The most commonly employed framework for assessing the religion of the Nara period (710-784) remains the state Buddhism model (kokka Bukkyo ron 国家仏教論) advanced by Inoue Mitsusada 井上光貞 (1917-1983). While Inoue provided the most systematic and influential version of this thesis, this article traces its origins at least as far back as the Meiji peri…[Read more]

In his recent study of religion and imperialism in the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Bruce Lincoln depicts the Achaemenids as savage and decadent in order to make a point about contemporary American foreign policy. This paper challenges Lincoln’s vision of the empire by examining the severe methodological flaws that underlie it, especially his…[Read more]

This article focuses on ritualized scribal practices in eighth-century Japan. It uses colophons, scriptorium documents, and narrative tales to explore how sutra copyists upheld vegetarian diets, performed ablutions, wore ritual garments, and avoided contact with pollutants stemming from death and illness. Such practices, often described in terms…[Read more]

An historical and philosophical look at Nietzsche conception of “Bildung” in context of the German tradition.

Adjudicado a un momento histórico concreto, tras la conquista cristiana de Toledo (1085) y su incorporación a los reinos cristianos, el mudéjar se ha utilizado al mismo tiempo como sustento de la idea de convivencia entre musulmanes y cristianos y como definición de un «estilo nacional» dentro del arte español. Durante el redescubrimiento de al-…[Read more]

La literatura ha estado desde siempre asociada al poder, y en la Edad Media oriental esto no es una excepción. Cuando Abu’l-Qāsem Ferdowsī terminó su gran obra, el Šāh-nāmeh, en 1010, esta se transformó en un elemento legitimador de las dinastías que durante los siglos medievales pugnarían por el dominio de Persia. A través de sus versos y de…[Read more]

Review of Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz and Amy G. Remensnyder, eds., Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice New York: Routledge, 2012

Abstract: El impacto del colonialismo y del recién descubierto Oriente provocó que el continente europeo proyectase en aquellas tierras lejanas, llenas de exotismo, leyendas y sensualidad, sus propias pasiones prohibidas y sus más oscuros deseos. El erotismo que las culturas indígenas despertaban en la sociedad victoriana llevó a la creación de so…[Read more]

O presente estudo centra-se em dois capítulos específicos da Crónica de Portugal de 1419, dedicados às proezas de D. FuasRoupinho. Procedi a um exame aprofundado das narrativas que ele protagoniza na dita crónica, tendo como objectivo uma melhor compreensão da funcionalidade que esses relatos incorporam, quando enquadrados nos propósitos políti…[Read more]

A brief survey of chronicle-composition activity in medieval Portugal.

A presente dissertação enquadra-se no âmbito da história da historiografia e da cultura medieval. Através do exame sistemático de fontes cronísticas medievais, procurámos estabelecer um percurso evolutivo das imagens do primeiro rei luso, D. Afonso Henriques, relacionadas com as suas actividades militares, ocupando um lugar privilegiado a guerra…[Read more]

Explaining what made ancient Greek law unusual, Michael Gagarin observes that most premodern legal cultures “wrote extensive sets (or codes) of laws for academic purposes or propaganda but these were not intended to be accessible to most members of the community and had relatively little effect on the actual operation of the legal system.” Thi…[Read more]

Canadian feminists at the turn of the 20th century were interested in producing a collectivity that buttressed arguments for women’s social and political participation. In this process, the negotiation of class relations among women was of particular importance in giving this feminism political weight. Often Canadian writers who took a feminist…[Read more]

This essay focuses on the woman’s page in the Grain Growers’ Guide, edited between 1912 and 1917 by Francis Marion Beynon. I approach this material with questions that have become prominent in rhetorical studies of women’s writing. How were women called forth to speak, and what were their motivations to participate in public debate? How did woman…[Read more]

From 1909 onward, the Canadian suffrage debate was heavily influenced by reports on suffrage militancy from Great Britain and the United States. Militancy played an influential role in Canadian suffrage history not through its practice–there was no Canadian militant campaign–but through an ongoing discussion of its meaning. Using Anne Fre…[Read more]

Prepublication draft for “Transitional States: Cultural Change, Tradition and Memory in Medieval England” (ACMRS 2017)

Review of a book by Giuseppe Marcocci on politics and culture in the Portuguese Empire in the long 15th century.

This chapter explores the survival of a Portuguese presence in Mylapore (today a suburb of Chennai, South India) after the loss of its political and military autonomy. Notions of sovereignty and the boundaries between a pre-colonial and a fully colonial dimension are here questioned on the basis of a little known case study.

Norbert Bar-Le-Duc (1697- 1769), also known as Abbé Jacques Platel, Pierre Parisot, Pierre Curel, traversed identities and continents, making a career out of controversy, becoming knowns as “le fameux Père Norbert”. He worked in South India as a missionary in 1736-1739 and thereafter played a pivotal role in the Malabar Rites controversy. Back…[Read more]

This chapter challenges the idea tha Roberto Nobili was a pioneer of interreligious dialogue and inculturation. On the contrary, it suggests that his interest for our times is rather his theology of religions. A man of the Counter-Reformation, Nobili made propositions as daring as the ones of today’s “Asian theology”.