Study of Religions - Journal Articles
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Item Erika Hoffman-Dilloway: Signing and Belonging in Nepal. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. 2016(Irish Association for Asian Studies (IAAS), 2018) Frisone, MarilenaBook reviewItem The fame of chhoyela and yomari: Reverberations of Newar Foodways in London and in a transnational context(Irish Association for Asian Studies (IAAS), 2021) Frisone, MarilenaFood and feasts play an important role in defining Newars’ social practices both in Nepal and abroad. Although the religious and symbolic value of specific food items shared by Newars in Nepal has been studied in detail, the significance of Newar foodways as practised in a diasporic context and as circulated in media, has yet to be explored. Newar Londoners regularly engage in food practices of socialisation like festival celebrations and gatherings, which require an enormous organisational effort, from the search of specific ingredients to the arrangement of elaborate dishes served during the events. However, the “social life of Newar food” is not exhausted in the process of production and consumption in London, but rather it reverberates in the mediatic sphere of social media, publications, songs, and more recently online events on Newar food. Based on ethnographic fieldwork started in 2015 with the Newar community in London, the paper focuses on two iconic items of Newar food, namely chhoyela (roasted meat) and yomari (sweet, elongated dumplings), following their pathways from their production and consumption to their presence in songs, webinars, up to MasterChef: The Professionals UK programme. Drawing on Nancy Munn’s idea of “fame of Gawa”—as generated by food exchanges and gifts that, carrying the names of those involved in the transactions, make the Gawans known to distant others—the paper argues that the circulation of food in events and media contributes to the spatiotemporal expansion of Newar self beyond the space and time of the diasporic community in London, enhancing the fame of Newars and Newar food in a transnational sphere.Item Eight dusts: Healing rituals and metaphysics of dust among Nepalese followers of a Japanese new religion(Mimesis Edizioni, 2023) Frisone, MarilenaEvery morning a group of Nepalese followers of the Japanese new religion called Tenrikyō (“Teachings of the Heavenly Wisdom”) gathers in a small room in Kathmandu and performs rituals and prayers, hoping to be able to experience the Joyous Life in this world. One of the topics often discussed after the prayer is the doctrine of the “eight dusts” (Jp. yattsu no hokori). According to it human nature is not inherently evil, and the selfish or unethical behaviour that sometimes characterises human actions, can simply be understood as the result of a bit of “dust” – eight types in fact – which has settled on an otherwise originally pure “heart/mind” (Jp. kokoro, Np. man). “Dust” is here conceptualised as “mistaken thoughts – that is, states of mind that do not accord with the intention of God”. From a semiotic point of view, dust thus plays here the actantial role of Anti-Subject, which needs to be removed through ethical practice and the ritual gestures of a sacred dance – in order to fully realise an Ethical Subject in conjunction with an Object of Value, the pure “heart/mind”. Dust is to the broom of God, what selfishness is to divine will. In this complex semi-symbolic use, dust, connected with dirt, is not only conceptualised in opposition to cleanness and purity, but also as the result of a selfish behaviour which has neglected the will of God. This paper, based on fifteen months of anthropological fieldwork in Nepal, will explore the moral and metaphysical implications of the doctrine of eight dusts as discussed among Nepalese followers of Tenrikyō, trying to show how dust may connect more in general to the ethical dimension of practice.Item Ireland and Islam: James O’Kinealy and Wahhabism in India(Taylor & Francis, 2025-01-23) McNamara, BrendanThe purpose of this article is to explore James O’Kinealy’s (1838–1903) contribution to scholarship around Islamic movements in India, while a functionary of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) from 1862 to 1899. It seeks to recover from obscurity a little-known personage and his involvement in significant episodes in the history of Islam and British colonialism in India. O’Kinealy’s situatedness as an Irish Catholic in the ICS, and how this influenced his approach to Islam and his study of Wahhabism, will be closely examined. Serving the same imperial system in India that prevailed in Ireland presents a complex and entangled history. O’Kinealy’s background, it will be argued, influenced his activities as a senior official in the colonial administration. His writings (and translations), directed towards preserving the status quo against the fear of Muslim revolt, evidence a nuanced perspective when set against that of his ‘Anglicist’ contemporaries. Juxtaposing his approach and attitudes against that of the influential colonialist and scholar, W.W. Hunter (d.1900), will highlight his discreet approach and serve to foreground the intricate nature of this history. Though his publications are few, O’Kinealy’s work is unique, and represents one of the earliest engagements with the Wahhabi movement in the English language.Item Percezioni ibride. Ripensare fenomenologia e semiotica attraverso la Actor-Network-Theory(E/C rivista dell’Associazione Italiana di studi semiotici, 2023) Padoan, Tatsuma; British AcademyIt is generally acknowledged that Latour, through his work in STS and his use of concepts borrowed from Paris School semiotics, has given a fundamental contribution to rethinking the status of “objects” in social sciences. However, while using semiotic models, Latour decided to leave out of the picture the phenomenological approach developed in Greimas’s later semiotic contributions, and in the work of many of his successors. Among the reasons for this choice, he mentioned the incapacity of phenomenology to escape a divide between Subjects and Objects, based on a narrow focus on human intentionality. In my paper I wish to return to this issue concerning ANT and phenomenology, and propose to invert the phenomenological paradigm, by rethinking it through a semio-narrative syntax, i.e. the narrative logic underlying the organisation of actants. Instead of inscribing semiotics within a phenomenology of perception, I will show how the opposite path might be more fruitful, especially when the human or nonhuman nature attributed to subjects and objects is a priori undecidable, and only emerges from discourse and actantial interactions, manifesting themselves into hybrid human-nonhuman assemblages. I shall discuss the implications of this reversal, by analysing the relationships between ascetics and mountain territory, as well as between humans, deities, and artefacts, in my ethnography of ascetic pilgrim groups in Katsuragi, central Japan.