The eco-centric self and the sacred in Xavier Herbert's 'Poor fellow my country'

Critical review of "Poor fellow my country" by Xavier Herbert.

Fleshed sacred : the carnal theologies of Nick Cave

Contents: Cultural contexts. The light within : the 21st century love songs of Nick Cave / Jillian Burt ; Planting seeds / Clinton Walker ; Nick Cave and the Australian language of laughter / Karen Welberry ; Nick Cave, dance performance and the production of masculinity / Laknath Jayasinghe -- Intersections. An audience for antagonism / Chris Bilton ; And the ass saw the angel : a novel of fragment and excess / Carol Hart ; Red right hand : the cinema and Nick Cave / Adrian Danks ; Grinderman : all stripped down / Angela Jones -- The sacred. From mutiny to calling upon the author : Cave's religion / Robert Eaglestone ; Oedipus wrecks : Cave and the Presley myth / Nathan Wiseman-Trowse ; Fleshed sacred : the carnal theologies of Nick Cave / Lyn McCredden ; The moose and Nick Cave : melancholy, creativity and love songs / Tanya Dalziell.

Sacred rules, secular revelations : the conceptions of rights in pre-modern Europe

This paper is an attempt to reflect on the methodological approaches that I bring to ‘reading law’ in my current project on understandings of individual rights in the legal and theological texts of the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Middle Ages, entitled ‘Sacred Rules, Secular Revelations: The Conceptions of Rights in Pre-Modern Europe’

Sacred time after emigration : a study of the Holy Mother Festival in Zavoj

In Zavoj, a mountainous village in the Republic of Macedonia, the Day of the Holy Mother is the most significant day in the village's ritual calendar. The Day of the Holy Mother, like other holy days associated with saints, is a religious festival in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar; and Zavoj, like other villages, identifies with a particular holy day, in this case that of the Holy Mother. Festival is historically and etymologically linked to feast, a celebration in honour of gods, and the Day of the Holy Mother, like the two principal feasts in the Christian calendar, the Feast of Nativity of our Lord (Christmas) and the Feast of Resurrection (Easter), is a religious celebration that includes a feast in honour of the saint, traditionally as a breaking of a fast. Importantly, many Zavoj emigrants return to the village for the festival on the Day of the Holy Mother. Over recent years both village and the festival have been transformed, due to large and continuing emigration and the demise of the resident peasant generation. This chapter will examine the changes in the festival, comparing that of 1988, when the village was inhabited, with that of 2007, when there were only a few people resident and by which time many of the peasant generation had passed on. As a result of emigration the village is emptied of its inhabitants, yet it remains the site of, and destination for, the continuity of the annual festival.

Poetry descends from the sacred : an interview with Camille Paglia

An interview with writer Camille Paglia is presented. When asked of the people she criticized in her book "Break, Blow, Burn," she says that no name is known in the second half of the book. She also mentions that there has been a estrangement from poetry's visibility in education or even for magazine and newspaper reader. She adds that compared to prose, poetry is more magical.

Violence and the sacred : Patrick White's radical vision

This chapter focuses on both the fiction of Patrick White and the connections between sacredness and violence.

Dharma and grief: secularisation of a sacred emotion

The presentation begins with the moving scene of Va¯lmi¯ki's grief over the bereavement of the survivor of the two birds in amorous union as one of them is pierced by a hunter's arrow. After considering Abhinavagupta's doubt about the genuineness of Va¯lmi¯ki's grief, the paper moves to Maha¯bha¯rata as the women from the warring clans bear witness to the horrendous carnage ensuing from the battle, and the constant rebuke that Yudhisthira, head of the Pa¯ndava clan, faces from Draupadi¯ for wandering the earth without finding a stable foundation for Dharma or grounding it in firm absolutes. We liken Yudhisthira to Mahatma Gandhi facing the near-collapse of the Indian subcontinent as it was being rent apart with communal violence on the eve of its Independence. But we also compare Yudhisthira with Hamlet, the tragic grief-ridden character, who is equally bewildered and confused by the array of emotions and sensations that overwhelm his lingering body upon news of the death of and ghostly encounter with his murdered father. With this as the context, we take the occasion to explore recent thinking on the 'hard emotions', in particular, grief, sorrow and mourning, and link the challenging inner and social condition to the calling of Dharma (righteous law, normatively worthy action). Drawing from some comparative work (academic and personal) in the study of grief, mourning and empathy, we shall discuss the treatment of this tragic pathos in classical Indic literature and modern-day psychotherapy. We shall demonstrate, despite being secularised, these emotions continue to serve as the sites of imagination at a much more personal and inter-personal level that are not antithetical to a Dharmic (sacred) quest despite their haunting presence even when 'the four walls collapse around one in the intensity of duhkha (suffering, sorrow)' (Tagore).

Animals and urban informality in sacred spaces: bull-calf trafficking in Simhachalam Temple, Vishakapatnam

Religion and Urbanism contributes to an expanded understanding of 'sustainable cities' in South Asia by demonstrating the multiple, and often conflicting ways in which religion enables or challenges socially equitable and ecologically sustainable urbanisation in the region. In particular, this collection focuses on two aspects that must inform the sustainable cities discourse in South Asia: the intersections of religion and urban heritage, and religion and various aspects of informality.

This book makes a much-needed contribution to the nexus between religion and urban planning for researchers, postgraduate students and policy makers in Sustainable Development, Development Studies, Urban Studies, Religious Studies, Asian Studies, Heritage Studies and Urban and Religious Geography.

Religion and development in the Asia-Pacific : sacred places as development spaces

The book considers theories of ‘place’ as a component of successful development interventions and expands this analysis to consider the specific role that sacred places – buildings and social networks – have in planning, implementing and promoting sustainable development. A series of case studies examine various sacred places as sites for development activities. These case studies include Christian churches and disaster relief in Vanuatu; Muslim shrines and welfare provision in Pakistan; a women’s Buddhist monastery in Thailand advancing gender equity; a Jewish aid organisation providing language training to Muslim Women in Australia; and Hawaiian sacred sites located within a holistic retreat centre committed to ecological sustainability.Religion and Development in the Asia-Pacific demonstrates the important role that sacred spaces can play in development interventions, covering diverse major world religions, interfaith and spiritual contexts, and as such will be of considerable interest for postgraduate students and researchers in development studies, religious studies, sociology of religion and geography.