This paper surveys potential counterparts of the ancient Egyptian concept of mAat (maat) from other cultures and summarises such cross-cultural studies as have already been completed. Its scope ranges from antiquity to the present day and across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, China, Australia and the Americas. Paradigms that appear to…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This text consists of the ‘lectio praecursoria’ given at the defense of my doctoral dissertation “The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late-Medieval Portugal”. This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late…[Read more]

This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

article + 6 photographs from the Manuscriptistan Project

The present article challenges Walter C. Kaiser, Jr’s influential proposal for evangelical Old Testament missiology. Out of concern to avoid an understanding of “Israel as God’s favored or pet nation,” Kaiser argues that God’s promise to Abraham in Gen 12:3 is for the sake of all nations, and as such, “the first Great Commission mandate of…[Read more]

This blog post gives an overview of the Camden Material and Colour Guide. The guide provides property owners of heritage buildings in the Camden Heritage Conservation Area with tips and hints on restoration and conservation of their houses. The guide provides colour schemes on building exteriors and interiors by housing styles between 1840 and…[Read more]

Sicily – and especially Syracuse – seems to have had an ongoing preoccupation with paired eyes as an apotropaic or magico-religious symbol. This brief paper explores some signature pieces and speculates that the excised eyes of Santa Lucia, patron saint of Syracuse, may be but a recent embodiment of a propensity that dates back to the Neolithic era.

Sicily – and especially Syracuse – seems to have had an ongoing preoccupation with paired eyes as an apotropaic or magico-religious symbol. This brief paper explores some signature pieces and speculates that the excised eyes of Santa Lucia, patron saint of Syracuse, may be but a recent embodiment of a propensity that dates back to the Neolithic era.

Abstract: The causes of suffering are a central topic in Buddhism as well as in Ayurveda. The Pāli Canon and other early Buddhist texts like the Milindapañha mention eight specific causes resulting in disease or suffering at several places. In contrast, early Ayurveda, as presented in the Carakasaṃhitā, knows a threefold causal complex of dise…[Read more]

Sinabi ni Ramon Reyes: Kung ituturing nating relihiyon ang pangunahing dimensyon ng tao kung saan iniuugnay niya ang sagrado, sa “lampas,” sa nagbibigay ng batayan at pinakahuling kahulugan ng kanyang pang-araw-araw na pag-iral, kung gayon ang mga animistikong paniniwala at gawain ng ang mga unang Pilipino ay magiging kuwalipikado bilang…[Read more]

Sinabi ni Ramon Reyes: Kung ituturing nating relihiyon ang pangunahing dimensyon ng tao kung saan iniuugnay niya ang sagrado, sa “lampas,” sa nagbibigay ng batayan at pinakahuling kahulugan ng kanyang pang-araw-araw na pag-iral, kung gayon ang mga animistikong paniniwala at gawain ng ang mga unang Pilipino ay magiging kuwalipikado bilang…[Read more]

Bukod sa musika at sining, nagpapakita ako ng isang magaspang na balangkas para sa pananaw sa ilang pwersonal na espirituwal-psychic na karanasan.+. “Ang musika ay isang pangunahing bahagi ng ating ebolusyon; marahil ay kumanta kami bago kami magsalita sa mga pangungusap na may gabay na sintaktik. Ang kanta ay kinakatawan sa buong mundo ng h…[Read more]

The Case For God, binuksan ni Karen Armstrong ang kanyang libro sa pagtalakay sa 300 plus caves sa Southern France at Northern Spain na may kamangha-manghang artistikong ‘prehistoric’ cave paintings ng mga prehistoric na hayop na marami sa kanila ay wala na ngayon, ang ilan ay dating sa 30,000 taon na ang nakalipas. “Sa kabuuan ay may mga anim na…[Read more]

Colonial predicament made the life and its understanding complex in the Subcontinent. To represent this complexity, Urdu writers found the polyphonic genre, i.e. the novel helpful. They used different techniques of characterization to narrate the social hierarchy of characters. The novel also provided the space for them to attract the people with…[Read more]

The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

Mesmerism provided Edgar Allan Poe with a framework in which to reimagine logical and poetic rigor.