Journal of the American Academy of Religion - Advance Access

Mimic Jews and Jewish Mimics in Antiquity: A Non-Girardian Approach to Mimetic Rivalry

Weitzman, S. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:47:06 PST

Girard may have been on to something when he attempted to trace religious violence back to a struggle between mimetic rivals, but the resulting theory has been rightly criticized for its indifference to the particulars of historical context. With help from post-colonial scholarship, this paper aims to rethink the concept of mimicry as used by scholars of religion by situating an example from ancient Judaism, Josephus's description of the Samaritans as hostile doubles of the Jews, in the particular cultural environment in which this ancient historian wrote. The author hopes to contribute to our understanding of the Samaritans, and of Josephus as a slippery double in his own right, but the essay's real point is to caution against any generalizing approach to mimicry by stressing it as an adaptive behavior, a tactic, whose motives and workings are best understood within the particular cultural habitat to which the mimic is responding.

"It Moves Me to Wonder": Narrating Violence and Religion under the Roman Empire

Frilingos, C. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:19:21 PST

My focus will be on ancient narratives that, contrary to expectations, use religion and violence to interrogate and confound oppositional thinking: Josephus's paraphrase of the book of Esther in the Jewish Antiquities; the Greek romance of Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon; and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. A close reading of these writings shows that the textual interlacing of violence, religion, and the production of the self in antiquity was not inevitably bound to a narrative of victimhood and retribution. Each story elevates sources of local religious authority at a time of growing confidence in ostensibly universal modes of knowledge disseminated in the political, judicial, and educational discourses of the Roman era. In this setting, the narrative elaboration of insider forms of knowledge forms a noteworthy interreligious pattern and suggests a common interest in thinking locally about "global" or universalizing claims. In my reading, these texts do not call for the overthrow of "global" political, judicial, and educational regimes of knowledge so much as enter into asymmetrical relations of power to appropriate and re-inscribe these claims of authority. In doing so, I contend, a measure of cultural permeability is instantiated in the narrative play between such global claims and the insider claims of some Jews, pagans, and Christians.

On the New Analytic Theology, or: The Road Less Traveled

Wood, W. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:05:52 PST

Siva in Trouble. Festivals and Rituals at the Pasupatinatha Temple of Deopatan

Emmrich, C. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:05:52 PST

The Dharma's Gatekeepers: Sakya Pandita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet

Vose, K. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:21:05 PDT

E-religion: A Critical Appraisal of Religious Discourse on the World Wide Web

Grieve, G. P. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:10:11 PDT

Situating Islam: the Past and Future of an Academic Discipline

Powers, P. R. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:10:11 PDT

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China

Eichman, J. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:10:10 PDT

Contemporary Western Ethnography and the Definition of Religion

Fitzgerald, T. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:10:18 PDT

The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future

Larson, G. J. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:10:18 PDT

When a Woman Becomes a Religious Dynasty: The Samding Dorje Phagmo of Tibet

Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, A. — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:10:16 PDT

The Odyssey Experience: Physical, Social, Psychological, and Spiritual Journeys

Barbour, J. D. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:00:06 PDT

Translation and the Study of Indian Religions

Nemec, J. — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:15:46 PDT

In this essay, I argue that scholars of Indian religions should produce unbroken translations of heretofore lesser-known texts in order to inform the academy's understanding of Indian religions. Granting high priority to such a translation agenda is ironic, however, given the Orientalist origins of the scholarly practice in question. Doing so is nevertheless justified by observing the following: (1) the vast majority of Indian religious texts remains untranslated or uncritically rendered—and often unedited or even unpublished—including many substantial and historically significant works; (2) though incomplete in scope, Orientalist conceptions of the canon of classical Indian literature, established in large part through the translation and analysis of a relatively narrow selection of religious and other works, remain influential today; (3) finally, a number of the Orientalists' translations, guaranteed by their rigorous language training, have stood the test of time and in some instances remain authoritative today, even if the Orientalist translators often harbored reviling opinions of India and Indians.

Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion

Cowan, D. E. — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:05:07 PDT