Women, religion and social change in the Philippines : refractions of the past in urban filipinas' religious practices today

This research is an exploration of the place of religious beliefs and practices in the life of contemporary, predominantly Catholic, Filipinas in a large Quezon City Barangay in Metro Manila. I use an iterative discussion of the present in the light of historical studies, which point to women in pre-Spanish ‘Filipino’ society having been the custodians of a rich religious heritage and the central performers in a great variety of ritual activities. I contend that although the widespread Catholic evangelisation, which accompanied colonisation, privileged male religious leadership, Filipinos have retained their belief in feminine personages being primary conduits of access to spiritual agency through which the course of life is directed. In continuity with pre-Hispanic practices, religious activities continue to be conceived in popular consciousness as predominantly women’s sphere of work in the Philippines. I argue that the reason for this is that power is not conceived as a unitary, undifferentiated entity. There are gendered avenues to prestige and power in the Philippines, one of which directly concerns religious leadership and authority. The legitimacy of religious leadership in the Philippines is heavily dependent on the ability to foster and maintain harmonious social relations. At the local level, this leadership role is largely vested in mature influential women, who are the primary arbiters of social values in their local communities. I hold that Filipinos have appropriated symbols of Catholicism in ways that allow for a continuation and strengthening of their basic indigenous beliefs so that Filipinos’ religious beliefs and practices are not dichotomous, as has sometimes been argued. Rather, I illustrate from my research that present day urban Filipinos engage in a blend of formal and informal religious practices and that in the rituals associated with both of these forms of religious practice, women exercise important and influential roles. From the position of a feminist perspective I draw on individual women’s articulation of their life stories, combined with my observation and participation in the religious practices of Catholic women from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, to discuss the role of Filipinas in local level community religious leadership. I make interconnections between women’s influence in this sphere, their positioning in family social relations, their role in the celebration of All Saints and All Souls Days in Metro Manila’s cemeteries and the ubiquity and importance of Marian devotions. I accompany these discussions with an extensive body of pictorial plates.

Pucelle : the epic of Joan of Arc

A thesis comprising a creative component in the form of an epic about the history of Joan of Arc and an exegetical component concerned with redefining the epic genre and exploring the author's project.

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.

Health-related religious rituals of the Greek Orthodox Church : their uptake and meanings

Aim
To examine the uptake of religious rituals of the Greek Orthodox Church by relatives of patients in critical condition in Greece and to explore their symbolic representations and spiritual meanings.
Background
Patients and their relatives want to be treated with respect and be supported for their beliefs, practices, customs and rituals. However nurses may not be ready to meet the spiritual needs of relatives of patients, while the health-related religious beliefs, practices and rituals of the Greek Orthodox Christian denomination have not been explored.
Method
This study was part of a large study encompassing 19 interviews with 25 informants, relatives of patients in intensive care units of three large hospitals in Athens, Greece, between 2000 and 2005. In this paper data were derived from personal accounts of religious rituals given by six participants.
Results
Relatives used a series of religious rituals, namely blessed oil and holy water, use of relics of saints, holy icons, offering names for pleas and pilgrimage.
Conclusion
Through the rituals, relatives experience a sense of connectedness with the divine and use the sacred powers to promote healing of their patients.
Implications for nursing management
Nurse managers should recognize, respect and facilitate the expression of spirituality through the practice of religious rituals by patients and their relatives.

Why is there nothing rather than something? An essay in the comparative metaphysics of nonbeing

The paper is an essay in the comparative metaphysics of nothingness that begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the opposite question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral ‘zero’ (śānya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they seem to have encountered (e.g. ‘In the beginning was neither non-being nor being’ RgVeda X.129). The concept of non-being and its permutations of nothing, negation, nullity, receive more sophisticated treatment in the works of grammarians, ritual hermeneuticians, logicians, and their dialectical adversaries, variously across Jaina and Buddhist schools, in respect of the function of negation /the negative copula, nãn, fraying into ontologies of non-existence and extinction; not least also the suggestive tropes that tend to arrest rather than affirm the inexorable being-there of something. After some passing references to interests in non-being and nothingness in contemporary (Western) thinking, the paper dwells at some length on Heidegger’s extensive treatment of nothingness in his 1927 inaugural lecture ‘Was ist Metaphysik?’, published later as What is Metaphysics? The essay however distances itself from any pretensions toward a doctrine of Nihilism.

Crenças e quebranças de um corpo que dança: poéticas do benzimento na criação cênica

This work is a discussion of the artistic process of an artist-researcher made from field research with benzedeiras and benzedores the state of Rio Grande do Norte. This is an investigation on the cultural universe of the popular benzeção as poetic element to the artistic dance. To discuss the different stages of the research and the relationships between the artist-researcher, the benzedeiras/benzedores and the creation/composition scenic, the work takes as reference the triangular relationship created by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, in his discussion on the effectiveness of symbols of healing, adapted to the context of benzeção . For dialogue between tradition, popular knowledge, scientific and artistic knowledge this work approaches as analytical reference the epistemological model of the type rhizome proposed by Deleuze and Guattari, understanding it as a model that seeks to form a network of relations in different paths of research, to establish connections between elements without target them or subordinating them. In the universe of benzeção , benzedeiras and benzedores carry a symbolic power that issued in whispered prayers, in peculiar gestures that form crosses in space, heal those who seek your prayers and blessing. In this research, the mixture of popular knowledge, artistic and academic knowledge, born an artistic work in the context of Performing Arts, more specifically dance, and between branches, saints, candles and conversations the work allowed other looks poetic for our popular culture, (re)asserting their cultural and human values through the art

A fé e a religiosidade na cova de Pedro Ribeirão do largo -Bahia

At this research we attempted to understand what feeds and supports the faith and popular religiosity at Pedro s Cave in Ribeirao do Largo, located in Bahia State. For this we studied the visitation ritual at Pedro s Cave on June 29th and tried to identify the importance of this ritual in the construction and reconstruction of believer s faith. Moreover, we endeavored to understand which factors led Pedro Afonso Nascimento, a cowhand whose lift was taken in a violent manner, to the roll of popular saints and how it was built around his tomb a sanctuary of constant visitation

A festa do bom Jesus dos navegantes em propriá-se: história de fé, espaço das relações sociais e laços culturais

The study is a survey conducted for the Master of Social Sciences carried out in partnership between the Universidade Tiradentes-UNIT/SE and the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). Being a religious event, we seek to show that the religious parties generally have particular meanings for each nation or region. Amaral (1998) informs that the Brazilian parties regardless of where they occur are popular demonstrations that, as the context in which they present themselves, can dilute to crystallize, to celebrate, to ritualize or sacralize the particular social experience of the groups that do. They happen as a way to thank victories or important religious passages as Christmas, the June saints celebration, patron saints and patron saints considered. Thus, The Bom Jesus dos Navegantes party in Propriá-SE: story of faith, a space of social relations and cultural ties, is presented as our field of study because it is one of those celebrations that while celebrated in Sergipe, always on Sundays in January, by some municipalities situated along the river San Francisco, has the characteristic of overlap any others placed in town, including the one of the city's patron saint, Saint Anthony, held on June 13. Concerning the materials and methods, we opted for qualitative research and participant direct observation, using the techniques of personal notes, interviews, newspapers, websites, photos, videos and testimonials from participants and organizers, as well as references offered by experts of the area. With this research answers were sought to questions about what could keep alive the celebration of Bom Jesus dos Navegantes each year in order that this is a patron saint, not saint; the way as the investment of local government with more resources in this period, during the organization of arts festivals, has created a thread of tension with the Catholic Church promoting the religious rituals was reviewed. It was also analyzed how the sacred and profane spaces present themselves inseparable from the celebration and, finally, it was revealed that the party retains its value by preserving its tradition and making room for modernity, not weakening but suffering metamorphoses of time and space and can be seen in the social and cultural bonds wrapped by the time of religious faith

Entre a Anta e a Cruz: história e memória da cidade de Nova Cruz - RN

Dans ce travail, nous étudions la construction narrative du passé de la ville de Nova Cruz, dans l´agreste potiguar. Les récits soulignent l´existence d´un corpus narratif homogène qui fait référence à l´occupation du lieu et à l´évangelisation de ses habitants. Ainsi, les images des saints et des missionaires civilisateurs de l´espace qui domestiquent les manifestations d´un esprit autochtone sauvage, habitants du milieu naturel, sont recurrentes dans la description des personnages du passé. Observant la continuité sémantique des différentes versions de l´histoire de la ville, nous nous proposons d´analyser d´une manière conjointe les textes de l´historiographie locale et les témoignages oraux collectés. Comme il a été possible de le constater, les chemins de l´écrit et de l´oral se croisent en plusieurs occasions, obéissant à des logiques locales de représentations du passé. Ainsi, notre étude porte sur des champs communs à l´Anthropologie, à l´Histoire e à la Littérature. Les reconstructions narratives du passé local sont aussi activées par des faits plus récents, des "marques de la mémoire" comme le marché, le train, la croix et le réservoir, symboles d´une époque d´abondance qui suit l´action civilisatrice des personnages ancestraux

Os processos comunicacionais na festa de São Sebastião Bairro do Alecrim Natal/RN

Parties are one of the most communicative languages, full of contents and symbolic meanings. The devotion to the saints is a kind of communication. In this thesis communicational processes, its languages and its flows are sought at the Saint Sebastian s party, at Alecrim neighborhood, in Natal/RN. The view is focused on the individuals and collective behaviors, in a dynamic which involves the saint s interlocutors at the party space, which supports the pre-novena, the novena and the procession. It tries to show through observation, ethnography and interviews the elements that composes the symbolic language present on the gestures, on the performances and bodies movements, on the clothing colors, as well as on what is said orally or in silence, on the spontaneous prayers or pre-elaborated ones, on the written messages that the devout addresses to the saint at the patron s festivity

Paulistinhas: imagens sacras, singelas e singulares

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

A pintura de Jesuíno do Monte Carmelo na Igreja da Ordem Terceira do Carmo em São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

A figura do herói antigo nas crônicas medievais da Península Ibérica (séculos XIII e XIV)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A imagem da autoridade episcopal no período merovíngio através da Vita Sancti Marcelli e demais Vitae de Venâncio Fortunato

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

O despojamento em São Bernardo de Claraval e São Francisco de Assis (séculos XII e XIII)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)