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Det 24. Nordiska Ikonografiska Symposiet
Get PDFRapport från det 24. nordiska ikonografiska symposiet som avhölls i Birgittaklostret i Tallinn den 28–31 augusti 2014. Temat för symposiet var ”Att presentera sig själv. Visuella manifestationer av donatorer, ägare och konstnärer under medeltid och efterreformatorisk tid”. Innehåller en lista med föredrag och föredragshållare.De nordiska ikonografiska symposierna arrangeras sedan 1968 vartannat år av de nordiska länderna enligt ett rullande schema
Ritualistics: a New Discipline in the History of Religions
No full textThe history of Religions is in need of subdisciplines. Those that it has are mostly derived from other academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, or, to mention a more recent invention, aesthetics. Interdisciplinary studies are in many ways a characteristic, inherent feature of the humanities, and certainly not to be resented or mistrusted. It is, however, worth noticing that the History of Religions has only one discipline entirely of its own: a comparative, cross-cultural, religio-specific discipline sometimes called the phenomenology of religion. The study of ritual is more than just the study of a very broad. It is with a view to the further exploration of the way meaning and form are put to work in ritual, and the way ritual determines and conditions the form of representations, that ritualistics can be suggested as a new discipline
Rereading Finno-Ugrian religion from a gender point of view
No full textThe male "normal subject" underlying the prior religious descriptions has been constructed in two intertwining processes. Firstly, the scholar, by focusing on men's ideas and practices in the culture he has studied, has created concepts, models and a classificatory system forreligious phenomena, which tends to exclude and distort the phenomena which are based on women's perhaps differing ideas and practices. Secondly, these ideas and practices have been filtered through the male scholar's frame of reference. His ethnocentrism and preconceived ideas as well as the tendency to view his object of study in hierarchical terms has coloured the phenomena studied as well as his overall religious constructs. The challenge of the gender perspective on religious studies is to deconstruct the male normal subject and to elaborate more nuanced and comprehensive models and classificatory systems which also would encompass women's religious ideas and practices. The author illustrates the issue at hand by analysing the overviews in some central handbooks and entries in encyclopaedias on the Finno-Ugrian religions as well as the central monographs in the series Suomen suvun uskonnot (The Religions of the Finnic Peoples) on which these overviews are largely based
Negotiating reproduction: religion, gender and sexuality in political conflicts
No full textIn this article the author discusses the role of ethics and religion in the context of the current political debate on assisted reproduction in Finland. There is reason to ask why the issues of family structures, gender roles and sexuality cause conflict situations in politics and society. How should we understand the nature of political conflicts concerning family, gender and sexuality? For a proper understanding of these conflicts, we need a nuanced analysis of the role of ethics and religion in political debates in a secular European culture. In this article the author focuses on two examples drawn from Finnish discussions of assisted reproduction. The first example comes from recent parliamentary discussion of assisted reproduction, and the second example from how the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland has reflected on the same issue
Hungry women: sin and rebellion through food and music in the early modern era
No full textLonging for food has always had different implications for men and women: associated with power and strength for men, it tends to have a worrying proximity to sexual pleasure for women. Showing an interesting parallelism throughout the Cinquecento, Italian humanists and teachers insisted on forbidding women music and gluttony. Food and music were both considered dangerous stimulants for the female senses, and every woman was encouraged to consider herself as a kind of food to be offered to the only human beings authorized to feel and satisfy desires: men and babies. Women could properly express themselves only inside monastic circles: the most prolific female composer of the seventeenth century was a nun, as was the first woman who wrote down recipes. Elaborate music and food became the means to maintain a lively relationship with the external world. Moreover, nuns also escaped male control by using the opposite system of affirming themselves through fasting and mortifying the flesh
The drum in Shamanism: some reflections
No full textShamanism has not been restricted to northern Eurasia and the American Arctic, although it was here that it received its most remarkable forms. It is thus central to consider whether the drum is an integrative part of shamanism and should be examined against a general, and not a regional background. It is important to distinguish Arctic shamanism from other forms of shamanism. Arctic shamanism has a stronger profile than other varieties of shamanism, partly because of its intensity, accentuated to a certain extent by the harsh climate and environment, but also explained by the remarkable position of the shaman in an otherwise unstratified social structure. In the great variety of shamanic forms which exist south of the Arctic Subarctic zone, the drum, with a few exceptions, does not have such a prominent role. The position of the drum in other areas south of the Arctic obviously depends upon the position of shamanism. It is known that the drum is an ancient shamanic symbol in hunting culture, and where horticulture and agriculture supplanted old hunting cultures, shamanism gradually retreated. Priests and cult servants replaced shamans and the way for the trance was no longer necessary. In later shamanism outside the Arctic area the drum has gradually lost its significance
The video Three Things About Islam: Islamophobia online or a religious dialogue?
No full textSome scholars view the internet as a place of democracy, where free speech leads to sincere dialogue. Others see it as a place which, instead of endorsing dialogue, actually promotes the offline social order and creates even more animosity between different groups. This paper explores the option of online dialogue in the media of YouTube. It is done so by addressing the rather heated issue of Islamophobia, through the case study of a YouTube video titled Three Things About Islam.The ideology behind the video seems to support the notion of Islam as a threat and its presentation of Islam is closed-minded and tends to generalize. In this case the participatory culture of the media in which the video was presented, YouTube, created a dialogue between anti-Islamists and supporters of Islam. This dialogue, like many dialogues, might not change the opinions of either side, but the mere fact that the online sphere embraces and promotes religious dialogue is an important phenomenon
Ecstasy and vision
No full textIn this paper we shall present some observations on the role played by ecstasy in the activity of the seer, as he emerges in ancient Jewish and Iranian texts. In the Jewish religious literature of the Hellenistic-Roman period, visions are described on almost every page, and visions were the most important means of divine revelation. Specific techniques for inducing the ecstatic state are not recorded in the Jewish sources. Some elements in the pattern leading up to the vision may be interpreted as parts of a method for inducing the final ecstasy; i.e. fasting and prayer. The Iranian material shows clearly the importance of ecstasy in the activity of the seer. The ecstatic seeing also means that the visionary shares with Ahura Mazda a divine quality, the "wisdom of omniscience". The granting of the "wisdom of omniscience" appears as a temporary and it conveys to the visionary a supernatural seeing. There is evidence to suggest that chanting was an important method of inducing ecstasy within the early Zoroastrian community. We do not find in the Jewish material a clear correspondence to the Iranian notion of "omniscient wisdom"
The change of religion and the names
No full textWhat actually happened at the time when Denmark was christianized? An important viewpoint to the topic is the nomenclature, both personal names and place-names. What happened to these in the missionary period? Can they be exploited as evidence about the change of religion? What happened to these and to the naming practices in connection with the introduction of Christianity? These questions are relevant, because several pre-Christian cultic words entered into the personal nomenclature which the Christian mission found in use on its arrival. The fate of the nomenclature in the period does suggest that the change in religion took place reasonably peacefully and gradually. There are, however, certain features about the place-names suggesting that there were local differences in the conduct of the mission