Gilles Fauconnier & Mark Turner, " The way we think: conceptual blending and the mind's hidden complexities"

Simulacra and Simulation

This is a critical history of the study of Buddhism in the West, bringing the insights of colonial and post-colonial cultural studies to bear on this field. After an overview of the origins of Buddhist studies in the early 19th century, the essays focus on important \"curators of the Buddha,\" such as Aurel Stein, D.T. Suzuki and Carl Jung. The essays discuss many of the important social, political and cultural conditions that have shaped the course of Buddhist studies for more than a century. Contributors Charles Hallisey, Gustavo Benavides, Stanley Abe, Luis Gomez, Robert Sharf and Donald Lopez challenge some of the most enduring ideas in Buddhist studies: that Zen Buddhism is, above all, an experience; that Tibetan Buddhism is polluted, or pristine; that the Buddha image is of Greek or Roman origin; and that the classical text supersedes the vernacular, as the manuscript supersedes the informant.

Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism@@@Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia

A Comparative Study of Religions-Y. Masih 2013-01-01 A Comparative Study of Religions has been written by a scholar who has occupied himself with the subject of religion for over fifty years. But no finality can be claimed. e reason is that religion deals with what is transcendent in the sense that it deals with what man is going to be. Advaitism terms this futuristic end as becoming Brahman, Jainism as regaining one Ís pristine glory, theists as becoming gold fit for heaven. However, Bergson and other evolutionists would say that religion is a collective and cooperative effort of men to become gods. This simply means the divinising of man what Aurobindo calls 'supermind'. They refer to a state beyond human ills, beyond human infatuation and beyond the befogging of human intellect. This is known in Jainism as sarvajnata. One thing is clear that fighting with other human beings in the name of religion is subhuman. As religious men, we are fellow travellers in the direction of the realm of spirit. Here the nomenclature of Hindus, Muslims, Christians etc., ceases to be meaningful. Of course, we have to go very far and we have not made any beginning yet. However, at present, the advaitic principle of differences Brahman can serve the purpose of harmonizing all religions. Here we have adopted this principle. Secondly, the key concepts of different religions have been shown to mingle with one another.

Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion

The Routledge Companion to Media and Tourism provides a comprehensive overview of the research into the convergence of media and tourism and specifically investigates the concept of mediatized tourism.This companion offers a holistic look at the relationship between media and tourism by drawing from a global range of contributions by scholars from disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. The book is divided into five parts, covering diverse aspects of mediatization of tourism including place and space, representation, cultural production, and transmedia. It features a comprehensive theoretical introduction and an afterword by leading scholars in this emerging field, delving into the ways in which different forms of media content and consumption converge, and the consequential effects on tourism and tourists.The collection is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of tourism studies, cultural studies, and media and communication, as well as those with a particular interest in mediatization, convergence culture, and contemporary culture. (Less)

The Routledge Companion to Media and Tourism

During the last decade, scholars of religion have researched Star Wars-based Jediism, the Tolkien-inspired Elven community, and other religious movements inspired by popular fiction This article raises two related questions about this new kind of religion: what should we call it?, and what differentiates it from conventional religion on the one hand, and from fandom on the other? Referring to Jean Baudrillard, Adam Possamai has suggested referring to new religions based on popular culture as ‘hyper-real religions' I contend, however, that for Baudrillard, all religions are hyper-real in the sense that they ascribe reality to the socially constructed I therefore offer fiction-based religion as a more accurate term Fiction-based religions draw their main inspiration from fictional narratives (eg Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings) which do not claim to refer to the actual world, but create a fictional world of their own As such, they can be contrasted with conventional (or ‘history'-based) religions whose core narratives (eg the Gospels) do claim to refer to the actual world and therefore fall under the narrative meta-genre of history, although they do not correspond with the actual world from a historian's perspective Despite their fictional basis, fiction-based religions are genuine religions because the activity and beliefs of which they consist refer to supernatural entities which are claimed to exist in the actual world As such, fiction-based religions can be contrasted with fandom which, as a form of play, creates a fictional play world rather than making assertions about the actual world Fiction-based religion emerges when fictional narratives are used as authoritative texts for actual religious practice

/pdf/fiction-based-religion-conceptualising-a-new-category-z1ivzylina.pdf

Fiction-based religion: Conceptualising a new category against history-based religion and fandom

This review essay takes a critical look at the new field of “pagan studies” by examining the Handbook of Contemporary Paganism. It demonstrates that pagan studies is dominated by the methodological principles of essentialism, exclusivism, loyalism and supernaturalism, and shows how these principles promote normative constructions of ‘pure’ paganism, insider interpretations of the data, and theological speculations about gods, powers, and a special “magical consciousness.” It seems thus that the methodological discussions in MTSR have little effect on pagan scholars. In the concluding discussion, I raise the questions why this is so, and how we might do better in promoting a naturalist and theoretically oriented approach to studying religion.

/pdf/what-is-wrong-with-pagan-studies-2b30n4tjx2.pdf

What is Wrong with Pagan Studies

https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0048721X.2016.1210392

The religious affordance of fiction: a semiotic approach

/pdf/editors-introduction-what-cognitive-science-offers-the-study-4wbxpvuj8g.pdf

Editors’ Introduction: What Cognitive Science Offers the Study of Esotericism

https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0048721X.2016.1226756

Markus Altena Davidsen

Papers

Fiction-based religion: Conceptualising a new category against history-based religion and fandom

What is Wrong with Pagan Studies

The religious affordance of fiction: a semiotic approach

Editors’ Introduction: What Cognitive Science Offers the Study of Esotericism

Fiction and religion: how narratives about the supernatural inspire religious belief – introducing the thematic issue