaborates on the expression, usage, history, and meanings of noun categorization devices, exploring their various facets across the languages of South America and Asia, known for the diversity of their noun categorization. The volume starts with a typological introduction outlining the types of noun categorization devices, their expression, scope, and functions, in addition to the socio-cultural aspects of their use, and their development. It is followed by revised versions of eight papers focussing on gender and classifier systems in two areas of high diversity—South America (with a focus on Amazonia) and Asia.

Protestant beliefs have made several significant contributions to conservatism, both in the more abstract realm of ideas and in the arena of political positions or practical policies. First, they have sacralized the established social order, valued and defended customary hierarchies; they have discouraged revolt or rebellion; they have prompted Protestants to view the state as an active moral agent of divine origin; and they have stressed the importance of community life and mediating institutions such as the family and the church and occasionally provided a modest check on an individualistic and competitive impulse. Second, certain shared tenets facilitated this conjunction of Protestantism and conservatism, most often when substantial change loomed. For example, common concerns of the two dovetailed when revivals challenged the religious status quo during the colonial Great Awakening, when secession and rebellion threatened federal authority during the Civil War, when a new type of conservatism emerged, and dismissed the older sort as paternalistic, when the Great Depression opened the door to a more intrusive state, when atheist communism challenged American individualism, and, finally, when the cultural changes of the 1960s undermined traditional notions of the family and gender roles. Third, certain Christian ideas and assumptions have, at their best, served to heighten or ennoble conservative discourse, sometimes raising it above merely partisan or pragmatic concerns. Protestantism added a moral and religious weight to conservative beliefs and helped soften the harshness of an acquisitive, sometimes cutthroat, economic order.

This book is a comprehensive account of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and its efforts to keep alive the memory of the nation’s past. It argues that, especially prior to World War II, the DAR’s conservative white middle-class members played a vital role in private citizens’ efforts to both bolster patriotism and guard the nation’s gendered and racial boundaries through commemorative practices. The Daughters engaged in patriotic activism long believed to be the domain of men and deliberately challenged male-centered accounts of US nation-building. At the same time, however, their tales about the past helped reinforce traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, reflecting a strong-held belief that any challenge to these traditions would jeopardize the nation’s stability. In a similar fashion, the organization frequently voiced support for inclusive civic nationalism, but deliberately used memory to consolidate Anglo-Saxon whiteness and keep the nation’s racial divisions in place. By closely examining these ambiguities, this study sheds fresh light on white conservative women’s remarkable agency in US nationalism and explains the tenacity of a particular nationalist ideology that deemed ingrained gender and race hierarchies vital to America’s unity and progress.

This article explores political philosophy within the medieval Arabic-Islamic tradition of the Middle East, focusing on the contributions of a few thinkers including Alfarabi, Avicenna, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, Averroes, and Ibn Khaldūn. Political philosophy in general differs from political thought, on the one hand, and political theology, on the other, insofar as it seeks to replace opinion about political affairs by knowledge. Political philosophy in the medieval Arabic-Islamic tradition of the Middle East differs from that in the medieval Arabic-Jewish or Arabic-Christian traditions in that it is beholden neither to political nor to theological currents, its occasional rhetorical bows to one or the other notwithstanding. Political thought, best exemplified by the genre known as “Mirrors for Princes,” is always limited by the opinions that dominate the setting and time. Political theology or, for medieval Islam, jurisprudence focuses on how the beliefs and actions set forth in the religious tradition elucidate the conditions justifying warfare or the qualities an individual must have to be considered a suitable ruler.

An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders provides new perspectives on a unique medieval literary genre: the Sagas of Icelanders (also known in English as Family Sagas). The book deepens our understanding both of the Old Norse-Icelandic texts and of our responses to them by attending to the ways in which the texts work as narratives of identity. It offers a fresh account of the sagas by relating them to questions addressed by postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, and ecocriticism, approaches that are currently more familiar in other areas of literary study than in the study of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. The book begins by examining what an Icelandic saga is, and then goes on to discuss the origins of the genre, describing its historical contexts and arguing that a rich variety of oral and written source traditions combined to produce a new literary form. The book then examines issues of national, religious, and legal identity, gender and sexuality, and the relations between human beings, nature, and the supernatural. Readings of selected individual sagas show how the various source traditions and thematic concerns of the genre interact in the most widely read and admired sagas. A brief history of the translation of the sagas into English shows how consistently translation has been inspired by, and undertaken in accordance with, beliefs about identity. The book’s conclusion draws together the preceding chapters by underlining how they have presented the sagas of Icelanders as narrative explorations of identity and alterity.

Over the last two hundred years, Buddhists have witnessed incredible transformations, and often they have participated in making them. Throughout history, religious systems have been intimately connected to economics, politics, and societies. These relationships were profoundly affected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the loss of monarchies and the advents of print technology, capitalism, socialism, and the nation-state. Such transformations had enormous impacts on Buddhism. The changes manifested both within Buddhist populated countries and beyond through Buddhist transnational organizations and Buddhist diasporas. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism tracks these changes to Buddhists, their rituals, and beliefs in the colonial and postcolonial world. Leading scholars in Buddhism have authored 41 chapters, divided into two parts. Part I contains chapters on the historical transformation of Buddhist traditions around the world and their interactions with globalization. Each chapter provides a background for the Buddhist tradition and then the ways in which it has changed with modernity. These chapters range from the more familiar traditions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, to the less familiar, such as Buddhism in Latin America and Africa. Part II contains chapters devoted to particular themes and their interactions with Buddhism, such as Buddhist approaches to gender, sexual orientation, and race. These chapters also examine the impacts of subjects such as technology, music, and architecture on Buddhism, as well as changes to the academic study of Buddhism itself.

This chapter reads mainstream “New Age” self-help literature in dialogue with women-of-colors narratives and proposes a new genre called “womanist self-recovery.” Womanist self-recovery represents a contemporary transcultural project with several characteristics: the transgression of conventional literary genres, the visionary belief in language's performative power, and the use of non-western cultural traditions to develop inclusionary multicultural communities. The chapter develops this genre by retracing a troubled engagement with Paula Gunn Allen's Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman's Sourcebook, and then redefining it as womanist self-recovery. It argues that womanist self-recovery creates communally based, multicultural transformation narratives—stories of self-empowerment that begin with the personal but move outward to encourage and facilitate collective change, stories that synthesize self-love and self-reflection with the quest for social justice.

The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha is meant to be a premier reference work for the study of the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha, important early Jewish texts that have become deutero-canonical for some Christian churches and non-canonical for other churches and that are of lasting cultural significance. In addition to the place given to the classical literary, historical, and tradition-historical introductory questions, this Handbook will focus on the major social and theological themes of each individual book. Special attention will be given to the Apocrypha’s portrayal of gender and sexuality, their ethics, and their reception history. Several chapters will deal with overarching topics, such as genre and historicity, Jewish practices and beliefs, and the relation of the Apocrypha to the Septuagint, Qumran, Pseudepigrapha, and New Testament, thus also offering important insights on the place of the Apocrypha in Second Temple (or early) Judaism. With contributions from leading scholars from around the world, the Handbook provides the authoritative reference work on the current state of Apocrypha research, and at the same time, carves out future directions of study.

This insightful volume on the culture of hair through human history and around the globe has been updated and revised to include even more entries and current information. How we style our hair has the ability to shape the way others perceive us. For example, in 2017, the singer Macklemore denounced his hipster undercut hairstyle, a style that is associated with Hitler Youth and alt-right men, and in 2015, actress Rose McGowan shaved her head in order to take a stance against the traditional Hollywood sex symbol stereotype. This volume examines how hair — or lack thereof — can be an important symbol of gender, class, and culture around the world and through history. Hairstyles have come to represent cultural heritage and memory, and even political leanings, social beliefs, and identity. This second edition builds upon the original volume, updating all entries that have evolved over the last decade, such as by discussing hipster culture in the entries on beards and mustaches and recent medical breakthroughs in hair loss. New entries have been added that look at specific world regions, hair coverings, political symbolism behind certain styles, and other topics. Features • Updated and expanded edition covers more topics and brings entries up-to-date • Sidebars help to illuminate discussions pertaining to the overall topic of hair culture around the world • Thematic listing of entries helps users to discover related topics and promotes further research • Primary document excerpts look at hair as a research topic in early history, from medical texts to accounts of grooming practices in ancient times

In confronting questions of the origin of existence, asserting belief in an ultimate spiritual source of phenomena, and striving for a relationship between it and human beings, Hindu theology identifies sexuality as a valid and necessary explanation. Both on the theogonic plane and the worldly, Hindu thought associates sexuality with gender, but treats the latter as a fluid identity rather than natural and essential, viewing it as a product more of the will than of physiology, an ever-present but negotiable perception, since it can be willed into altered states. This is illustrated both by the myths of Hinduism and by its devotional cultures. Observing the evolution of Hindu theology, its major traditions, and its worship practices chronologically, this chapter demonstrates why and how sexuality and gender may serve as keys to understand Hindu spirituality.

How have fairy tales from around the world changed over the centuries? What do they tell us about different cultures and societies? Drawing on the contributions of scholars working on Italian, French, English, Ottoman Turkish, and Japanese tale traditions, this book underscores the striking mobility and malleability of fairy tales written in the years 1450 to 1650. The essays examine how early modern scientific theories, debates on the efficacy of witchcraft, conceptions of race and gender, religious beliefs, the aesthetics of landscape, and censorial practices all shaped the representations of magic and marvels in the tales of this period. Tracing the fairy tale’s swift movement across linguistic and geographic borders, through verse and prose versions, from the printed page to the early modern stage, this volume demonstrates the ways in which these fantastic literary texts explored the ideological borders constructed by different societies. An essential resource for researchers, scholars and students of literature, history and cultural studies, contributors explore themes including: forms of the marvelous, adaption, gender and sexuality, humans and non-humans, monsters and the monstrous, space, socialization, and power.

Canadian Indigenous novels emerged as a specific genre within the last thirty years, rooted in a deep, thousands-year-old ‘performance art and poetic tradition’ of oratory, oral story, poetry, and drama. In addition to these oral and performance traditions are the ‘unique and varying methods of written communication’ that flourished long before contact with Europeans. The chapter considers Canadian novels by Indigenous writers. It shows that Indigenous fiction is deeply intertwined with history, politics, and a belief in the power of story to name, resist, and heal; that novel-length Aboriginal fiction in Canada built on a growing body of other forms of Indigenous literature; and that many Indigenous novels foreground their relationship with place and identity as key features of the resistance against systemic and institutional racism. It also examines coming-of-age novels of the 1980s and 1990s that are grounded in realism.

How did the relation between Christianity and drama evolve during the long nineteenth century? How were Christian beliefs represented, promoted, and interrogated through drama? What part did Christianity play in the changing kinds, spaces, and genres of theatre? This chapter analyses the creation, production, and reception of a range of dramatic forms, including melodramas, musicals, ‘classics’, comedies, and tragedies, as well as explicitly religious, and later in the nineteenth century, cinematic dramas. Plays by George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, and Henrik Ibsen are scrutinized alongside early silent films and the evolving passion and religious plays tradition. The chapter teases out a number of underlying tensions relating to the place of Christianity within popular and respectable theatre, romantic and realistic drama, and theatrical and screen drama. The chapter highlights how Christian beliefs were creatively used by playwrights, actors, and theatre-goers, in theatrical, domestic, and public spaces.

It is an enduring contradiction that Hindus revere their goddesses but their society is dominated by Brahmanical patriarchy. Although we assume that the worship of goddesses implies the celebration of so-called female power, we overlook how the development of such practices of devotion occurred within a highly patriarchal society that subjugated women in everyday life. Addressing this oversight, Mutating Goddesses traces the shifting fortunes of four goddesses—Manasā, Caṇḍī, Ṣaṣṭhī, and Lakṣmī—and their mutation within the goddess-invested tradition of Bengal’s Hinduism. It uses the vibrant laukika archive comprising religious practices and beliefs that, unlike the ṣāstrik perspective, have not been affected by the emergence and consolidation of the male Brahman and the Sanskrit language. Using narratives such as kathās, laukika bratakathās, and maṅgalkābyas, Sengupta explores the period between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries and investigates the correlation of gender, caste, and class in the sanctioning of female subjectivities through goddess formation. Thus, she excavates the multiple and layered heritage of Bengal to illustrate how tradition is a result of strategic selection by those in power.

Modern scholarly accounts of Greek philosophical history usually exclude women. And yet, from Dixaearchus of Messana to Diogenes Laertius, classical writers record the names of women philosophers from various schools. What is more, pseudonymous treatises and letters (likely dating after the first century CE) articulate the teachings of Pythagorean women. How can this literature inform our understanding of Greek intellectual history? To take these texts at face value would be naïve; to reject them, narrow-minded. This book is a deep examination of the literary tradition surrounding female Pythagoreans; it envisions the tradition as a network of texts that does not represent female philosophers but enacts their role in Greek culture. Part I, “Portraits,” assembles and contextualizes excerpts from historical accounts and wisdom literature. Part II, “Impersonations,” analyzes pseudonymous treatises and letters. Texts are approached with a mixture of suspicion and belief, inspired by Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. Suspicion serves to disclose the misogyny of the epistemic regimes that produced the texts about and by women philosophers. Belief takes us beyond the circumstances of the texts’ production to possible worlds of diverse readers, institutions, and practices that grant agency to the female knower. In the process, the book uncovers traces of a fascinating dialogue about the gender of philosophical knowledge, which includes female voices.

Human Rights and Reformist Islam critiques traditional Islamic approaches to the question of compatibility between human rights and Islam and argues instead for their reconciliation from the perspective of a reformist Islam. The book focuses on six controversial case studies: religious discrimination; gender discrimination; slavery; freedom of religion; punishment of apostasy; and arbitrary or harsh punishments. Explaining the strengths of structural ijtihad, Mohsen Kadivar’s approach is based on the rational classification of Islamic teachings as temporal or permanent on the one hand, and four criteria of being Islamic on the other: reasonableness, justice, morality and efficiency. In the book, all of the verses of the Qur’an and the Hadith that are problematic in relation to human rights are abrogated rationally according to these criteria. The result is a powerful, solutions-based argument based on reformist Islam – providing a scholarly bridge between modernity and Islamic tradition in relation to human rights. The book’s fourteen chapters are organized in five sections, including freedoms of belief, religion and politics, women’s rights, and slavery in contemporary Islam. Adding an extensive new introduction and annotations throughout the text from Kadivar bring the work up-to-date and place it in its academic and public contexts. In the introduction, the author critically compares his approach to Islam and human rights with those of five leading contemporary scholars: Mahmoud M. Taha, Abdullahi A. an-Na’im, Ann E. Mayer, Mohammad M. Shabestari and Abdulaziz A. Sachedina.

The Oxford Handbook of Mary includes chapters on textual, literary, and media analysis; theology; Church history; art history; studies on devotion in a variety of forms: liturgy, hymns, homilies, prayer, pilgrimage, lived belief and practice; also cultural history; folk tradition; gender analysis; apparitions; and apocalypticism. These have been contributed by a range of scholars, established names in Marian Studies, writing about Mary the mother of Jesus from within their own expertise. The group is international in scope, from the three countries of North America; various nations in Europe; Jerusalem; Taiwan; Australia. As well as those of no religious affiliation, chapters have been written by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian academics, the last group including priests from within the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions. What is shared between everyone in this diverse group is a commitment to academic rigour as well as a special interest in Mary the mother of Jesus, who is known as the Theotokos, Mother of God. The Handbook looks at both Eastern and Western perspectives and tries to correct imbalance in previous books on Mary towards the West. There is also a chapter on Mary in Islam, and on pilgrimages shared by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish adherents. Mary can be a source of theological disagreement, but the emphasis of this volume is on Mary’s rich potential for inter-faith and inter-denominational dialogue and shared experience.

This chapter turns from ethnography to contemporary history, focusing on ‘life history’ as another example of blurring genres. The British tradition of political life history has six conventions: ‘tombstone’ biography; separation of public and private lives; life without theory; objective evidence and facts; character; and storytelling. The chapter reviews each before turning to the swingeing critique by ‘the interpretive turn’. Postmodernism deconstructed grand narratives by pronouncing the death of the subject and the author. The chapter outlines an interpretive approach that reclaims life history by focusing on the idea of ‘situated agency’: that is, on the webs of significance people spin for themselves against the backcloth of their inherited beliefs and practices. It explores, with examples, the implications of this approach for writing life history, stressing different uses for biography open to political scientists. It briefly discusses why the British tradition of political life history has proved resistant to change.

Opera after the Zero Hour argues that newly composed opera in West Germany after World War II was a site for the renegotiation of musical traditions during an era in which tradition had become politically fraught. The idea of the “Zero Hour,” which put a rhetorical caesura between National Socialism and postwar occupied and divided Germany, was belied by significant continuities with earlier periods and by repeated efforts at conservative restoration. Opera’s social, aesthetic, and political value systems made it an essential piece of this cultural ethos. Its conservatism was creative and multifaceted, and composers who wrote new operas developed a range of strategies to make opera modern while still drawing on the conventions of the genre. Different historical reference points and approaches to operatic tradition are exemplified through five case studies of works premiered in the first two postwar decades on the stages of West Germany. For these operas, this book presents source studies, close reading, and reviews as constellations to illuminate the politicized artistic environment that influenced both their creation and their reception. The argument also draws on historical information and the archives of German opera houses to contextualize new opera within institutions. Works written for postwar West German opera companies could be nuanced in their conception of and relationship to historic and modern ideas of what opera should be, and the reception of these works reveals tensions between particular interpretations of tradition, operaticism, and the future of opera.

Persuasion overtly foregrounds the self as embodied: physical accidents and sickness are recurrent. Sir Walter Eliot’s belief in the time-defying bodily grace of nobility is subject to Austen’s harshest irony. The transition from vertically ordered place to horizontal space in Persuasion is more extreme than in any other of the completed novels. Anne Elliot’s movement from social exclusiveness to socially inclusive possibility allows Austen to challenge gender and class hierarchies traditionally held to be inborn. Her writerly experimentation expands the possibilities of narrative perspective to encompass the porous boundaries of the physical, the emotional and the rational that constitute any moment of consciousness. Her focalisation techniques in the text look directly towards Woolf’s stylist innovations. A chain of references to guns and shooting gathers into the novel contentious contemporary discursive networks on class relations, notions of masculinity and the nature of creaturely life.

This is a book about the intersection of humor, history, and culture. It explores how film comedy, one of the world’s most popular movie genres, reflects the values and beliefs of those who enjoy its many forms, its most enduring characters and stories, its most entertaining routines and funniest jokes. What people laugh at in Europe, Africa, or the Far East reveals important truths about their differences and common bonds. By investigating their traditions of humor, by paying close attention to the kinds of comedy that cross national boundaries and what gets lost in translation, this study leads us to a deeper understanding of each other and ourselves. Section One begins with a survey of the theories and research that best explain how humor works. It clarifies the varieties of comic forms and styles, identifies the world’s most archetypal figures of fun, and traces the history of mirth from earliest times to today. It also examines the techniques and aesthetics of film comedy: how movies use the world’s rich repertoire of amusing stories, gags, and wit to make us laugh and think. Section Two offers a close look at national and regional trends. It applies the concepts set forth earlier to specific films across a broad spectrum of sub-genres, historical eras, and cultural contexts, providing an insightful comparative study of the world’s great traditions of film comedy.

This Handbook offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in the study of religion. Its fifty-one chapters, written by authors from twelve countries, are organized into seven systematic parts. Part I (“Religion”) comprises chapters on definitions and theories of religion, history/translation, spirituality, and non-religion. Part II (“Theoretical Approaches”) reviews cognitive science, economics, evolutionary theory, feminism/gender theory, hermeneutics, Marxism, postcolonialism, semantics, semiotics, structuralism/poststructuralism, and social theory. Part III (“Modes”) addresses communication, materiality, narrative, performance, sound, space, and time. Part IV (“Environments”) relates religion to economy, law, media, nature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and tourism. Part V (“Topics”) discusses belief, emotion, experience, gift and sacrifice, gods, initiations and transitions, priests/prophets/sorcerers, purity, and salvation. Part VI (“Processes”) deals with differentiation, the disintegration and death of religions, expansion, globalization, individualization/privatization, innovation/tradition, objectification/commoditization, and syncretism/hybridization. Part VII (“The Discipline”) discusses the history and relevance of the study of religion.

Published anonymously in 1824, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself: With a detail of curious traditionary facts and other evidence by the editor pushed the boundaries of genre. It has been called a Gothic novel, a psychological mystery, a religious satire, and an early example of modern crime fiction. The plot follows a staunch Calvinist, Robert Wringhim, who believes he is justified in killing those he believes are already damned by God. A masterclass of metafiction, many of the events are narrated twice; first by the 'editor', who gives his account of the facts as he understands them to be, and then in the words of the 'sinner' himself. Having sold poorly among its first readers, the novel suffered from a prolonged period of neglect. However, since the latter part of the twentieth century it has won greater critical interest and attention.

Chapter 3 introduces the tradition of ritual journeys and sacred geographies in South Asia, then hones in on a detailed history of the grueling and elaborate pilgrimage attached to the shrine of Hinglaj. Before the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway the journey to the Goddess’s remote abode in the desert of Balochistan frequently presented a lethally dangerous undertaking for her devotees, the hardships of which have been described by many sources in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Sindhi, and Urdu. This chapter draws heavily from original sources, including travelogues and novels, which are supplanted with local oral histories in order to weave a historical tapestry that displays the rich array of practices and beliefs surrounding the pilgrimage and how they have changed over time. The comparative analysis demonstrates how certain motifs, such as austerity (Skt. tapasyā), remain important themes within the whole Hinglaj genre even in modern times while others have been lost in the contemporary era.

This chapter focuses on two trends among the Zaydīs during the end of the third/ninth century: those who were close to theḥadīthfolk and thus opposed to Muʿtazilism, and those who had adopted Muʿtazilite doctrines. It considers Zaydism in Rayy, northern Iran and Khurāsān, where several Zaydī families played an important role in studying and expounding Bahshamite theology among the Zaydīs of Iran during the fifth/eleventh and early sixth/twelfth centuries. It also examines the roles played by Abū Zayd al-ʿAlawī, the author of theKitāb al-Ishhādwhich is a refutation of the Twelver Shīʿīs’ notion of the imamate, addressing specifically their belief in the occultation (ghayba) of the ‘hidden Imam’, and had a profound impact on the literary genre of Zaydī refutations of Twelver Shīʿism. The chapter concludes by discussing different literary traditions among the Zaydīs in Iran.

Covering religious traditions ranging from Buddhism to Christianity to Zoroastrianism and modern apocalyptic movements such as Arun Shinrikyo and the Branch Davidians, this book addresses prophesied end of days from a breadth of perspectives and includes material on often-neglected themes and genres. End of Days: An Encyclopedia of the Apocalypse in World Religions describes apocalyptic writings in the world's major religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The cross-referenced entries address ancient traditions—Zoroastrianism, as one example—as well as modern apocalyptic movements, such as Arun Shinrikyo, the Branch Davidians, and the Order of the Solar Temple. This book's broad scope offers coverage of overlooked traditions, such as Mayan Apocalyptic, Norse Apocalyptic, Native American eschatological literatures, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Readers seeking detailed information on the eschatological and apocalyptic movements and proponents of End Times can reference entries about individuals such as Harold Camping, Jerry Falwell, David Koresh of the Brand Davidians, and James Jones and the People's Temple. This single-volume encyclopedia also contains numerous historical entries on subjects such as the Great Disappointment, the Great Awakening periods of religious revival, Joachim of Flora, the Maccabean Revolt, and the Plymouth Brethren. The influence of apocalyptic ideas far outside the realm of religion itself is documented through entries on film, including well-known modern movies such as The Hunger Games and Apocalypse Now, literature by writers such as Dante, and works of fine art like Wagner's Götterdämmerung. The inclusion of entries related to literature, film, and other art forms further attests to the wide-ranging social influence of belief in the end of days.

White working-class conservatives have played a decisive role in American history, particularly in their opposition to social justice movements, radical critiques of capitalism, and government help for the poor and sick. While this pattern is largely seen as a post-1960s development, Poor Man’s Fortune tells a different story, excavating the long history of white working-class conservatism in the century from the Civil War to World War II. With a close study of metal miners in the Tri-State district of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, Jarod Roll reveals why successive generations of white, native-born men willingly and repeatedly opposed labor unions and government-led health and safety reforms, even during the New Deal.With painstaking research, Roll shows how the miners' choices reflected a deep-seated, durable belief that hard-working American white men could prosper under capitalism, and exposes the grim costs of this view for these men and their communities, for organized labor, and for political movements seeking a more just and secure society. Roll's story shows how American inequalities are in part the result of a white working-class conservative tradition driven by grassroots assertions of racial, gendered, and national privilege.

How did we first come to believe in a correspondence between writers’ lives and their works? When did the person of the author—both as context and target of textual interpretation—come to matter so much to the way we read? This book traces the development of author centrism back to the scholarship of early Renaissance humanists. Working against allegoresis and other traditions of non-historicizing textual reception, they discovered the power of engaging ancient works through the speculative reconstruction of writers’ personalities and artistic motives. To trace the multi-lingual and eventually cross-cultural rise of reading for the author, this book presents four case studies of resolutely experimental texts by and about writers of high ambition in their respective generations: Lorenzo Valla on the forger of the Donation of Constantine, Erasmus on Saint Jerome, the poet George Gascoigne on himself, and Fulke Greville on Sir Philip Sidney. An opening methodological chapter and exhortative conclusion frame these four studies with accounts of the central lexicon—character, intention, ethos, persona—and the range of genre evidence that contemporaries used to discern and articulate authorial character and purpose. As constellated throughout with examples from the works of major contemporaries including John Aubrey, John Hayward, Galileo, Machiavelli, and Shakespeare, The Force of Character resurrects a vibrant culture of biographism continuous with modern popular practice and yet radically more nuanced in its strategic reliance on the explanatory power of probabilism and historical conjecture—the discursive middle ground now obscured from view by the post-Enlightenment binaries of truth and fiction, history and story, fact and fable.

The study is funded by Doha International Family Institute (DIFI), a member of Qatar Foundation, and is a collaboration between the Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration of London, Ontario; University of Guelph, Ontario; and University of Calgary, Alberta, all located in Canada; and the Doha International Family Institute, Qatar. The study received research ethics approval from the University of Guelph and the University of Calgary. This study aims to assess the impact of pre- and post-migration on marital relationships and family dynamics for Arab refugee families resettled in Canada. The study also examines the role of professional service providers in supporting these Arab refugee families. The unique experiences of Arab families displaced from their countries due to war and political conflict, and the various hardships experienced during their stay in transit countries, impact their family relations and interactions within the nuclear family context and their interconnectedness with their extended families. Furthermore, these families encounter various challenges within their resettlement process that interrupt their integration. Understanding the impact of traumatic experiences within the pre-migration journey as well as the impact of post-migration stressors on recently settled Arab refugee families in Canada provides insight into the shift in spousal and family relationships. Refugee research studies that focus on the impact of pre-migration trauma and displacement, the migration journey, and post-migration settlement on family relationships are scarce. Since the majority of global refugees in recent years come from Arab regions, mainly Syria, as a result of armed conflicts, this study is focused on the unique experiences of Arab refugee families fleeing conflict zones. The Canadian role in recently resettling a large influx of Arab refugees and assisting them to successfully integrate has not been without challenges. Traumatic pre-migration experiences as a result of being subjected to and/or witnessing violence, separation from and loss of family members, and loss of property and social status coupled with experiences of hardships in transit countries have a profound impact on families and their integration. Refugees are subjected to individual and collective traumatic experiences associated with cultural or ethnic disconnection, mental health struggles, and discrimination and racism. These experiences have been shown to impact family interactions. Arab refugee families have different definitions of “family” and “home” from Eurocentric conceptualizations which are grounded in individualistic worldviews. The discrepancy between collectivism and individualism is mainly recognized by collectivist newcomers as challenges in the areas of gender norms, expectations regarding parenting and the physical discipline of children, and diverse aspects of the family’s daily life. For this study, we interviewed 30 adults, all Arab refugees (14 Syrian and 16 Iraqi – 17 males, 13 females) residing in London, Ontario, Canada for a period of time ranging from six months to seven years. The study participants were married couples with and without children. During the semi-structured interviews, the participants were asked to reflect on their family life during pre-migration – in the country of origin before and during the war and in the transit country – and post-migration in Canada. The inter - views were conducted in Arabic, audio-recorded, and transcribed. We also conducted one focus group with seven service providers from diverse sectors in London, Ontario who work with Arab refugee families. The study used the underlying principles of constructivist grounded theory methodology to guide interviewing and a thematic analysis was performed. MAXQDA software was used to facilitate coding and the identification of key themes within the transcribed interviews. We also conducted a thematic analysis of the focus group transcription. The thematic analysis of the individual interviews identified four key themes: • Gender role changes influence spousal relationships; • Traumatic experiences bring suffering and resilience to family well-being; • Levels of marital conflict are higher following post-migration settlement; • Post-migration experiences challenge family values. The outcome of the thematic analysis of the service provider focus group identified three key themes: • The complex needs of newly arrived Arab refugee families; • Gaps in the services available to Arab refugee families; • Key aspects of training for cultural competencies. The key themes from the individual interviews demonstrate: (i) the dramatic sociocul - tural changes associated with migration that particularly emphasize different gender norms; (ii) the impact of trauma and the refugee experience itself on family relation - ships and personal well-being; (iii) the unique and complex aspects of the family journey; and (iv) how valued aspects of cultural and religious values and traditions are linked in complex ways for these Arab refugee families. These outcomes are consist - ent with previous studies. The study finds that women were strongly involved in supporting their spouses in every aspect of family life and tried to maintain their spouses’ tolerance towards stressors. The struggles of husbands to fulfill their roles as the providers and protec - tors throughout the migratory journey were evident. Some parents experienced role shifts that they understood to be due to the unstable conditions in which they were living but these changes were considered to be temporary. Despite the diversity of refugee family experiences, they shared some commonalities in how they experi - enced changes that were frightening for families, as well as some that enhanced safety and stability. These latter changes related to safety were welcomed by these fami - lies. Some of these families reported that they sought professional help, while others dealt with changes by becoming more distant in their marital relationship. The risk of violence increased as the result of trauma, integration stressors, and escalation in marital issues. These outcomes illustrate the importance of taking into consideration the complexity of the integration process in light of post-trauma and post-migration changes and the timespan each family needs to adjust and integrate. Moreover, these families expressed hope for a better future for their children and stated that they were willing to accept change for the sake of their children as well. At the same time, these parents voiced the significance of preserving their cultural and religious values and beliefs. The service providers identified gaps in service provision to refugee families in some key areas. These included the unpreparedness of professionals and insufficiency of the resources available for newcomer families from all levels of government. This was particularly relevant in the context of meeting the needs of the large influx of Syrian refugees who were resettled in Canada within the period of November 2015 to January 2017. Furthermore, language skills and addressing trauma needs were found to require more than one year to address. The service providers identified that a longer time span of government assistance for these families was necessary. In terms of training, the service providers pinpointed the value of learning more about culturally appropriate interventions and receiving professional development to enhance their work with refugee families. In light of these findings, we recommend an increased use of culturally integrative interventions and programs to provide both formal and informal support for families within their communities. Furthermore, future research that examines the impact of culturally-based training, cultural brokers, and various culturally integrative practices will contribute to understanding best practices. These findings with regard to refugee family relationships and experiences are exploratory in their nature and support future research that extends understanding in the area of spousal relationships, inter - generational stressors during adolescence, and parenting/gender role changes.