| 1. |
- Gasi, Ask
(författare)
-
Melamisufism i Bosnien : en dold gemenskap
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation focuses on Melami history in Bosnia with emphasis on the 20th century. The well-known Melami master Hajrullah Abdurahmanovic (d. 1965) in this study becomes an exponent for changes in the political and social role of religion in course of the 20th century. The purpose of this research is to describe and analyze the theology of the Melami movement in the environments created by sufi and other traditions. Melami sufism in Bosnia is part of the social and historical context, and its development is intimately connected with the occurrences and changes that have taken place in the society. The texts created, the language used and the manner in which information and knowledge are conveyed, are thus related to social conditions, even though the informants speaking or writing about persons they have known, or events they have experienced, are dependent on time and space, and their statements and memories are influenced by changes in their environment. By presenting Melami sufism in Bosnia from the viewpoint of individual persons and small groups the object of the thesis is to present a micro history of Islam and sufism in the Balkans from the beginning of the 20th century up to and during the Communist period. The thesis includes the text of Risalei-salihijja in a Swedish translation, a selection of letters by Hajrullah Abdurahmanovic, as well the contents of his prayer mantle (vird). Globalization, increased mobility and migration caused by various upheavals have resulted in the presence of Melamet and its adherents in Sweden.
|
|
| 2. |
- Lund, Martin
(författare)
-
Rethinking the Jewish-Comics Connection
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Popular Abstract in English The publication of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000) brought the Jewish–comics connection to popular attention. The novel illuminated the fact that many of the pioneers of American mainstream comics were Jewish. Owing to this history, and to the fact that there today exists a large and growing library of self-consciously Jewish comic books and graphic novels, much has been written about the meaning of the connection. Engaging in a critical dialogue with extant writing on the subject, this thesis argues that much of the popular and scholarly writing on the subject of Jews and comics is historical in the sense that it is a product of its own time, rather than in the sense that it critically investigates the past. Rethinking the Jewish¬–Comics Connection presents three studies of commonly cited mainstream comics texts written by Jewish Americans: the character Superman from his first appearance in June 1938 until America’s entry in the Second World War in December 1941; comics writer, artist, and advocate Will Eisner’s The Spirit (1940–1952) and long-form comics (1978–2005); and the first and second series of X-Men comic books (1963–1970 and 1975–1991). Situating these texts in their respective contexts and offering alternative interpretations, the thesis suggests that the historical Jewish–comics connection most clearly emerges as an expression of what it meant, for the writers, to be Jewish Americans in relation to their own time.
|
|
| 3. |
- Lund, Martin
(författare)
-
Rethinking the Jewish–Comics Connection
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a study of configurations of identity in American mainstream comics. It focuses on how a small number of writers of Jewish descent have expressed or disciplined their Jewishness in relation to their creations. In an attempt to revise common linear narratives, the thesis presents three case studies of famous and influential comics texts with different primary foci: a chapter on Superman asks how characterization was used to configure identity in relation to contemporary society; a chapter on Will Eisner asks how identity was configured and reconfigured in the creator’s work and self-representation; and a chapter on the X-Men asks how identity was configured and reconfigured with reference to the series’ central trope, mutantcy. The aim of these studies is to investigate how Jewishness and Americanness, as well as other subject positions that implicitly affect how people think and write, can intersect or converge in mass culture representation. In doing this, the thesis also engages in a critical dialogue with extant writing on the subject of Jews and comics. The chosen texts are analyzed using a methodology based on theories of representation and on the basis of a social constructivist paradigm of identity and identity formation. From this perspective, it is first argued that the early Superman, rather than being a Moses or golem figure as others have suggested, reverberated with a contemporary Jewish American project to construct a Jewish American heritage and to represent Jewish interests as aligned with national interests. The second chapter argues that Will Eisner’s The Spirit was configured in similar ways, but also that its use of blackface stereotypes constituted race talk, or denigration of African Americans as a means of entry into majority culture. The second half of the chapter argues that Eisner’s use of Jewish significations in his later career was not ethnography but a claim to authenticity, in support of an attempt to “whiten” the comics medium and bring it into the mainstream of American culture. The third chapter suggests that rather than having initially been racial allegory, the X-Men was a product of the Cold War, and that when civil rights discourse began to enter the series, it did so in a way that was common to liberal Jewish rights activism. It is then argued that the increased prominence of themes of prejudice and oppression in the second series was not directly intended to metaphorize Jewishness, as has been claimed, but to construct an open sign of outsiderhood for any reader to inhabit. Finally, it is argued that the reimagining of one the series’ oldest characters as a Holocaust survivor was connected with the writer’s Jewishness, but that this expression of ethnic identity was subsumed under an Americanizing representational logic. The concluding chapter argues that the popular literature on Jews and comics is best situated within a framework of present-day Jewish American identity formation, and that it constructs myths of a Jewish–comics connection to bolster contemporary Jewishness. In doing so, it is argued, the books employ common contemporary Jewish American themes and symbols to reshape the past of American comics in a way fitting current Jewish American concerns. The chapter then turns to methodological problems stemming from the use of these books in academic writing. This use, along with other issues that have become visible during the production of the thesis, is argued to be potentially detrimental to the study of Jews and comics, and to comics studies in general. Finally, after a summation of the thesis’ findings, it is suggested that the historical Jewish–comics connection, rather than being one of surreptitious symbolic or metaphorical reproduction of elements from religious or historical Jewish traditions, is perhaps instead best understood as an existential connection that emerged from the writers’ individual attempts to navigate the ways Judaism and Americanism hailed them and exerted social pressures.
|
|
| 4. |
- Markussen, Hege
(författare)
-
Teaching History, Learning Piety : an Alevi Foundation in Contemporary Turkey
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract in UndeterminedIn Turkey, a considerable number of Alevi foundations and associations work intensively with promoting Alevi visibility and rights in Turkish society. Locally, they offer educational activities where Alevis can learn, practice and reflect on their religion and culture. Based on fieldwork in one Alevi foundation in present day Istanbul, this book explores ways in which knowledge of Alevi religion and culture is produced and disseminated in Turkey. In this foundation, knowledge of various aspects of Alevism was systematized, taught and learned in rituals and lectures, bringing together Alevis from various backgrounds in a collective understanding of history, religion and culture. This book underscores the importance of historiography in definitions of Alevism, as well as in individual Alevi strategies for cultivating piety.Popular Abstract in UndeterminedIn Turkey, a considerable number of Alevi foundations and associations work intensively with promoting Alevi visibility and rights in Turkish society. Locally, they offer educational activities where Alevis can learn, practice and reflect on their religion and culture. Based on fieldwork in one Alevi foundation in present day Istanbul, this book explores ways in which knowledge of Alevi religion and culture is produced and disseminated in Turkey. In this foundation, knowledge of various aspects of Alevism was systematized, taught and learned in rituals and lectures, bringing together Alevis from various backgrounds in a collective understanding of history, religion and culture. This book underscores the importance of historiography in definitions of Alevism, as well as in individual Alevi strategies for cultivating piety.
|
|
| 5. |
- Nilsen, Marte
(författare)
-
Negotiating Thainess : Religious and National Identities in Thailand's Southern Conflict
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this study is to investigate how people express religious and national identities in the conflict-ridden Patani region of southern Thailand. In a historical framework of disputes over territory and political legitimacy, where identities have developed in response to an emerging Thai nation, it is of relevance to understand the dynamics of these identities and to disclose how local people perceive themselves, their communities and society at large. While the key to ending the violence in the Patani region will likely be found in negotiations between insurgent groups and the Thai state, the prospects for a lasting peace will also depend on the degree to which such political solutions take the local population into consideration. A history of repressive policies aimed at undermining Malay Muslim culture and attempts to impose the ideology of Thainess upon the region have left the Thai state without legitimacy in the eyes of the Malay Muslim majority. As such, ethnicity and religion have become major sources of dissonance between the Thai state and the local population. Exploring local interethnic relations and attitudes towards Thainess and Thai nation-building is thus of great significance when it comes to comprehending the fundamental conflict lines in the region. Using anthropological fieldwork, this dissertation aims to detect how the concepts of religion and nation define and shape identity in the Patani region among Malay Muslims and Thai Buddhists. It seeks to identify what resonance there is for national and local discourses of religion and nation in the local population, how people are influenced by these discourses and how they redefine them. The findings show that both Malay Muslims and Thai Buddhists have developed multiple identities that tend to shift depending on situation and context. A primary objective of this study is thus to explore why these multiple identities have developed, how they are expressed in daily life and what impact they have on interethnic relations and interpretations of the southern Thai conflict.
|
|
| 6. |
- Trulsson, Åsa
(författare)
-
Cultivating the Sacred : Ritual Creativity and Practice among Women in Contemporary Europe
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Ritual creativity may seem like a contradiction in terms, yet the religious landscape in contemporary Euro-America is permeate with experimentation of ritual forms, different modalities of action, imagination and play as routes to authenticity. The present study examines different settings in Europe involved in such ritual creativity, which would commonly be classified as postmodern spirituality, new age or Paganism. However, rather than striving for classification and synthesis, it is argued that the amorphous character of much contemporary spirituality, can provide analytical benefits when theorising lived religious practice. The study provides a critical remark to the text-driven approaches prevalent in previous research, and advocates that contemporary spirituality should be localised in the realm of practice, drawing theories of embodiment. Consequently, rather than a fully-fledged worldview outside of individuals and groups, the sacred is continuously cultivated by a series of practices, most notably ritualised practice. The settings presented are conceptualised as interrelated ritual fields. They are also sites where the body is trained and spiritual dispositions are formed that alter the participants' mode of being in the world. We are hence concerned with a conscious habituation achieved through disciplining practice, somatic modes of attention as well as framing and reflection. The study examines features in this process, including use of history, negotiations of power, ritualisation, and global intersections. Moreover, each field highlights different aspects of contemporary ritualising, such as the performance of gender, the sensuous aspects of music and dance, the movements and relationship to the landscape and the divine. The study is grounded in fieldwork, informed by dialogical and participatory modes of research that acknowledges the entangled nature of the scholar and other participants in the field. It is also an example of so-called multi-sited fieldwork, which is increasingly requested to capture the de-territorialised aspects of much of contemporary religious life.
|
|
