OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Chidester, David"

Browsing by Author "Chidester, David"

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African religion and religion education
(1994) Mndende, Nokuzola; Chidester, David
The concept of religion in South Africa has been distorted by religious and racial prejuidices. This problem is particularly evident in public schools South African schools have taught Christianity as the only authentic religion, in fact as the only truth. Black parents have not been given a choice of religion for their children. The white government has decided for them Based on the assumption that Christianity is the only legitimate religion, the state has suppressed African indigenous religion at every level of society, but especially in the schools. The thesis examines the indigenous beliefs and practices of the black people in South Africa which were suppressed by Western culture and Christianity. It reveals all the distortions about African Religion by the outside researchers in order to uproot the black people from their way of life so as to colonise them. As a result all the black children are taught to regard Christianity as a "Religion" and their own religion as "culture", the implication being that blacks had no religion until the white man came with Christianity. The thesis also investigates the feelings of the black people about recovering their indigenous religion by having it as a subject in schools. The results reveal that the majority of blacks never dissociated themselves with their religion. Although most are Christians in principle, deep down they practise their own religion. It has also been discovered that there are great lamentations amongst most blacks over the "loss" of some of the indigenous practices. Most have felt alienated from their heritage and identity. It is therefore the interest of the blacks in South Africa that African Religion be taught in schools.
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Buddhism in South Africa : from textual imagination to contextual innovation
(1995) Wratten, Darrel; Chidester, David
This thesis provides the first narrative of a history of Buddhism in South Africa. In the absence of any coherent analysis, it thus seeks to expose an historical lacuna in the study of religions in the region and to redress an academic aphasia that appears preeminent in recent "authoritative" pronouncements. It suggests, in fact, that Buddhism was both present in the histories of religious pluralism and pervasive among the contours of a geography of religious diversity in South Africa since at least the 1680s. In so doing, the thesis further attempts to make the apparent "strangeness" of Buddhism in South Africa appear more familiar, and the familiar, quotidian history of religions in the region appear unconventional or exceptional. Consequently, the thesis also asks how the presence of Buddhism outside of a "normative" Asian origin can help to redefine the meaning of Buddhism and how the presence of Buddhism in South Africa, can help to refine the meaning of religion. However, in drawing on published materials, travelogues, archives, correspondence, interviews, and fieldwork, the primary assertion of the thesis is one that traces how, in that history, Buddhism was initially inscribed according to a textual imagination that was conditioned by articles and artifacts, and how that tradition was subsequently reinvented in the context of innovative, localized practice to create a living religion in the region.
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The Christian eschatological epistemology of Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758
(1987) Damsell, Wilfred Ernest; Chidester, David
Philosophy and theology combine in Jonathan Edwards in a way that is not usual for either discipline. The field of study is therefore that of historical philosophy and historical theology but only in so far as to give the historical situation and interpretation of Jonathan Edwards' epistemology. The philosophy is Christian, Neo-Platonic and Lockean and the theology is Calvinistic. The author gives the historical background with reference to John Locke,· Isaac Newton and compares Edwards with Kant who was almost contemporary and shows that epistemology is situational and that a philosopher's works can never be studied out of context. He then touches on the massive Puritan heritage of Jonathan Edwards' and shows briefly the epistemological tradition of Calvin but chiefly concentrating on the knowledge of faith. He traces this through the English Puritans to Jonathan Edwards. The author then by means of a detailed commentary from various parts of Edwards' works· places the locus of Edwards' epistemology in the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. · He shows that each Person of the Triune God, was a permanent emotional, devotional, theological and homiletical feature in Edwards' life. The holistic vision of God working in a consciously epistemological way from eternity to eternity, raises the locus of the epistemology far above Perry Miller's comment that Edwards was extrapolating Lockean psychology into the Godhead. The reverse was true, the vision of God in His eternal sovereignty, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, places the locus in eternity, in the heavens, so to speak, and the ordinary elements of epistemology usually discussed by philosophers, must be considered in that context if they are to be true to Jonathan Edwards. This locus is most clearly seen when the eschatological development of his epistemology into eternity is systematised. Knowledge is bound up with glory, virtue, joy, beauty and with an existential encounter with God, growing into eternity. Knowledge is viewed as being mediated by Christ the God-man to an hierarchy of created spirits. Knowledge is itself in an hierarchy and must be considered in its full implications. The knowledge of the damned involves Edwards in a contradiction as he sees them growing in knowledge, suffering and pain yet cut off from Christ the mediator of knowledge and also growing in stupor.
Open Access
Conversion, crisis, and growth : the religious management of change within the St John's Apostolic Faith Mission and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Cape Town, South Africa
(2001) Masondo, Sibusiso Theophilus; Chidester, David
This thesis defines conversion as a process of change management. Individuals and groups mobilise resources and formulate strategies for individual identity and group formation. Strategies are also formulated to manage the process of change for members. In the research done among two churches, one conventionally classified as African indigenous and the other classified as mainline, two models of conversion emerged, the crisis model at St John's and the growth model at the Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCSA). In the crisis model individuals join the group because of some crisis in their lives, e.g., illness or misfortune. The healing practices and rituals serve to manage and mediate the crisis for individuals. Healing is at the heart of the recruitment strategy at St John's and other African Indigenous Churches (AICs). It is through hearing about the efficacy of the healing powers of the leader that people are attracted to the church. On the other hand, the growth model as represented by the RPCSA, is about organic growth and development where new members are mostly recruited among the children of members. Children are groomed from baptism through Sunday school and confirmation classes to membership in full communion. For them conversion is a process of growth and development, where they keep on learning all the time about their faith and who they are. In scholarship the AICs have always been treated ethnographically while, on the other hand, the mainline churches have been treated historically. However, this thesis is a comparative study of the AIC and a mainline church with a special emphasis on their conceptions of conversion. The two churches are both African and Christian. They each draw from both these resources for self-definition. Christianity has become part of the South African religious landscape. None of the members in the two churches consider it as an alien or foreign religion but they consider it as an indigenous one. The two models mobilise resources and formulate strategies for self-definition and what it means to be human in a hostile environment.
Open Access
Crossing boundaries: religion, sexuality and identity in the lives of Zanele Muholi and Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde
(2013) Carlse, Janine; Shaikh, Sadiyya; Chidester, David
The 21st century has brought new concerns to the fore within South Africa's democracy. Sexuality and the freedom to express one's sexual identity are currently at the forefront of academic writing and investigation in the social sciences in Africa. In following this interdisciplinary line of research, this thesis explores some of the ways that religious ideologies influence women's agency in relation to their sexuality and identity. In particular, I examine how dominant religious and cultural norms framed by patriarchal and heteronormative ideals are negotiated by black lesbian Zulu women. My research is focused on the lives of two Zulu women, lesbian activist photographer Zanele Muholi and lesbian sangoma Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde, who inhabit very different social realities from one another. Both these women are redefining the paths of women's sexuality in their specific contexts, while taking somewhat different approaches to this task. I argue that religion has a very powerful impact on the way that these women approach their sexuality and sexual choices, whether directly or indirectly, with a hybridity of Zulu tradition and Christianity influencing their lives in various ways. Muholi and Nkabinde are directly affected by religious ideologies through the way that they have to reconcile their sexuality with their religion and culture; and indirectly through the way that certain heteronormative religious ideologies have influenced the political and social structures within South Africa. Religious ideologies that divide humanity into the essentialist complimentary categories of masculine and feminine pose a problem for people who straddle both these spheres. By not fitting neatly into any of these categories, black lesbians are often viewed or depicted as not fitting into the social structure, particularly within and around urban townships, giving reason for their oppression and marginalisation.
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Dancing with the hangman : symbol, myth and ritual in the medieval German legend, the Schelmensage
(2005) Klein, Marie Bastienne; Chidester, David
Dancing with the hangman is an investigation into the medieval German legend known as the Schelmensage, which has its location in Bergen-Enkheim in Frankfurt, Germany - the town where I was born. It is a legend that concerns the manner in which a hangman became knighted by the emperor Barbarossa. I received the legend from my mother. My initial research question was to find out why the legend was being told for over a period of 900 years. The thesis investigation reveals the legend to be a German trickster myth, achieving this analysis using various theories to define it as myth. The work of Paul Ricoeur on mimesis, is cast in an arc of the prefigured world of action, the act of configuration and the ability of a person to reconfigure a situation or a life, which is applied so as to understand the structures which underlie the legend's meaning. Regarding the word Schelm as the symbolic core of this legend the thesis analyses this symbolism through its etymology, a structural analysis of its five different versions and its ritual performance in the play, Der Schelm von Bergen. The thesis considers the impact of being personally involved with the subject matter. The analysis is woven with personal episodes and this is defended as a reflexive methodolgy.
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The dissonance of guilt : an examination of the human condition's fundamental dynamic of guilt feelings, referring to psychological and religious discourse and how they could be combined to facilitate mental health
(1986) Boothroyd, David Gordon; Chidester, David; Cumpsty, John S
Feeling guilty is an experience we all know. It is a condition that ensures we remain cognisant of our obligations to our- selves and to others so that we live within the bounds of appropriate behaviour. When obligations are violated and deviance is evident, the resultant dissonance between expected and contrary behaviour generates feelings of inner environment discomfort and self-criticism recognised as guilt feelings. Whether such states of internal dissonance are psychodynamically induced, as Freud maintained, or are the result of not meeting ethical obligations, as decreed by particular religious systems, or are due to an inevitable faculty of being human, they have to be controlled if the mental health of the individual experiencing them is not to be detrimentally affected. What psychology and religion have to say about ensuring that this control is effective has unfortunately become dichotomous and disparate realms of discourse. A common discourse is necessary if the insights of each are to most effectively deal with mental health care. To this end, this thesis is presented as a means for assisting psychotherapists in a re-assessment of the interface between psychology and religion.
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Dreams, desire and addiction : an archetypal analysis
(1998) Joyner, Catherine; Chidester, David
This thesis suggests that dream analysis is a crucial theoretical tool, not simply to assist the individuation process, but also to gain understanding of the severing of body from soul that is so linked to addiction. Thus the thesis proposes that dream analysis is a key means to access one's spirituality, not, simply a psychoanalytic technique. It draws on a range of disciplines and discourses, located in a Jungian and ecofeminist framework, to suggest that a growing crisis of ill health - at both individual and ecological levels - is attributable, in essence, to a loss of soul. It focuses on addiction as a reflection of this loss, attempting to show that the relentless craving of the addict is best understood as spiritual hunger. The deep desire which underlies this hunger is expressed in multiple ways in our dreams. A major aspect of the thesis is an attempt to explicate the nature of the loss, and of the hunger which points to it. I suggest that both have their roots in the patriarchal conquest and denigration of women and the feminine, which may be seen inscribed on the ravaged bodies of women and Mother Earth. The first four chapters lay the groundwork for the case study of a woman whose experience illustrates much of the complexity of this theoretical discussion. The value of dream analysis as a theoretical tool which actively assists the individuation process is presented in Chapter 1 within a multi-disciplinary framework. In Chapter 2, the focus details and analyses the Jungian model and approach to dream interpretation in preparation for the concluding 9ase study. Parallels between relevant aspects of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions and Jungian models are also explored. Chapter 3 examines archetypal patterns of addiction seeking to understand the dynamic of wounded desire and displaced spiritual hunger. Postmodern links are made. Chapter 4 suggests that the devaluation and violation of the female body has its roots in the elevation of the patriarchal sky god of the Abrahamic tradition. The need for a rigorous application of a hermeneutic of suspicion towards androcentric constructions of meaning is highlighted and related to the vulnerabilities females experience in relation to embodiment. Foreshadowing key issues of the case study and linked clearly to the thematic of addiction, the impact of sexual abuse on the child's experience of embodiment becomes a theoretical focus. The case study conducted with a 31-year-old bulimic after her release from hospital, attempts to demonstrate the practical relevance of these ideas. A series of dreams recorded by her are analysed thematically and interpreted to support the claim that dreams offer a window on the transformative process of soul recovery. Thus major theoretical issues explored include the nature of the feminine, in various notions of "soul", themes of embodiment in relation to the disembodiment characteristic of the addict, the contemporary relevance of the archetypal imagery contained in myth and folk tales, and convergences between Jungian, ecofeminist, New Age, Eastern and postmodern discourses. Dream work, I suggest, opens the way to healing and empowerment.
Open Access
The ecofeminism of Ivone Gebara
(2014) Nogueira-Godsey, Elaine; Chidester, David; Shaikh, Sa'diyya
This thesis investigates the intellectual trajectory of the Brazilian feminist liberation theologian Ivone Gebara. Gebara's development and conceptualisation of the notion of 'immediacy' from a feminist perspective not only constitutes a central and critical feature of her theology, but also emerges as a key component in forging increased dialogue and cooperation between Southern and Northern ecofeminists. The immediate context of oppression experienced by poor Latin American women is the ground upon which Gebara has built her critique of patriarchal and apolitical Christian theological discourses, as well as capitalist ideologies. These multiple forms of oppression, Gebara argues, render women's experiences of marginalisation invisible or hidden within socio-cultural and economic-political immediate realities. This thesis proposes that the immediate reality of oppression lead Gebara to develop a specific methodological approach that is responsive to the experiences of women in particular. Gebara's praxis-orientated methodology also functions as a compass for the development of a political ecofeminist praxis. As Ivone Gebara's work demonstrates, the political aspect of theology can be injected into the core of emerging ecotheologies. In the process, ecofeminist theologians can work to bridge the gap between theory and praxis. This thesis argues that Gebara's ecofeminist theology represents the embodiment of a history of resistance underwritten by her own experiences and of those struggling to survive around her. Developed in recognition of the ever-changing nature of postcolonial contexts, Gebara's theology could be considered one that is constantly "on-the-move". In dialogue not only with Southern and Northern scholars who are concerned with ecological and social justice, this thesis is developed in dialogue with those working with postcolonial theory. Starting from the events that gave rise to ecofeminism in the Global North, this thesis analyses the under-researched development of ecofeminism in Latin America. Gebara's work highlights forms of emerging imperialist and colonialist behaviours as it is manifested in postcolonial contexts, such as her native country of Brazil. In highlighting this postcolonial factor, this thesis proposes a praxis-oriented methodology from a postcolonial perspective to restoring the political aspect of religion to the centre of emerging global ecofeminist theological discourse. Hence, this thesis draws attention to the under-researched work performed by Ivone Gebara and her role as an important mediator in global ecofeminism.
Open Access
Eliade's theory of religion and the African experience
(2007) Allies, Andre C; Chidester, David
Mircea Eliade has made meaningful contributions to the academic debate in the field of religion and comparative religious studies. As much as he had scholastic opinion that would find synthesis with, support and defend his thought patterns and argument, so too he had, of almost equal proportions, those who would criticize his scholarship, accusing it of being, amongst others, biased and "revealing uncritical unverifiable generalizations". The scope of this essay is to enter that debate, with the intention to specifically focus on and unpack some of the most important concepts that underlie Eliade's thinking and deliberations, rather than focusing on the holistic theory of religion as purported by him. These concepts will be measured against the African Religious experience, to see if it finds resonance or stands in conflict with it. In the process, this study attempts to reveal some aspects of Eliade's theory of religion that could be saved to fit an African religious perspective. It also attempts to identify some aspects or conceptions of Eliade's theory that are lacking if read through an African lens. The focus in this study will specifically be on conceptions such as the hierophany, the sacred, symbolism, and myth, and how these interact and show themselves within the African context.
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The eschatological garden : sacred space, time and experience in the monastic cloister garden
(2009) Badenhorst, Ursula; Chidester, David
The argument of this dissertation is that the garden can be considered a proleptic eschatological landscape outside of time. To prove this argument I pull together strands of philosophical reflections on death, history of religions analysis concerning sacred space and time and monastic spirituality. I develop this argument by focusing on the enclosed garden, which has connected with it, in myth and metaphor, abundant meanings concerning life after death in a paradisiacal state of bliss. These meanings also become evident in the physical layout of the garden, which, when analyzing it in terms of substantial and situational definitions of sacred space, becomes a prime example of a sacred space, linked physically and symbolically to an eschatological space. The enclosed garden plays a very important role in monastic spirituality as it is not only associated with the cloister, but also with the Virgin Mary, which both offer the monk a gateway to eternity in Paradise. Physically the enclosed garden becomes the very center of the monastic precinct, offering through a ritual-sensory experience of its spatial qualities an experience which allows the monk a moment of spiritual transcendence. It is also, thus, in this moment, when the monk’s physical experience of the garden is woven together with ideas of paradise as an abode of eternity, that the garden becomes a sacred space which can lift him outside of time to experience paradisiacal happiness. This requires a process of hermeneutical interpretation from the monk and the theorist reflecting on this encounter. It is a dialogue between the garden and its interpreters, which leads to the conclusion that an encounter with the sacred never stands in isolation.
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From Tsonga to Moçambicanidade: civil religious dynamics in Mozambican nationalism
(2011) Ngale, Samuel Joina; Chidester, David
The relationship between the Romande Mission and the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) has been the subject of study by a number of Mozambicanists. Most of them agree that the Romande Mission played a key role in educating nationalist elites and in shaping political consciousness among the Africans. Notwithstanding the relevance of this approach, the current study argues that the Tsonga tribal and Mozambican national identities are civil religious constructs. They resulted from sacrificial ritual performances, the expropriation of traditions and symbols, and the creation of sacred spaces. Formed as a linguistic, cultural, religious and tribal unity, the Tsonga provided a historical genealogy and structural template for the emergence of Moçambicanidade as a civil religion. Drawing upon postcolonial theory and discourse analysis, the thesis uses the analytical category “civil religion” as a focusing lens in order to explore the dynamics of national solidarity in four main archival sources: First, the construction of the Tsonga narratives of the tiMhamba, the Sacred Woods and the expropriation of local traditions recorded in Henri-Alexandre Junod’s, The Life of a South African Tribe; second, the pedigree of a heightened value for union, Protestant work-ethics and education, bequeathed to Eduardo Mondlane and evident in his The Struggle for Mozambique; third, Jose Craveirinha’s deployment of religious and theological symbolism portraying the earliest signs of Moçambicanidade in Xigubo, Cela 1 and Karingana Wa Karingana; and, finally, the successful nation-building story signified by the Constitutional documents. Since the focus of the thesis is on productions of civil religion rather than their reception, evidence is drawn from textual analysis rather than from fieldwork methods. As a consequence of the analysis, the study argues that both Tsonga and Moçambicanidade are subaltern identities to modernity, perhaps destined to fail, but existing within the frame of modernity as its alter ego. By highlighting civil religious constructions of Tsonga and Moçambicanidade, the thesis hopes to shed new light and advance a discussion at the nexus of African religion and politics.
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Future tense : an analysis of science fiction as secular apocalyptic literature
(1985) Thompson, Mary-Anne Carey; Chidester, David
Religious apocalyptic literature appears to have been written in response to a situation of crisis in which the believers found themselves. It is the catalyst which provided the energy which the society needed in order to withstand that crisis, and it did this by radically inverting the dimensions which make up a worldview, that is the dimensions of time and space, and the classification of groups, so that it reflects the possibility of a new order, a new heaven and a new earth. Since the nineteenth century, the Western world has seen itself in a constant state of crisis in terms of the rapid secularisation, industrialisation and urbanisation, and it would seem that the notion of an apocalypse is still relevant. But religious visions of the apocalypse do not seem to have relevance to the largely secular society they would have been addressing. Something new, immediate and drastic was needed, which would supply the society with the energy to withstand the crisis of a secular world. Science fiction as a literary genre arose in the late nineteenth century, and it would seem as if the new social situation generated a new symbolic vocabulary for ancient apocalyptic themes, in other words, science fiction appeared as an imaginative literary genre of mythic, apocalyptic dimensions to address this situation. In the same way as religious visions of the apocalypse, science fiction inverts the components of a worldview so that a new social order, a new heaven and a new earth are seen as possible. In order to explore this theme, science fiction is examined in the light of radical inversion of accepted worldviews, and the genre is divided into three historical periods in order to understand the conditions under which it was written, as well as the content of the material involved. These periods are: 1. Apocalypses of Expectation and Hope. The late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century; the beginnings of the genre in the crisis of rapid industrialisation, secularisation and urbanisation, using the works of Jules Verne and H G Wells. 2. Apocalypses of Irony and Despair. The nineteen twenties to the end of the Second World War; the crises of the two World Wars on a complacent world, using the works of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. 3. Apocalypses of Destruction and Redemption. The nineteen fifties to the present; the crisis of nuclear power and thinking machines, using the works of Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov. Also examined are the quasi-religious nature of science fiction, apocalypse as a cleansing agent of the universe, and the myths of noble survivors of post-apocalyptic literature and films. In the light of the above, it can be understood why science fiction can be seen as the functional equivalent to religious apocalyptic myth, but relevant to the largely secular Western world of the twentieth century.
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Gendered signs of the sacred : contested images of the mother in psychoanalysis, feminism, and Hindu myth
(1997) Tobler, Judith; Chidester, David
This thesis engages a multi-disciplinary theoretical approach to identifying, analysing, and interpreting discourse relating to the feminine and the maternal found at the intersection of psychoanalysis, feminism, and religion. The study explores embodiment, gender, and the sacred as expressed in symbolic representations of the mother and the institution of motherhood in patriarchy. I have therefore drawn on Freudian and post-Freudian theories, gender analysis, feminist critical analysis, and classical Hindu goddess myth to discern ways in which sacred images of the mother serve to reinforce the oppression of women on the one hand and can be transformed to provide empowering symbols for women's lived reality on the other. Theory of sacred space is also employed, particularly with regard to the human production of the sacred through the contested politics of sacred space.
Open Access
The ghost dance religion of 1890 and the Mormons : a study of comparisons
(2011) Alston, Booker T; Chidester, David
The goal of this study is to examine the historical circumstances and individuals involved in this narrative as a way to critically reflect on the use of comparison in the production, circulation, and perpetuation of knowledge about religion.
Open Access
Global citizenship, cultural citizenship and world religions in religion education
(2011) Chidester, David
An examination of the reasons for studying religion and religions and the necessity for educator, student, administrative or parental involvement in the process of teaching and learning about religious diversity. In this paper, Chidester tests one possible answer to these questions: namely, citizenship, and suggests that the study of religion, religions and religious diversity can usefully be brought into conversation with recent research on new formations of citizenship. This text may be used to support students in Religious Studies.
Open Access
H.P. Blavatsky, theosophy, and nineteenth-century comparative religion
(2018) Bester, Dewald; Chidester, David
Although H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), co-founder of the Theosophical Society, has featured prominently in histories of Western esotericism, her engagement with late nineteenth-century comparative religion has not been appreciated. This thesis offers the first sustained analysis of H. P. Blavatsky's theosophical comparative religion. Despite the fact that one of the original goals of the Theosophical Society was advancing comparative religion, H. P. Blavatsky has been excluded from standard accounts of the field. This thesis draws on a range of theoretical resources - Richard Rorty's pragmatic theory of knowledge, Alun Munslow's analysis of narrative in history, Thomas Gieryn's critique of boundary-making in science, and Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison's history of objectivity - to argue for the inclusion of H. P. Blavatsky in the history of comparative religion. Substantial chapters analyse H. P. Blavatsky's major works, from Isis Unveiled (1877) to The Secret Doctrine (1888), to uncover the theoretical template that she developed for analysing religion and comparing religions. The thesis highlights H. P. Blavatsky's interpretative strategies in fashioning a theosophical comparative religion. In developing a comparative religion, H. P. Blavatsky referred to leading figures in the emerging field of the academic study of religion, such as F. Max Müller, E. B. Tylor, and Herbert Spencer, in positioning her theosophical comparative religion in the context of late nineteenth-century production of knowledge about religion and religions. This thesis demonstrates that H. P. Blavatsky's comparative religion was reasoned, literary, rhetorical, coherent, and strategic. By analysing H. P. Blavatsky's theoretical work on religion and religions in its late nineteenth-century context, this thesis contributes to the ongoing project of broadening our understanding of the complex and contested history of the study of religion.
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The inner journey : pilgrimage in South Africa and the modern world
(2006) Roos, Beverley; Chidester, David
At the heart of this thesis lies the argument that pilgrimage is a universal, longrooted, normal and vital aspect of human behaviour that shows no sign of abating in the modern world; that is is a fluid and flexible process, imbued with a multiplicity of meanings and functions that may fall inside or outside the authentication of large religious traditions and certainly existed before them; that the primary measure of pilgrimage should be that of intent or purpose and therefore pilgrimages can be categorised according to function; and that the inner journey is the most important feature of authentic pilgrimage but does not overrule obligation or traditional practice.
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Kant's Epistemological geography : the role of SchwÃ¤rmerei and demarcation in the conception of critical philosophy
(1997) Djordjevic, Djordje; Chidester, David
This study intends to examine one Kantian problematic that has been often overlooked, especially in recent years. It explores Kant's reactions to so-called occult phenomena and related teachings. Kant's initial and the single most important interlocutor in this respect was Emanuel Swedenborg. Kant refers to his visions and the tone of his writings as SchwÃ¤rmerei, that is an exaltation or an exalted tone. The problem of explaining the conditions of possibility or impossibility of the knowledge-claims of this type, is apparent in Kant's writings from the late 1760s. The object of the exalted knowledge-claims, it is argued, continued to figure in the critical period as one of the prime s of the unkowable objects, that is, noumena. Therefore, it is claimed that SchwÃ¤rmerei and the related practices played an intrinsic role in Kant's conception of the Grenze, a limit of the conditions of possibility of human knowledge. For , the demarcation between the phenomena and noumena relies on an assumption of the particular nature of the knowledge-claims, modelled upon the claims of SchwÃ¤rmerei, pertaining to objects which are beyond our grasp. In addition, Kant's concept of Grenze and the outcome of his demarcation has been put into an historical perspective. Thus, his demarcation criteria are contrasted to modern pre-Kantian attitudes towards the occult practices and the attempts to devise demarcation criteria in science. In this respect special attention has been given to Newton's methodology and research. The study also contains an examination of more recent criteria of demarcation proposed in philosophy of science which draw from Kantian conception of demarcation. Of particualar interest are Popper's and Kuhn's demarcation criteria between the scientific and non-scientific as well as some recent demarcation policies that is argued, can be related to them. The primary sources of this study can be found in an interdisciplinary field: Kantian scholarship, history of science and the occult in the period of Renaissance and early Enlightenment, contemporary philosophy of science, and the recent debates concerning modernity.
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The language of gardens: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s barzakh, the courtyard gardens of the Alhambra, and the production of sacred space
(2014) Badenhorst, Ursula; Chidester, David; Shaikh, Sa'diyya
The aim of this thesis is to propose a multi-layered and interdisciplinary understanding of space by focussing on the courtyard gardens of the Alhambra. By presenting a theoretical conversation on the Sufi notion of the barzakh (an intermediary and relational space) between the premodern Muslim mystic Ibn al-Arabi and contemporary western theorists concerned with space, movement and aesthetics, such as Louis Marin, Henri Lefebvre, Tim Ingold and Martin Seel, this thesis offers an original contribution to the spatial analysis of religion as embodied in the architecture, gardens, and imagination of the Alhambra. Emphasising the barzakh’s role in the interplay between presence and meaning this thesis also draws attention to the dialogue between self as spectator and the garden as spectacle. Through this dialogue, Ibn al-Arabi‘s concept of the barzakh , which he developed in terms of ontology, epistemology and hermeneutics, is investigated and analysed in order to identify a theory of knowledge that relies on the synthesis between experience and imagination. The union of meaning and presence afforded by the intermediary quality of the barzakh is further demonstrated in the physical, imaginative and virtual worlds of the courtyard gardens of the Alhambra. Viewing the Alhambra palaces and gardens in terms of Ibn al-Arabi‘s barzakh, they produce their own language, a showing ‖ of their outer and inner movements, which prompts and provokes the spectator to participate in a poetical and creative encounter. Seen as a barzakh, these gardens put space into movement.