Questioning territory: A Jewish reflection on holy land*

posted by Menachem Lorberbaum

Thinking of territory as a patrie, a motherland or homeland, makes use of metaphors that hope to capture a primal relationship between territory and citizenship. It is this meeting that founds the very concept of nation as more than merely a linguistic derivative of natio, birth. Pre-modern and pre-statist intuitions of indigineity undergo a modern schematisim that issue forth in citizenship.

Territory thus invigorated is the depth interpretation of the hyphen in the couplet “nation-state.” It is rendered sacral by political theologies that seek to invest it with the status of the divine hearth, consecrating thereby not only the claim to a sovereign right to it but also the demand of sacrifice of life to retain its integrity. In their quest for the aura of majesty we may consider civil religions as the republican version of monarchic divine right theories.

Read Questioning territory: A Jewish reflection on holy land*

June 28th, 2017

Spirit in the Dark—An introduction

posted by Josef Sorett

June 23rd, 2017

Sacrality, secularity, and contested indigeneity

posted by J. Kehaulani Kauanui

June 20th, 2017

Apologia pro Reza: Why I like Believer

posted by David Frankfurter

~ More recent posts ~

Featured

NEW FORUM | Spirit in the Dark

Introduced by Josef Sorett

Spirit in the Dark is a historical project that engages with literary sources to grapple with questions in the study of religion. Josef Sorett (Columbia University) attempts to track the evolution of a debate about black art and culture—which he refers to as “racial aesthetics”—from the New Negro movement of the 1920s up through the Black Arts movement (circa 1970), recasting this well-known literary history by placing “religion” at the center of the story.

In this book forum, scholars engage with Sorett’s new book and look at what it means to place religion in the center of discussions of racial aesthetics.

Begin by reading the introduction to the series.

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Apologia pro Reza: Why I like Believer

by David Frankfurter

“Religion, I believe, should be interesting, even exciting—for the likes of me but even more for the outsider or undergraduate whom I want to attract to my classes and hope finds value in my field. If the alternative to ‘sensational’ is ‘mainstream,’ then I will take—and encourage—the sensational.”

In this essay, Frankfurter discusses the role of religious studies in the religious education of the public as he comments on the CNN Original Series Believer and the controversies surrounding it.

Read the rest of the essay here.

Here & There

May 22nd, 2017
: Call for Applications | International Center for the Humanities and Social Change, UCSB; posted by The Editors
April 27th, 2017
: UCSIA Summer School: Religion, Culture, and Society; posted by Olivia Whitener
February 1st, 2017
: Jeffrey Stout to give Gifford Lectures; posted by Olivia Whitener
January 19th, 2017
: CFP | Jews and Quakers (NEW DATE!); posted by Olivia Whitener
January 6th, 2017
: CFP | Converting Spaces: Re-Directing Missions Through Global Encounters; posted by Olivia Whitener

~ More here & there ~

Featured discussion

Indigineity and secularity

This forum creates a space to explore how scholarly discussions of settler colonialism, nationalism, race, and secularity might productively inform each other.