Islamic Political Thought: Reviving a Rationalist Tradition

This work develops the foundations of an Islamic argument for secular, liberal democracy from within the Islamic discursive tradition. First, it challenges the presentation of contemporary Islamic political thought as a unified, continuous development of the classical canon by showing the influence of the now marginalized medieval rationalists in the development of Islamic political thought. The classical rationalist concern with divine justice forced the founders of Sunni orthodoxy to state their epistemologies and their positions on ethical ontology. The orthodox positions, and their related methods of legal-juristic reasoning, are shown to be incapable of accommodating the modern Islamic positions on political representation, slavery, and just war. This leads to the second argument of the work, that the modern Islamic discourse is better understood as a reflection of the central concern with justice and its rationalist epistemology and ethical ontology we find in the writings of classical rationalists. This argument is made by examining the works of three classical rationalists, a theologian, a philosopher, and a historian. Their political positions, shaped by their rationalism and concern with justice, challenged their orthodox contemporaries, and provide substantive critiques of the classical political accommodations, methods of politico-legal reasoning, and hence, of modern Islamist political projects. The final chapter reveals how far the mainstream of Islamic political thought has deviated from the classical discourses, since the 19th century, by adopting the language and ideals of the European Enlightenment. This shift is presented as a triumph of classical rationalism over literalism, whose epistemological foundations and ontological implications have yet to be acknowledged and appreciated.

Illuminating faith : the Bute Book of Hours

"The Bute Book of Hours, an English manuscript dating to c. 1500 in The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum, has received cursory attention from scholars in the past. This paper is the first to conduct a comprehensive examination of the object, evaluating its style, iconography, content, religious significance, and patronage. Careful study has revealed that the Bute Book is greatly indebted to early engravings for its imagery, perhaps more than any other known manuscript. The suffrages to saints were selected based on their powers against the plague, Tudor religious preferences, and regional significance. Special attention has been given to more unusual insertions such as Sts. Armel and Ninian, and Henry VI. The Bute Book of Hours was created for a wealthy Englishman, most likely with Yorkshire connections, and it illustrates the tenor of a nation undergoing rapid political, social and religious changes"

Our Lady of Guadalupe : contemporary explorations of personal and cultural identity

Since it first appeared, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has remained relatively unchanged. In the last thirty-five years, however, this has been changing. Artists are creating new variations of the icon to represent and express their reinterpretations. In some of these more contemporary images, the figure of Guadalupe has changed dramatically, but still retains enough traditional elements to be easily recognizable. Some of these images have been received with mixed results and have even sparked major controversy. These new, and sometimes controversial depictions of Guadalupe, specifically those created by Ester Hernández, Yolanda M. López and Alma López, will be explored here. Although each artist has her own individual motivations and intentions, all of the images presented here explore personal and cultural identity, as well as seek in some way to honor ordinary, human women through the sacred iconography of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Sea lions, sacrifice, and ritual : The symbolism of Moche Island imagery

The Mochica, or Moche (c. 100-800 AD) culture, flourished along the northern Peruvian coast. The Moche did not have a formal written language; as such, contemporary scholars base their analysis on Moche iconography and archaeological burial remains. Especially renown for their ceramic artistry, Moche vessels exhibit a wide range of subject matter, including animal and enigmatic figural representations that evoke terrestrial, marine and possibly, spiritual realms. While research has focused on political organization and the interrelationship between sacrifice and warfare, many marine themes have not been fully explored in the discourse. An exploration of sea lion imagery and sacrifice themes suggests that the marine mammals were ritually hunted. A careful iconographic analysis of island scenes demonstrates ritual and gender affiliations held by the Moche about sea lions. In a multi-disciplinary approach, scientific, archaeological and ethnographic resources substantiate this claim.

The Dragon Tree in the Age of Exploration

he dragon tree, a peculiar species native to Socotra, southwest Arabia, east Africa, Morocco, Macaronesia, and the Canary islands, possesses an intriguing iconographic history. The first wave of images date from 1470 to 1550, beginning with Martin Schongauer’s 1470 engraving of The Flight into Egypt. These depictions portray the dragon tree in the context of a handful of biblical themes and with apparent symbolic import. After 1550, religious images of the dragon tree vanish abruptly and are replaced by representations of an empirical nature. Dragon tree iconography is notable for the extent to which it did and did not leave an impression on European art. In this paper I examine the inability of dragon tree images to gain the momentum required to propel them into European iconography more permanently, and the forces that may account for the abrupt change from biblical to botanical renderings.