MUHAMMAD IQBAL'S REPRESENTATIONS OF RAM AND NANAK

This article examines Muhammad Iqbal's Urdu elegies to Rama and Nanak as a way of problematizing his legacy as either a nationalistic or pan-Islamist poet. Textual analysis reveals that Iqbal drew upon themes common to Urdu and Persian literatures in order to construct his narratives. The symbolic value of Rama and Nanak within the religious and literary histories of South Asia is also considered. Iqbal's compositions predate social trends which led to a reification of the boundaries separating Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam, suggesting that poets before the mid-twentieth century drew upon a wider range of cultural resources that may seem paradoxical to contemporary audiences.     

Pilgrimage expansion through tourism in contemporary India: the development and promotion of a Hindu pilgrimage circuit

This article investigates the development and promotion of the Char Dham Yatra (or Char Dham), a Hindu pilgrimage route in the Himalayas, to challenge some prevalent assumptions and models in current scholarship concerning pilgrimage and tourism. I argue that the current prominence of the Char Dham is closely tied to the efforts of public tourism agencies and the coming together of a popular religious concept (Char Dham) with a unit of tourism development (circuit). Turning to promotional literature, I find that, while the Char Dham is increasingly framed to incorporate tourist interests, it continues to retain a religious profile. Contemporary Char Dham guidebooks combine and sometimes merge tourist and religious selling points. The Char Dham is promoted as a picturesque pilgrimage that allows for both homage and holiday. Contrary to popular opinion, the findings of my research suggest that the interplay between pilgrimage and tourism produces changes in, rather than the removal of, pilgrimage religiosity and associated religious communication.     

From criticism to approval: A reconsideration of Ji’s Yogācāra position on Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka and Yogācāra are two Mahāyāna schools which have distinct systems. In the seventh century East Asia, the doctrinal distinction between the two schools was received as doctrinal contrast in the polemic circumstance of Emptiness-Existence (C. kongyou 空有) controversy. In this context, Ji 基 (632–682), the putative founder of East Asian Yogācāra school, has been normally considered by scholars to have advocated ‘Existence’ (viz., Yogācāra) in opposition to ‘Emptiness’ (viz., Madhyamaka). It is problematic, however, to brand Ji’s Yogācāra position simply as anti-Madhyamaka. Although Ji evidently expresses evident criticism on such a Madhyamaka exegete as Bhāvaviveka (ca. 500–570) in some of his works, he also describes Bhāvaviveka in an amicable or even respective way in other works. By analyzing Ji’s extant works, this article argues that Ji’s scholastic attitude toward Madhyamaka changed from criticism to approval.     

The Eschatological Body: Gender, Transformation, and God

This paper examines the obsession with the "body" that has been such a marked feature of late-twentieth-century Western culture, and argues that it hides a profound eschatological longing. By throwing into contrast the work of the contemporary secular feminist Judith Butler and that of the fourth-century church father Gregory of Nyssa, an ironic set of thematic continuities between them is highlighted. Despite their great differences in metaphysical commitment, both authors seek to upend gender binaries and to envisage a labile "body" capable of creative gender transformations. It is argued finally that Gregory's more explicit eschatological horizon satisfies a latent longing for the divine in Butler's complex (and much disputed) work.     

Finding God in the Heart-Genital Connection: Joe Kramer's Erotic Christianity

Abstract

This article is a celebration of the work of Joe Kramer, founder of the EroSpirit Research Institute and instructor of thousands of men in the practices of erotic spirituality. It is argued that Kramer's work in encouraging men to explore the potential of their erotic energy has been particularly helpful to those who have experienced an erotophobic Christian heritage. Although Kramer is not without his critics the author argues that he is engaged in a healing practice which constructs an ‘eschatological sexuality’ that dares to reach towards forms of sexual praxis located in a transformed future.     

MUSIC OF THE SIKH DIASPORA: DEVOTIONAL SOUNDS,MUSICAL MEMORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

This paper explores the role of devotional music in the construction of Sikh identity in diasporic contexts. In particular, it examines a heterodox Sikh community in the UK and an orthodox Sikh community in Hong Kong from a comparative perspective, showing how music helps to clarify continuities and discontinuities in Sikhism worldwide. I provide ethnographic accounts of musical performances in different locales within gurdwara-s. Following a summary of current conventions in Sikh music performance and pedagogy, two ethnographic accounts are provided. The first is a musical ethnography of the Namdhari Gurdwara in Leicester where Hindustani classical music is performed alongside traditional ritual genres. The second site is a similar ethnographic study of the Khalsa Diwan Gurdwara in Hong Kong where the issues of diasporic identity and musical memory are foregrounded.     

NAVIGATING NATION,SIGNIFYING SIKHISM: THE WORK OF ARPANA CAUR

This article situates the artwork of Arpana Caur within national and global contexts through such topics as the nature of the aesthetic process for Caur, the relations among affect, activism, and politics in her life and work, and the ways in which Indian art can be supported and made more visible on the Indian and global scales. The article presents The article presents the artist's views – the longest and most in-depth she has given to date – on topics central to her work, including Sikhism, Buddhism, Kabir, feminism, human rights, environmentalism, and the nature of time. This piece explores in particular how art can represent the timelessness of spirituality alongside the exigencies of contemporary issues and tragedies, such as communal violence. Central throughout this article is the concept of nation, exploring how an artist can represent nation both aesthetically and politically, and the ways in which nation can be both attractive and challenging.     

THE KHANDA AND THE DHULFIQAR: Sikh–Shi'a parallelisms and crossings in history and text,concept of the Divine Guide and sacred chivalry

This article will look into the unexplored area of relations between Shi'ism and Sikhism. The author first establishes the historical links between both traditions especially during the formative first two centuries of the Sikh tradition. One realises very quickly that the relations between these two traditions have been quite intense. The second part will deal with parallelisms regarding different theological and mystical concepts whilst the third part will deal with sacred chivalry in both traditions. Based on primary and secondary sources this article will focus on pre-reformist Sikhism and mystical Shi'ism. It will help highlight less known aspects of the Sikh tradition and challenge established perceptions about the links between early Sikhism and Shi'a Islam.     

RELIGIOUS TRANSNATIONALISM,RAVIDASI IDENTITY AND THE DERA SANT SARWAN DASS,BALLAN

This paper examines the general assumption that for caste-based social movements transnationalism is creating new divisions and iniquitous social hierarchies. By drawing on a detailed case study of the Dera Sant Sarwan Dass, Ballan (DSSDB), Punjab, it argues that for these organisations transnationalism can be a powerful agent of religious and social change. By cultivating its transnational links, especially in the UK, the DSSDB has now emerged as the main driver of Ravidas identity in Punjab. This achievement would not have been possible without the material support of overseas followers for whom the building of social and religious institutions in Punjab has been intimately interlinked with the search for a separate Ravidas identity. Transnationalism has, thus, been central to the process of differentiation between the followers of the DSSDB and the Sikhism and has accelerated this trend since the Vienna incident.     

Transforming the debate about child care and maternal employment.

Over the past two decades, the large-scale entrance of women into the work force has fundamentally changed the fabric of work and family life. Unlike 75 other nations, the United States has no comprehensive family policy that helps families cope with the competing demands of work and family. Research within psychology has not been helpful in pointing out the need for a major shift in public policy. This article argues that both governmental policy and psychological research reflect the popular culture's idealized myth of motherhood. It suggests an interruption of the research agenda that searches for negative consequences of maternal employment and alternative child care. A new agenda is proposed that would document the negative consequences of not providing high-quality, affordable day care. This new agenda would also acknowledge the centrality of fathers and family process to developmental outcomes in children.     

Guru Nanak is not at the White House: An essay on the idea of Sikh-American redemption

This article examines the rights-based discourse deployed by Sikh advocacy organizations, the Sikh Coalition and Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund, in order to carve an inclusive space within the United States. We interrogate the deep violence of forgetting embedded within this politics that not only sanctions American values and their regulatory might globally, but also integrates the foundational anti-blackness of Western subjectivity into the conceptual structure of Sikhism. Reconsidering these attachments to the American political project and the white-settler state, we argue Sikh organizations fasten Sikhs to ways of life that are inimical to their own flourishing.     

Derrida, Husserl, and the Commentators: Introducing a Developmental Approach

This article argues that only a developmental approach-one that views Derrida's 1967 work on Husserl, La Voix et la phénomène, in light of Derrida's three earlier encounters with Husserl's work and recognizes significant differences among them-is able to resolve the bitter controversy that has lately surrounded Derrida's Husserl interpretation. After first reviewing the impasse reached in these debates, the need for "a new hermeneutics of deconstruction" is set out, and, then, the reasons why strong development has been rejected internal to Derrida's corpus are discussed. After this, in a discussion of interest with respect to Husserl's own late teachings, as well as Derrida's standpoint, this article focuses on Derrida's 1962 "Introduction to Husserl's Origin." Against the prevailing interpretation, an argument is made showing that Derrida is much closer to Husserl's own positions than has been suspected, most importantly, in section VII of the "Introduction" where the theme of writing is first introduced. Thanks to this, that significant development in Derrida's thought does take place between 1962 and 1967 is demonstrated-and the present piece concludes by providing a brief sketch of the development of deconstruction overall as it came about through Derrida's repeated encounters with Husserlian phenomenology in the years 1954–67. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Philosophy of Mind,Past and Present

This article attempts to summarize a few criteria of progress in philosophy—clarifying problems; rejecting false theories; opening new perspectives in familiar fields; inventing new arguments or thought experiments; and so on—and to apply them to contemporary philosophy of mind. As a result, the article concludes that while some progress was obvious in the past fifty years, there is much work yet to be done. It then tries to outline a transformation of conceptual analysis needed for further developments in this field. The author argues that conceptual analysis might be revived if it is treated as a clarification of the relations among our natural beliefs.     

Is Philosophy All About the Meaning of Life?

This article defends a conception of philosophy popular outside the discipline but unpopular within it: that philosophy is unified by a concern with the meaning of life. First, it argues against exceptionalist theses according to which philosophy is unique among academic disciplines in not being united by a distinctive subject matter. It then presents a positive account, showing that the issue of the meaning of life is uniquely able to reveal unity between the practical and theoretical concerns of philosophy, while meeting a range of desiderata for a typical specification of subject matter. After showing how recent analytic work on “the meaning of life” has conflated the traditional question with issues of social meaningfulness, it offers an explanation of why the traditional question has become marginalised in philosophy. The reasons are not good, however, so it concludes that philosophy should embrace its popular image.     

Living at Work and Intra-worker Sociality Among Migrant Farm Workers in Canada

This article examines how the dormitory labour system as it is employed in the agricultural streams of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) affects workers’ everyday sociality. In the article, I demonstrate how the physical compression of home and work into a singular geographic site shapes workers’ identities and everyday relationships. Drawing on findings gathered from interviews with migrant farm workers from Mexico and Guatemala working in Southern Ontario, I explore how the requirement to warehouse temporary foreign workers directly on employer property collides with workers’ ability to establish an autonomous and dignified life in Canada. In particular, I demonstrate how the TFWP agricultural dormitory system produces inter-generational dynamics that intensify worker self-discipline and generates gender dynamics that support the development of a hyper-productive transnational workforce.     

The Royal Road: Children, Play, and the Religious Life

This article explores the role of play in human development and religious faith. It begins with problems in children’s play in contemporary society, as seen through history and sociology, and then analyzes the contributions of two psychologists, Erik H. Erikson and D. W. Winnicott, and recent thought on play in theology, childhood studies, and the scholarship of Donald Capps in particular. It argues that play has a potentially fruitful role in development and the life of faith for children and adults but modern constructions of play have obscured its place in adulthood and overlooked its uneven distribution among children in different classes and races.     

Passions, Acting and Face in Early Modern Characters: An Alternative View on the Avatar

While the emergence of the Internet and mobile telephone has allegedly changed our concept of self and emotions, the fundamental idea of a character seems to remain unchanged since literary characters came into ??stock?? in the early modern imagination. Focusing on the early modern literary sphere, this commentary examines how the contemporary avatar stems from the early modern concept of character. Taking some examples from the writings of Thomas Overbury, Ben Jonson and Shakespeare amongst others, it investigates the concept of character and the self in the literary, legal, and medical discourses. It then analyses the practical application of characters in the theatrical spheres. Following these findings, the study examines the dramatic texts and argues the importance of face in the character creation and apprehension, finding a curious correlation to the indispensable use of avatars on the Internet. The research thus indicates that the concept of characters is not only fundamental to the contemporary virtual life but also equally vital to the early modern literary experience, offering an alternative view to Simon Evans??s paper that examines the continuities of selves in the virtual and the physical worlds, as well as in the present and the past.     

The Art of Contemplative and Mindfulness Practice: Incorporating the Findings of Neuroscience into Pastoral Care and Counseling

This article draws on recent neuroscientific research evidence that demonstrates the plasticity and malleability of the human brain to make the case for greater use of contemplative and mindfulness practices in pastoral care and counseling. It explores the negativity bias of the brain as it has evolved and argues that mindful awareness practices have the ability to work against this bias in favor of less fearful and anxious perspectives on life, including interpersonal relationships. Contending for a higher evaluation of Christian practices than beliefs, it specifically targets the doctrine of original sin as a contributor to this negativity bias, and advocates the use of Christian meditative practices, especially the Centering Prayer, as a means to foster brain resculpting that is integral to the experience of becoming aware of oneself as a new creation.