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Abstract

This creative nonfiction reflects upon the political utility of the terms “indigeneity” and “autochthony” to describe human (and non-human) groups as genealogically bound to or originally springing from singular geographies. What do these terms reinscribe, and what might attachments to them foreclose to the Armenian, and more broadly, to the collective human experience? This mix of text and image is a plea to move beyond an “autochthonous” logic that naturalizes the coupling of bodies to lands to account, instead, for a more just and capacious understanding of existence as by, through, and for the in/animate “other” across multiple geographies and timescapes.

In: Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies

Abstract

In this article, I explore how Islam is configured in two creative universes that have recently affected the cultural and political scene in Norway. I compare the enactment in Oslo (2019) of Disgraced by the American playwright Ayad Akhtar to parts of the artistic project Heisann Montebello (2015–2017) by the Norwegian rap duo Karpe. In both fictional universes, references to Islam, Muslims, xenophobia, racism, terror, and politics of integration are paramount. It is therefore significant that major cultural institutions in Norway such as The National Theater, the music hall Oslo Spektrum, the National Library, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Network (NRK) stage these works. Overall, my main argument is that both productions speak to wider audiences in a multireligious and multiethnic setting, demonstrating that Muslims and different configurations of Islam have become an integrated part of Norwegian cultural life.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

From the late 1980s, foreign—primarily American—missionaries started to travel to Ukraine in large numbers. This article is concerned with the impact of American Baptist missionaries and how their influence was perceived locally in 2016, the time of my fieldwork. When I set out to conduct my fieldwork research among Baptist believers in Lviv, I was surprised that local believers denied the impact of foreign missionaries on their communities and worship style. Moreover, many local Baptist churchgoers I met claimed they had never encountered an American missionary and insisted that foreign missionaries had not played any significant role in the development and transformation of Ukrainian Baptism. In this article, I present the data from the fieldwork and analyze the Ukrainian Baptists’ reasons for minimizing the influence through the perspective of religioscapes, and glocalization as the dialectic process between homogeneity and heterogeneity.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe
Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries
Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia: Texts, Traditions and Practices, 10th-21st Centuries is a collection of fourteen studies by a group of scholars active in the field of Central Asian Studies, presenting new research into various aspects of the rich cultural heritage of Central Asia (including Afghanistan). By mapping and exploring the interaction between political, ideological, literary and artistic production in Central Asia, the contributors offer a wide range of perspectives on the practice and usage of historical and religious commemoration in different contexts and timeframes. Making use of different approaches – historical, literary, anthropological, or critical heritage studies, the contributors show how memory functions as a fundamental constituent of identity formation in both past and present, and how this has informed perceptions in and outside Central Asia today.
The Middle East, Africa and Asia
Modern Intellectual Trends is a peer reviewed book series that includes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions (for text from the pre-print age) in the original languages and scripts, and annotated translations on intellectual history from the 18th century to the present. The coverage includes philosophy, theology, hermeneutics, mysticism, views and debates on science and the so-called occult sciences, political thought, gender, legal theory, nahḍa studies, postcolonial studies, and adjacent areas, i.e. in intellectual history in the broadest sense. The series welcomes transregional and transcultural contributions.
The series will be open for publications on modern thought from the global south, with a special focus on the Middle East (Arab world, Turkey, Iran), but also the Balkans, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, as well as the Muslim diaspora. Submissions in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and other non-Western languages, will also be considered, in addition to English, French, and German.

Abstract

In several European countries, Slovakia included, Islamophobia has been shaped by the challenges faced by Europe (an influx of refugees, terrorism, rise of the far right) since circa 2015. Anti-Muslim narratives have penetrated politics as well as the media and are shared by a significant part of the Slovak population. This article aims at contributing to the existing research on Islamophobia in Slovakia through an exploratory case study focusing on a different perspective, Muslims themselves. The main objective of the research is to identify the magnitude and character of Islamophobia experienced by Muslims in Slovakia since 2015. Data were gathered using an online survey. The findings revealed not only the extent but also the most common features of Islamophobia experienced by Muslims, including the type of incidents, the places of their occurrence, and the nexus between Islamophobic incidents and origin of respondents (Slovak or foreign), external manifestation of their faith, and sex.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the attitude of the Italian Northern League (Lega Nord) toward the Catholic Church and Catholic faith, since its creation in 1991. The article examines the evolution of the party from the merger of the northern regionalist parties under the leadership of Umberto Bossi (1991–2012) until its current form and its reengineering by its new leader, Matteo Salvini, as a national(ist) League (Lega) aiming to win votes and mandates all over Italy and to become the dominant party of the Italian right. Be it under Bossi or Salvini, the Lega Nord/Lega has always opposed both the humanist teaching of the Catholic Church and mainstream Catholic social organizations, while pretending to defend the “Catholic identity” of the “North,” before turning to the entire country. Under Salvini’s leadership, the Lega joined forces with some rightist Catholic groups prone to complain about Pope Francis’s deemed treason of the Catholic identity, and so reinforced its conservative orientation. As I will show in this article, in the medium term, the enduring success of the Lega Nord/Lega illustrates the decline of mainstream Catholicism in Italy.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe
Politics, Society and Economy
On the crossroads of the continents and encompassing a time span of six centuries the Ottoman Empire directly involves the histories of the Byzantine Empire and the Balkan states, the Middle East and Islam from Iran to North Africa. Some fundamental developments in European history can be better explained when the profound political and economic impact of this Empire is duly taken into account. In the West, not only the rise of the national monarchies and of the Protestantism, but also that of capitalism and the development of certain industries cannot be fully expounded upon without the Ottomans. Giving rise to the so-called Eastern Question in its decline, the Ottoman period deeply influenced European history in modern times.
The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy is a forum for studies of the Ottoman Empire and its relations with the rest of the world. It publishes broad surveys of the Ottoman world, diachronic studies of particular areas of cities, research into individual themes or issues, heavily annotated translations of sources, and thematic collections of articles. It has a cross-disciplinary character and will interest medieval historians across the field: Social and economic historians, historians of medieval Europe, of the Near East, church historians, and historians of science, as well as numismatists, Turcologists, and Balkanists.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe
Author:

Abstract

This article sets out to demonstrate how some Russian Orthodox imaginaries bear a family resemblance to populism. These imaginaries have a distinctive ideological anchor. The influential religious figures who convey them lay claim to a legacy of political thought that can be traced back to a specific form of narodnichestvo, which is Slavophile and associated with aspirations for monarchy. This investigation of populism among Russian Orthodox Christians is structured in three parts. The article begins with a presentation of an ideological repertoire that emphasizes the centrality of the idea of “the people.” Drawing on interviews and material collected over several years in different regions of Russia, particularly Yekaterinburg, the article then looks at the rebellion of Christians who feel marginalized or consider that the Russian Orthodox Church does not have enough influence in Russia. Finally, it explores how “the people” has become central to religious practice itself.

In: Journal of Religion in Europe