Civic Religion Research Articles

Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern France, 1798–1831 by Ian Coller

training, Carrithers notes additional points. Charles XII of Sweden and Cromwell in England show that great people can change events and redirect the course of history. The accidents of history may produce surprising results. History is also at the root of Montesquieu’s religious beliefs, according to Oake. Montesquieu admired the civic religion of the early Romans, and he saw religion as a social activity with utilitarian dimensions. Thus, Schaub maintains, Montesquieu favored toleration. However, state tolerance of all religions was less problematic than mutual tolerance by different religions. According to Grimsley, Montesquieu believed that reason could justify the toleration of any socially useful religion, although he also accepted non-rational arguments. Above all, people must avoid gross superstition and fanaticism. All the articles in the volume are written in English, although some may use quotations in French. They are reproduced as they originally appeared in the journals . Thus one sees a variety of printing styles and notes. An impressive, cumulative bibliography is included at the end of the introduction. While these articles are available in the original journals and many of them electronically, the collection provides an invaluable tool to the researcher, who can immediately find a wealth of information from noted scholars in one place. The cost may be prohibitive to individuals, but libraries and specialists would do well to invest in this book. The volume makes an important contribution to Montesquieu studies. Chestnut Hill College (PA) Mary Helen Kashuba COLLER, IAN. Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern France, 1798–1831. Berkeley: UP of California, 2011. ISBN 978-0-520-2606-58. Pp. 304. $24.95. Ian Coller’s Arab France is an historical study of the first sizable influx of “Orientals” into France in 1801 following Napoleon’s ill-fated Egyptian campaign. The diversity of this group of some seven hundred men plus a small number of women and children made up of Coptic Christians, Egyptian Muslims, Syrian Melchites, Greeks, Sudanese, and Palestinians is underscored by the author in an attempt to resurrect from a lost history the pluralistic past that existed in France at the very time it was transforming itself into an imperialistic nation. Although the title seems to attribute an explicit role to the Islamic religion among this early group of Arab immigrants, in fact, what linked this group of “Égyptiens,” as they were called, was almost exclusively the Arabic language. The word “Islam” in the title is misleading and refers not to the religion but to the Islamic world—or the “Islamicate”—from which these “émigrés” came. These Arab populations left few or no written accounts or records of their life in exile in France, which is why the author sought to determine what life was like for these refugees, post 1801, through their personal correspondence; official letters written to different ministries, notably the Bureau of Pensions, imploring their due as former soldiers in Napoleon’s Grande Armée; and other unofficial documents. This Arab community, which Coller terms “Arab France,” was linked by ties of mutual interest, family, friendship, and cultural practices. A social network developed between the large community of “Égyptiens” in Marseille, through the Arab military population stationed in the “caserne” at Melun, to an Arab intellectual elite in Paris. These early Arabs in France, even those in Paris, seem to have left no descriptions of their community or of their lifestyles in their Reviews 571 land of adoption. Moreover, there are no written reactions to or accounts of their presence by French writers of the time, in particular of the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the period of the birth of modern Orientalism and of romantic exoticism as witnessed in the works of Delacroix, Géricault, Hugo, and others. Things changed for the Arab population in France at the end of the Empire. The notions of “Égyptien” and “Oriental” became equated to “foreigner” and caused them to be targeted and made unwelcome during the Restoration period. The backdrop of Coller’s work can be defined as the Orientalism made famous by Edward Said, whose theories he engages yet goes beyond in his attempt to find an authentic, personal voice for the early “Orientals” in...

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu ed. by David Carrithers

la passionnante histoire du pantalon jusque dans les pays anglo-saxons d’où proviennent des forces et des influences non-négligeables. Notons, entre autres, celles de l’Américaine Amelia Bloomer qui a donné son nom à un modèle de pantalon , ou des groupes religieux ou hygiénistes qui luttent contre l’emprise “satanique ” (117) de la mode, car “the laws of Health come from God, the laws of Fashion from Paris” (110). Tout en révélant aux lecteurs l’étonnante histoire d’un vêtement aujourd’hui si ordinaire, Bard les emporte dans une prodigieuse exp édition dans le temps et l’espace, où les plus curieux découvriront de nouvelles pistes à explorer. Auburn University (AL) Samia I. Spencer CARRITHERS, DAVID, ed. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7546-2701-2. Pp. 584. $325. This sizeable volume consists of twenty-eight articles on Montesquieu published in scholarly journals mainly during the second half of the twentieth century . The first section addresses Montesquieu’s major works, Les lettres persanes, Grandeur et décadence des Romains, and L’esprit des lois. The different types of government , namely, republic, monarchy, and despotism, follow. Finally, topics related to England, notably the separation of powers, and then Religion, Commerce and Economics, and Philosophy of History complete the volume. The editor, David Carrithers, a Montesquieu specialist, opens the volume with a detailed introduction. Here he summarizes Montesquieu’s major works and interprets them. He frequently cites the articles contained in the volume to substantiate his claims. In discussing the various topics, he notes how recent scholarship has developed or deviated from previously held ideas. For example, Lowenthal and Keohane show that Montesquieu held high regard for a republic, whereas traditional scholarship considers monarchy as his preferred form of government . Carrithers also notes the value that Montesquieu placed on commerce, considering it an economic necessity in contrast to the agricultural state favored by other philosophes. Finally, he cites the reasons why Montesquieu’s works remain popular today, noting their timeless quality. Whereas Voltaire and others responded to events of their day, Montesquieu sought for the causes underlying laws and governments. This, added to his deep reflective spirit, ensures his permanence. Many articles address the story of the Troglodytes from The Persian Letters. Ranum states that Montesquieu’s life-long aim was to understand this parable and the reasons for the changes in states. Crisafulli sees the parable as a refutation of Hobbes, and an affirmation of Shaftesbury, since Montesquieu sees virtue as resulting essentially from moral-social instincts. In the section “Republics,” Keohane calls attention to the sequel, contained in an informal document entitled “Pensées.” Here Montesquieu enlarges his former concept to admit the possibility of a virtuous nation under wise political authority, at the same time enjoying commerce and the arts. Other authors note the effect of Montesquieu’s philosophy of history. Chinard sees it as fundamentally pessimistic, derived from a determinist perspective. This, he believes, occasioned the cool reception of L’esprit des lois from fellow philosophes, who professed the notion of perfectibility. While admitting a determinist current in Montesquieu, possibly due to his scientific 570 FRENCH REVIEW 85.3 training, Carrithers notes additional points. Charles XII of Sweden and Cromwell in England show that great people can change events and redirect the course of history. The accidents of history may produce surprising results. History is also at the root of Montesquieu’s religious beliefs, according to Oake. Montesquieu admired the civic religion of the early Romans, and he saw religion as a social activity with utilitarian dimensions. Thus, Schaub maintains, Montesquieu favored toleration. However, state tolerance of all religions was less problematic than mutual tolerance by different religions. According to Grimsley, Montesquieu believed that reason could justify the toleration of any socially useful religion, although he also accepted non-rational arguments. Above all, people must avoid gross superstition and fanaticism. All the articles in the volume are written in English, although some may use quotations in French. They are reproduced as they originally appeared in the journals . Thus one sees a variety of printing styles and notes. An impressive, cumulative bibliography is...

The " Devotio " of Sallust's Cotta

This article considers the speech assigned by Sallust in his Historiae to C. Aurelius Cotta, cos. 75 B.C.E. and argues that our reading of the speech must proceed from a consideration of the devotio which is its logical and emotional climax. Sallust constructs this devotio as an incomplete and therefore inherently problematic act. Cotta's inconsistent and self-contradictory rhetoric draws the reader's attention to the problematic status of this non-act. Moreover, Sallust has seized an opportunity to comment upon Cicero's De Natura Deorum , in which the very same Cotta appears as interlocutor. In literary dialogue with Cicero, we find a Sallustian perspective on the role of civic religion, sincerity, and patriotism in the late Republic.

Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530 (review)

Reviewed by: Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530 Matthew Sneider Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530. By David M. D’Andrea. [Changing Perspectives on Early Modern Europe, 5.] (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. 2007. Pp. xiv, 214. $75.00. ISBN 978-1-580-46239-6.) David M. D’Andrea’s impressive new book is a study of the Trevisan confraternity of Santa Maria dei Battuti. He traces the confraternity’s importance for the material and spiritual well-being of the city, but also sees it as an important element in Treviso’s civic religion—its fundamentally religious sense of its civic identity. Indeed, the most remarkable sections of his work use the confraternity as a key to understanding the complex relationship between Treviso and Venice. Santa Maria dei Battuti was the city’s preeminent lay religious organization, attracting members, donations, and the support of both church and commune. The confraternity was a devotional family: “brothers” and “sisters” were to live according to a code that fostered piety, were obliged to aid weaker members, and were required to remember the departed with funerals and Masses. The various charitable services that this family provided to the broader community are traced in two fascinating chapters. Its complex of buildings lay at the center of a network of giving that benefited some of the most vulnerable groups in Treviso: widows, foundlings, pilgrims, prisoners, and debtors. It also was the site of a large hospital that provided the poor with medical treatment, aided by the proximity of the medical school in Padua and the spice markets of Venice. D’Andrea suggests that after Treviso yielded its independence to Venice in 1344, the confraternity, at the center of public life, became even more important as a symbol of civic pride. Here was an institution whose liberties recalled the city’s vanished independence; here was a locus of power for a ruling class deprived of sovereignty; here was the source and the sign of divine favor. This “mini-commune” played an important role as a mediator between subject city and dominant city. A particularly fascinating section treats civic processions. These were rituals in which the confraternity “act[ed]” the “self-assertion” of the subject city but in cooperation with the dominant city: Venice defended the primacy of the Battuti in the processional life of Treviso while the confraternity processed in honor of ducal elections [End Page 583] and military victories. The author elegantly uses the processional banner of the confraternity to embody its role as mediator between the universal and the local, between center and periphery: The Virgin Mary appeared on both sides, accompanied on one side by Ss. Peter and Paul and on the other side by St. Mark (the patron saint of Venice) and St. Liberale (the patron saint of Treviso). D’Andrea’s analysis of the political importance of the confraternity reflects scholarship on the early-modern state that emphasizes the balance of cooperation and conflict that existed between center and periphery. Trevisans saw the confraternity as an embodiment of their city’s independent identity within the state while Venetians saw the good governance and the good works of the confraternity as a source of stability and divine favor for the state. It is the wedding of disparate themes—religious association and social welfare to state politics—which makes this book a fascinating contribution to confraternity studies. Matthew Sneider University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press

The return of religion

Religion is back in Philosophy as a respectable subject. Part 1 first charts what MacIntyre, Taylor and Derrida have meant in this regard. Subsequently, it turns to the Enlightenment to determine what constituted the breakthrough. It is found that even where the Enlightenment gave maximum room to religion i.e. as a civic religion and as “religion of the heart”) it still excluded a constitutive relation to a transcendent revelation. Part 2 centres on the religion-faith distinction in reformational philosophy. Similar to the Enlightenment, religion is understood as part of human nature. However, human nature itself is conceived as intrinsically religious and depending for its light on revelation. Secondly, “religion” in this context also encompasses idols and religious substitutes. Thus, it directs attention to shopping malls, football stadiums, health policy, et cetera, as possible contexts of a return of religion. Examples show that this has become a popular approach. However, most of the publications surveyed fail to distinguish between an “analogical” and a “pistically qualified” use of religion, and are open to exaggerations (the shopping mall and football stadiums as temples, etc.). At this junction, the relevance is shown of the religion-faith distinction as well as of Elaine Botha’s theory of metaphors. The epilogue offers an integration of parts one and two.

Travel and Religion in Antiquity ed. by Philip A. Harland (review)

Reviewed by: Travel and Religion in Antiquity ed. by Philip A. Harland Dietmar Neufeld Philip A. Harland , ed. Travel and Religion in Antiquity. Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme series 21 . Waterloo : Wilfrid Laurier University Press , 2011 . Pp. vi + 289 . CDN $85.00 . ISBN 9781554582228 . Religion and travel intersect in significant ways for a large proportion of our world populations. Personalized statuettes, amulets, sacred books, acts of piety, dress, and ritualized behaviours are part and parcel of what we pack into our suitcases as we move from place to place. The destabilizing strangeness of a new location is offset by the comforting familiarity of one’s religious orientation. Moreover, it is not uncommon for moderns to travel governed by specific motives in mind—hiking the Santiago de Compostela, making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and travelling to exotic locales for cross-cultural experiences. Poems, songs, confessions, and anecdotes recounting personal experiences of religion on the road are not uncommon. Like moderns, so also the ancients understood only too well the intersections between travel and religion. The fascinating chapters in Travel and Religion in Antiquity represent the lively debate and interaction of a seminar on the topic of religion and travel that began in 2005 under the auspices of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. The objectives of the book are clear. The programmatic introductory essay by Philip A. Harland sets the tone and agenda of the current volume, and despite its five-part structure, the book exhibits coherence in addressing the realities of travel and the many discourses of [End Page 404] travel in the religious lives of ancients. Indeed, the volume systematically considers the ways in which mobility intersected with the religious lives of the denizens of Rome. Given that the topic of travel is vast, one gets a sense of the parameters of the debate but also finds a fair degree of unanimity on the circumstances in people’s religious lives that were impacted by travel. Moreover, since travel and religion are multifaceted and complex social phenomena, depending on group, person, education, and social location, the volume exhibits a multidisciplinary approach to the topic. A clear sense emerges not only of the complex nature of the topic of mobility and religion but also of ways to deal with the topic methodologically and the outcome depending on perspectives. While the volume contains 5 distinct parts, 12 chapters, and 11 authors, there is a certain uniformity of style even though it is a collection of essays. As a whole, the volume reads well with few, if any, disjunctions in the manner of presentation. As Harland notes, the volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to promote the worth of a god or the pre-eminence of a way of life, including the spread of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign people and cultures; migration because of forced relocation, war, or the search for a better life; and travel to engage in work (5). Four chapters deal with honouring the gods while on the road. Steven Muir considers ancient evidence where home and civic religion continued to be experienced while on the road, albeit in different form. The gods offered protection, continued to recognize the pious devotee from back home, and continued to manifest themselves to the travellers through omens and theophany. Fixed sacrifices and portable shrines along the road guaranteed that devotees would not be abandoned or forgotten by the gods. Susan Haber explores concerns of purity related to Judeans and Galileans attending the festivals at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus along with followers and other pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem. She concludes that they would not have abandoned the rituals of maintaining purity. Jesus would have participated in the rite of purification, including ritual immersion and sprinkling with the waters of purification. Wayne O. McCready approaches the topic of pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to Elephantine in Egypt from the theoretical perspective of place—place is not simply physical location but represents a way of seeing, knowing, and understanding the world...

Religion in the Roman Empire by James B. Rives

PHOENIX Religion in the Roman Empire. By James B. Rives. Maiden, MA: Blackwell. 2007. Pp. x, 237, 11 illustrations, 4 maps. Merely conceptualizing a scholarly introduction to "religion" in the Roman empire poses quite a challenge to anyone familiar with recent work on the complexity of the subject. Wisely, this new introduction by James Rives, part of Blackwell's new series on ancient religions, undertakes this task as an experiment, less a "definitive account," but rather "a possible framework for thinking about" religion in the Roman empire which acknowledges the rich variety of evidence (2). The framework Rives suggests is based on the commonalities of religion across the heterogeneous mix in this era, a unity which he locates in a normatively understood idea of religion in the "social and conceptual world" of the empire (6). Chapter One, "Identifying 'Religion' in the Graeco-Roman World," begins to outline how different the religious was in a culture that did not have a commonly understood category of "a religion," with the associated coherence of religious practices and beliefs. While discussing in detail the variety of conceptions of the divine, as well as the multiple approaches or levels through which it could be addressed, Rives endorses a singular notion of religion in which context is key in the choice of any particular religious form. Including an admirable range of evidence, from inscriptions, through texts of various kinds, to visual remains, he goes on to discuss what he sees as the three key differences between this Roman imperial and modern, Western concepts of religion: first, the absence of belief in a singular doctrinal system in Rome; secondly, their vague association of any morality with religion; and, finally, the multiple and varied sources of religious authority. Of these, the last, "authority," may appear problematic, especially given that Rives tries to reconcile the republican tradition of civic religion with the notion of a religious marketplace in the empire, but he succeeds in delivering an excellent survey of the complexities involved in any such singular model of religious authority for this period. To approach religious diversity, Chapter Two, "Regional Religious Traditions of the Empire," turns to a geographically organized overview of the empire. From classical Greek polis religion to the local cults in Asia Minor, from the aniconic cults in ancient Syria to what came to be seen by the Romans as the particularly "Egyptian" and "African" gods, and "Celtic" and "Thracian" divinities, the survey offers the insight that an ancient traveler might have had of the local religious flavors on a journey around the empire. Rives is good at pointing out the veiy diversity of religious traditions even within Italy, and how such local elements may have been important in shaping Roman priestly colleges and divinatory practices. The chapter's concluding remarks, suggesting a dynamic tension between particularization and generalization, and between continuity and change, are especially well formulated (86-87). Chapter Three, "The Presence of the Gods," offers a detailed discussion of Rives's notion of Rome as a "world full of gods": gods in nature, gods at times of need, and gods in their myriad manifestations. A particular strength of this chapter is the way in which Rives juxtaposes "pagan" and Christian experiences of the divine, offering an important contextualization of early Christianity. This juxtaposition continues in Chapter Four, "Religion and Community," in which Rives addresses the communal experience of religion. Here, as the apostle Paul addresses the citizens of Ephesus, we see not only religious traditions and practices stirred up, but also civic pride, as well as the economic BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 201 interests of the city's craftsmen who live on selling cult paraphernalia. The same multiple, religious, social, and economic connections are observed in the organization of sacred space and in religious experience in general across various levels of community (the city, households, as well as voluntary associations, following a framework of Aristotle). With Chapter Five, "Religion and Empire," Rives moves to the less obvious connections among the various social and geographical divides that he has discussed earlier. The mobility of worshippers and of gods is neatly connected, and so are the multiple social and religious factors that might go into...

Vellamon kanssa ongelle – eli kuinka merenneitoa kansalliseksi kuvitellaan

This article addresses the discussions on Finnish nation-building. The author analyzes studies made around the folk poem Vellamon neidon onginta / Fishing of the Maiden Vellamo (a mermaid) and visual representations connected with the material. The author aims at looking into the ways in which the mermaid-motive is used in generating national imagery or feeding a national imagination. The Vellamo discourse consists of fifty texts published in 1883–2008. The author’s professional interest focuses on deconstructing intersections of cultural representations and nationalizing discourses: tracking the formation, reproduction and transmission of national narration. The analysis is carried out by contextualizing the material into multidisciplinary discourses derived both from the study of nationalism and the diverse cultural history of the mermaid. The analysis reveals how Vellamo has been engaged in the formation of national identity for both sexes and by researchers of both sexes. Interpreted as a historical document, the Vellamo-figure has been applied to create the prospective national history and civic religion. It has been employed both as an intellectual and emotional force to increase the national imagery and bonding to it. Mermaid Vellamo as a flexible hybrid creature has enriched the reservoir of national memory. Thus the article can also be read as a case study of the construction of national collective memory

Latent Meanings

This article re-examines the apparent divergence between the ostensibly pro-Roman orientation of Acts, and the lurid violence directed towards Rome in the Apocalypse. Going beyond the literal surface sense to explore the deeper meanings reveals in Acts a latent critique of Roman arrogance, epitomized by the cult of the emperor, and theomachy (fighting against God). Similarly, the Apocalypse should be read not as an attack on Rome itself, but on those who would compromise with the imperial cult and civic religion. Despite their obvious differences, these texts are united by their call to readers to fear God and keep his commandments.

The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity. By Guy G. Stroumsa

trans. By Emanuel, Susan . Pp. xviii, 136 , Chicago/London , The University of Chicago Press , 2009 , £22.50/$32.00. This book consists of expanded versions of four lectures given at the Collège de France in 2004 together with a paper on the transformation of the self in Late Antiquity. Strousma subscribes to a variant of Gilbert Murray and E. R. Dodds' thesis of a ‘failure of nerve’ based on increasing insecurity as ethnic and cultural identities collapsed as Hellenistic society moved into the Empire, and people looked to religion, redefined from a sacrificial quid pro quo reinforcing the civic collectivity to the search for a personal ‘salvation’ understood as union with the ‘One’, to take its place and fill the vacuum. In general, it was a step down, not a step up, but the fall of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE is an under-appreciated catalyst that made Rabbinic Judaism the laboratory for this revolutionary transformation in society as a whole. The Jews were forced to give up sacrifices and to reconfigure their religion, based now on study, prayer, fasting and charity; they functioned as forerunner and precedent for the change that Christianity would bring about when it became the official religion of the Empire, and animal sacrifices were interdicted to all religions in the late fourth century. Strouma dismisses René Girard's thesis of the ‘triangle of desire’, but the data he presents reinforces a view of Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity as mirror images of one another, both persecuted minorities, both subscribing to ‘bloodless sacrifices’, and rivals disputing the correct interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, with the ‘prize’ consisting in seizing the title of ‘true Israel’. Strousma underplays the extent (which Yuval among others has demonstrated) to which early Rabbinic Judaism, and the Mishnah in particular, developed not autonomously but with an eye constantly on developments in Christian theology and practice. The larger thesis, almost unspoken, is that Jewish exclusivism and monotheism prompted a love/hate reaction by Hellenistic society. Their exclusivism together with their rebelliousness made them unacceptable to the civic religion of the Romans; but then Hellenistic Jews themselves were exasperated and embarrassed by these traits, evidenced by the appearance of Greek first names, the occasional apostasy, and the planting of Hellenistic ‘diaspora’ synagogues even within Palestine before the fall of the Temple. Strousma acknowledges that pagan religion and Stoic-Platonic philosophy were functioning with an implicit monotheism that showed an openness and appreciation for this feature. All of society was pushing in this direction. In fact, one could claim that, after having ‘lost’ the war of independence in 70 CE, Judaism ‘conquered’ the Roman Empire ‘without firing a shot’ through the acceptance of its non-exclusive, non-legalistic offspring and variant, Christianity. This is a more adequate account for this transformation than a ‘failure of nerve’; this way, each side got what it wanted. Strousma fails to express exactly what constituted the difference of Christianity (and to a lesser extent, Judaism) from pagan religion. He speaks of ‘truth’ (in contrast to ‘myth’), but it is more precisely its insistence on historical-theological truth (as opposed to ‘philosophical’ truth) in claims about its founder that distinguished Christianity from the ‘myths’ of the pagan religions. Indeed, it was this disturbing insistence on the penetration of the divine into the physico-historical world in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus that for the first time made society conscious by contrast of its ‘myths’as myths, with connotations of anthropomorphism and poetic fancy that punctured their serene security with suggestions of inferiority and inadequacy. The first natural response was outrage. Christian witness through martyrdom (or ascesis in monasticism) was a not inappropriate response to this claim from the human side. Strousma frustrates the reader by doing less than full justice to data he himself presents.

The phenomenon of civil religion in comparative coverage

Modern globalization processes, which take Ukraine into its own circle, the peculiarity of socio-cultural shifts in our country, are an impetus both to the emergence of new problems in the socio-spiritual and socio-political life of society, and to their scientific, philosophical understanding. One of the issues that are increasingly beginning to bother the public and circles of scholars is the civil religion. This phenomenon is extremely complex, and perhaps that is why it is highly ambiguous among scientists and the general public. Some view civic religion as a rejection of the values ​​of the "traditional religion", while others view it as an attempt to "Americanize" our society. Instead, one sees in it one of the conditions of uniting a nation and maintaining civil peace. Meanwhile, the idea of ​​civic religion we find in the Constitution of Ukraine.

Civic religion as an ecumenical perspective

In the socio-political and religious studies, the hands of Ukraine for some reason are not accepted to write about the civil religion. Some people, in view of the actualization of this phenomenon, even seek to accuse the Branch of Religious Studies of the NASU of anti-denominational (sometimes even called specific religions or denominations) intentions. Some see this as a desire to find some kind of spiritual foundation for possible totalitarian regimes in our country. Meanwhile, building a civil society in Ukraine should be relevant not only to the study of civil religion, but also to the implementation of this phenomenon in the process of building a society with which it is directly correlated.

Civic religion as a means of solving problems of interfaith dialogue

Oddly enough, in Ukraine for some reason it is not customary to speak of a civil religion. Some people, in view of the actualization of this phenomenon, are trying to accuse the Branch of Religious Studies of IFU of anti-confessional (sometimes even called specific religions or denominations) intentions. Some see this as a desire to find some kind of spiritual basis for possible totalitarian regimes in our country. Meanwhile, building a civil society in Ukraine should be relevant not only to the study of civil religion, but also to the work on introducing this phenomenon into the process of building such a society with which it is directly correlated.

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES: EXAMINING THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS TRADITION AND PARTICIPATION

Typically the relationship between civic engagement and religion has been investigated using only basic measures of religious attendance or denomination. We utilize more detailed indicators of various types of religious participation and a more valid concept of religious traditions to examine the influence on civic engagement, finding that typical measures of religious attendance or denomination camouflage much of religion's influence. We show that while several religious traditions are positively related to civic engagement, being an Evangelical Protestant or Black Protestant is negatively related. The results also indicate that religious attendance reduces overall civic engagement, while other types of religious participation increase civic engagement. At the specific levels of civic engagement such as belong, contribute, volunteer, and lead, we find similar variations in religious traditions and types of religious participation. Our findings suggest that scholars often overlooked the importance of religious participation beyond religious attendance and reached conclusions regarding civic engagement that do not accurately describe religion's effects. Thus, we contend that attendance and religious tradition, while they may be important and should be included in analysis, should not be the sole, or even primary, focus.

Education, Religion, and a Sustainable Planet

Religious pluralism led to the colonies' separation of church and state by 1776, to Mann's campaign for common schooling, and to the complete secularization of public schools by 1900. The dependence of Western theology upon untenable Greek metaphysics justifies an explanation that the evolutionary purpose of religion was to promote personal integration and social cohesion. This also occurs in civic religion, herein explicated as the common faith established by truths from intersubjectively valid inquiries and by experienced qualities (i.e., the goodness) of things in the natural, societal, and lived worlds of the natural and social sciences and humanities. This promotes natural piety and a sustainable planet by grounding education in the child's being in the world. The inclusion of formal religion in the public school curriculum is considered, but unnecessary, because schools already promote individual development and social cohesion through education for citizenship, etc.

Rhetorics of Display (review)

Reviewed by: Rhetorics of Display Melanie Joy McNaughton Rhetorics of Display. By Lawrence J. Prelli . Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006; pp 443. $29.95 paper. Rhetorics of display involve questions of political and expressive agency that carry weighty consequences: how and who we publicly remember, who is able to express identity or affiliation without worrying about physical safety, what we see when walking to work and what that tells us about who we are summoned to be. As the bitter public controversies over the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York and Olivier Toscani's advertising campaign for Benetton suggest, the extensive integration of visual communication into both public and private life has significant implications for how we understand rhetorical communication as well as for the selves and communities served and established through it. Such questions are insightfully explored in Lawrence J. Prelli's Rhetorics of Display. In Prelli's words, Rhetorics of Display presents "a conceptually focused perspective on rhetorical studies of display" with a plurality of methodologies and theoretical approaches (1). The book is an edited collection of 17 essays divided into sections that cohere around four topoi: interconnections between the visual and verbal, material rhetorics of display, demonstration and display, and epideictic discourse. Prelli's introduction is followed by essays by Mari Boor Tonn, James Michael Farrell, S. Michael Halloran and Gregory Clark, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, Gerard A. Hauser, Lawrence W. Rosenfield, and a second essay by Prelli. The theme that pulls the collection together is the nature of "situated rhetorics" (16). Arguing that "rhetorics of display are nearly ubiquitous in contemporary communication and culture and, thus, have become the dominant rhetoric of our time"—a claim W. J. T. Mitchell may want to argue with—in the introduction Prelli offers several "historical vignettes," such as the Greco-Roman origins of rhetoric, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, before turning to theory on display from more current scholars such as Kenneth Burke, Richard McKeon, and Chaim Perelman. Prelli's introduction offers a strong contextual and historical starting point for the rest of the volume. Moving into the chapters, the first section takes up the interconnectivity between visual and verbal rhetorics. Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp and Prelli lead the charge in their "mirror" studies. Jorgensen-Earp uses the Titanic exhibition to explore metaphor's power to direct interpretations of visual rhetoric; Prelli uses the international court battle over oceanic boundaries between the United States and Canada to explore imagery's power to direct interpretations of language-based argument. The remaining two essays in this section offer investigations that highlight the cross-fertilization of verbal and visual culture. [End Page 739] James Michael Farrell frames nineteenth-century illustrations of the Irish Famine as synecdoche that "required verbal interpretation [found] in the descriptive notes that accompanied them" (85). Analyzing the famous Tiananmen Square photograph, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites contend that photographic illustrations buttress "modernist norms of print culture, including an emphasis on universal legibility and rationality" (133). The second section presents five essays that consider the rhetorical roles of material culture in influencing public identities and political perspectives, beginning with three essays that consider public artifacts. S. Michael Halloran and Gregory Clark assay that the "public landscapes constituted by the U.S. national park movement display symbols that enable citizens to participate in a civic religion" (141). Beverly James's analysis of the construction and destruction of Hungary's Stalin monument makes clear the importance of material memory sites as spaces for political engagement and contestation, a project that Victoria J. Gallagher also takes up, using theory on genre and public memory to address the display of race at Stone Mountain (the "Mount Rushmore of the South"). The last two essays in this section investigate more private (and privatized) instantiations of display. Richard Morris evaluates the rhetoric of gravescapes, arguing that they function as material manifestations of traditions of interpretation and response. Appraising the "aestheticization of the public realm," Lawrence W. Rosenfield pithily contemplates Las Vegas casinos, closing with the provocative observation that the "casino's rhetoric presents the inn at the end of the rainbow, hell-on-earth devoid of unsettling...

:Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R. I. Moore

Acknowledgements List of Contributors Introduction, Michael Frassetto 1. Moore's Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: Travels in the Agro-Literate Polity, Edward Peters 2. Ademar of Chabannes and the Bogomils, Daniel F. Callahan 3. Italian Society and the Origins of Eleventh-Century Western Heresy, Arthur Siegel 4. Pagans, Heretics, Saracens, and Jews in the Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes, Michael Frassetto 5. Bogomil Influences on Western Heresy, Bernard Hamilton 6. Northern Catharism, Malcolm Barber 7. Authority and the Cathar Heresy in the Northern Languedoc, Claire Taylor 8. The Massacre at Beziers July 22, 1209: A Revisionist Look, Laurence W. Marvin 9. Heresy, Good Men, and Nomenclature, Mark Pegg 10. Cathars, Confraternities, and Civic Religion: The Blurry Border between Heresy and Orthodoxy, Susan Taylor Snyder 11. Idolatry and Fraud: the Case of Riperando and the Holy Managlia, Carol Lansing 12. Chasing Phantoms: Philip IV and the Fantastic, James Given 13. Afterthoughts on The Origins of European Dissent, R.I. Moore Index

Renaissance Siena. Art in Context (review)

Reviewed by Timothy B. Smith Birmingham–Southern College Renaissance Siena. Art in Context. Edited by A. Lawrence Jenkens. [Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, Volume 71.] (Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press. 2005. Pp. xvi, 208. $39.95 paperback.) In the opening line of his Introduction to Renaissance Siena, editor A. Lawrence Jenkens asks a significant and seldom-posed question: did the Tuscan city of Siena experience a Renaissance, particularly in regard to art and architecture? The answer, evidenced by this anthology's nine essays, is a resounding yes; taken as a whole, the volume stands as testament to the recent revival of Sienese studies, one with a focus on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries rather than the much-considered Trecento Golden Age. What is new in this collection is an attempt to consider Sienese art entirely within a local context, free from the traditional negative assessment engendered by comparison with Renaissance Florence, and in many cases within a social-political framework that contrasts with earlier, more conservative methodological approaches. In particular, there is much here that will be of interest to scholars of the history of architecture and urbanism. Judith Steinhoff examines the rise of a new artistic genre, the contemporaneous cityscape, relating several examples [End Page 934] symbolically to specific political issues and moments of crisis for the Sienese commune. In his contribution, Matthias Quast demonstrates that the fully articulated palace façade emerged in Renaissance Siena only after the systematic removal of balconies and cantilevered additions and in one of three forms that stemmed from Gothic, Florentine, and ancient inspiration. Fabrizio J. D. Nevola's essay on the Palazzo Spannocchi situates that palace within the context of competing public and private interests in urban space, tracing the process by which the patron systematically acquired prime real estate along the Strada Romana, the city's most important thoroughfare and a target of commune-sponsored renewal. Similarly concerned with the conflict between the public and the private, Mauro Mussolin explores the architecture of the church of Santo Spirito and its monastic complex in light of the often-rocky relationship among the Sienese, the local observant Dominican community, and the fiery Florentine preacher Savonarola. Other essays address a range of issues, including civic religion, humanist influence on the visual arts, and the connection between workshop practice and the reading of narrative. Susan E. Wegner charts an increase in Sienese intercessory images of Saint Catherine of Siena and the decline of those of the Virgin, linking the phenomenon to the political strategies of the despot Pandolfo Petrucci. The dynastic and patriotic significance of the frescoes in the Piccolomini Library is addressed by Stratton D. Green, who views the room's painted biography of Pope Pius II as a form of epideictic rhetoric based on the idea of an ancient funerary oration. In his discussion of Francesco di Giorgio's painted scenes on Sienese cassoni, David Benjamin unravels the complicated relationship among artists, patrons, literary sources, and the development of visual narrative. The book's one lamentable exclusion is the study of Sienese sculpture. Although Jenkens partly explains this absence in the Introduction by referring to vital scholarly work yet to be carried out, the anthology would have greatly benefited from at least one exploration of this medium. Regardless of this lacuna, Renaissance Siena represents an important contribution to the field and one that will rightly challenge lingering misconceptions about the city and its art beyond the Black Death.

'Buddhism, Copying, and the Art of the Imagination in Thailand'

This article theorizes new urban religio-scapes in metropolitan Bangkok, a city space of contradictory modernities. Here, I look at two contrasting Buddhist monastic spaces of sanctity from periods of fieldwork between 1998 and 2002. Firstly, as found in the modern semblance of order and discipline at the radically neo-conservative Dhammakaya Movement (lit. “Body of Dhamma”). Secondly, the chaotic, disordered flamboyant and kitsch space of the Sanam Chan Monastery on the outskirts of the ever-expanding Thai post-metropolis, which has similarities with the consumerist contemporary “Buddhist” feature art of the arcades and shopping centres. I argue that Wat (Monastery) Sanam Chan is a postmodern representation of sanctity; it is a response to modernity, while Dhammakaya, aside from its immense spectacle, reflects more the essentialist conditions inherent in modernity. Nevertheless, it is clear that both spaces of sanctity challenge the established religious hierarchy, its perceived orthodoxy, legitimation and the ethical bases of civic religion in Thailand.

Good Imam, Bad Imam: Civic Religion and National Integration in Britain post-9/11

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