This paper discusses the issue of the relationship between theology and religious studies, drawing on certain principles of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical theory. Leaving aside differences between Gadamer and his critics, it is argued that his rehabilitation of prejudice, authority, and tradition as well as his notions of the fusion of…[Read more]

Muslim study of religions before modern times has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. At least three developmental phases of this nascent discursive field are discernable. Firstly, Western views of Muslim writings on different religions started appearing as prefaces, marginal notes, and introductions to the edited manuscripts…[Read more]

The Muslim study of religions has claimed the attention of some modern Western scholars. Patrice C. Brodeur, a scholar of religious studies, based at the University of Montreal, is one of them. He delves into the historical realities and epistemological developments that shaped the Muslim study of other religions in the past as well as in…[Read more]

I take as a “jumping off place” for this reflection the Conclusion that Werner Brock, (DPhil) made to his lectures published as An Introduction to Contemporary German Philosophy (1935, Cambridge University Press). Following the observation of J. H. Muirhead in the Foreword, that “readers will draw their own conclusions from his presentation of hi…[Read more]

This talk reads Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer, not as a mere collection of thoughts, but as spiritual reflections. These brief meditations record aspects of his film practice in condensed form and reveal the connection between contemplation and action. The contemplative tone of the book becomes perceptible through the careful o…[Read more]

This study argues that there is a tradition, arising from a ‘Jewish milieu’, based around the exegesis of select biblical passages, indicating that the messiah bears the Divine Name. This tradition appears to predate the Christian movement, and is referenced also in rabbinic literature. In the first section we highlight a tradition regarding the…[Read more]

The essays collected into this volume represent an attempt by the author to philosophize creatively on three different topics; Video Gaming, God, and Philosophical Thought in light of a posthuman understanding. Each has been written from a “dehellenized” point of view which makes them somewhat unconventional in their construction and pre…[Read more]

Paper delivered at Cornell University, March 7, 2013 to the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Introduction to The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism

It took Pedro Costa four feature films to get to “Horse Money” (“Cavalo Dinheiro”, 2014). In Down to Earth (Casa de Lava, 1994), a Portuguese nurse accompanies an immigrant worker in coma from Lisbon to his homeland, the Cape Verdean island of Fogo. “Bones” (“Ossos”, 1997), In “Vanda’s Room” (“No Quarto da Vanda”, 2000), and “Colossal Youth” (“Ju…[Read more]

Shakespeare scholarship has long been interested in the temporal dynamics of The Winter’s Tale, and has often turned to melancholic or traumatic time frames to explain the thematic persistence of lost time in Shakespeare’s romance. In this chapter, I argue that dance provides a key interpretive framework for understanding the play’s interest in bo…[Read more]

This is not a single article but an entire double journal issue focused on the critical intersection of disability and ecology.

Studies in the Humanities (46: 1-2).

This work provides a close linguistic and thematic analysis of the dialogues in the two novels Midaq Alley by N. Mahfouz and Rosa Mistika by E. Kezilahabi, as they reflect fundamental assumptions about gender, tradition, and modernity. Certain complex clauses that have been traditionally recognized in Logic and Philosophy to be used in argument…[Read more]

Com base na análise das formas cinematográficas de reconstituição da história em Serras da desordem, Corumbiara e Taego Ãwa, identifico a importância da figura dos espectadores indígenas para a compreensão das imagens que os filmes criam e mobilizam. Argumento que o contracampo efetivo, virtual ou espectral dos espectadores indígenas constitui…[Read more]

Se o estudo do que Clarisse denomina filmes de contato depende de uma compreensão histórica do que está em jogo em cada uma das obras abordadas, sua análise de Os últimos isolados (Adrian Cowell, 1967-1999), Corumbiara (Vincent Carelli, 1986-2009) e Os Arara (Andrea Tonacci, 1980-) busca pensar a relação entre culturas como experiência aberta…[Read more]

In his seminal study, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, Eyal Weizman argues how the Israeli occupation has forced a new imagined space to emerge, which is at once confining to the Palestinians and increases their sense of marginalization and loss. Changing the landscape through imposing architecture construction is a way to…[Read more]

Meaning understood in terms of teachability and learnability is crucial to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work. As regards the resolution of philosophical problems – and epistemological problems in particular – this approach seems to posit a hierarchy of meaning that excludes endless deferral. This is the basis of Wittgenstein’s attack on philo…[Read more]

This paper will look at the way the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem have utilised the theological narrative of marginalisation in their quest for identity and self-determination. The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem are an expatriate black American group who have lived in Israel since 1969, when their spiritual leader, Detroit-born…[Read more]

In an essay on Latin American freaks, Susan Antebi warns, “The question of freakishness and freaks in Latin American contexts is fraught from the beginning by its decontextualized and translated quality; it is an imposition, even when embraced. To study freakishness in Latin America, or just to pay attention to it, necessarily involves an a…[Read more]