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Dangerous memory in Nagasaki : prayers, protests and Catholic survivor narratives
\"On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In this collective biography, nine Catholic survivors share personal and compelling stories about the aftermath of the bomb and their lives since that day. Examining the Catholic community's interpretation of the A-bomb, this book not only uses memory to provide a greater understanding of the destruction of the bombing, but also links it to the past experiences of religious persecution, drawing comparisons with the 'Secret Christian' groups which survived in the Japanese countryside after the banning of Christianity. Through in-depth interviews, it emerges that the memory of the atomic bomb is viewed through the lens of a community which had experienced suffering and marginalisation for more than 400 years. Furthermore, it argues that their dangerous memory confronts Euro-American-centric narratives of the atomic bombings, whilst also challenging assumptions around a providential bomb. Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki presents the voices of Catholics, many of whom have not spoken of their losses within the framework of their faith before. As such, it will be invaluable to students and scholars of Japanese history, religion and war history\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
History and Religion
This volume is the first systematic scholarly study that analyses the complex relationship between history and religion. It considers religious groups as both producers of historical narratives and topics of historiography. From different disciplinary perspectives, the authors explore how religions are historicised. In so doing, they address the biases and elisions of current analytical and descriptive frames in the history of religion.
eBook
The Emergence of Religious Narrative
This article examines the conceptual connections between simpler and more complex forms of religiosity, focusing on the transition from ritual-based practices to religious narratives and theological reflection. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s method of perspicuous representation (übersichtliche Darstellung), the authors propose a series of models that illuminate this spectrum. These models demonstrate how religious narratives achieve autonomy of a sort that challenges reductionist interpretations. Rituals, initially guided by primitive reactions, become structured through linguistic conceptualisation and are woven into cohesive narratives that, in turn, serve as internal justifications for ritual practices, creating a linguistic space that encourages reflection. The article contends that theological reflection emerges when narratives encounter discrepancies—whether from external challenges or internal inconsistencies—prompting a systematic re-evaluation of beliefs. By critiquing Wittgenstein’s own reductionist tendencies, along with the “Wittgensteinian fideism” that emerged in its wake, the authors seek to emphasise the importance of recognising disputes within and between religious narratives as being integral to human life.
Journal Article
A Tale of Wonders in Performance: The Precious Scroll of Wang Hua in the Storytelling Tradition of Changshu, Jiangsu, China
Baojuan (precious scrolls) are a type of prosimetric literature in the vernacular language that flourished in the lower Yangzi valley between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most baojuan texts are devoted to religious themes, often involving wondrous figures and events which can be characterized as “supernatural”. The Precious Scroll of Wang Hua (Wang Hua baojuan 王花寶卷) is a comparatively late text centered on the marvelous apparitions leading to the salvation of a lay person. It is a widespread text of the southern “scroll recitation” tradition as it survives in Changshu, Jiangsu, but to date, it has not received attention from scholars of Chinese popular literature and religion. Still, it is important for understanding the origins, development, and functions of precious scrolls and their contribution to the field of Chinese popular religion. The original text of the Precious Scroll of Wang Hua formed ca. end of the nineteenth century, but the present research mainly uses the manuscript version of a modern performer from the vicinity of Changshu (ca. 1995). This narrative combines two major topics of the wondrous manifestation of Bodhisattva Guanyin and the descent to Hell. Both topics can be traced back to the early “miracle tales”. Here, they have been adapted to the local life and cultural setting. The figure of the skeptical and egoistic Wang Hua who initially rejected the injunctions of Guanyin is a type well known to the modern audiences of baojuan. Thus, the supernatural elements serve the purpose of reconfirming traditional beliefs and values in the contemporary society.
Journal Article
Solvent Transfer and the Reimagining of Hell: Religious Narrative in Rauschenberg’s Inferno Series
In an era of accelerating secularization, art serves as a vital mediator for non-institutional forms of spirituality. This article examines Robert Rauschenberg’s Inferno series (1958–1960) as a case study of how modern art reconfigures religious narratives to engage with humanity’s “ultimate concerns.” Through his solvent transfer technique, Rauschenberg dismantles Dante’s theological structure and reconfigures it into a fragmented, participatory experience of spirituality. The argument develops in two parts. First, it demonstrates how Rauschenberg secularizes sacred imagery to portray modern social realities as a “contemporary inferno” marked by systemic violence and commodified desire. Second, it theorizes that the materiality of solvent transfer—its blurring, erasure, and contingent traces—creates what may be called “material spirituality,” a sacred presence perceived through absence and indexical trace. Within this reconfigured structure, spectatorship itself takes on a ritualistic character. When confronted with fragmented and unstable imagery, viewers engage in active, contemplative practice, transforming the act of viewing into a secular ritual of attentiveness. Thus, Rauschenberg’s Inferno radically redefines the religious function of art—not as redemption, but as the cultivation of fragile yet enduring forms of spirituality within the estrangement of modern life.
Journal Article
The Sacramental Approach to the Sacred in Thomistic Perspective
The main challenge of theology is the adequate manner of the transmission of what is sacred and belongs to the transcendent order by means of appropriate categories of immanent religious language. In history, there was a debate between the univocal and equivocal approach, but the main Christian rules of telling about the sacred were shaped by Thomas Aquinas, who proposed analogy as a fundamental tool: in the middle of similarity there is still great dissimilarity. From this perspective, the world is seen as sacramental, so all material reality refers to something more and further. In this way, the sacred has a transitory character. Nowadays, however, the naturalistic narrative dominates among many theories of the sacred. This paper will begin by dealing with several types of theological narrations about the sacred in Christian theology (metaphysical and historical, mediating and representative, etc.). Then it will go into characterizing the Thomistic storytelling and its hermeneutical rules. Finally, it will consider the role of imagination in transmitting the sacred (Chesterton, Lewis, McGrath) and how the new perception of the sacred—so visible in pilgrimages such as Camino de Santiago—can be integrated in a new thinking about the city of the future.
Journal Article
Relocating the Prophet’s Image: Narrative Motifs and Local Appropriation of the Zarathustra Legend in Pre- and Early Islamic Iran (Part II - North-West Iran)
From the very beginning of Iranian disciplinary studies, the material concerning Zarathustra’s biography has been analysed in depth, firstly to identify the homeland of the Prophet and then to discuss the historical reality of this authoritative figure. Despite the divergences of opinion, emphasis has always been placed on the reconstruction of the figure of Zarathustra and much less on the socio-cultural context in which the image of the Prophet was cultivated. The present paper represents the second part of a larger work (see Terribili 2020) that aims to reverse this perspective and emphasize those data, which link up narrative variations and extensions with local identities. In fact, variations in geographical setting reveal processes of acculturation through which social groups reinvented the influential image of the Prophet within a familiar horizon. In this respect, the Sasanian period proved pivotal in the formation of both Zoroastrian and Iranian communal identities. In the wake of the first work, this second paper approaches aspects connected to the North-West Iran and Ādurbādagān tradition.
Journal Article
Relocating the Prophet’s Image: Narrative Motifs and Local Appropriation of the Zarathustra Legend in Pre- and Early Islamic Iran (Part I – East Iran)
From the very beginning of Iranian disciplinary studies, the material concerning Zarathustra’s biography has been analysed in depth, firstly to identify the homeland of the Prophet and then to discuss the historical reality of this authoritative figure. Despite the divergences of opinion, emphasis has always been placed on the reconstruction of the figure of Zarathustra and much less on the socio-cultural context in which the image of the Prophet was cultivated. The present paper represents the first part of a larger work that aims to reverse this perspective and emphasise those data, which link up narrative variations and extensions with local identities. In fact, variations in geographical setting reveal processes of acculturation through which social groups reinvented the influential image of the Prophet within a familiar horizon. In this respect, the Sasanian period proved pivotal in the formation of both Zoroastrian and Iranian communal identities, while this first work will analyses aspects connected to East Iran and the Khorāsān tradition.
Journal Article