Tag Archives: scholarship

Blogging CESNUR, 2

Yesterday’s CESNUR plenary session focused on Western esotericism, which is getting more respect as a “player” in history.

Gordon Melton passed out a fancy diagram of the Western esoteric tradition, including everyone from Swedenborgians to flying saucer religions to Wiccans.

Wicca was placed under ritual magic, although at some distance. Fair enough: ritual magic is an important root. But I think there needs to be a long dashed line connecting to classical Paganism (which was not on the chart), indicating a connection that was literary rather than person-to-person.

For those of you familiar with new religious movements sessions, yes, “Ragged Brian” is here.

Trying to decide whether to take the tour of the (warning, Flash) Cathedral of the Madeline tomorrow to renew my acquaintance with ecclesiastical architecture. (“I think the woods are more impressive,” says M., the dedicated animist.)

Pomegranate 10.2 published

The new issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies is now back from the printer. This issue, vol. 10, no. 2, is not yet on the Web site but will be soon.

Table of Contents

“The Love which Dare not Speak its Name: An Examination of Pagan Symbolism and Morality in Fin de siècle Decadent Fiction”
Kelly Anne Reid

“Landscape Archaeology, Paganism, and the Interpretation of Megaliths”
Jessica Beck and Stephen Chrisomalis

“The Goddess and the Virgin: Materiality in Western Europe”
Amy Whitehead

“The Prevailing Circumstances: The Pagan Philosophers of Athens in a Time of Stress”
Emilie F. Kutash

“Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion”
Edward P. Butler

“Re-crafting the Past: The Complex Relationship between Myth and Ritual in the Contemporary Pagan Reshaping of Eleusis”
Maria Beatrice Bittarello

“Expanding Religious Studies: The Obsolences of the Sacred/Secular Framework for Pagan, Earthen, and Indigenous Religion, Part 2: Re-thinking the Concept of ‘Religion’ and ‘Maturi’ as a New Scheme”
Mikirou Zitukawa and Michael York

Individual articles can be ordered from the Web site. Book reviews may be downloaded for free in PDF form.

Handbook of Contemporary Paganism in Print

My contributor copy of the new Handbook of Contemporary Paganism from Brill arrived. (You can tell from the price that it is intended primarily for the institutional market.) Here is the table of contents:

“The Modern Magical Revival,” Nevill Drury

“The Influence of Aleister Crowley on Gerald Gardner and the Early Witchcraft Movement,” Henrik Bogdan

“Earth Day and Afterwards: American Paganism’s Appropriation of ‘Nature Religion’,” Chas S. Clifton

“Re-enchanting the World: A Weberian Analysis of Wiccan Charisma,” Robert Puckett

“Contemporary Paganism by the Numbers,” Helen A. Berger

“’A Religion Without Converts’ Revisited: Individuals, Identity and Community in Contemporary Paganism,” Síân Reid

“The Wild Hunt: A Mythological Language of Magic,” Susan Greenwood

“Reclamation, Appropriation and the Ecstatic Imagination in Modern Pagan Ritual,” Sabina Magliocco

“Alchemical Rhythms: Fire Circle Culture and the Pagan Festival,” J. Lawton Winslade

“Pagan Theology,” Michael York

“Drawing Down the Goddess: The Ancient {Female} Deities of Modern Paganism,” Marguerite Johnson

“The Return of the Goddess: Mythology, Witchcraft and Feminist Spirituality,” Carole M. Cusack

“Witches’ Initiation—A Feminist Cultural Therapeutic?” Jone Salomonsen

“Animist Paganism,” Graham Harvey

“Heathenry,” Jenny Blain and Robert J. Wallis

“New/Old Spiritualities in the West: Neo-Shamans and Neo-Shamanism,” Dawne Sanson

“Australian Paganisms,” Douglas Ezzy

“Celts, Druids and the Invention of Tradition,” James R. Lewis

“Magical Children and Meddling Elders: Paradoxical Patterns in Contemporary Pagan Cultural Transmission,” Murphy Pizza

“Of Teens and Tomes: The Dynamics of TeenageWitchcraft and Teen Witch Literature,” Hannah E. Johnston

“Rooted in the Occult Revival: Neo-Paganism’s Evolving Relationship with Popular Media,” Peg Aloi

“Weaving a Tangled Web? Pagan Ethics and Issues of History, ‘Race’ and Ethnicity in Pagan Identity,” Ann-Marie Gallagher

“‘Sacred’ Sites, Artefacts and Museum Collections: Pagan Engagements with Archaeology in Britain, “Robert J. Wallis and Jenny Blain

“Wolf Age Pagans,” Mattias Gardell

Pagan Studies at AAR 2009

For lack of an original post today, here are the “calls” for the sessions at next November’s American Academy of Religion meeting in Montreal that involve Pagan Studies.

At some time I want to discuss here where our little sub-discipline might be going, but it won’t be today — I just have too much on my desk.

Given disciplinary boundaries, getting the joint session with Indigenous Religious Traditions was a bit of a coup. It meant overcoming some people’s resistance to the “P-word.”

Contemporary Pagan Studies Group

This Group invites proposals that address the issue of idolatry, namely, examining the roles that material objects have played in religious life – in particular, the inventive strategies that people and/or cultures have used in their attempts to create images of and for worship. For a second session, we request papers that investigate the influence of literature, especially science fiction/fantasy, on contemporary paganisms. Papers that stress mutually interdependent relations are also welcome. In addition, a joint session of the Indigenous Religious Traditions Group and this Group will consider papers that explore common or shared perspectives in sacred practices. Each tradition has a heritage of employing tangible material in activities of reverence, ritual, worship, etc. We invite papers that help us understand where, how, and if the overlaps are truly shared perspectives.

Indigenous Religious Traditions Group

This Group continues to be interested in the utility or difficulties of Western conceptual categories – sacred, cosmology, possession, and others. We are also interested in the conceptualization of “indigenous;” including the invention/production of new indigenous religions. We invite paper submissions that engage the idea of “encounters” between indigenous cultural communities and groups of/from Western civilization, between indigenous communities and other non-Western cultures. In these broad perspectives, we will receive research-based papers focused on cultural and religious exchanges between encountering groups. Special preference will be given to papers that highlight exchanges that have occurred in Canada. In a joint session with the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group, we invite abstracts on tangible sacrality in the performance of ritual or worship. This proposed joint session seeks to explore perspectives on whether contemporary paganism and indigenous religious traditions could or should share a mutual discourse.

Seeing the World with Greek Eyes

“I am a Greek born 2,381 years after my ancestors built and dedicated the Parthenon . . . . I am telling Greek history outside the conventional Christian worldview,” writes Eaggelos G. Vallianatos, author of The Passion of the Greeks: Christianity and the Rape of the Hellenes

Born in a Greek village, Vallianatos came to the United States as a young man and earned a doctorate in history at Wisconsin. He has written three other books on globalization and agriculture.

A little bit like Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick’s A History Of Pagan Europe, his book moves from a general discussion of Greek religion through the conquest of a disunited Greece by imperial Rome to the fall of the empire as seen by Greek historians, lingering on the late Christian emperors’ persecution of the Pagan “Hellenes,” those who saw Greek literature, culture, and religion as intertwined.

One appendix discusses and rates works by many noted classicists. Vallianatos likes Robin Lane Fox and Ramsay MacMullen, who “[makes] some difference to our understanding of the dreadful record of Christianity in the Mediterranean,” but has no use for Polymnia Athanassiadi: “Her Christian bias shines through in everything she says about Julian.” And so on.

As its title suggests, the book is passionate. I have read only as far as Chapter 4, “The Treason of Christianity,” because I can take it only in small doses. But I will continue all the way to the end, believe me.

Blogging on a Snowy Day

A traditional Colorado St. Patrick’s Day: dank and snowy. If I were not bogged down with grading, I could contemplate which one of seventeen Irish recipes sounded most appealing. Guiness-and-cheddar fondue?

M. and I will be hearing some music tonight, though.

I finished reviewing the proposals for the American Academy of Religion’s Contemporary Pagan Studies Group.

Our theme for this November’s meeting in Chicago is “The Polytheistic Challenge,” and it looks like we will have enough good papers for our two sessions — about ten papers total. Add to that a session shared with the Popular Culture group, and we will have more.

The Scholar and the Festival

The registration brochure for the big Pagan Spirit Gathering in June came in the mail. I won’t be going, but I read it for general information and found this:

Pagan Scholars who want to conduct Pagan Studies research at the Gathering as part of their participation must submit a research proposal by March 30, 2008 in order to be considered.

An old joke from the Navajo Reservation came to mind. You have to know that traditionally the Navajos were matrifocal–a man lived with his wife’s people.

Q: What is a typical Navajo family?

A: A grandmother, her daughter(s), their husbands, the kids, and an anthropologist.

Are Pagan festivals these days that overrun with people handing out questionnaires? And what about the non-Pagan scholar studying Paganism?

Busman’s Holiday

Some weekends I have no student papers to grade. So what do I do? Grade papers.

In other words, this weekend is all about reviewing a group of papers for an academic folklore journal. Don’t expect much blogging unless something really interesting happens.

“Busman’s holiday” defined.

Update: I forgot to mention the twenty-some proposals that I need to read and rank for next November’s Pagan studies sessions at the American Academy of Religion meeting. That is part of the job of a steering-committee member.

Pomegranate 9.2

I’ve been remiss in not noting the contents of the latest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Videlicet:

• “The Quandary of Contemporary Pagan Archives,”
Garth Reese,

• “The Status of Witchcraft in the Modern World,” Ronald Hutton,

• “Kabbalah Recreata: Reception and Adaptation of Kabbalah in Modern Occultism,” Egil Asprem

• “Putting the Blood Back into Blót: The Revival of Animal Sacrifice in Modern Nordic Paganism,” Michael Strmiska.

And the book reviews.

Abstracts are online, and the book reviews may be downloaded in their entirety.

"Sheer Terror"

Retired University of Colorado professor John Carnes (Philosophy) tells all in an interview:

1. Being a teacher is like being a farmer; your life follows certain cycles. How did you feel whenever a new semester came around?

Sheer terror! Every class constitutes a performance — a 16-week performance — and you have stage fright. I was never sure if I had chosen a text that wouldn’t work, that I’d make a fool of myself in front of the class.

Via University Diaries, who would probably agree that most academics are basically shy people required to give public performances.

Yep, it starts tomorrow.