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"Human body Religious aspects."
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Thorns in the Flesh
The literature of late ancient Christianity is rich both in saints who lead lives of almost Edenic health and in saints who court and endure horrifying diseases. In such narratives, health and illness might signify the sanctity of the ascetic, or invite consideration of a broader theology of illness. In Thorns in the Flesh, Andrew Crislip draws on a wide range of texts from the fourth through sixth centuries that reflect persistent and contentious attempts to make sense of the illness of the ostensibly holy. These sources include Lives of Antony, Paul, Pachomius, and others; theological treatises by Basil of Caesarea and Evagrius of Pontus; and collections of correspondence from the period such as the Letters of Barsanuphius and John.Through close readings of these texts, Crislip shows how late ancient Christians complicated and critiqued hagiographical commonplaces and radically reinterpreted illness as a valuable mode for spiritual and ascetic practice. Illness need not point to sin or failure, he demonstrates, but might serve in itself as a potent form of spiritual practice that surpasses even the most strenuous of ascetic labors and opens up the sufferer to a more direct knowledge of the self and the divine. Crislip provides a fresh and nuanced look at the contentious and dynamic theology of illness that emerged in and around the ascetic and monastic cultures of the later Roman world.
eBook
This is my body
The recipient of the annual Award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, This Is My Body realigns representational practices in the early Middle Ages with current debates on the nature of representation. Michal Kobialkai's study views the medieval concept of representation as having been in flux and crossed by different modes of seeing, until it was stabilized by the constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Kobialka argues that the concept of representation in the early Middle Ages had little to do with the tradition that considers representation in terms of Aristotle or Plato; rather, it was enshrined in the interpretation of Hoc est corpus meum [This is my body]—the words spoken by Christ to the apostles at the Last Supper—and in establishing the visibility of the body of Christ that had disappeared from view.
eBook
Natural symbols: explorations in cosmology
Every natural symbol - derived from blood, breath or excrement - carries a social meaning and this work focuses on the ways in which any one culture makes its selections from body symbolism. Each person treats their body as an image of society and the author examines the varieties of ritual and symbolic expression and the patterns of social ritual in which they are embodied.Natural Symbols is a book about religion and it concerns our own society at least as much as any other. It has stimulated new insights into religious and political movements and has provoked re-appraisals of current progressive orthodoxies in many fields. As a classic, it represents a work of anthropology in its widest sense, exploring themes such as the social meaning of natural symbols and the image of the body in society which are now very much in vogue in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies.In this reissue and with a new Introduction, Natural Symbols will continue to appeal to all students of anthropology, sociology and religion.
eBook
Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought
Black theology tends to be a theology about no-body. Though one might assume that black and womanist theology have already given significant attention to the nature and meaning of black bodies as a theological issue, this inquiry has primarily taken the form of a focus on issues relating to liberation, treating the body in abstract terms rather than focusing on the experiencing of a material, fleshy reality. By focusing on the body as a physical entity and not just a metaphorical one, Pinn offers a new approach to theological thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.According to Pinn, the body is of profound theological importance. In this first text on black theology to take embodiment as its starting point and its goal, Pinn interrogates the traditional source materials for black theology, such as spirituals and slave narratives, seeking to link them to materials such as photography that highlight the theological importance of the body. Employing a multidisciplinary approach spanning from the sociology of the body and philosophy to anthropology and art history, Embodiment and the New Shape of Black Theological Thought pushes black theology to the next level.
eBook
Taoism and self knowledge : the chart for the cultivation of perfection (Xiuzhen tu)
\"Catherine Despeux's book is a study of the Internal Alchemical text \"Chart for the Cultivation of Perfection.\" It begins with an analysis of pictographic and symbolic representation of the body in early Taoism after which the author examines different extant versions of the \"Chart\" as it was transmitted among Quanzhen groups in the Qing dynasty. The book is comprised of four main parts: the principal parts of the body and their nomenclature in Internal Alchemy, the spirits in the human body, and the alchemical processes and procedures used in thunder rituals and self-cultivation. This is a revised, expanded edition of the original French edition Taoïsme et connaissance de soi. La carte de la culture de la perfection (Xiuzhen tu) Paris, 2012\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Pygmalion’s Power
Pushed to the height of its illusionistic powers during the
first centuries of the Roman Empire, sculpture was largely
abandoned with the ascendancy of Christianity, as the apparent
animation of the material image and practices associated with
sculpture were considered both superstitious and idolatrous. In
Pygmalion's Power , Thomas E. A. Dale argues that the
reintroduction of architectural sculpture after a hiatus of some
seven hundred years arose with the particular goal of engaging the
senses in a Christian religious experience.
Since the term \"Romanesque\" was coined in the nineteenth
century, the reintroduction of stone sculpture around the
mid-eleventh century has been explained as a revivalist phenomenon,
one predicated on the desire to claim the authority of ancient
Rome. In this study, Dale proposes an alternative theory. Covering
a broad range of sculpture types-including autonomous cult statuary
in wood and metal, funerary sculpture, architectural sculpture, and
portraiture-Dale shows how the revitalized art form was part of a
broader shift in emphasis toward spiritual embodiment and affective
piety during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Adding fresh insight to scholarship on the Romanesque,
Pygmalion's Power borrows from trends in cultural
anthropology to demonstrate the power and potential of these
sculptures to produce emotional effects that made them an important
sensory part of the religious culture of the era.
eBook