An examination of the debate over the Theory of Names between Origen and Celsus in Origen’s Contra Celsum and its implications for late antique ritual worship.

A translation and study of seven hymns (madrashe) on vigil of Ephrem the Syrian preserved in Classical Armenian.

This paper explores the commodification of archival information through the exploitation of library labor related to the ongoing management, preservation, description, and digitization of unique and rare materials. Through this discussion, the author highlights the cultural, social, and economic factors that play a central role in creating an…[Read more]

“Film Museum Practice and Film Historiography is a meticulously researched work and a welcome addition to the already growing body of work related to film archiving practices. Lameris’ book is not only about engaging with the history of the Nederlands Filmmuseum but also about situating this case study within the larger context of film history a…[Read more]

Outlines the restoration of the Russian film classic “Man with a Movie Camera” (USSR, 1929) by Dziga Vertov which was carried out by the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam between 2008 and 2010. The restoration allows contemporary audiences the possibility to once again experience Vertov’s film as the filmmaker originally intended – or at least in a v…[Read more]

עיונים וביאורים הערות וציונים על מסכת יבמות

A response to papers presented as part of “Cy-Curious: Machines in religious imagination”: “Academic Assemblages in a Cyborgean Garden,” Lise Miltner (Brown University); “Bioethics, Human Nature, and the Enhancement Debate,” Joseph Fisher (Columbia University); and “Technoscience in Tolkien: How Fictional Worldviews Facilitate Reflection on the…[Read more]

Drawing on rabbinic sources redacted in the early third and late fourth/ early fifth centuries, this paper tracks the intertwined lives of divine image-things and rabbis living in late Roman and Byzantine period Palestine. The paper argues that the religious image-things of others (or avodah zarah, in rabbinic terms) pressed in different ways on…[Read more]

The editors of the present volume convened an international conference on “Yoga in Transformation: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on a Global Phenomenon” at the University of Vienna, which took place on 19–21 September 2013.2 For the sake of coherence and optimisation of synergies, its focus was on the exploration of the phenomenon of yo…[Read more]

Little India is a rich historical and ethnographic examination of a fascinating example of linguistic plurality on the island of Mauritius, where more than two-thirds of the population is of Indian ancestry. Patrick Eisenlohr’s groundbreaking study focuses on the formation of diaspora as mediated through the cultural phenomenon of Indian ancestral…[Read more]

This special issue of Religions of South Asia is born out of this expanding area of study and collaboration between contemporary practitioners and established academic methods of study. Most of articles in this volume were first presented at an international ‘Yoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana’ conference hosted in Kraków, Poland in May 2016. The Krakow…[Read more]

This special issue of Religions of South Asia is born out of this expanding area of study and collaboration between contemporary practitioners and established academic methods of study. Most of articles in this volume were first presented at an international ‘Yoga Darśana, Yoga Sādhana’ conference hosted in Kraków, Poland in May 2016. The Krakow…[Read more]

How should we read claims about health and well-being which defy common sense? Are claims of extreme longevity to be viewed as fraudulent, or as pushing the boundaries of possibility for the human body? This article will consider the narrative and context around a particularly well-publicized incident of rejuvenation therapy, advertised as…[Read more]

This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of meditation systems in Asia taught at McMaster University in Fall 2018

This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of meditation systems in Asia taught at McMaster University in Fall 2018

Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code prohibits insulting the Prophet and carries a mandatory death penalty. This law was passed based on a claim of ijma‘ (consensus among Islamic scholars) that such an offense is subject to a hadd (divinely fixed) punishment. Nearly half of those charged under this statute crimes of hadd are Christians, who mak…[Read more]

In this course, students will analyze texts that Americans have treated as “scripture.” Students will read texts that present themselves as scripture, such as selections from the Book of Mormon and a Holy Sacred and Divine Roll and Book (a Shaker text). They will also read texts that have attained a sort of canonicity within American culture, such…[Read more]

The Gospel of John is not unique in representing Jesus as performing miracles, but the way that John uses signs to point to Jesus’s Christological identity stands out among the canonical gospels. In John, when Jesus is called χριστός—Christ, messiah—it is often in the context of a sign being performed. However, the relationship between Jesus…[Read more]

This paper seeks to explain why Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People constitutes a valid historical work, rather than a religious text. It starts by addressing the nature of historical vs non-historical narrative, focusing on a concept of “genealogy of information.” It couples ideas from narrative theory, historiography, and…[Read more]

This chapter describes the creation of “America’s Public Bible,” an interactive work of digital scholarship that identifies quotations of the Bible in U.S. newspapers. The chapter explains how the project works from a computational perspective and, more importantly, how those computational methods connect to research questions in American…[Read more]