45 research outputs found
âAt âAmen Mealsâ Itâs Me and Godâ Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Womenâs Ritual
New ritual practices performed by Jewish women can serve as test cases for an examination of the phenomenon of the creation of religious rituals by women. These food-related rituals, which have been termed ââamen mealsââ were developed in Israel beginning in the year 2000 and subsequently spread to Jewish women in Europe and the United States. This study employs a qualitative-ethnographic methodology grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews to describe these nonobligatory, extra-halakhic rituals. What makes these rituals stand out is the womenâs sense that through these rituals they experience a direct con- nection to God and, thus, can change reality, i.e., bring about jobs, marriages, children, health, and salvation for friends and loved ones. The ââamenââ rituals also create an open, inclusive womanâs space imbued with strong spiritualâemotional energies that counter the womenâs religious marginality. Finally, the purposes and functions of these rituals, including identity building and displays of cultural capital, are considered within a theoretical framework that views ââdoing genderââ and ââdoing religionââ as an integrated experience
A História da Alimentação: balizas historiogråficas
Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da HistĂłria da Alimentação, nĂŁo como um novo ramo epistemolĂłgico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de prĂĄticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicaçÔes, associaçÔes, encontros acadĂȘmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condiçÔes em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biolĂłgica, a econĂŽmica, a social, a cultural e a filosĂłfica!, assim como da identificação das contribuiçÔes mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histĂłrica, foi ela organizada segundo critĂ©rios morfolĂłgicos. A seguir, alguns tĂłpicos importantes mereceram tratamento Ă parte: a fome, o alimento e o domĂnio religioso, as descobertas europĂ©ias e a difusĂŁo mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rĂĄpido balanço crĂtico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema
Who Does She Think She Is?
Abstract: A retired medievalist uses an incident from her early career to urge younger scholars to both self-confidence and realism about their own scholarship. Pointing out that suspicion of bright, high-achieving women has not disappeared, she argues that the greatest weapon for triumphing over it is womenâs self-confidence that they set their own standards for excellence
Bestial metamorphoses: Blakeâs variations on trans-human change in Danteâs Hell
William Blakeâs engagement with Dante Alighieriâs Divine Comedy (1824-7) illuminates the convergence of Classical and Christian iconography at the heart of Blakeâs bestiary. Oswald Spengler coined the term âpseudomorphosisâ to âdenote the unwilling conformity of a new and dynamic culture to the forms and formulas of an older cultureâ. Erwin Panofsky took up the concept to investigate divergences in form and content between text and image in the medieval translation of classical literature and visual culture. Against Spenglerâs dramatic take on the fight towards form, and Panofskyâs recuperation of medium divergence in cultural translation, Theodor W. Adorno read pseudomorphosis as a mediumâs imitation of another medium, an uncritical âstage in the process of convergenceâ. Drawing on the iconological schoolâs analysis of the pseudomorphic articulations of cultural transmission, I wish to explore Blakeâs monsters as Christian reinventions of classical mythology. Danteâs emblematic bestiary reinvents monsters from classical literature in a series of transgressions of the boundaries of species. This essay will draw on the debated concept of pseudomorphosis to explore the dialectic tension between assimilation, parody, and disintegration of form in Blakeâs reinvention of Danteâs visions of hell. Classical sculptures used as prototypes of the human ideal are subjected to a series of demonic inversions. Hybrid forms and transformations culminate in the reversible serpent metamorphoses that express the bestial condition of the thieves in Cantos XXIV and XXV of Inferno. The multiplication of images Blake devotes to this case of transhuman change indicates its key place in the interminglings between man and beast in his approach to the Commedia. This chapter explores Blakeâs serpent sequence and the possibilities of metamorphosis as a way of interrogating alternative models of animal human encounter. The frame of punishment suggests that Danteâs bestial metamorphoses represent a series of transgressions of boundaries. However, Blakeâs versions bring to light alternative possibilities in the handling of species, showing coexistence or overlaps, intermediate steps in a continuum, fusion through commingling. Metamorphosis itself changes with acts of translation â between languages, genres, and media