Divine World Research Articles

A New Late Babylonian Manuscript of the Medical-magical Series ‘Fumigation’ ( qutāru )

Abstract Fumigation as a healing procedure was a widely used technique in Mesopotamian medicine with textual references to the existence of the medical-magical series ‘Fumigation’ known from the Late Babylonian period. BM 38438 represents a new manuscript of this text. In the first part of this paper, I provide a summary of all manuscripts of this medical-magical series ‘Fumigation’, while in the second part an edition of the new fragment will be presented. I would like to thank the trustees of the British Museum, for permission to publish the tablet. I am very much indebted to M. J. Geller (University College London), J. Fincke (Leiden University) and the participants of an online reading group for cuneiform medicine (NinMed) organized by M. J. Geller for their suggestions and corrections. Needless to say I bear responsibility for any remaining errors. The abbreviations follow the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, with the following addition: CCP = Cuneiform commentaries project (https://ccp.yale.edu/). The present paper was developed within the framework of the MTA–ELTE Momentum Assyrian and Babylonian Divine World Research Group.

Hospitality – Who is the guest?

In this article I explore Derrida’s concept of the host-boundary-customer at the three Kantian levels (between states, communities and persons). The relational difference and essential unity of the persons of the Trinity illuminate the need to distinguish the “other” and the “self” even when it comes to the human person created in the image of God and living in community, in order to create a non-merging unity. God, entering the created world comes as a ‘holy guest’, while we realise that even we ourselves belong to the divine world and are in fact only guests in this world, that is to say, our essence is one of “ontological strangeness.”

A gothic Taoism and its dual facets: possible worlds in The Haunted Monastery

Recent scholarship has argued for a Western basis for the Judge Dee Mysteries, a detective fiction series by Sinologist Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) set in Tang China. But these studies primarily focus on how Chinese elements are recreated to cater to Anglophone readers’ tastes, neglecting to discuss their actual Western origins in any detail. This paper will make the attempt by focusing on one of the novels, The Haunted Monastery, to investigate how Gothic Taoism is projected through the internal organization of the semantic universe (characters, settings, and conflicts) in the multiple worlds of this detective fiction. It observes how van Gulik recreates anti-religious conventions in the traditional Western Gothic novel and in Chinese courtroom fiction. This artistic innovation highlights the dual facets of Taoism in the story, as it navigates between the realms of crime and faith. On the one hand, it faces the purely divine world, while on the other, it faces the secular world dominated by limitless desire.

Representations of Women’s Power and Divinity in the Myths of Tai Peoples

This article examines female characters in the myths of the Tai peoples which represent power and divinity of women in the Tai’s societies. Twenty myths of the Tai peoples both in literary and oral traditions were the subjects of the study. The findings revealed the four main representations of women as 1) creator and the earliest human ancestor; 2) food producer and nurturer; 3) cultural leader; and 4) medium between the human world and the divine world. These representations reflect the Tai peoples’ society and culture. Women were represented as 1) the divines, having supernatural power, powerful beings; 2) abundance of food, creators of life, caretakers; and 3) supporters and followers of Buddhism. The female characters in the Tai myths symbolized faithful Buddhists and strong supporters of the religion. The findings also emphasize significance of the myths as a cultural tool for a better understanding of cultural women’s roles.

Greek Deities as Single or Plural Figures?

Greek deities are a valuable touchstone for assessing the opposite or complementary notions of ‘unity and diversity‘, and the same issue could have been be raised from the perspective of sacrificial ritual. In the context of ancient Greek religion, but also of Greek culture as a whole, no generalizing statement can be made without testing it against the fragmented evidence from several hundred cities. Some scholars have therefore come to consider that we should speak of ‘Greek religions’ in the plural in order to reflect the fragmentation, considering both the representation of the gods and the rituals performed in their honour. Focusing on the divine world, this paper asks the question: which dimension prevails in the (ancient as well as modern) way of dealing with a Greek deity, the apparent unity given by its theonym or the diversity of its cultplaces, images, cult-titles, etc.? The argument here is for addressing together unity and diversity, singleness and plurality when studying Greek gods.

The presentation of the concept of existential despair in Lermontov's poem “Demon”

The author of the article believes that the main character in Mikhail Lermontov's poem “Demon” strives to become a part of earthly life, but he understands the objective impossibility of realizing this desire. The contradiction generated by this realization turns into tragic despair, which the founder of existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard, defined as “a disease to death”. As if extrapolating the thought of the founder of existentialism, Lermontov gives the immanence of despair to the main character of his famous poem. The demon wants to reunite with both earth and heaven, hoping to be reborn through love. However, the determinism of his demonic essence prevents the main character of the poem from realizing this aspiration. The rebellious spirit of the Demon, which cannot belong to any of the worlds, reflects the Russian intelligentsia of that period in general and Lermontov himself in particular. However, in this identification, the Demon's rebellion is much closer to the poet's own rebellion, given Lermontov's criticism of his contemporaries, whom the Russian classic describes as prisoners desperate in the face of power in his famous poem “Thought”. The author of the article argues that in identifying the Demon with Lermontov, the rejection of God and the Divine world order comes to the fore. That is why Lermontov's characters are sometimes considered as harbingers of Nietzscheanism. The Demon, paradoxically, begins his path of striving for good from evil, killing Tamara's fiancé. Thus, it is in the poem “Demon” that the existential and psychological foundations of the criminal behavior of artistic characters in borderline situations are laid. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that it is impossible for the Demon to make an existential choice, he is doomed to forever arrive in the borderline situation described in Karl Jaspers' existential theories, without the possibility of its resolution, which results in an irresistible despair, from which even the path of faith proposed by Kierkegaard cannot be saved.

Divine Power and Fluid Bodies: Tirunaṅkais in Tamil Nadu

This article analyzes the complex ways in which religious practices influence the formation of identity and community among tirunaṅkais, male-to-female transgender people in Tamil Nadu. I argue that tirunaṅkais draw on longstanding religious resources to enact nonnormative identities that operate outside of the secular constructions of the modern subject that undergird governmental “uplift” efforts as well as the liberatory projects of Western feminist scholars such as Judith Butler. I focus in particular on three arenas in which tirunaṅkais negotiate their identities in specific religious and social contexts: the kinship network, the annual Kūttāṇṭavar festival, and public rituals associated with Hindu goddesses in Tamil Nadu. The tirunaṅkai kinship network deploys multiple religious rituals while at the same time transcending boundaries of religion, caste, and class in its inclusivity. The enactment of marriage and widowhood at the annual festival to Kūttāṇṭavar foregrounds the divinity of the male-female form that tirunaṅkais emulate. Serving as vehicles of the divine who embody particular goddesses through ritual possession in public temple spaces provides affirmation of their ritual efficacy and power to mediate between the human and divine worlds.

The Great Goddess: An Evolution from Cosmogony to Cosmology

Hindu Religious thought has always been deeply concerned with the ‘idea of femininity’. Hindu beliefs and practices have identified the feminine both in the material world and the divine world. The history of the development of goddesses from the early Vedic period to contemporary worship plays into certain debates and discussions about what it means to have a certain concept of divinity in a tradition. This paper aims to understand the historical and thematic development of The Great Goddess/Devī/Mahādevī as the source of ultimate cosmic powers. To reach my aim, I have divided this paper into two major sections: First, the analysis of the iconographies of twelve major Goddesses (starting from the early Vedic period to the Pūrāṇic and Epic Tradition), namely, Uṣas, Rātri , Pṛthivī, Aditi, Sarasvatī, Vāc, Nirṛti, Śrī-Lakṣmī, Pārvatī, Dūrgā, Kālī, and Mahādevī (the lengthiest section of the paper). Second, I have traced (with the help of the analysis from the first section) the cosmogonies associated with these twelve individual goddesses to project a final single goddess who is the cause of this Cosmos. The Early Vedic Goddesses are depicted as ‘givers, helpers, mothers, nurturer figures’ but gradually in the Pūrāṇic and Epic Tradition they are partially involved in the process of creation, as the śakti of their male counterparts. Finally, the Devī-Māhātmya and Devī Bhagavata Pūrāṇa delineate the picture of an independent goddess, The Great Goddess/Devī/Mahādevī. This Great Goddess emerged as the embodiment of śakti, prakṛti, and māyā, therefore is the cause of this universe.

«Стекла оптики» как средство миропознания в стихотворении Г. Р. Державина «Евгению. Жизнь Званская»

The article aims to identify the empirical foundations of the cosmic imagery of G. R. Derzhavin’s poetry and to reveal the mechanisms for transforming visible pictures of the Universe in the poem “To Eugene. Life in Zvanka.” Property inventories and drawings of the Zvanka estate allow us to establish Derzhavin’s passion for observing the movement of celestial bodies and what kind of telescope the poet used for it. The article considers the nominations “glasses of optics” and “gloomy lantern,” which the poet uses to represent a telescope. By looking through a telescope, the poet sees what is inaccessible in natural existence but, at the same time, is part of the Divine world and complements the idea of the Divine Universe. The article examines the symbolic fullness of the images of celestial bodies in Derzhavin’s poem in comparison with the treatises of Augustine the Blessed. It clarifies the poet’s understanding of beauty not only in its aesthetic but also in its intellectual component.

아이누의 사냥과 애니미즘

This study examines the relationship between the belief system (natural view) and the perception and gaze of wildlife, focusing on examining traditional hunting forms and rituals in the Animistic natural view of Ainu, a Hokkaido indigenous people. First, the background of animism and wildlife was briefly explained. The natural view of Hokkaido Ainu and the animistic appearance of the hunting process and rituals were considered. Ainu recognized all objects, including animals and plants, as gifts God gave for people and a medium connecting the human and divine worlds. Based on this, hunting procedures, consumption patterns, and rituals have also connected the world of God and the human world to create various stories and traditional cultures. This will help to understand not only the belief system of the animals of Ainu but also their life and cultural styles, and it will further cultivate ideological knowledge for symbiosis between humans and wildlife.

Почему Петр Абеляр был признан еретиком?

The article deals with the origin, identification, and judgment (discussion) of philosophical heresy in the Christian Middle Ages (late 11th – 12th centuries), associated with the names of John Roscelin and Peter Abelard. The concepts of heresy, religion, and right – their not only philosophical and historical foundations but also etymological ones – are analyzed. Based on the original meaning of "heresy" as a "school of thought" and "choice", the author sees the similarity of these meanings with the term "religion", which Augustine understood as "re-election". "Right, ius" and "law, lex", which are closely connected with the divine world order (respectively, with religion and its rational-mystical foundation, i.e., with "schools of thought"), create together with them a kind of fundamental complex for the human community. However, the legal framework of this hostel creates opportunities for mutual understanding and interconnection of all these concepts, their internal intentions, and their external expressions. Since Christianity was understood as freedom of speech, equivalent to a natural divine and therefore unchangeable right, determined through a naturally inherent reason that contradicts a positive human changeable right, it is in Christianity that what was considered heresy as a deviation from the doctrinal establishment arises. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the teachings on the unity of the Trinity, i.e., the unity of the multitude, both by philosophers John Roscelin and Peter Abelard, were discussed at church councils as heretical because they were seen as an attempt to establish either degrees in the Trinity or the incarnation of all divine hypostases due to their absolute identity. In addition, Abelard made efforts to reconcile with the pagan philosophy of Plato, seeing in the world soul a similarity with the Holy Spirit, explaining such a scholastic duality of expression. The desire to see the world develop according to one scenario led to the adjustment of different concepts to each other.

The Concept of Beauty in the Russian Art of the Silver Age in the Context of V. Solovyov’s the Philosophy

The purpose of this article is to reveal the infl uence of V. Solovyov’s philosophy on the formation of the concept of beauty in Russian literature and painting of the Silver Age. The object of this study is the prose of B.K. Zaitsev and, I.S. Shmelev, as well as the paintings by V.E. Borisov-Musatov and M. Vrubel. It is established that the philosopher’s assertion that the concept of beauty was fundamental in the harmonious Divine world order had special impact on the consciousness of his contemporaries; the author reveals the meaning and signifi cance of the phenomenon of Eternal Femininity in the views of V. Solovyov and, following him, in those of the artists of the word and brush. In the philosopher's worldview the author highlights the importance of the closest interdependence of the aesthetic and ethical principles of being, organically refl ected in Russian art, which combined Beauty and Goodness since ancient times.

The image of the grove as a means of expressing the author 's axiological concept in the lyrics of Z. Dudina

This research is connected with the analytical consideration of the system of poetic images of a natural philosophical orientation in modern Mari philosophical lyrics. The aim of the work is to identify the ethnocentric semantic components of the mythopoetic image of the grove in the lyrics of Zoya Dudina and the ways of their artistic embodiment. The research material was the poems included in her collection "Kuanyshym, kuem ӧndal ..." (She was delighted, hugging a birch ...) (2012). The methodology of the research is determined by the structural and semantic analysis of lyrical texts, which allows to identify and describe the main structural components of the poetic image, as well as to understand their interrelationships and semantic organization at the level of the author's axiology. In the article, the author of the study proved that in the lyrics of the Mari poet Zoya Dudina, the multifaceted image of the Mari grove is recreated. In particular, it is presented as part of the divine world, often concretized and given in the form of a sacred tree. The central place in the image of the grove is assigned by the author to the ethnically significant and sacred content and mythopoetics, which does not limit him in the expression of individual creative aspirations, in the assertion of universal values. The grove for the lyrical heroine Zoya Dudina is a symbol of hope, spiritual and moral support, salvation of the soul, as well as the preservation of the Mari people.

The Cambridge Companion to Genesis ed. by Bill T. Arnold

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to Genesis ed. by Bill T. Arnold Bradley C. Gregory bill t. arnold (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Genesis (Cambridge Companions to Religion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Pp. xiii + 372. Paper $36.99. One of the challenges in assembling a "companion"-style volume is deciding whether the chapters should primarily aim for broad, even coverage of topics so that the volume represents a status quaestionis of current scholarship or whether chapters should primarily pursue narrower forays into current avenues of research. Bill Arnold's excellent volume on Genesis, which brings together an impressive group of scholars, represents a hybrid approach in which the earlier chapters incline toward the former and the later chapters incline toward the latter. The four parts of the volume essentially concern (1) the nature and formation of the text; (2) the world behind the text; (3) the world in the text; and (4) the world in front of the text. The volume begins with Bill T. Arnold's, "Introduction: Genesis and the status quaestionis" (pp. 1–8), which is mostly an overview of the chapters that follow. Next, part 1 deals with the "Composition and Structure of Genesis." In "Genesis in the History of Critical Scholarship" (pp. 11–52), Jean-Louis Ska gives an overview of how interpreters have made sense of Genesis. While the title might suggest beginning with figures like Baruch Spinoza and Richard Simon, Ska helpfully gives an overview of the interpretation of Genesis in antiquity and the Middle Ages in order to show how modern approaches to Genesis grew out of earlier hermeneutical currents. Importantly, giving an overview of the history of interpretation here allows the essays in part 4 to pursue more particular aspects of reception history. Jan Christian Gertz's chapter, "Genesis in Source and Redaction Criticism Today" (pp. 53–73), traces the developments of the documentary, supplementary, and fragmentary approaches to pentateuchal sources, especially as they are found in the Genesis narrative, in the wake of the collapse of the post-Wellhausenian consensus. In "Genesis in Form and Tradition Criticism Today" (pp. 74–98), Christoph Levin shows how determinative kingship ideology was for the formation of the traditions in Genesis. He also suggests that the best description of the genre of Genesis is "torah," that is, "normative religious writing," or a "Jewish national epic" (p. 91). Part 1 concludes with Michaela Bauks, "Rhetorical Features and Characteristics: The Literary Function of Genealogies, Itineraries, and Other Etiologies in the Book of Genesis" (pp. 99–118). [End Page 363] Part 2 ("Social World of Genesis") begins with Alice Mandell's chapter, "Genesis and Its Ancient Literary Analogues" (pp. 121–47), which gives an overview of the various methodologies and approaches in comparing Genesis to the literature and culture of other ancient Near Eastern societies. Because she provides an overview of the comparative method, her treatment is actually wider than the title might suggest. Next is John H. Walton's "Genesis and the Conceptual World of the Ancient Near East" (pp. 148–67). In setting Genesis in the context of ancient Near Eastern understandings of creation and humanity, views of the divine world, and stories about ancestors, Walton cautions that scholars should not overly emphasize either similarities or differences. In "Family, Clan, and Tribe in the Book of Genesis" (pp. 168–87), Naomi A. Steinberg applies kinship studies from the field of anthropology to understand the values and networks of family relationships that are pictured in Genesis, recognizing that these may represent ideals instead of actual practice. Complementing Steinberg's chapter is Sarah Shectman's essay, "Women's Status and Feminist Readings of Genesis" (pp. 188–208). Noting that women play a larger role in Genesis than in most other books of the Hebrew Bible, she surveys the critical role these figures play in the narrative, particularly in terms of relational power, as well as how this has been productive of feminist interpretations of many of the Genesis stories. Part 3 ("Themes and Literary Motifs of Genesis") opens with Brent A. Strawn's "From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis" (pp. 211–35). Strawn shows that "the image of God" is not a...

Logical Physics and Metaphysics of Love

The 20th century gave the world two outstanding thinkers, two great Russian geniuses – Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1952) and Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev (1922–2006). Both of them succeeded in creating their own philosophic concepts, both gave examples of brave opposition to the milieu, circumstances, terror of the authorities and remain in eternity and national history as courageous intellectuals and seekers of the Truth. Their similarity in this aspect is even more symbolic when we consider that the substance of their philosophic concepts is almost in opposition. Karsavin created his ontology as metaphysics of Love, while Zinoviev’s worldview was tragic and pessimistic. According to Karsavin the divine world is fi lled with light and Good, while Zinoviev’s world is full of darkness and Evil. Both thinkers experienced deportation from the Motherland and Karsavin perished in GULAG. The fate was more benevolent to Zinoviev – he managed to return to his Motherland to confront the Evil and protect Russia from Westernism expansion. Zinoviev’s legacy is being developed also nowadays, - in particular, this can be traced by the example of Pelevin’s futurological novels.

The End of Sophocles’ Philoctetes and the Significance of ΓΝΩΜΗ

In this article, I argue for Sophocles’ dramatic use of γνώμη-language at the end of his Philoctetes. Through a thorough analysis of the phrase γνώμη … φίλων at l. 1467, I demonstrate how Sophocles drew on the contemporary resonances of γνώμη in Athenian legal contexts to make the play’s final scene rich and complex. In addition, the tension between the mortal and divine worlds, which is a recurrent theme in the play, is mirrored in the expression γνώμη … φίλων, which is sandwiched between Μοῖρα and πανδαμάτωρ δαίμων at ll. 1466-1468. Both points add to our understanding of how the sense of closure is achieved at the end of the play.

Гностический миф в повести Ф.М. Достоевского «Хозяйка»

The article demonstrates how the gnostic paradigm, in which Dostoevsky formed the problems of his early work, is present in the story The Landlady. It is proven that the central plot of the story (Ordynov’s meeting with Katerina and Murin) is based on the writer’s reinterpretation of the metaphorical plot of “The Hymn of the Pearl,” a parable included in the apocryphal acts by the Apostle Thomas. The parable metaphorically recounts the journey of a spiritual man (pneumatic) in a world of matter created and controlled by the Demiurge. This type of person contains the spirit, a particle of the true divine world of the Pleroma. Once in the world of matter, “eating its food,” the spirit is intoxicated and forgets about its true origin. The task of the spiritual man, according to the parable, is to remember that his true home is the Pleroma, and to return to it he must free the Pearl (the divine soul), seized by the serpent (the Demiurge, the ruler of the matter). According to researchers, the imagery of the parable had a great influence on mystical philosophy and art, which flourished, in particular, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Dostoevsky places the sacred history, presented in myth as in its ideal embodiment, in the reality visible to him, where people are cut off from one another, where passion dominates “unchosen love,” and where the connection with the true Father is lost. Even those who have been given the opportunity to see more than the rest find themselves, at this stage of Dostoevsky’s comprehension of the mystery of man, not strong enough to defeat the serpent.

Migration of Hinduism in western literature

The roots of Hindu mythology that evolved from Classical Hinduism come from the ancient Vedic religion. Western scholars also adopt Rig Vedic. Andrew Marvell, William Blake, William Wordsworth, P.B. Shelley, Lord Tennyson, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats from British Literature adopted Hinduism thoughts and Philosophy, For a Non-Indian reader some of the concepts that occur in the stories in Hindu Mythology may be difficult to understand but Eliot, Yeats and Emerson and Walt Whitman could understand Hindu Mythology and Philosophy. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hendry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman were great Americans who read the Hindu scriptures and was Profoundly influenced by Hindu Philosophy. The vedantic Philosophy is the best seen in their poetry. Transcendendentalism is belief of existence of a divine world, beyond and above the world of the senses.

Malda kaip žodis ir veiksmas Gražinos Cieškaitės, Skaistės Vilimaitės ir Lauros Sintijos Černiauskaitės poezijoje

The object of the research is a poetic expression of prayer as a word (language, speech) and action (its inner and outer dimension) in the works of three authors of contemporary Lithuanian poetry. The article examines several poems by Gražina Cieškaitė (b. 1951), Skaistė Vilimaitė (b. 1972), and Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė (b. 1976). The choice of the object is determined by the poetry itself, its religious experience, as well as the modern concept of prayer based on the Christian tradition, and its literary and cultural relevance. The aim of the article is to investigate the poetic transformations of prayer in the works of the three authors, focusing on the interaction of action and word, the poetic expression of the language and actions of the subject of prayer, and the addressee (God). The search for the poetry of prayer is primarily empowered by the variations of the words “prayer”, “Mass”, “cantata” and others, allusions to the texts of the Gospel, the Psalm, and the litany. Being primarily a word (a conversation between God and man, a monologue or narrative of a subject of prayer), prayer is also an action. The significance of everyday ritual and aesthetic actions of humans and God is made possible both by direct allusions to prayer and by a conversation with God that is less defined but close to traditional religious experience. In response to the Christian tradition and the Lithuanian poetry that protects it, the subject of prayer is still often expressed in the name of the soul. This identity of a man and God makes it possible to express one of the most important intentions of prayer – the cognition of the mysteries of God. Love turns out to be one of the most important mysteries of God, experienced by the subject in both the language of the soul and the language of the body. All three poets are brought together by the meditation of the creation of the divine world in poetic prayer and the special place of aesthetic experience in this meditation. In this case, one of the most important horizons of the action of prayer is the ritual taking different forms and the world of transformations that represents it.

Microbes of Empire

Microbes of Empire Priscilla Wald (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Anti-Asian hate crimes rose dramatically during the pandemic. This poster appeared in the New York subway in February 2021. Credit: STAR MAX file photo via AP. [End Page 706] In memory of Amy Kaplan We are living in a moment in which the natural world and the social world are manifesting dramatic chaos, beset with reminders of the precarity of human existence in the form of pandemics, climate catastrophes, and seemingly endless examples of structural racism. In the ancient world, plague spoke in the language of the gods: it was the natural—which is to say divine—world's way of manifesting a rupture in the social order. The ancients' understanding of the connection between these worlds has been severed over time, but perhaps the contemporary moment can return us to that sacred insight. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has witnessed a proliferation of devastating climate disasters in the form of record-setting temperatures, especially heat waves, and accompanying droughts, fires, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, monsoons, and landslides. Glaciers are melting, and air and water are becoming increasingly unhealthy to breathe or drink. Social tensions are escalating worldwide. The pandemic is at once a symptom and an accelerant, putting on display the inequities in the United States and abroad that find expression in discrepancies in morbidity and mortality rates from COVID-19 and other health disparities and from state violence at "home" and abroad, the embodiment of the racism of US imperialism that Amy Kaplan documents in The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. If, as Kaplan suggests, the incorporation of colonial (or postcolonial) territories and populations posed a threat to the ostensible coherence of the national (American) body politic, the conventional story that circulates in science, the media, and popular fiction and film about the bodily threat of microbes materializes the threat to American bodies.1 COVID-19 is certainly not the first, but it is the most recent and perhaps most widespread of what epidemiologists and other medical professionals have dubbed "emerging infections." In the 1980s, the identification of a catastrophic communicable disease that had similarly circled the globe—AIDS—drew the [End Page 707] attention of medical science and epidemiology to what appeared to be a new phenomenon: the emergence of catastrophic communicable diseases that humanity had not previously encountered. In 1989, the epidemiologist Stephen S. Morse organized a meeting of medical professionals to discuss what they labeled "Emerging Viruses: The Evolution of Viruses and Viral Diseases." The eradication of naturally occurring smallpox and other dramatic developments in the identification and treatment of communicable diseases in the 1960s and 1970s had imparted an air of sanguinity to the medical community. The increasing control over communicable disease was hailed as an emblem of progress: human conquest over nature. AIDS and other emerging infections challenged that story. In the analysis that surfaced at the 1989 conference, the new viruses emerged as evidence of the unforeseen and disastrous consequences of that progress: the technological and other advances that contributed to increasing globalization and development practices, including improved transportation that moved people and goods more rapidly around the globe and the settlement of a growing population in previously sparsely inhabited or uninhabited areas around the world. Emerging infections, that is, were material expressions of the dangerous expansiveness and uncontrolled forces of what Kaplan—following W. E. B. Du Bois—called the "anarchy of empire." The message of the conference was clear: the world could not rely on scientific medicine alone to contain this new threat; humans had to change the way we inhabit the planet. As Morse explained in a postconference publication, the deadly outbreaks were the result of "ecological or demographic changes including deforestation, dam building, changes in agricultural products or in land use, and major demographic changes such as population migrations," and humans were the "major engineers of biological traffic."2 The biologist Rachel Carson had issued an analogous warning in her chilling 1962 account of how the "fanatic zeal" to dominate the nonhuman world—"the crusade to create a chemically sterile, insect-free world"—had turned...