Illumine, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2012)
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Item Illumine: Vol. 11 No. 1 (2012)(Illumine, 2012)This is the full issue of Illumine, Vol. 11 No. 1 (2012). Illumine is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary graduate journal produced by graduate students at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.Item Martin Luther and musically expressed theology(Illumine, 2012) Hough, AdamThis paper seeks a reappraisal of Martin Luther’s complex understanding of theology’s place in the social and political reformation of 16th–century Germany. Here I seek to reintroduce an element of that theology that has been largely absent from mainstream scholarship: music. Building on Robin Leaver’s influential 2007 work, Luther’s Liturgical Music, wherein he argues that Luther’s liturgical song–writing ought to be understood theologically, I will demonstrate how the reformer sought to use a musically expressed theology to build a foundation of faith among the German laity– a prerequisite, he believed, to a successful reformation of Christian religion and society. Luther’s answer to the failures of the early evangelical Reformation was an educational programme centred on teaching a theology of the Psalms through music.Item Embracing the Divine: Devotional zeal and mystical “Humanation” in Rembrandt’s annunciation sketch(Illumine, 2012) Nutting, Catherine M.Rembrandt’s 17th–century sketches of radical religious transformation illuminate the inner workings of spiritual conviction and reveal the religious tone of Rembrandt’s society. But they also privilege psychology over narrative, and use emotionally charged gestures to elucidate human responses to divine presence. In particular, Rembrandt develops the symbol of the divine touch, which I argue parallels the 17th–century Dutch absorption in debates about the workings of God’s grace. The symbolic physical closeness that characterises Rembrandt’s Old and New Testament subjects is grounded in the Reformation emphasis on personally knowing a magnanimous God, which is in turn rooted in concepts of the mystical marriage between God and “saved humanity,” themes that underlie Rembrandt’s unusual Annunciation sketch.Item “Winter Stories — Ghost Stories. . . Round the Christmas Fire”: Victorian ghost stories and the Christmas market(Illumine, 2012) Ehnes, CaryUsing the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story” in the 1852 Christmas number of Dickens’s Household Words as a case study, this paper examines how the publication of Victorian ghost stories in Christmas numbers redefines the ghost story, transforming it from a modern text participating in contemporary debates on spiritualism into a social text participating in the broader cultural project of reaffirming the nation’s (religious) traditions in the face of (secular) modernity. While the themes of Christmas ghost stories explicitly address social issues and secular, middle-class cultural values, the morals and social traditions promoted by Christmas fiction cannot exist outside of the era’s contemporary conversations about the place of religion in a modern, industrial society. The ghosts and goblins of Dickens’s Christmas fiction address and attempt to correct the social ills of modern society through a secularised application of Christian values and behaviours.Item Introduction(Illumine, 2012) Nutting, Catherine M.Item Romanian churches in Toronto: Not yet factors of cohesion(Illumine, 2012) Visan, LauraTheorists of social capital have emphasized the catalyzing role that churches may play by strengthening community involvement and facilitating the development of personal networks. Churches that serve immigrant communities are viewed as pillars of stability, able to alleviate the cultural shock that many newcomers experience upon settling into their countries of adoption. However, this normative ideal is not always matched by reality. Building on thirty ethnographic interviews that I conducted with Romanian immigrants in Toronto, I aim to demonstrate that churches are not infallible in their cohesive efforts. They cannot compensate for the absence of interpersonal trust – a caveat inherited from the pre–1989 totalitarian era, and thus can hardly contribute to the consolidation of intra–community ties.Item Notes on contributors(Illumine, 2012) Nutting, Catherine M.; Ehnes, Cary; Hough, Adam; Andersen, Angela; Visan, LauraItem The Buddhist monastery, art and teachings as a factor in the development of North Indian and Central Asian Islamic practice and architecture(Illumine, 2012) Andersen, AngelaThe teachings and practices of Buddhism resonated with many nascent Islamic Sufi orders in the northern Indian and Central Asian contexts, starting with the arrival of Islam to the region in the 7th Century, gaining momentum with the expansions of the Ghaznvid and Ghurid Empires in the 12th Century, and continuing into our own times through philosophies and local customs. The contrasting reputations of the two traditions, with Buddhism often viewed as a peaceful journey towards enlightenment and Islam as a faith bent on military conquest, have restricted historical investigations of Buddhism and Islam’s relationship with one another and have often removed these practices from time and place. This dialogue can be made more fruitful by entering through the specific examples offered by the architecture of the Buddhist monastery structure or sangha and the Islamic Sufi lodge or khanqah between the 12th and 15th Centuries.