From Fetishism to Sincerity

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From Fetishism to Sincerity: On Agency, the Speaking Subject, and Their Historicity in the Context of Religious Conversion Author(s): Webb Keane Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 674-693 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179364 Accessed: 10-08-2017 16:57 UTC

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Conversion to Modernities: ZONES of RELIGION the Globalization of Christianity

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Introduction Negotiating the Religious and the Secular in Modern German History Rebekka Habermas

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Continuities of Change: Conversion and Convertibility in Northern Mozambique

Continuities of Change: Conversion and Convertibility in Northern Mozambique The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Premawardhana, Devaka. 2014. Continuities of Change: Conversion and Convertibility in Northern Mozambique. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13064926 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Continuities of Change: Conversion and Convertibility in Northern Mozambique A dissertation presented by Devaka Premawardhana to The Ad Hoc Committee in Religion and Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Religion and Anthropology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts September 2014 © 2014 Devaka Premawardhana All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Jacob Olupona Devaka Premawardhana Continuities of Change: Conversion and Convertibility in Northern Mozambique Abstract Recent scholarship on Africa gives the impression of a singular narrative regarding Pentecostalism, that of inexorable rise. Indisputably, Pentecostalism’s “explosion” throughout the global South is one of today’s more remarkable religious phenomena. Yet what can we learn by shifting attention from the places where Pentecostal churches succeed to where they fail? Attending to this question offers an opportunity to reassess a regnant theoretical paradigm within recent studies of Pentecostalism: that of discontinuity. This paradigm holds that Pentecostalism, by insisting that worshippers break with traditional practices and ancestral spirits, introduces a temporal rupture with the past.
Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz Author(S): Talal Asad Source: Man, New Series, Vol

Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz Author(s): Talal Asad Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), pp. 237-259 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801433 Accessed: 04-04-2020 05:41 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Man This content downloaded from 42.111.2.239 on Sat, 04 Apr 2020 05:41:07 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS OF RELIGION: REFLECTIONS ON GEERTZ TALAL ASAD Untiversity of Hull This article examines Geertz's well-known definition of religion, with its emphasis on meanings, and argues that it omits the crucial dimension of power, that it ignores the varying social conditions for the production of knowledge, and that its initial plausibility derives from the fact that it resembles the privatised forms of religion so characteristic of modern (Christian) society, in which power and knowledge are no longer significantly generated by religious institutions. A critical evaluation of Geertz's text is accompanied by brief explorations of some of the ways in which power and knowledge were connected in medieval Christianity.
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Critique as Care MAYANTHI FERNANDO Saba Mahmood be gins the ac knowl edg ments in Politics of Piety by thanking her men tors and teach ers. Talal Asad’s think ing, she writes, per me ates “prac ti cally ev ery page of this book: there is no greater gif that a scholar can be stow. If I am suc cess ful in recre at ing even a mo di cum of the acu men and cour age that Talal’s work rep re sents, I will be hap py.” Jane Collier, she con tin ues, “has ex tended to me both her in tel lect and her la bor through prac ti cally ev ery phase of this pro ject. This is a debt that I can never hope to repay ex cept per haps by extending to my own stu dents the same gen er os ity that Jane has of ered me.”1 Rereading these words now, I am struck by how what Saba valued in her men tors mir rored her own life as a scholar and teach er, how her work ex em pli fied both in cred i ble acu men and un com mon cour age, how she ex tended an ex traor di nary gen er os ity to her stu dents, how much her think ing per me ates our own. For as much as she was a bril liant schol ar, Saba was an equally bril liant teach er, and in writ ing this essay, I was moved to read what some of her stu dents had to say about her in their own ac knowl edg ments.
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Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech

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Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature Volume 4 Article 1 Number 2 Spring 2004 Spring 2004 Review of Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Marilyn Booth University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Recommended Citation Booth, Marilyn (2004). Review of "Review of Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity.," Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature: Vol. 4 : No. 2 Available at: https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/vol4/iss2/1 This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. https://repository.brynmawr.edu/bmrcl/vol4/iss2/1 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Booth: Booth on Asad Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. 269 pp. ISBN 0804747679. Reviewed by Marilyn Booth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "Secular" is a quality that is often invoked, suggesting a concept that is transparent. That assumption in itself, together with the concept's easy prevalence in public discourse today, is a product of the forces that form the word's genealogy, suggests Talal Asad's deeply thoughtful meditation on human beings' struggles to live together in today's world. This is a timely book, for these days the bases of our understandings of political legitimacy appear open to question—or should be open to debate—as much as they have ever been in recent times, despite increasingly sophisticated theorizations of the nation-state as the modern unit of collective life.
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Bettiza Phd Complete Draft2 August 30

THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE THE GLOBAL RESURGENCE OF RELIGION AND THE DESECULARIZATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1990-2012 Gregorio Bettiza A thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, August 2012 DECLARATION I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgment is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. Signature: Date: I declare that my thesis consists of 99,140 words 2 ABSTRACT This thesis conceptually and empirically explores how American foreign policy is changing under the domestic and international pressures brought about by social and cultural processes associated with the global resurgence of religion. It argues that in response to these pressures the American foreign policy establishment, and American diplomatic, foreign assistance and national security practices and institutions are gradually undergoing, since the end of the Cold War and especially following September 11, processes of “desecularization”. In order to explain these foreign policy changes, this thesis develops a Historical Sociological (HS) approach to Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA).