Philip Lutgendorf
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195309225
- eISBN:
- 9780199785391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309225.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
The chapter opens with a description of Hanuman's traditional role as a guardian of spatial boundaries, and shows how this “peripheral” status has changed in recent times as his shrines have grown in ...
More
The chapter opens with a description of Hanuman's traditional role as a guardian of spatial boundaries, and shows how this “peripheral” status has changed in recent times as his shrines have grown in size and have appeared in diverse and often central locations in villages and cities. Drawing on temple surveys and recently published guides to Hanuman shrines, it offers a verbal pilgrimage to well-known temples throughout India, and then presents more detailed descriptions of five major sites, each suggestive of a different aspect of Hanuman's character. The sites include two prominent temples in Delhi, a healing shrine specializing in the treatment of possession by ghosts, a martial arts club devoted to wrestling, and a New Age temple in the American Southwest. The chapter then turns to the implications of Hanuman's bodily immortality: the lore and experience of his embodied presence in particular locales and forms, as well as his occasional manifestation in human avataras.Less
The chapter opens with a description of Hanuman's traditional role as a guardian of spatial boundaries, and shows how this “peripheral” status has changed in recent times as his shrines have grown in size and have appeared in diverse and often central locations in villages and cities. Drawing on temple surveys and recently published guides to Hanuman shrines, it offers a verbal pilgrimage to well-known temples throughout India, and then presents more detailed descriptions of five major sites, each suggestive of a different aspect of Hanuman's character. The sites include two prominent temples in Delhi, a healing shrine specializing in the treatment of possession by ghosts, a martial arts club devoted to wrestling, and a New Age temple in the American Southwest. The chapter then turns to the implications of Hanuman's bodily immortality: the lore and experience of his embodied presence in particular locales and forms, as well as his occasional manifestation in human avataras.
Marjorie Topley
Jean DeBernardi (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028146
- eISBN:
- 9789882206663
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028146.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
There is a form of ghost marriage which exists among the Singapore Chinese and is known as Yin Ch'u (Ts'u)[Yinqu]. This takes place at a ceremony or group of ceremonies at which two deceased ...
More
There is a form of ghost marriage which exists among the Singapore Chinese and is known as Yin Ch'u (Ts'u)[Yinqu]. This takes place at a ceremony or group of ceremonies at which two deceased peersons, or more rarely, one living and one deceased, are married. Such forms of marriage appear to be more common among the Cantonese than other dialect groups, although there are marriages being arranged for members of Straits-born Hokkien families. However, the Cantonese are certainly quite open about the fact that they perform them, whereas the Hokkiens have been most reluctant to admit it. Ghost marriages appear to take place for several reasons: to acquire a grandson after the death of the son of the family; to acquire a living daughter-in-law after the death of an unmarried son, when a younger son wishes to marry and his elder brother has died before taking a wife.Less
There is a form of ghost marriage which exists among the Singapore Chinese and is known as Yin Ch'u (Ts'u)[Yinqu]. This takes place at a ceremony or group of ceremonies at which two deceased peersons, or more rarely, one living and one deceased, are married. Such forms of marriage appear to be more common among the Cantonese than other dialect groups, although there are marriages being arranged for members of Straits-born Hokkien families. However, the Cantonese are certainly quite open about the fact that they perform them, whereas the Hokkiens have been most reluctant to admit it. Ghost marriages appear to take place for several reasons: to acquire a grandson after the death of the son of the family; to acquire a living daughter-in-law after the death of an unmarried son, when a younger son wishes to marry and his elder brother has died before taking a wife.
Marjorie Topley
Jean DeBernardi (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789888028146
- eISBN:
- 9789882206663
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888028146.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter presents ceremonies which took place in a Dying House. The total cost of the marriage was approximately $200 Straits and a priest was engaged to see to the necessary arrangements. He was ...
More
This chapter presents ceremonies which took place in a Dying House. The total cost of the marriage was approximately $200 Straits and a priest was engaged to see to the necessary arrangements. He was one of a small group of professionals belonging to a Cantonese branch of the Cheng I [Zhengyi] school of Taoism who earn their living in Singapore by performing at funeral ceremonies and at Cantonese occasional rites. The priest arranged for the “wedding” ceremony to be held in the temple, hired a room at the Dying House, bought or made all the necessary paraphernalia and together with his troupe of colleagues and disciples performed all the appropriate ceremonies. According to the Taoist priest in charge of the day's activities, Cantonese ghost marriages are still by no means rare in Singapore and he has been engaged to perform them by people, mainly women, of various occupations and income.Less
This chapter presents ceremonies which took place in a Dying House. The total cost of the marriage was approximately $200 Straits and a priest was engaged to see to the necessary arrangements. He was one of a small group of professionals belonging to a Cantonese branch of the Cheng I [Zhengyi] school of Taoism who earn their living in Singapore by performing at funeral ceremonies and at Cantonese occasional rites. The priest arranged for the “wedding” ceremony to be held in the temple, hired a room at the Dying House, bought or made all the necessary paraphernalia and together with his troupe of colleagues and disciples performed all the appropriate ceremonies. According to the Taoist priest in charge of the day's activities, Cantonese ghost marriages are still by no means rare in Singapore and he has been engaged to perform them by people, mainly women, of various occupations and income.
Jiang Wu
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195333572
- eISBN:
- 9780199868872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333572.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter explores the disputed issues in the first controversy, which are: (1) using Chan principle as standard to test students' enlightenment experience, (2) the perfect circle as the origins ...
More
This chapter explores the disputed issues in the first controversy, which are: (1) using Chan principle as standard to test students' enlightenment experience, (2) the perfect circle as the origins of five Chan schools, and (3) proper understanding of encounter dialogues.The chapter explores the practice of dharma transmission, esoteric ritual, and encounter dialogue in 17th‐century Chan Buddhism.Less
This chapter explores the disputed issues in the first controversy, which are: (1) using Chan principle as standard to test students' enlightenment experience, (2) the perfect circle as the origins of five Chan schools, and (3) proper understanding of encounter dialogues.The chapter explores the practice of dharma transmission, esoteric ritual, and encounter dialogue in 17th‐century Chan Buddhism.
William S. Sax
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335866
- eISBN:
- 9780199868919
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335866.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the ...
More
A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the death of a loved one. This chapter shows how Garhwali beliefs and practices relating to death, ghosts, and exorcism accomplish this task. Fundamentally, they do so by transforming the ambivalent, dangerous ghost into a beneficent, auspicious ancestor.Less
A truism of ethnology is that death rituals and related practices are oriented more toward the living than the dead; that they seek to re-organize social relationships that have been damaged by the death of a loved one. This chapter shows how Garhwali beliefs and practices relating to death, ghosts, and exorcism accomplish this task. Fundamentally, they do so by transforming the ambivalent, dangerous ghost into a beneficent, auspicious ancestor.
Andrew Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719074462
- eISBN:
- 9781781700006
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719074462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book examines the British ghost story within the political contexts of the long nineteenth century. By relating the ghost story to economic, national, colonial and gendered contexts it provides ...
More
This book examines the British ghost story within the political contexts of the long nineteenth century. By relating the ghost story to economic, national, colonial and gendered contexts it provides a critical re-evaluation of the period. The conjuring of a political discourse of spectrality during the nineteenth century enables a culturally sensitive reconsideration of the work of writers including Dickens, Collins, Charlotte Riddell, Vernon Lee, May Sinclair, Kipling, Le Fanu, Henry James and M.R. James. Additionally, a chapter on the interpretation of spirit messages reveals how issues relating to textual analysis were implicated within a language of the spectral.Less
This book examines the British ghost story within the political contexts of the long nineteenth century. By relating the ghost story to economic, national, colonial and gendered contexts it provides a critical re-evaluation of the period. The conjuring of a political discourse of spectrality during the nineteenth century enables a culturally sensitive reconsideration of the work of writers including Dickens, Collins, Charlotte Riddell, Vernon Lee, May Sinclair, Kipling, Le Fanu, Henry James and M.R. James. Additionally, a chapter on the interpretation of spirit messages reveals how issues relating to textual analysis were implicated within a language of the spectral.
Philip Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195390070
- eISBN:
- 9780199863570
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390070.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, Popular
This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three ...
More
This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three mini-musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer. Mike Nichols directed and Jerome Coopersmith contributed to the adaptations. The show was a moderate success and has aged well, reappearing on Broadway in 2006 starring Kristin Chenoweth. Also during this time, Bock and Harnick helped write songs for another Broadway show, Baker Street (based on Sherlock Holmes stories), and wrote the score for a made-for-television musical, The Canterville Ghost (based on the Oscar Wilde novella).Less
This chapter considers the work of Bock and Harnick in the aftermath of the unprecedented success of Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their next show was The Apple Tree (1966), a collection of three mini-musicals based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer. Mike Nichols directed and Jerome Coopersmith contributed to the adaptations. The show was a moderate success and has aged well, reappearing on Broadway in 2006 starring Kristin Chenoweth. Also during this time, Bock and Harnick helped write songs for another Broadway show, Baker Street (based on Sherlock Holmes stories), and wrote the score for a made-for-television musical, The Canterville Ghost (based on the Oscar Wilde novella).
Christopher Prendergast
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155203
- eISBN:
- 9781400846313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155203.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines Marcel Proust's views on the subject of the body and the prevalence of metaphorical ghosts in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that the Proustian body may turn out to ...
More
This chapter examines Marcel Proust's views on the subject of the body and the prevalence of metaphorical ghosts in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that the Proustian body may turn out to be something of a dead end, at least relative to Proust's restlessly curious interest in the vicissitudes of mental life. It emphasizes a primary opposition in the Recherche—between the body desired (the imago-body) and the body revealed (frail, infirm, wasted, grotesque)—and argues that the opposition is banal, a variation on Proust's way with the theme of vanitas vanitatum. Viewed in a larger historical perspective, Proust on bodies and ghosts involves his complex relation to an ideal of “embodiment” inherited from nineteenth-century aesthetics.Less
This chapter examines Marcel Proust's views on the subject of the body and the prevalence of metaphorical ghosts in À la recherche du temps perdu. It suggests that the Proustian body may turn out to be something of a dead end, at least relative to Proust's restlessly curious interest in the vicissitudes of mental life. It emphasizes a primary opposition in the Recherche—between the body desired (the imago-body) and the body revealed (frail, infirm, wasted, grotesque)—and argues that the opposition is banal, a variation on Proust's way with the theme of vanitas vanitatum. Viewed in a larger historical perspective, Proust on bodies and ghosts involves his complex relation to an ideal of “embodiment” inherited from nineteenth-century aesthetics.
Robin Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496815569
- eISBN:
- 9781496815606
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496815569.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
The supernatural remains extraordinarily popular in literature, television, and film. But one figure has remained in the shadow, the female ghost. Inherently liminal, often literally invisible, the ...
More
The supernatural remains extraordinarily popular in literature, television, and film. But one figure has remained in the shadow, the female ghost. Inherently liminal, often literally invisible, the female ghost has nevertheless appeared in all genres. Subversive Spirits presents a history of the figure in the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1920s to the present, focusing on the female ghost in heritage sites, theatre, Hollywood film, literature, and television in the United States and the United Kingdom. What holds these disparate female ghosts together is their uncanny ability to disrupt, illuminate, and challenge gendered assumptions and roles. As with other supernatural figures, the female ghost changes over time, especially responding to changes in gender roles. Comedic female ghosts in literature and film disrupt gender norms through humor (Topper and Blithe Spirit ). Terrifying and vengeful female ghosts in England and America draw on horror and death to present a challenge to restrictions on mothers (The Woman in Black and La Llorona). The female immigrant experience and the horrors of slavery provide the focus for ghosts who expose history’s silences (The Woman Warrior and Beloved ). Heritage sites use the female ghost as a friendly and inviting but structurally subordinated narrator (The Untold Story and The Ghost of the Castle ). In the twenty-first century, the female ghost expands her influence to become a mother and savior to all humanity (Being Human , U.K. and U.S.) Subversive Spirits brings this figure into the light, exploring her cultural significance in popular culture.Less
The supernatural remains extraordinarily popular in literature, television, and film. But one figure has remained in the shadow, the female ghost. Inherently liminal, often literally invisible, the female ghost has nevertheless appeared in all genres. Subversive Spirits presents a history of the figure in the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1920s to the present, focusing on the female ghost in heritage sites, theatre, Hollywood film, literature, and television in the United States and the United Kingdom. What holds these disparate female ghosts together is their uncanny ability to disrupt, illuminate, and challenge gendered assumptions and roles. As with other supernatural figures, the female ghost changes over time, especially responding to changes in gender roles. Comedic female ghosts in literature and film disrupt gender norms through humor (Topper and Blithe Spirit ). Terrifying and vengeful female ghosts in England and America draw on horror and death to present a challenge to restrictions on mothers (The Woman in Black and La Llorona). The female immigrant experience and the horrors of slavery provide the focus for ghosts who expose history’s silences (The Woman Warrior and Beloved ). Heritage sites use the female ghost as a friendly and inviting but structurally subordinated narrator (The Untold Story and The Ghost of the Castle ). In the twenty-first century, the female ghost expands her influence to become a mother and savior to all humanity (Being Human , U.K. and U.S.) Subversive Spirits brings this figure into the light, exploring her cultural significance in popular culture.
Colin Dayan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691070919
- eISBN:
- 9781400838592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691070919.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue ...
More
This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue influence, defamation, or fraud—spectral emanations may become proof, just like any facts. On this bewitched ground, the fantastic and the commonplace intermingle. In the case of wills, especially, even when the law does not acknowledge the unique gifts of spiritualists, it sometimes admits as valid the communications of the dead. In numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century appellate cases, especially, courts sustained the wills of those advised by mediums channeling the wishes of deceased loved ones into the minds of believers. The chapter also looks at the story of Hecuba. Changed into a dog, at once mystified and historicized, ghostly and corporeal, Hecuba shows the interstices of human and animal, person and god, living and dead.Less
This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue influence, defamation, or fraud—spectral emanations may become proof, just like any facts. On this bewitched ground, the fantastic and the commonplace intermingle. In the case of wills, especially, even when the law does not acknowledge the unique gifts of spiritualists, it sometimes admits as valid the communications of the dead. In numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century appellate cases, especially, courts sustained the wills of those advised by mediums channeling the wishes of deceased loved ones into the minds of believers. The chapter also looks at the story of Hecuba. Changed into a dog, at once mystified and historicized, ghostly and corporeal, Hecuba shows the interstices of human and animal, person and god, living and dead.
Michael Harris
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149042
- eISBN:
- 9781400842681
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149042.003.0005
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter examines the role of dreams in mathematics by focusing on Robert Thomason's decision to add as co-author of an important paper his deceased friend Tom Trobaugh, a non-mathematician. The ...
More
This chapter examines the role of dreams in mathematics by focusing on Robert Thomason's decision to add as co-author of an important paper his deceased friend Tom Trobaugh, a non-mathematician. The reason Thomason gave was that Trobaugh, who had committed suicide a few months earlier, appeared to him in a dream and helped him complete a particularly difficult proof. The chapter first considers what the dream tells us about the narrative structure of a mathematical proof before discussing the use of automated theorem provers in creating new proofs. It also explores how K-ness can be defined and whether it can be calculated in the context of the Thomason–Trobaugh article. Finally, it describes the division in the mathematical literature between ghost and ghostwriter, citing as an example the work done regarding Grigori Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture.Less
This chapter examines the role of dreams in mathematics by focusing on Robert Thomason's decision to add as co-author of an important paper his deceased friend Tom Trobaugh, a non-mathematician. The reason Thomason gave was that Trobaugh, who had committed suicide a few months earlier, appeared to him in a dream and helped him complete a particularly difficult proof. The chapter first considers what the dream tells us about the narrative structure of a mathematical proof before discussing the use of automated theorem provers in creating new proofs. It also explores how K-ness can be defined and whether it can be calculated in the context of the Thomason–Trobaugh article. Finally, it describes the division in the mathematical literature between ghost and ghostwriter, citing as an example the work done regarding Grigori Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture.
Arnold Krupat
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451386
- eISBN:
- 9780801465857
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451386.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Native American Studies
The word “elegy” comes from the Ancient Greek elogos, meaning a mournful poem or song, in particular a song of grief in response to loss. Because mourning and memorialization are so deeply embedded ...
More
The word “elegy” comes from the Ancient Greek elogos, meaning a mournful poem or song, in particular a song of grief in response to loss. Because mourning and memorialization are so deeply embedded in the human condition, all human societies have developed means for lamenting the dead, and, this book surveys the traditions of Native American elegiac expression over several centuries. The book covers a variety of oral performances of loss and renewal, including the Condolence Rites of the Iroquois and the memorial ceremony of the Tlingit people known as koo'eex, examining as well a number of Ghost Dance songs, which have been reinterpreted in culturally specific ways by many different tribal nations. The book treats elegiac “farewell” speeches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in considerable detail, and comments on retrospective autobiographies by Black Hawk and Black Elk. Among contemporary Native writers, it looks at elegiac work by Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Sherman Alexie, Maurice Kenny, and Ralph Salisbury, among others. Despite differences of language and culture, the book finds that death and loss are consistently felt by Native Americans both personally and socially: someone who had contributed to the People's well-being was now gone. Native American elegiac expression offered mourners consolation so that they might overcome their grief and renew their will to sustain communal life.Less
The word “elegy” comes from the Ancient Greek elogos, meaning a mournful poem or song, in particular a song of grief in response to loss. Because mourning and memorialization are so deeply embedded in the human condition, all human societies have developed means for lamenting the dead, and, this book surveys the traditions of Native American elegiac expression over several centuries. The book covers a variety of oral performances of loss and renewal, including the Condolence Rites of the Iroquois and the memorial ceremony of the Tlingit people known as koo'eex, examining as well a number of Ghost Dance songs, which have been reinterpreted in culturally specific ways by many different tribal nations. The book treats elegiac “farewell” speeches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in considerable detail, and comments on retrospective autobiographies by Black Hawk and Black Elk. Among contemporary Native writers, it looks at elegiac work by Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Sherman Alexie, Maurice Kenny, and Ralph Salisbury, among others. Despite differences of language and culture, the book finds that death and loss are consistently felt by Native Americans both personally and socially: someone who had contributed to the People's well-being was now gone. Native American elegiac expression offered mourners consolation so that they might overcome their grief and renew their will to sustain communal life.
Ilkka Pyysiäinen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195380026
- eISBN:
- 9780199869046
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380026.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Beliefs about personalized spirits do not belong to more “advanced” cultures only (contra R. R. Marett). Humans have always been capable of understanding both the idea of impersonal forces and of ...
More
Beliefs about personalized spirits do not belong to more “advanced” cultures only (contra R. R. Marett). Humans have always been capable of understanding both the idea of impersonal forces and of personal agency. Traditional beliefs about souls and spirits express the folk-psychological understanding of the liveliness of the body as well as of various cognitive-emotional functions. As pure mentality is difficult to imagine, mentality is often combined with something apparently physical: a “subtle” body resembling mist, the house where a dead agent keeps on haunting, and so forth. Spirit possession is based on the belief that agency is separable from a given biological body and can invade a new body. Like shamanism, also possession beliefs are used as a means of maintaining social order. Shamans and possession specialists make shared knowledge explicit by interpreting the will of the spirits.Less
Beliefs about personalized spirits do not belong to more “advanced” cultures only (contra R. R. Marett). Humans have always been capable of understanding both the idea of impersonal forces and of personal agency. Traditional beliefs about souls and spirits express the folk-psychological understanding of the liveliness of the body as well as of various cognitive-emotional functions. As pure mentality is difficult to imagine, mentality is often combined with something apparently physical: a “subtle” body resembling mist, the house where a dead agent keeps on haunting, and so forth. Spirit possession is based on the belief that agency is separable from a given biological body and can invade a new body. Like shamanism, also possession beliefs are used as a means of maintaining social order. Shamans and possession specialists make shared knowledge explicit by interpreting the will of the spirits.
John Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195092950
- eISBN:
- 9780199869732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195092950.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This is a brief survey of beliefs about an after life from the earliest times. No one or two formulae can capture the structure or motives of such beliefs. Many beliefs in a future existence go with ...
More
This is a brief survey of beliefs about an after life from the earliest times. No one or two formulae can capture the structure or motives of such beliefs. Many beliefs in a future existence go with extreme pessimism about what form it might take (e.g. the ancient Sumerians, Homeric Greeks). Belief in post‐mortem existence may arise not from hopes individuals have for themselves, but in fear of the continued existence after death of others—as in ghost cultures and animism. The chapter touches very briefly on ideas of Plato, Lucretius, Aquinas, Spinoza, and Nietzsche to suggest that philosophical accounts of belief in survival have no tendency to converge.Less
This is a brief survey of beliefs about an after life from the earliest times. No one or two formulae can capture the structure or motives of such beliefs. Many beliefs in a future existence go with extreme pessimism about what form it might take (e.g. the ancient Sumerians, Homeric Greeks). Belief in post‐mortem existence may arise not from hopes individuals have for themselves, but in fear of the continued existence after death of others—as in ghost cultures and animism. The chapter touches very briefly on ideas of Plato, Lucretius, Aquinas, Spinoza, and Nietzsche to suggest that philosophical accounts of belief in survival have no tendency to converge.
Colin Dayan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691070919
- eISBN:
- 9781400838592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691070919.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter analyzes what happens to persons in two cases: the free person of property who commits a felony and undergoes civil death and the enslaved person, who, as bearer of “negative ...
More
This chapter analyzes what happens to persons in two cases: the free person of property who commits a felony and undergoes civil death and the enslaved person, who, as bearer of “negative personhood,” has undergone social death. In most instances, though the person declared civilly dead has property to lose, the slave who never had property is property in fact, and can never have any independent relation to property. However, both of these characterizations possess juridical significance in so far as they recognize the individual as “a kind of civil ghost.” Rather than focus on the various and sometimes diffuse consequences of social marginalization, the chapter traces instead a developing logic in modern law. By the eighteenth century, Judeo-Christian antecedents and inchoate traditions of punishment were redrawn and fully articulated as a rationale appropriate to the needs of emerging modernity.Less
This chapter analyzes what happens to persons in two cases: the free person of property who commits a felony and undergoes civil death and the enslaved person, who, as bearer of “negative personhood,” has undergone social death. In most instances, though the person declared civilly dead has property to lose, the slave who never had property is property in fact, and can never have any independent relation to property. However, both of these characterizations possess juridical significance in so far as they recognize the individual as “a kind of civil ghost.” Rather than focus on the various and sometimes diffuse consequences of social marginalization, the chapter traces instead a developing logic in modern law. By the eighteenth century, Judeo-Christian antecedents and inchoate traditions of punishment were redrawn and fully articulated as a rationale appropriate to the needs of emerging modernity.
Patricia A. Cahill
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199212057
- eISBN:
- 9780191705830
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212057.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This epilogue argues that analysis of war dramas must account for the ways in which performances, through their aesthetic elements, bears witness to experiences of confusion and bewilderment. It ...
More
This epilogue argues that analysis of war dramas must account for the ways in which performances, through their aesthetic elements, bears witness to experiences of confusion and bewilderment. It focuses on the question of traumatic address in Richard III, a play that turns attention in its last act to the forms of modern warfare and to discourses of abstraction that are not unlike those under consideration in the first half of this volume. Departing from traditional readings of the play's ending, the epilogue suggests that Shakespeare's interest in the disposition of space and the forward march of time is deeply bound up with its aesthetics of discontinuity and disorientation. By focusing on the ghosts who appear on Bosworth Field, it proposes that the play, through its destabilizing representations of space and time, ultimately presents audiences with an experience not unlike Richard's own uncanny meeting with the past.Less
This epilogue argues that analysis of war dramas must account for the ways in which performances, through their aesthetic elements, bears witness to experiences of confusion and bewilderment. It focuses on the question of traumatic address in Richard III, a play that turns attention in its last act to the forms of modern warfare and to discourses of abstraction that are not unlike those under consideration in the first half of this volume. Departing from traditional readings of the play's ending, the epilogue suggests that Shakespeare's interest in the disposition of space and the forward march of time is deeply bound up with its aesthetics of discontinuity and disorientation. By focusing on the ghosts who appear on Bosworth Field, it proposes that the play, through its destabilizing representations of space and time, ultimately presents audiences with an experience not unlike Richard's own uncanny meeting with the past.
Thomas O Beebee
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195339383
- eISBN:
- 9780199867097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195339383.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World ...
More
New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World has no monopoly on hybridity, the sheer numbers of people brought together through conquest, enslavement, transportation, and voluntary immigration make hybridity an essential concept for understanding the history and culture of the Americas, and one that has stimulated some of its most powerful literary texts. As pointed out in the first chapter, millennial discourse is an eschatechnology inherent to structures of power in the Americas. When it confronts itself in hybridized form, paranoia and panic are inevitable and tend to get played out in the confusion between Messiah and Antichrist. Messiahs of the New World are painfully aware of themselves as simultaneously Self and Other, as I will show in this chapter, and their messianism seeks a symbolic resolution to this conflict. Melville’s Captain Ahab is presented as the archetype of the hybrid messiah, which then guides the chapter’s remaining study examples of Nat Turner, Louis Riel, Wovoka, Antônio Conselheiro, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, both as historical persons and as literary characters.Less
New World populations call into question all definitions of identity that rest on clear oppositions between those recognizably like and those unlike a predefined European self. Though the New World has no monopoly on hybridity, the sheer numbers of people brought together through conquest, enslavement, transportation, and voluntary immigration make hybridity an essential concept for understanding the history and culture of the Americas, and one that has stimulated some of its most powerful literary texts. As pointed out in the first chapter, millennial discourse is an eschatechnology inherent to structures of power in the Americas. When it confronts itself in hybridized form, paranoia and panic are inevitable and tend to get played out in the confusion between Messiah and Antichrist. Messiahs of the New World are painfully aware of themselves as simultaneously Self and Other, as I will show in this chapter, and their messianism seeks a symbolic resolution to this conflict. Melville’s Captain Ahab is presented as the archetype of the hybrid messiah, which then guides the chapter’s remaining study examples of Nat Turner, Louis Riel, Wovoka, Antônio Conselheiro, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, both as historical persons and as literary characters.
Thomas O Beebee
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195339383
- eISBN:
- 9780199867097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195339383.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter examines how, in the last quarter of the 19th century, millenial thought shifted from the “dominant Protestant (or reform Catholic) mind” to the “dominated hybrid mind.” One of the ...
More
This chapter examines how, in the last quarter of the 19th century, millenial thought shifted from the “dominant Protestant (or reform Catholic) mind” to the “dominated hybrid mind.” One of the period’s unusual features was the simultaneous occurrence of significant millennial movements in North and South America: the chapter consider the period from 1869, the time of the first Red River Rebellion in present-day Manitoba, through the Ghost Dance that resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1891, to 1897, the year of the Canudos war in Brazil, as well as with the literary testimonials to these events. In all three cases, the racial makeup of the population that distanced them from the dominant culture and made them victims of “progress” was a contributing factor. Hybridity played a role, as Christianity was combined with native elements and endowed with messianic capabilities. These movements were in the end contained by the dominant culture in each case through violent confrontations in which superior technology played a key role in the victory, and each was accompanied by an outpouring of literary texts that reflected the apocalyptic mood of the times.Less
This chapter examines how, in the last quarter of the 19th century, millenial thought shifted from the “dominant Protestant (or reform Catholic) mind” to the “dominated hybrid mind.” One of the period’s unusual features was the simultaneous occurrence of significant millennial movements in North and South America: the chapter consider the period from 1869, the time of the first Red River Rebellion in present-day Manitoba, through the Ghost Dance that resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1891, to 1897, the year of the Canudos war in Brazil, as well as with the literary testimonials to these events. In all three cases, the racial makeup of the population that distanced them from the dominant culture and made them victims of “progress” was a contributing factor. Hybridity played a role, as Christianity was combined with native elements and endowed with messianic capabilities. These movements were in the end contained by the dominant culture in each case through violent confrontations in which superior technology played a key role in the victory, and each was accompanied by an outpouring of literary texts that reflected the apocalyptic mood of the times.
Tania Oldenhage
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195150520
- eISBN:
- 9780199834549
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019515052X.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories ...
More
This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories of Nazi genocide return to a German home and haunt its inhabitants. By attending to the poem's first historical setting, West Germany, during the Auschwitz trials in the mid‐1960s, Oldenhage explores the ways in which members of the first and second generation in postwar Germany have been affected by the legacy of the Holocaust. The chapter draws from Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” and on more recent theories on ghosts, haunting, and the uncanny.Less
This chapter begins to discuss issues of Holocaust remembrance in Germany through a close reading of the poem “Zoon Politikon” by Marie Luise Kaschnitz. This poem describes how the forgotten memories of Nazi genocide return to a German home and haunt its inhabitants. By attending to the poem's first historical setting, West Germany, during the Auschwitz trials in the mid‐1960s, Oldenhage explores the ways in which members of the first and second generation in postwar Germany have been affected by the legacy of the Holocaust. The chapter draws from Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” and on more recent theories on ghosts, haunting, and the uncanny.
Cathy Gutierrez
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195388350
- eISBN:
- 9780199866472
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388350.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Spiritualists believed that science would reveal the truths of their metaphysical claims and embraced medical and technological progress on all fronts. Spiritualist ritual was predicated on the ...
More
Spiritualists believed that science would reveal the truths of their metaphysical claims and embraced medical and technological progress on all fronts. Spiritualist ritual was predicated on the invention of the telegraph: instant and invisible communication across space was the precursor to communication with those in heaven. With the steam engine revolutionizing ideas of time, futurity and progress competed with the lionizing of the past. Spiritualists proposed that new machines could be made to perfect communication with the dead and created several devices from the simple to the extraordinary. Photography, a burgeoning medium that seemed purely objective to most observers, was conscripted to prove the existence of the dead as spirit photographs proliferated across the country and abroad.Less
Spiritualists believed that science would reveal the truths of their metaphysical claims and embraced medical and technological progress on all fronts. Spiritualist ritual was predicated on the invention of the telegraph: instant and invisible communication across space was the precursor to communication with those in heaven. With the steam engine revolutionizing ideas of time, futurity and progress competed with the lionizing of the past. Spiritualists proposed that new machines could be made to perfect communication with the dead and created several devices from the simple to the extraordinary. Photography, a burgeoning medium that seemed purely objective to most observers, was conscripted to prove the existence of the dead as spirit photographs proliferated across the country and abroad.
