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sophieinwonderland · 1 year

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Dear anti-endos, stop invalidating science and attacking scientists.

I recently got a reblog which left a lot to respond to, I might get around to the rest later, but the part that concerns Samuel Veissiere, who is one of the psychiatrists researching tulpamancy, warrants an entire post of its own.

There is so much misinformation in just a few sentences that it's difficult to parse, but let's start with the obvious. This is where their link goes to, so let's first talk about...

What a PHD is. Because apparently this is something that needs to be explained. From Wikipedia:

A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: philosophiae doctor or doctor philosophiae) is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is an earned research degree, those studying for a PhD are required to produce original research that expands the boundaries of knowledge, normally in the form of a dissertation, and defend their work before a panel of other experts in the field.

...

In the context of the Doctor of Philosophy and other similarly titled degrees, the term "philosophy" does not refer to the field or academic discipline of philosophy, but is used in a broader sense in accordance with its original Greek meaning, which is "love of wisdom." In most of Europe, all fields (history, philosophy, social sciences, mathematics, and natural philosophy/sciences) other than theology, law, and medicine (the so-called professional, vocational, or technical curriculum) were traditionally known as philosophy, and in Germany and elsewhere in Europe the basic faculty of liberal arts was known as the "faculty of philosophy."

With that basic fact out of the way, here are Dr. Samuel Veissiere's credentials from McGill University.

Samuel Veissière is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, co-director of the Culture, Mind, and Brain program, and Associate Member in the Department of Anthropology. ABOUT An interdisciplinary anthropologist and cognitive scientist, he studies social dimensions of cognition, consciousness, and human well-being through a variety of projects including placebo effects and hypnosis, hyper-sociality in smartphone addiction, social polarization, gender and mental health, and the theoretical study of cultural evolution. Having first earned a PhD in anthropology, he completed postdoctoral studies in cognitive and behavioural science with additional training in contemplative science, microphenomenological interviewing, clinical hypnosis, cultural psychiatry, public health, and cognitive neuroscience. He has worked with such varied populations as street children, indigenous peoples in the Arctic and the Amazon, children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and people who intentionally conjure friendly auditory hallucinations. His work is motivated by a keen attention to multiple facets of the human experience from ethnographic, phenomenological, cross-cultural, developmental, evolutionary, neuroscientific, experimental, and clinical perspectives. He has published broadly and spoken in the media on novel theories and experimental findings on the social nature of attention, cognition, mental health, and healing, and on the impact of the internet and new technologies on human sociality and well-being.

The quote also mentions that his work is theoretical and experimental, seemingly as another way to invalidate it, which appears to be yet another misunderstanding of science and psychology in order to dismiss Dr. Veissiere and his work. This is, again, based on the very brief Researchgate overview.

First, let's address what a psychological theory is.

Psychological theories are fact-based ideas that describe a phenomenon of human behavior. These theories are based on a hypothesis, which is backed by evidence. Thus, the two key components of a psychological theory are: 1. It must describe a behavior. 2. It must make predictions about future behaviors. The term "theory" is used with surprising frequency in everyday language. It is often used to mean a guess, hunch, or supposition. You may even hear people dismiss certain information because it is "only a theory." But in the realm of science, a theory is not merely a guess. A theory presents a concept or idea that is testable. Scientists can test a theory through empirical research and gather evidence that supports or refutes it.

But what I believe the line from Researchgate actually means is that his work is in the field of theoretical psychology and experimental psychology.

What is a Theoretical Psychologist? Theoretical psychologists study the relationship between psychology, philosophy, and theory. Theoretical psychologists examine human behavior through the lens of multiple theories, and, in turn, examine those theories through a scientific lens as well as a philosophical one. Theoretical psychologists operate from a metatheoretical standpoint, meaning, they reflect on the contributions of a theory, it’s history, and it’s strengths and weaknesses. Common areas of study include ethics, morals, cultural psychology, and phenomenology. Conceptual and theoretical research, historical research, literary research, and cultural research are popular topics among theoretical psychologists as well. Theoretical psychologists do not operate from one strict point of view, nor do they have training specific to the field of theoretical psychology. Instead, theoretical psychologists represent a diverse group of professionals from all kinds of backgrounds, including those in school psychology, experimental psychology, clinical psychology, and biological psychology, to name a few. Essentially, theoretical psychologists use their background knowledge to assess whether or not a particular theory is effective in explaining human behavior. They also strive to integrate research from various psychological disciplines such that psychological questions can be resolved with an interdisciplinary approach.

...

Understanding Experimental Psychology Our personalities, and to some degree our life experiences, are defined by the way we behave. But what influences the way we behave in the first place? How does our behavior shape our experiences throughout our lives? Experimental psychologists are interested in exploring theoretical questions, often by creating a hypothesis and then setting out to prove or disprove it through experimentation. They study a wide range of behavioral topics among humans and animals, including sensation, perception, attention, memory, cognition and emotion.

To summarize, when it describes his work as theoretical and experimental, what it means is that he's a researcher who is up to date on current theories, and is using experimentation to test and develop those theories. This is somebody on the cutting edge of research in these fields.

This is also far from the first time anti-endos have tried attacking and invalidating the work of this author. Some months ago, I posted this article in a conversation...

The anti-endos then responded by dismissing it because it's hosted on Researchgate.

Now, there is some truth in that Researchgate doesn't vet articles very well, and there are many less trustworthy journals that get posted there.

This point, however, is completely irrelevant in this case. This article wasn't reviewed and published by some no-name ghost journal. It was reviewed by Oxford University Press, one of the oldest and most reliable academic publishers. A reasonable idea of "don't blindly trust articles on Researchgate without looking into the publisher" was warped into "never trust any articles hosted on Researchgate under any circumstances."

Attacking and invalidating scientists who disagree with them has become a consistent pattern of behavior with anti-endos and anti-tulpas, and it's really gross to see.

It's one thing to disagree with a researcher's conclusions. After all, a theory isn't confirmed fact and theories do constantly evolve. There are certain psychological theories I disagree with too. But this isn't simply disagreement anymore, but full-blown anti-intellectualism.

It's becoming increasingly clear that anti-endos aren't actually interested in discussing science and research, but instead playing this game of inventing excuses to dismiss it. Often attacking and invalidating the scientists in the process.

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oddnamesinhistory · 1 year

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Constantine Rafinesque-Schmaltz

1783-1840, French-American scientist back when you didn't have to specialize, so he was a biologist, taxonomist, botanist, linguist, ethnographer, antiquarian, and author of books on theology and money management. He created the binomial names of many species of plant and animal and in the 1830s wrote several letters and articles using words like "evolution" and "mutation" to describe the gradual change of species to adapt to their environments over time, but in his lifetime was best known for a "translation" of a document he called the Walum Opum that purported to be a flood myth and migration story of the Lenape tribe but which was found in the 1980s to have been entirely made up.

#18th century #french #scientists

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femmeidiot · 1 year

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Have you heard of queerology? A podcast by a gay Christian (and therapist) about queer theology

I haven’t but I also do not listen to podcasts. That sounds interesting though. I did my ethnography project for my class this semester in a religious space and found a lot of queer people there but not even on purpose but it was really interesting and there’s very little ethnographic research being done in that kind of setting and so I think there should s be more and anyway maybe I should do it idk.

#asks

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monstrousgourmandizingcats · 1 year

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11, 15, 19? For the book asks

11. what non-fiction books do you like if any?

I read a lot of history and philosophy/theology, mostly for work these days but for fun as well. I also like books by ethnographers and folklorists.

15. recommend and review a book.

Mansfield Park, which I'm currently reading, is apparently out of favor among serious Janeites these days, but as a more casual Austen enjoyer I'm actually finding its gloominess and willingness to entertain incredibly upsetting issues refreshing. The slavery stuff only overtly comes up once but is fucking everywhere in coded form, and Fanny Price and Mary Crawford make an incredibly compelling exploration of different coping mechanisms for very similar abusive backgrounds.

19. most disliked popular books?

ooooooh boy. Well, I have a pretty low view of the BookTok Industrial Complex and the overlapping-but-separate Colleen Hoover Industrial Complex, but that's low-hanging fruit. I hated The Wild Geese when I read it in undergrad and it bored me so much that I don't even remember what I hated so much. Mrs Dalloway rubbed me the wrong way because of the creepy valorization of suicide, and The Old Man and the Sea felt ten times longer than it actually is (I say this as someone who doesn't hate Hemingway in general quite as much as is currently fashionable).

book asks:

#give me love give me memes #books #reading #anonymous #tw suicide mention

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benghini · 8 months

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"A nonreflexive theologian could simply reproduce the traditional norms of the context, thus reproducing the types of theologies that suppress sexual and gender diversity. Alternatively… a nonreflexive theologian could imagine herself as somehow beyond that struggle, and get caught up in playing with more radical queer theologies rather than figuring out how to integrate some of that radical into her mainstream and vice versa."

—Natalie Wigg-Stevenson, Ethnographic Theology

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bethetiesthatbind · 2 years

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Teaching a foreign language, and re-discovering God: similar process

“The historical discussion on the kenotic or ‘letting go’ process of God in Christ is basically in debt to a grammatical approach to theological reflection which has only recently been questioned. In theology learning about God has sometimes been a grammatical art and in the particular we are discussing now, a study of style in power, the dynamics of punctuation of persona (divine and human) in the theological reflection and the approved conjugation of actions or divine verbs. Recent modern work in the study of languages has demonstrated the difficulties and sometimes even the futility of the grammatical school of teaching foreign languages, but theology has yet to learn this truth. Instead of emphasizing a grammatical approach in the process of teaching and learning foreign languages, ethnographic methods...have been considered more effective. Instead of learning punctuation, students begin their learning process by active observation of people interrelating amongst themselves in everyday life. Could this be also a Queer way to re-discover God, by active observation of God’s polyamorous relationships as in the figure of the Trinity?” (56)

#The Queer God #MAR #Marcella Althaus-Reid #Queer Theology #Queering God #Polyamorous God #Theology

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dmystfy · 2 years

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Human computer interaction, technospirituality, and science fiction😫

“Noreen Herzfeld, a Professor of Theology and Computer Science argues that the quest for intelligent machines “tells us something about what we value in our own nature” [32]. For Herzfeld questions of artificial intelligence are also questions about what it means to be human.”

“The argument is echoed in an article for the Journal of Cultural Anthropology comparing ethnography and science fiction. Here, David Samuels points out that many of the literary devices employed by ethnographers and SF writers are identical. For example, many science fiction stories begin with a “totalizing, panoptic gaze” which encompasses a whole galaxy before zooming in to one solar system and planet; similarly many ethnographies begin with aerial descriptions of an entire continent before swooping down to particular mountains, lakes and people [55].

We read ethnographies of remote and different peoples for the same reasons that we read science fiction about invented species: both genres make us look at ourselves differently; both cause us to re-examine our assumptions about everyday life; both explore what it is to be human.”

#stop playing with me #hci #anthro&hci

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nataliewiggstevenson · 3 years

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Jenny Saville, Propped (1992)

#jenny saville #performance art #feminist theology #ethnographic theology #queer theology

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aboutanancientenquiry · 2 years

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Some critical remarks on a post about Ancient Egypt, Herodotus, and Akhenaten

I repeat here my comments on some inaccuracies and distortions contained in a “masterpost” of Egyptology circulating on this site (I cannot reblog this post, because we are mutually blocked with its author, one of the clan of tumblr egyptologists, I just give the link for it as I have found it on the page of a third blogger: https://rudjedet.tumblr.com/post/180201723883/rudjedet-rudjedet-rudjedet )

1/ ”Herodotus lied about a lot of things and many misconceptions about ancient Egypt can be traced back to his Greek ass”

What an excellent piece of scholarship! What a deep understanding of a major classical author, of the first historian and essentially the first ethnographer and anthropologist in the West, of the objective and subjective restrictions under which he worked, and of the meaning and importance of his encounter with the Egyptian civilization! And of course there is in this phrase absolutely no racist stereotype and mentality toward Greeks (”...his Greek ass” to which so many “lies and misconceptions can be traced back”)...

2/ “The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction”

The pyramids were not built by slaves in the literal sense of the term and Herodotus does not make such a claim, contrary to what some tumblr egyptologists say (a proof that they attack him without having reading him).

But Herodotus is right when he says that the pyramids were built through use of forced work and oppressive policies, and all serious Egyptologists agree today that he has recorded a genuine Egyptian negative tradition about the pyramid builder Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (see on the social and economic aspects of the building of the pyramids Jaroslav Malek “The Old Kingdom”, in Ian Show (editor) “The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt”, Oxford University Press 2000, p. 94-95 and -much more critical toward the pyramid-builder Pharaohs- Toby Wilkinson, “The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt”, Bloomsbury 2010, p. 85). It seems that some pop egyptologists on this site want to present an exclusively “consumer-friendly” version of the ancient Egyptian civilization, explaining away its oppressive aspects. But of course this is not sound scholarship.

For the rest, Herodotus’ description of the building of the pyramids, although of course not flawless (he wrote 2000 years after the pyramid builders!), is totally rational, with no superhuman factors involved. In fact, Herodotus is for this reason a key ally against the different contemporary outrageous theories “explaining” the building of the pyramids with recourse to “aliens” or lost “secret technologies”.

2/ ”While they had feline deities throughout their history, Egyptians didn’t actually worship cats themselves. This was a later Greek/Ptolemaeic addition”

Animal cults were traditionally Egyptian, although the theology underlying them is not always clear (see Ida Kingo “The Apis cult from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period”, thesis, Upsala University 2020, available as pdf on https://href.li/?https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1451708/FULLTEXT01.pdf ).

It is true that the cults of sacred animals (and of course especially of cats) were multiplied and their importance increased during the Late Period (ca 664-332 BCE) and afterwards, but the claim that this would be a... "Greek/Ptolemaic addition" is ludicrous: the Greeks did not have any significant cultural impact on Egypt before Alexander’s conquest, animal cults did not have any important place in Greek religion and of course cats were not objects of any cult in Greece, and the cat cult is identifiable in Egypt from at least the period of the New Kingdom! The extraordinary role of the animal cults in Late Period Egypt was a development of the Egyptian religion itself (see what the professor of Egyptology and very active researcher Salima Ikram says about the cults of animals in ancient Egypt and especially in the Late Period- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-KR-OkScp0 ).

3/ ”It was not, in fact, practice to shave off eyebrows after cats died; Herodotus lied about that”

The eminent Egyptologist Alan B. Lloyd, president of the Egypt Exploration Society and also classicist and expert on Herodotus, believes that “there is no intrinsic reason to doubt” what Herodotus reports on the mourning practices of the Egyptians when their cats died, at least at a local level, given the importance and intensity of the cult of cats in the Egypt of the Late Period (see Alan Lloyd’s commentary of Book II of “Histories”- in D. Asheri-A. Lloyd-A. Corcella “A Commentary on Herodotus Books I-IV”, Oxford University Press 2007, p. 282-283).

I remind here that the fact that Herodotus’ description of this particular popular mourning practice does not find explicit corroboration in the extant Egyptian record does not mean that what Herodotus says is inaccurate, let alone that he “lied”. And this because the extant Egyptian record is rich, but obviously very fragmentary, and, moreover, it comes mostly from the upper classes, expressing their worldview, interests, and practices, a thing which is particularly true for the Late Period Egypt: as the distinguished Egyptologist Barry Kemp writes about this period of the Egyptian history “perhaps more than ever, our picture of Egypt is as seen through the governing class, who enhanced their position by keeping to a style that everyone else had abandonned. In Chapter 3…I made the claim that, “for about a third of its history, Pharaonic Egypt was a country of two cultures”. Perhaps this is an over-bold assessment in terms of scale. But if one adds to the picture the Late Period, it looks more to an understatement both in scale and duration “( in “Ancient Egypt-Anatomy of a Civilization”, Routledge 2007, second edition, p. 371).

4/ “Akhenaten was not a “heretic” by contemporary standards”

This minimization of the importance of the Amarna period and of its revolutionary character is ridiculous! Akhenaten’s reign was an unprecedented upheaval in the Egyptian history. Akhenaten introduced a whole religious and philosophical revolution on monotheistic/cosmotheistic basis, and he has done this with voluntarism, authoritarianism, and even with iconoclastic violence. Despite the huge intellectual potential of this revolution, the truth is that it was perceived as a trauma by the vast majority of the Egyptians.

To back what I say, I will reproduce here only some excerpts of what one of the most distinguished contemporary Egyptologists, Jan Assmann, has written on this topic (all the references are from Assmann’s book “The Mind of Egypt-History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs”, translated to English by Andrew Jenkins, Harvard University Press 2003, from which I have transcribed extended excerpts in a series of posts on October, 31 2021) :

“The radical monotheism of Akhenaten’s hymn negates other gods; indeed, it avoids the use of the very word of “god”, whether singular or plural- in this, it far exceeds even the Bible. Akhenaten’s monotheism, in stark contrast with the religion of the Bible, remains cosmotheistic: it worships a cosmic power that manifests itself in the form of the sun, of light and time, of radiance and motion. The revelation offered by Akhenaten consists not in moral laws and historical action but in the conviction that everything -visible and invisible reality in its entirety- is a product of light and time, and hence of the sun. Akhenaten believed that he had discovered the one divine principle from which the world had initially originated and originated anew every day. And as this unique principle was the source of all others, it followed that there could be no other gods but this one.”

“But this new formula was experienced by the king as a religious revelation, which he set about putting into practice with the utmost radicalism. All traditional cults were closed; the only worship permitted was that of the new god, the Aten (sun disk), and this itself was largely restricted to Amarna, the new capital, which Akhenaten erected in Middle Egypt on virgin soil, in a plain opposite Hermopolis. As a religious founder, Akhenaten stands at the head of a lineage very different from his predecessors’, one represented after him by the Moses of legend, and later by Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed.”

“Akhenaten was enlightener and iconoclast in one. The upheaval caused by his new religion is more apparent in what it negates, discards, and excludes than in what positively represents. But the new religion’s negative thrust was not limited to linguistic censorship; it also found expression in a large-scale organized campaign that makes Josiah’s religious reforms in Israel six centuries later appear halfhearted in comparison. Police and military ranged throughout the country in a bid to erase all the inscriptions of the hated god Amun (the precise reason for this hatred is unknown) from the face of the earth…The old religion was to be reduced to utter silence, and this objective was pursued with the same thoroughgoing radicalism as the new religion itself was to suffer only a few years later.”

“For the majority of Egyptians, the age of Amarna was one of destruction, persecution, suppression, and godlessness - of “darkness by day,” the formula used to refer to the experience of divine absence. The gods had turned away from Egypt.”

#Egypt #egyptology #herodotus #akhenaten #jan assmann #tumblr egyptologists

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kxowledge · 4 years

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June 2020

Reading: Presocratics: A Reader (Patricia Curd), Gravediggers (Andrea Anderson), Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri), Her Body and Other Parts (Carmen Maria Machado), Poems (T.S. Coleridge), The Closed Doors (Pauline Albanese), Sur les cimes du désespoir (Emil Cioran), The Myth of Sisyphus (Albert Camus), Backbone Flute (Vladimir Mayakovsky)

Theology: finish up coursework (NT / GR / TS / Psycho / SP), exams (NT / TS), learn about religion in ancient Greece (video lectures + Religion in the Ancient Greek City + Walter Otto)

Work-related: consulting projects (1 / 2), v-internship (1 / 2), draft business plan (slides), applications (IDD / pre-D)

GRE: Manhattan prep 5lbs, practice test (1 / 2 / 3), vocab (videos / anki), weekly updates

Courses: Strategic Management and Innovation (Strategy Formulation + Strategy Implementation + Capstone), Instructional Design Foundations, Competitive Strategy and Organization Design, Business Model Innovation, Innovation Management

Travel, Zahesi + Jvari Monastery + Mtskheta, Ethnographic Museum + Georgian National Museum, Gori + Uplistsikhe, Kazbegi

Habits: fix sleep schedule (wake up at 6AM / read before sleep / exercising in the late morning)

Other: update blog regularly (queue / weekly posts / best books of Q2), translate poetry (1 / 2), improve math skills (addition / subtraction), declutter desktop, create 2 years calendar with deadlines, come up with list of potential master programs to apply to, beekeeping documentary

Buy: skincare products, Ancient Greek-French dictionary, TOB

#2020 #p #will update #i am currently behind but this should serve as motivation

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eruiet · 3 years

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WORLD’S LITERATURE

Southeast Asia

From the point of view of its “classical” literatures, Southeast Asia can be divided into three major regions: (1) the Sanskrit region of Cambodia and Indonesia; (2) the region of Burma where Pali, a dialect related to Sanskrit, was used as a literary and religious language; and (3) the Chinese region of Vietnam. There are no examples of Chinese literature written in Vietnam while it was under Chinese rule (111 BC–AD 939); there are only scattered examples of Sanskrit inscriptions written in Cambodia and Indonesia; yet most of the literary works produced at the court of Pagan in Burma (flourished c. 1049–1300) have survived because the texts were copied and recopied by monks and students. But in the 14th–15th centuries, vernacular literatures suddenly emerged in Burma and Java, and a “national” literature appeared in Vietnam. The reasons behind the development of each were the same: a feeling of nationalistic pride at the final defeat of Kublai Khan’s invasions, the desire of the people to find solace in literature amidst change and struggles for power, and the lack of wealth and patronage to channel artistic expression into building temples and tombs. In Vietnam and Java literary activity centred on the courts; but in Burma the first writers were the monks and, later, the laymen educated in their monasteries. In the new Burmese kingdom of Ava (flourished after 1364), the Shan kings were proud of their Burmese Buddhist culture, and they appointed the new writers into royal service, with the result that courtiers became writers also. The Tai kings of Laos and Siam led their courts in learning Pali from the Mon, whom they had conquered, and Sanskrit from the Khmer, whom they harassed; nevertheless, seized with national pride and influenced by the Burmese example, they developed their own vernacular literature. But Cambodia itself declined. Although the monks in the Theravada Buddhist (i.e., the Southeast Asian form of Buddhism) monasteries produced a few works in Pali, no vernacular literature emerged until finally Khmer-speaking people (those living in the area comprised approximately of modern Cambodia) were borrowing many words from the Tai.For its vernacular literatures, Southeast Asia can be divided into (1) Burma; (2) Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia; (3) Vietnam; (4) Malaysia and Indonesia; and (5) the Philippines (which produced a vernacular literature only in the 20th century, after the imposed Spanish and English languages and literatures had made their impact).

East Asia

East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms.The modern states of East Asia include China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. The East Asian states of China, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan are all unrecognized by at least one other East Asian state due to severe ongoing political tensions in the region, specifically the division of Korea and the political status of Taiwan. Hong Kong and Macau, two small coastal quasi-dependent territories located in the south of China, are officially highly autonomous but are under de jure Chinese sovereignty. North Asia borders East Asia’s north, Southeast Asia the south, South Asia the southwest and Central Asia the west. To the east is the Pacific Ocean and to the southeast is Micronesia (a Pacific Ocean island group, classified as part of Oceania). Countries such as Singapore and Vietnam are also considered a part of the East Asian cultural sphere due to its cultural, religious, and ethnic similarities. East Asia was one of the cradles of world civilisation, with China developing its first civilizations at about the same time as Egypt, Babylonia and India. China stood out as a leading civilization for thousands of years, building great cities and developing various technologies which were to be unmatched in the West until centuries later. The Han and Tang dynasties in particular are regarded as the golden ages of Chinese civilization, during which China was not only strong militarily, but also saw the arts and sciences flourish in Chinese society. It was also during these periods that China exported much of its culture to its neighbors, and till this day, one can notice Chinese influences in the traditional cultures of Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Korea and Japan had historically been under the Chinese cultural sphere of influence, adopting the Chinese script, and incorporating Chinese religion and philosophy into their traditional culture. Nevertheless, both cultures retain many distinctive elements which make them unique in their own right. East Asian Writers

South and West Asia

In the Hellenistic period literature and culture flourished in Western Asia. Traditional literary forms such as lists continued to be produced by the native population and were adapted by the new rulers. While there is little evidence for the creation of new narrative literature, which may in part be due to the fragmentary nature of our sources, existing epics, wisdom texts, and folktales were retold, rewritten, and transmitted. Greeks living in Western Asia created historiographical, ethnographical, and geographical works about their surroundings, inspiring in turn the Babylonian priest Berossus to write a reference work on Babylonia in Greek. Much as during the Persian Empire, political instability and changes in power led to a diverse and independent culture of writing. Continuity in all genres, writing systems, and languages remains the most important characteristic of Western Asian literature at least to the beginning of the Christian era. Artists of western Asia are heirs to the first civilizations known to man, and their landscape is rich with examples of art, from the first human-form statues to Islamic and modern art. In the twentieth century, artists borrowed elements from their respective ancient patrimonies in an effort to create a national and regional cultural identity. Several artists’ groups formed between the 1930s and ’60s adopted European artistic modes of expression to produce works inspired by their heritage and by a rapidly disappearing landscape victim to urban migration and industrialization. This trend was most evident in Iraq, Jordan, and, to a limited extent, Israel and the Arabian Peninsula. Each country had its unique stages of development characterizing its artistic production, forging a synthesis of ancient western Asian cultures and Western styles. This unique synthesis is represented in the work of the Baghdad Modern Art Group in Iraq, and the Jewish Bezalel school of the early 1920s in Jerusalem. Jewish artists, traumatized by the Holocaust, rejected their European roots and turned to “Canaanite” myths and symbols in their quest for a national Hebrew identity. At the dawn of the twentieth century, life in many villages of western Asia had much in common with ancient life. Intrigued by this reflection of their heritage, artists depicted idyllic scenes of village life in areas such as the marshes of southern Iraq, a region ravaged in the 1980s when Saddam Hussein’s regime drained the wetlands and relocated the inhabitants.

Anglo-America and Europe

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has considerable holdings in Anglo-American literature from the 17th century onward, with notable strengths in the 18th century, Romanticism, and the Victorian and modern periods. Among the seventeenth-century holdings is a complete set of the Shakespeare folios, and works by John Milton and his contemporaries. Eighteenth-century highlights include near comprehensive printed collections of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and substantial holdings on John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, William Cowper, Fanny Burney, and others. Related materials include complete runs of periodicals, such as the Spectator and the Tatler. The history and literature of Continental Europe has been a specialty of the Newberry since its beginning, but like many other such broad fields, there are particular areas of great strength and others that are less well developed.In general, materials concerning Central and Western Europe from the fourteenth century to the end of the Napoleonic era are in scope for the library. Italy, France, and Germany are best represented. The Spanish and Portuguese collections tend to emphasize the imperial experiences of those countries but include major literary works, religious history, and pamphlets in abundance. There are significant but less extensive collections for Switzerland, Austria, the Low Countries, and some other areas. Literature and cultural history are strongest, including politics, theology, Romance and Germanic philology, education, and the classics. Philosophy, fine arts, architecture, law, and the natural sciences are more unevenly included, though the library owns many important individual works in these fields.In recent years, we have added only original sources in their original form, reference guides, bibliographies, textual editions, and a select number of monographs. The retrospective collections are also strong in monographs and scholarly periodicals. The Newberry does not systematically acquire new monographs or microform sets for European history and literature.

Africa

African literature, the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-Asiatic and African languages together with works written by Africans in European languages. Traditional written literature, which is limited to a smaller geographic area than is oral literature, is most characteristic of those sub-Saharan cultures that have participated in the cultures of the Mediterranean. In particular, there are written literatures in both Hausa and Arabic, created by the scholars of what is now northern Nigeria, and the Somali people have produced a traditional written literature. There are also works written in Geʿez (Ethiopic) and Amharic, two of the languages of Ethiopia, which is the one part of Africa where Christianity has been practiced long enough to be considered traditional. Works written in European languages date primarily from the 20th century onward. The literature of South Africa in English and Afrikaans is also covered in a separate article, South African literature. See also African theatre. The relationship between oral and written traditions and in particular between oral and modern written literatures is one of great complexity and not a matter of simple evolution. Modern African literatures were born in the educational systems imposed by colonialism, with models drawn from Europe rather than existing African traditions. But the African oral traditions exerted their own influence on these literatures.

New books by African writers you should read

Latin America

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous languages of the Americas as well as literature of the United States written in the Spanish language. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th Century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel García Márquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries. The Latino community has always excelled in its contributions to different academic fields, including the arts! When it comes to literature, there’s no exception. Some Latin American authors, whether they be poets, novelists or essayists, have influenced the world of writing with their creativity and originality.Since 1940, when Latin American literature has become an important reference in universal literature. Nowadays it continues to grow thanks to its various movements such as realism, antinovel and magical realism.Literature is an important part of Hispanic culture. Therefore, it is important to remember great figures of literature who, thanks to their creativity and originality in their writings, have achieved worldwide recognition and admiration. Listed below are some of the big names that have revolutionized Latin American literature:

by: Dominic Christian P. Cariaga

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rivkahstudies · 4 years

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1, 9, 11, 13, 31

Essi you asked, like, all the best questions

1. How far along are you in your studies?

So, complicated question. Credits wise, I'm about a semester, maybe semester and a half from being done. Based on the requirements of my major and minor to graduate, along with my stupid general ed system, I'm 4/8 semesters thru. We love US colleges milking the everloving hell out of our stale wallets!

Then I wanna do a professional certification to interpret.

9. What classes are you taking this/next semester?

I'm deep into my major now but my gen ed is designed for 4 years so last year wont be the last time I take dumb classes.

1. AN 461: Ethnographic Theory (how to write ethnographies)

2. AN 252: Ethnicity and Identity

3. Modern Standard Arabic 3rd Sem

4. Hopefully, a Directed Study in Spanish where my mentor and I explore government, law, and political tensions in 3 Hispanic countries to better understand their geopolitics and why many of their citizens emigrate to the US (since i want to interpret in immigration courts and fight ICE). We still gotta submit the plan for approval, wish us luck!

11. What has been your favourite class you’ve taken?

Oh fuck. Ummmm. I really loved AN 333 last sem, Muslim Area Studies. We studied Islam in general theology, then Islam in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. I learned so many things, including how to shut down bigots with more evidence than I previously could produce, and I got a deeper look into some of the kinds of people I want to work with and speak to.

Plus my prof was/is badass.

13. What’s the most important thing you have learned about yourself at university?

I have a lot of trauma that has sculpted the way that I approach learning, success, and many other things. I've learned a lot about where my approaches come from and (hopefully) started to reshape or entirely dismantle them.

My uni was also where I met the guy who inspired my current career track, so I think that's really important to mention too.

31. If you couldn’t study the subject you study now, what would you study?

This is really hard bc I realized in college that most of the careers that I have wanted to pursue are actually connected to my current path. Forensic anthropologist, archeologist, paleontologist, historian, diplomat... ye.

For a while i really wanted to be an architect. Now I have a few archblr friends and it still seems really fun. But if I could stay in the same general area, I'd be a linguistics major instead of an anthro major.

Im on mobile so if I ordered them wrong, RIPPP. Thanks for asking!

#uni asks #essi~#about me #rivkah answers

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fantasiavii · 4 years

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Can you tell me a little something about being a religion major? About what all you have studied? Because it sounds very interesting!

Yeah!!! Sorry it took me so long to reply to this (holidays lol) but I just want to let you know when I saw this come in, it made my week! I LOVE talking about religion/what I study (so maybe this is a little more than what you asked for lol).

The first thing I want to say is kind of a disclaimer; I studied religion, not theology, so this wasn’t like training to be a priest or an imam or anything (though some students do go on to do that!). It’s all from an outsider (etic), academic perspective. Of course, I have studied theological works but I’ve also done history and theory and ethnography, etc., etc. (Sometimes it helps people understand if I say I did religious studies? Not that I don’t think you understand, just for other readers who might not know.)

So I majored in religion with a focus on Islamic studies (basically meaning I just took mostly Islam classes and wrote my thesis on Islam and Islamophobia in France) but I’ve also studied Hinduism, theory of religion, Christianity (specifically: Eastern Orthodoxy), and Buddhism (listed in order of what I’ve studied most to least).

Major highlights were my Sufism class (so much fun but also very difficult and esoteric (as it’s meant to be lol), also gave me a healthy distrust of most translations of Rumi), my Islamic Thought in the 19th and 20th Centuries class (fascinating bc a lot of it was about nationalism and responses to colonization and imperialism, etc.) and my junior seminar (I got to do ethnographic work and interviews at an Orthodox church and the community and services were just so lovely; sometimes I miss it even though I have no desire to convert) (still kicking myself over missing the Eastern Orthodoxy class and instead taking Religion and Media, which was not what it sounds like, and I am just as disappointed as you are it was actually the worst class I took in college oops).

More about my thesis, my department, and studying religion below the cut!

My thesis was another ordeal unto itself (I have a tag, “The Reign of Thesis” which might be interesting to look at provided tumblr’s search function works, thought tbh I don’t remember most of what I posted there). It was like taking my two loves (Islam and France/French republicanism) and making them fight (or, more like, tearing my heart in two). I say this because half of my thesis was tracing the historical origins of modern day Islamophobia, most of which boils down to the fact that the creation of the modern French republic happened at the same time as the colonization of a lot of Muslim majority countries (I focused on Algeria) and Muslims/Islam became the Other against which French (republican) identity was defined (essentially making the modern state/French identity inherently Islamophobic and making it very difficult to exist as Muslim and French). I love studying the French Revolution (and took a wonderful class on it in college) and the following revolutions (hello Les Mis fandom) and I find French republicanism/republican universalism quite inspiring but I also had to come to terms with the fact that it was used and still is used in actively Islamophobic ways. This is getting long (I did write like 80 pages about this so please forgive me for broad statements with no evidence; I did do my research) but yeah, it was a difficult thesis to write, I’m glad I did it, but it made me very burnt out and depressed. Still love studying religion and the French Revolution though lol. Just sometimes it makes me very angry. (I can recommend books, though, to any Frev or Les Mis friends who might be reading this and want to know more.)

AN IMPORTANT FINAL NOTE: I had such a fun time being a religion major, half because I really love the subject but also because I really love my department and my professors and my classmates. The religion department at my school felt a bit like a family and everyone was friendly with each other and there was very little drama. (That’s one of the main things holding me back from grad school--the fear that I won’t find the same kind of community. Because there are ways to teach religion really badly and major scholarly disputes and I don’t want to have to fight people lol.) So if you’re interested in studying religion, I would definitely say go for it! But also know that the environment you’re in and the people you’re with really matter.

(Also I distrust survey classes, the “Introduction to World Religions” kind, but I recognize that they’re sometimes they only intro-level options. They just don’t have enough depth imo and that can make the study quite boring or they might generalize to the point of incorrectness. As my advisor likes to say, “there are as many Islams as there are Muslims,” and we can’t even hope to account for all the beautiful diversity and complexity there is in religious practice and belief if we only have one semester and two weeks per religion.)

#asks #answered #adventures of a religion major #l'histoire de ma vie #deep breath out #that was a lot #hopefully that wasn't too much #(feel free to ask follow up questions lol)#sometimes I still have anxiety about my thesis and keep having to remind myself that I passed #and did well lol #Anonymous

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benghini · 4 years

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Theological Texts as Pulp Sci-fi pt 13

Gustavo Gutierrez — A Theology of Liberation

Natalie Wigg-Stevenson — Ethnographic Theology

Ernest Troeltsch — The Social Teachings of the Christian Church

Walter Wink — Engaging the Powers

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza — Changing Horizons

#gustavo gutierrez #natalie wigg stevenson #ernest troeltsch #walter wink #elisabeth schussler fiorenza

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hopeisubiquitous-blog · 5 years

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My First Post

Here is my well-meaning attempt at a blog. This is for real this time; I swear.

I have taken approximately 4 years off of personal and creative writing for a multitude of reasons that I could probably figure out without the help of therapy. My biggest reason: I was too invested in my research. You see, I am an aspiring ethnographer who spent undergrad learning qualitative and quantitative research methods in sociology and anthropology. If I could write about anything, I would write about dying from the point of view of those on hospice care. I have a theory that death does not need to be scary and horrible, but the only way to really know that is to experience it. I believe there has to be the perfect way to deal with death, whether you are dying or are the one holding death’s hand.

But the other reason I stopped writing? Simply put, it was too painful. For the first 18 years of my life writing remained the only way I could get out the frightful thoughts that lurked in my psyche. Even my earliest childhood memories are riddled with anxiety and suicidal ideation. No, I do not remember being a happy child. Carefree days, barefoot in the grass and swinging on swings were lost on me. The past is gray and a perpetual winter and it gives me this icky, bubbling feeling in the pit of my stomach like someone squeezed a lemon on my organs and they are writhing, folding in on themselves to soothe the acidic burn. Yes, I attribute much of my salvation to writing, a God given gift. But after awhile it hurt my heart more than my hand, scribbling for hours the nightmares I had while awake. So I stopped- just like that.

Here is why I am starting again. For one, I have more time. I have 5 jobs, but I am taking about 9 months off before I start graduate school to pursue my master’s. For another, I believe in complete vulnerability. I do not believe that the internet is meant to be a diary and I do believe in boundaries with the World Wide Web. I also believe, though, that I am meant to share my experiences with the world because otherwise they disappear, blown into oblivion like collected dust. I want to share what I have felt, heard, and seen because if we do not talk about the grotesque reality we live in, we may never see the beauty weaving through it, intertwined. I believe that there is power in expression. There is unity.

If you are reading this, please ask questions! Social problems, grief, mental illness, education, therapy, theology, love- I want to write it all. Until then, thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you come back!

Your new friend,

Sol

#blog #hope #ubiquitous #writing #sociology #student #research #grief #sol #ask me anything #depression #anxiety

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