The article addresses the question why Christians often fail to achieve even the minimum standard of secular morality. It isolates from a long list of failures the undermining and maltreatment of women and sexual minorities. It describes four types of violence – gender, epistemic, symbolic, and hermeneutic – they are made to endure. It then und…[Read more]

This special edition is a form of pride. It is a celebration of thirty years since the birth of queer theory. Of course, being queer, this was no normative conception or birth. More of an artificial insemination and fusion of gene pools, characterised by anarchy, activism, subversion, deconstruction, alongside identitarian and non-identitarian…[Read more]

This paper is part of a larger research project that attempts to apply historical social network
analysis to the study of Chinese Buddhist history. The underlying research questions are
whether social network analysis (SNA) metrics can be gainfully applied to Buddhist history,
and whether network visualizations can enable us to better…[Read more]

This paper is part of a larger research project that attempts to apply historical social network
analysis to the study of Chinese Buddhist history. The underlying research questions are
whether social network analysis (SNA) metrics can be gainfully applied to Buddhist history,
and whether network visualizations can enable us to better…[Read more]

Syllabus for Japanese Mythology Spring 2021

In this essay, I consider the ideal ascetic leader depicted in the Life of Moses attributed to Gregory of Nyssa: that leader is not a bishop, but a leader who has more experience with the day-to-day struggles of monks, particularly the kind of struggles described by Evagrius and writers influenced by him.

The field of Chinese Historical Phonology is traditionally dealing with a large number of complex and diverse types of data. While the data diversity can be conveniently dealt with in qualitative approaches, computational possibilities that have arisen during the past two decades offer new possibilities and new challenges for the field. In the…[Read more]

From the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the caliphal status and the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultans were constantly and increasingly challenged. One of the most effective and powerful tools that they utilized in order to strengthen their diminishing image in the eyes of their subjects was the re-appropriation of sacred places, either by…[Read more]

This paper follows Francois Laruelle’s non-philosophy and his non-religion and non-theology to suggest a non-philosophical approach to the sociology of religious pluralism. The entanglements of experiences of the religious end-user are analyzed vis-a-vis Laruelle’s thought and a dogma-free inclusive approach to religion is envisaged.

Course Description
In this seminar we shall read and discuss a selection of recent important works on and around Buddhism and material culture (in English). In addition we shall survey trends in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship produced in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, French, German, etc.). Students will be required to write regular,…[Read more]

Course Description
In this seminar we shall read and discuss a selection of recent important works on and around Buddhism and material culture (in English). In addition we shall survey trends in recent Buddhist Studies scholarship produced in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, French, German, etc.). Students will be required to write regular,…[Read more]

The concept of class has been progressively erased in contemporary discussions around art — and other topics. The explanatory power of this economic and social category, as articulated by Karl Marx, has been annulled precisely at a time when the contradictions of late capitalism are growing, composing an ideological background that creates c…[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]

The Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville was one of the most widely read works of the early Middle Ages, as is evidenced by the number of surviving manuscripts. August Eduard Anspach’s handlist from the 1940s puts their number at almost 1,200, of which approximately 300 were estimated to have been copied before the year 1000. This article, based on a…[Read more]

While analysing lexical data of Western Kho-Bwa languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Trans-
Himalayan family with the help of a computer-assisted approach for historical language
comparison, we observed gaps in the data where one or more varieties lacked forms for certain
concepts. We employed a new workflow, combining manual and automated steps,…[Read more]

Als „kleine Biblia“ (Luther) hat der Psalter eine herausragende Rolle in Judentum und Christentum. Auch im Koran ist die Wertschätzung Davids hoch und die Psalmen klingen im Hintergrund mancher Sure an. Welches Potential können die Psalmen im Trialog der abrahamitischen Religionen entfalten? Was bedeutet es, wenn im Beten der Psalmen der eine…[Read more]

The factors behind the rise of Islamism in Turkey remain the subject of intense scholarly debate. There are remarkable relationships between the rise of Islamism and preceding changes in population dynamics in Turkey. Rapid urbanization and large-scale migration of Kurds and other ethnic minorities from the east of the county to major cities in…[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]

Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity begins at the inception of the Catholic Church and deals with the election of the present Pope, and thus is contemporary yet rooted in history. Histories of religious traditions need not be unwieldy. They could be pointers to all the important references to literature on the subject. This book is a…[Read more]