Walking with God through Nature: An Examination of John Flavel’s Behavioural Instructions on Matters Related to Christian Piety

John Flavel was a Reformed Puritan of the seventeenth-century who wrote a series of devotional guides that offered instructions drawn from Christian mystical traditions on how to improve religious activities as a means of ecstatically encountering God. Evaluating the efficacy of these instructions from a scientifically-based behavioural perspective, this study has found that Flavel’s techniques were likely helpful to his readers in facilitating socially normative ecstatic experiences through ordinary Christian practice. Furthermore, discovering that Flavel promoted the use of these techniques for engaging with ecological materials in the wilderness and country-side, this essay proposes that Flavel introduced his readers to effectual manners that could help them ecstatically encounter God during the practice of meditational nature-based walks.

“Se le dé papel, prensa y letras”. Albert O’Farail y el libro misionero "The Life of the Virgin Marie" (1671-1693)

El proyecto tipográfico del irlandés Albert O’Farail se concibió como un libro misionero destinado a la empresa confesional que la monarquía de España desarrollaba en las Islas Británicas desde comienzos del Seiscientos. Las traducciones de distintos tratados doctrinales y teológicos, representados por su devoción particular a la Virgen María, procuraban acercar la religión a los católicos del Norte a través de mecanismos de proximidad cultural como complemento a la predicación de los ministros espirituales patrocinados por Carlos II. El empeño por dar a las prensas esta miscelánea de obras, financiada por la corona y compuesta por el arte de su propio autor, discurrió en paralelo a la querella abierta por su esposa, María Manuela Laínez, para reivindicar sus derechos nobiliarios al título marquesal de Mayo. Tanto en Madrid como en Roma, la imbricación de ambos negociados determinó su malograda resolución.

"Per aurem intrat Christus in Mariam". Aproximación iconográfica a la "conceptio per aurem" en la pintura italiana del Trecento desde fuentes patrísticas y teológicas

La tesis mariológica de la conceptio per aurem, según la cual la Virgen María habría concebido a Jesucristo por el oído en el momento de escuchar del ángel el mensaje celestial anunciándole que, sin perder su virginidad, sería madre del Hijo de Dios encarnado, ha merecido hasta ahora muy pocos estudios académicos rigurosamente fundados en fuentes primarias. De hecho, en la literatura especializada son muy escasas las referencias a tal teoría y, cuando algún estudioso la evoca, casi siempre se contenta con aludir a ella, sin aportar pruebas documentales. Sin embargo, tal como lo revelan las nueve pinturas italianas aquí analizadas, esa teoría fue ilustrada mediante sutiles metáforas visuales en muchas obras pictóricas medievales, las cuales se inspiraron en una sólida tradición literaria. Además una pléyade de Padres de la Iglesia y teólogos medievales testimonia, mediante afirmaciones explícitas, que semejante teoría gozó de notable aceptación entre los maestros del pensamiento cristiano. Basándose en numerosos textos patrísticos y teológicos, este artículo intenta dos objetivos esenciales: exponer, ante todo, las distintas formulaciones teóricas propuestas por esos pensadores; y además, tratar de poner en luz los significados dogmáticos que subyacen bajo esa sorprendente tesis.

Sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att ge personcentrerad vård till personer med demenssjukdom : En litteraturstudie

Background: Dementia impairs cognitive functions, such as memory and speech, changing a person’s life forever. Providing person-centred care to these persons intend to retain their identities, dignity and autonomy. Such care demands time, devotion and good knowledge of the caring nurse. Dementia is expected to increase in the future and therefore nurses will have to face new challenges. Aim: To describe nurses’ experience of providing person-centred care for people with dementia. Method: A literature review of 15 articles, published between 2009-2016, that have been read and analysed through content-analysis. Results: Nurses experience a positive change in their attitudes, when providing person-centred care to people with dementia, as they gained better understanding of their patients’ dignity and integrity. Education, training and support from management were seen as key factors for providing up-to-date care. Time was viewed as a hindrance for person-centred care, and often led to nurses prioritizing other routines. Two common outcomes of person-centred care were increased satisfaction as well as emotional burnout. Conclusion: Since dementia is increasing and nurses find person-centred care time-consuming, there is a risk of such care becoming poor. To prevent this nurses need good leadership and education.

Nego veio é um sofrer : uma etnografia da subalternidade e do subalterno numa irmandade do Rosário

The object of this work is a fellowship of São Sebastião e Nossa Senhora do Rosário in the city of Jardim do Seridó (RN), that is, a black catholic fellowship on the sertão potiguar. The devotion to Nossa Senhora do Rosário, in colonial Brazil, organizes itself through black catholic men as fellowships. They blossomed in Brazil until the abolition, getting support from the Catholic church, from owners of slaves and from the population in general − unlike others afro-Brazilian religious expression. Today, these fellowships remain active, against the sentimental pessimism of the folklore studies, and they also have a highlight position in the calendar of many cities in Brazil, and in particular in Seridó. The research s foothold is the apparent valorization of the fellowship by the local elite, attitude that hides asymmetric relationships between the group of negros do Rosário and the local authorities, having as its consequence that the members occupy a subaltern position inside their own fellowship. This subalternity take place, mainly, in the public area, where the negros do Rosário cannot represent themselves neither political nor discursively. To discuss this idea, it s done a brief historical of these catholic institutions as well as a description of the relationship between the negros do Rosário and the elites of the city. Then, the phenomenon is analyzed as folklore and/or religion , under the perspective of many agents that participate in this process. In other moment, it is going to be presented how the group formulates their own representation of the history, of the devotional forms and of their own political-religious experiences. In this sense, an ethnography of the subalternity is understood as an analysis of the process that leads the negros do Rosário to become a subaltern group. It s also outlined the perception that the group has of its own position, through an ethnography essay of the subaltern subject. The research, focused in the group of Rosário, was done between August 2010 and January 2012 and includes other agents (like treasurers, priests and intellectuals). Besides that, as a methodological complement, there are documental research, photography, as well as shoots of the party days and public presentation

Meta-cinematic cultism: between high and low culture

ABSTRACT - Meta-cinema can depict film viewers’ attitudes towards cinema and their type of devotion for films. One subcategory of viewers - which I call meta-spectators - is highly specialized in its type of consumption, bordering on obsession. I contend that there are two main varieties of meta-cinematic reception, not altogether incompatible with one another, despite their apparent differences. As both of them are depicted on meta-cinematic products, the films themselves are the best evidence of my typology. My categories of film viewers are the ‘cinephile’, an elite prone to artistic militancy and the adoration of filmic masters; and the ‘fan’, a low culture consumer keen on certain filmic universes and their respective figures and motifs. I will base my rationale on four films that portray such reception practices: Travelling Avant (Jean-Charles Tacchella, 1987, FRA), The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003, UK/FRA/ITA); Free Enterprise (Robert Mayer Burnett, 1998, USA); Fanboys (2009, Kyle Newman, USA).

Nego veio é um sofrer : uma etnografia da subalternidade e do subalterno numa irmandade do Rosário

The object of this work is a fellowship of São Sebastião e Nossa Senhora do Rosário in the city of Jardim do Seridó (RN), that is, a black catholic fellowship on the sertão potiguar. The devotion to Nossa Senhora do Rosário, in colonial Brazil, organizes itself through black catholic men as fellowships. They blossomed in Brazil until the abolition, getting support from the Catholic church, from owners of slaves and from the population in general − unlike others afro-Brazilian religious expression. Today, these fellowships remain active, against the sentimental pessimism of the folklore studies, and they also have a highlight position in the calendar of many cities in Brazil, and in particular in Seridó. The research s foothold is the apparent valorization of the fellowship by the local elite, attitude that hides asymmetric relationships between the group of negros do Rosário and the local authorities, having as its consequence that the members occupy a subaltern position inside their own fellowship. This subalternity take place, mainly, in the public area, where the negros do Rosário cannot represent themselves neither political nor discursively. To discuss this idea, it s done a brief historical of these catholic institutions as well as a description of the relationship between the negros do Rosário and the elites of the city. Then, the phenomenon is analyzed as folklore and/or religion , under the perspective of many agents that participate in this process. In other moment, it is going to be presented how the group formulates their own representation of the history, of the devotional forms and of their own political-religious experiences. In this sense, an ethnography of the subalternity is understood as an analysis of the process that leads the negros do Rosário to become a subaltern group. It s also outlined the perception that the group has of its own position, through an ethnography essay of the subaltern subject. The research, focused in the group of Rosário, was done between August 2010 and January 2012 and includes other agents (like treasurers, priests and intellectuals). Besides that, as a methodological complement, there are documental research, photography, as well as shoots of the party days and public presentation

Punks and believers An ethnographic study of subcultural, religious and non-religious identities in Indonesian punk scenes

Punk subculture is often assumed to have an antagonistic disposition towards religion. In this thesis, I examine this relationship in the Indonesian context, where the level of religious devotion is higher than in Western societies. I concentrate on how Indonesian punks who belong to secular punk communities negotiate the relationship between their religious or non-religious and subcultural identities. In addition, I examine the status of religion on the collective level in the punk communities. I collected the ethnographic data on Java in 2012. In addition to semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the analyzed data consists of social media sites, punk records and an online enquiry. I utilized thematic analysis in the study. The notion of identity is understood the way Stuart Hall has conceptualized it. Another essential concept, affect, is derived from Lawrence Grossberg’s theorization. The religious participants separated punk and religion in their lives. Many Muslim informants used an Islamic typology to separate one’s personal relationship with Allah and one’s relationship with other people. While some participants filtered away certain elements of “Western punk”, the majority of them saw ideological similarities between punk and Islam. This relationship was negotiated using both affective and ideological rationalizations. Non-religious punks respected religious people, but criticized radical forms of religiosity. Some of them described the difficulties of maintaining a non-religious identity in Indonesia, and that they have felt less marginalized in the punk community. Almost all of the participants stated that punk scenes should be religiously neutral and viewed integrating punk and religion as a problematic phenomenon.

The Virgin of Charity of Cobre

This flyer promotes a lecture by Cuban attorney and scholar Emilio Cueto called " The Virgin of Charity of Cobre". Cueto will discuss the origins and developments of the devotion to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre among Cubans on the Island and abroad. This event was conducted in Spanish, held on September 17, 2015 at FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus DM 445.

Devotional reading and dissolving the self: a critical reading of the late medieval Scottish Legendary using Kristevan theory

The Scottish Legendary is a fourteenth century collection of saints’ lives in Older Scots. The prologue describes the lives as ‘merroure’ (mirror) to readers from which ‘men ma ensample ta’ (people may take example). Thus, the Legendary sets out to reveal how the reader is (mirror) thereby moving her to wish to become how she should be (exemplarity). This dissertation argues that, rather than encouraging devotion to saints along purely dogmatic lines, the Legendary transforms the reader’s selfhood by engaging her affectively, i.e. on an emotional and somatic level. By provoking the reader affectively, the text puts the reader into what Julia Kristeva has described as a ‘semiotic state’ which harks back to the reader’s or listener’s pre-cultural, pre-subjective self (Kristeva, 1984). Thus, the text disrupts the reader’s conception of herself as a complete, hermetic subjectivity, thereby dissolving the boundaries of the reader’s self. The Legendary most powerfully infiltrates the reader’s sense of self along these lines in the moments in which female saints’ bodies are tortured and dismembered. These scenes foreground the permeability of human flesh as well as its powerful influence over selfhood. Such images of abjection are, in Kristeva’s words, ‘opposed to I’; by confronting the reader with the disintegration of subjectivity in abjection, the text incites the reader to likewise experience herself as abject, i.e. disintegrable and permeable (Kristeva 1982). As I shall demonstrate, Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of the formation of the self offers a fruitful framework for understanding the processes of self-knowledge through reading that these saints’ lives inspire.

As imagens de vestir da Procissão dos Terceiros: história, conceitos, e tradições. Um legado patrimonial franciscano na ilha de S. Miguel, Açores, nos séculos XVII a XIX

A temática proposta como objeto de estudo na presente tese, é o resultado de uma investigação dedicada ao fenómeno de utilização da imaginária processional nos cortejos de penitência de pendor franciscano, nos séculos XVII a XX na ilha de S. Miguel, Açores. Este tipo de manifestações religiosas, particularmente característico no espaço Iberoamericano, evidencia-se pela originalidade cenográfica, na qual são utilizados vestuário e adereços cénicos como complementos dos respetivos conjuntos escultóricos, as denominadas imagens de vestir. No arquipélago dos Açores, a Venerável Ordem Terceira da Penitência teve um papel de grande importância na organização destes eventos processionais, sendo que as ilhas de S. Miguel e da Terceira representam atualmente um dos últimos redutos na organização de procissões penitenciais, com recurso à utilização de imagens de vestir. No caso especifíco de S. Miguel, este tipo de imaginária pode ser ainda observada nos acervos de algumas das antigas igrejas conventuais da Ordem dos Frades Menores existentes nesta ilha, bem como na única procissão oriunda do espírito penitencial da Ordem Terceira, que se realiza anualmente na cidade da Ribeira Grande. O estudo agora apresentado pretende compreender as diversas componentes da utilização deste tipo de imaginária, bem como o registo do legado patrimonial que os seculares franciscanos perpetuaram até à atualidade, materializado num processo de patrimonialização das suas imagens de vestir, expresso na dicotomia entre os objetos, enquanto matéria, e as suas realidades biográficas, ligadas às comunidades de Terceiros que estiveram por detrás do uso destas imagens processionais; ABSTRACT: Religious sculptures for dressing of the Third Procession: history, concepts, typologies and traditions - A Franciscan heritage legacy in the island of S. Miguel, Azores, between the 17th and 19th centuries. The theme proposed as object of study in this thesis is the result of a research dedicated to the custom of adorning religious sculptures and displaying them in Franciscan penitential processions between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, in the island of S. Miguel, Azores. This type of religious expression, particularly characteristic in the Ibero-American space, featuring up by scenic originality, in which clothing and scenic props are used to complement the respective sculptural groups, called religious sculptures for dressing. In the Azores, the Venerable Third Order of Penance had a major role in organizing these processional events, and the islands of S. Miguel and Terceira currently represents one of the last holdouts in organizing penitential processions, with the use of religious sculptures for dressing. In the case of S. Miguel, this type of imaginary can still be seen in the collections of some of the ancient Order of the convent churches of the Friars Minor existing on this island, and the only procession coming from the penitential spirit of the Third Order, which is held annually in the city of Ribeira Grande. The study now being presented aims to understand the various components of the use of such imaginary, and the recording of heritage legacy that the Franciscan secular perpetuated to the present day, materialized in a patrimonialization process of their dress images, expressed in the dichotomy between objects, as matter, and their biographical realities, linked to third-party communities that were behind the use of these processional images.

THE INTERTEXTUALITY OF OPERA IN THE FICTION OF NELIDA PIÑON

This article examines how Nélida Piñon builds a feminist reader in the novel A força do destino (1978). This work highlights the role of the contemporary writer to read the classics from the post-modern and feminist places. Post-modern because it decentralizes the structural elements of the text, feminist because it opposes to any kind of women oppression. In this novel, the narrator reconstructs the trajectory of the characters Alvaro and Leonora, homonym protagonists of the opera by Giuseppe Verdi, based on her devotion by them, because of this, it becomes a passionate and original reporting. The narrative of Piñon is built from a parodist and irreverent place that updates the plot of Verdi. This is a metanarrative in which the narrator dialogues with her characters and reader. In this case, the reference to the opera by Verdi is, actually, the exploration of artistic and cultural archives in accordance with the interests of the narrator. Methodologically, this paper is guided by the exploitation of intertextuality present in this work and in gender studies to enhance the speaking place of the writer as a real part of contemporary feminist culture.