Department of Religion and Culture
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- Review: Traditional American Indian Literatures: Texts and InterpretationsFine, Emily C. (Journal of American Folklore, 1983)This book is a welcome addition to studies of American Indian folklore and ethnopoetics. Karl Kroeber has compiled five essays by himself, Jarold Ramsey, Dennis Tedlock, Barre Toelken and Tacheeni Scott, and Dell Hymes to support his argument that Indian narratives are first-rate works of art that need sophisticated critical attention. The book's purpose is twofold: to correct critical ethnocentrism and to enable readers to recognize the artistry of traditiononal American Indian narratives.
- In Defense of Literary Dialect: A Response to Dennis R. PrestonFine, Emily C. (Journal of American Folklore, 1983)If folklorists were to accept Dennis R. Preston's (1982) charges against their attempts to record dialect in print, they might feel embarrassed that their textmaking of the 1970s was so bad. Few folklorists would like to admit that their efforts at representing folk speech are culturally or racially biased; nor would they like to think that their uses of literary dialect respellings "having as their primary effect on the reader a demotion of opinion of the speaker represented" (Preston 1982:323). Yet if we accept Preston's data and premises, and adopt his "rules" for determining what to respell, then we will seriously undermine the study of folklore as artistic verbal performance. While Preston's interest in improving the quality of texts is laudable, there are serious problems with his presentation of data, his attitude toward the print medium as a vehicle for recording performance features, and his rules for respelling.
- Review: Don't Go Up Kettle Creek: Verbal Legacy of the Upper CumberlandSpeer, Jean H. (Journal of American Folklore, 1984)In Don't Go Up Kettle Creek, Montell reconstructs the history of the Upper Cumberland River region "as it is perceived from the vernacular point of view, relying on personal reminiscences, oral traditions, balladry and song, and printed materials (which were themselves derived from oral history data) as primary sources of information" (p. 1). Although these oral sources provide the substance of the book, Montell corroborates the oral information wherever possible using more standard historical and folkloristic printed resources. Continuing a tradition he has established in his own work, Montell early on sets forth his sources of information, his methodology, his motives, and his philosophy for this study. On all these points, he appears careful in his approach to oral history research and is unusually clear in making his approach known to the reader.
- Snapshots of Tradition: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in GeorgiaBritt, Brian M. (University of California Press, 1998-10)On the thirteenth of each month, from October 1990 until May 1994, Nancy Fowler appeared on the porch of a farmhouse in Conyers, Georgia, to deliver the message she had received from an apparition of the Virgin Mary. On apparition days, up to 80,000 people brought rosaries and cameras to the grounds of the farm. This essay analyzes the use of traditional religious discourse and modern technologies such as photography by participants in the Conyers gatherings. Participants have also employed electronic mail and electromagnetic wave measurements to verify and legitimate the monthly apparitions. My analysis suggests that Conyers brings together traditional Marian discourse and modern technology to create a dynamic and popular religious setting.
- Death, Social Conflict, and the Barley Harvest in the Hebrew BibleBritt, Brian M. (Journal of Hebrew Scriptures , 2005)Some recent scholarship characterizes violent biblical narratives, such as the killing of Saul’s descendents in 2 Sam. 21, as evidence of ancient ritual sacrifice. Yet 2 Sam. 21 has more in common with Ruth 1 and Judith than with stories of sacrifice. By their common reference to the barley harvest, untimely deaths, famine, and social conflict, these texts represent reality through literary means. Drawing on René Girard’s theory of religion, I suggest how the narratives of 2 Sam. 21, Ruth 1, and Judith, as well as a set of narratives about sheepshearing, address social conflict as literary texts rather than as transparent windows onto ancient practice.
- Request for Proposals: South Atlantic Humanities Center(Virginia Tech, 2006)SAHC seeks proposals from Virginia Tech faculty of all ranks that will advance the mission of the Center.
- Request for Proposals: South Atlantic Humanities Center [rev.](Virginia Tech, 2006-02-24)The South Atlantic Humanities Center (SAHC) is supported by endowments at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences, and the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. SAHC seeks proposals from Virginia Tech faculty, and only VT faculty, of all ranks that will advance the mission of the Center. Faculty may, however, apply for partial support for graduate students whose theses or dissertations they are supervising.
- Satterwhite and Shifflett Win First SAHC VT Awards(Virginia Tech, 2006-05-05)After competitive review, the South Atlantic Humanities Center at Virginia Tech awarded $10,000 on May 5, 2006, for two outstanding proposals: Jamestown in an Atlantic World: A Digital Book Proposal by Dr. Crandall Shifflett, Department of History Migrating Cultures: The History and Geography of Experience and Expression in the Southeastern U.S. and Caribbean: Developing HUM 3024, by Dr. Emily Satterwhite, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
- Imagining Home, Nation, World: Appalachia on the MallSatterwhite, Emily M. (Journal of American Folklore, 2008)This article reads the Smithsonian's annual folklife festival as a cultural product buffeted by changing material conditions and funding constraints as the United States transitioned from a Fordist industrial economy to a post-Fordist information economy. Based upon visitor interviews, promotional materials, and news reports, this article argues that the transition from a national to an international framework reconfigured the role of Appalachia in visitors' imaginations. In 2002, Appalachia represented ideals of "nation" and "home" in contrast to tantalizing and threatening foreign cultures and allowed visitors to entertain the wishful belief that the United States was a simple place peopled by simple denizens innocent of imperial ambitions.
- “But the winds will turn against you”: An analysis of wealth forms and the discursive space of development in northeast BrazilAnsell, Aaron (2009-02)In this article, I explain the unfolding of a participatory development project in northeast Brazil by exploring how local genres of public speech articulate with categories of wealth. Although development resources cannot be easily categorized into local classes of wealth, they nonetheless evoke some of the anxieties cultivators feel when dealing with wealth forms susceptible to the evil eye. Beliefs surrounding the evil eye shape cultivators’ relations to material objects, and they also define the contours of safe and acceptable speech within the village development association. As a result, during association meetings, the villagers speak in ways that frustrate development agents seeking to generate “open” and “transparent” managerial discourse felicitous to project success—at least, external notions of project success. Appreciating the link between wealth and speech forms sheds light on both the local implementation challenges that participants in such projects face and the reason development agents frequently blame ostensive project failures on beneficiary backwardness.
- The Schmittian Messiah in Agamben's The Time That RemainsBritt, Brian M. (The University of Chicago Press, 2010)For Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zitek the New Testament writings attributed to Paul have much to say on contemporary debates over politics and religious tradition. Taking the measure of this new intellectual trend calls for careful readings of books on the subject, among the most interesting of which is Agamben's The Time That Remains, a series of seminar lectures that explores the influence of Paul's letters on messianic thought. Here, Britt reveals that his primary concern is not Agamben's reading of Paul but his reading of Walter Benjamin as a Pauline thinker through the lens of Carl Schmitt's political theology. Agamben claims that Benjamin's writings on messianism can be shown, through a set of allusions and quotations, to depend directly on Paul's writings. He argues that Agamben misreads and misunderstands Benjamin's messianic thought, projecting a Schmittian model of religion onto Benjamin's conception of tradition.
- Auctioning Patronage in Northeast Brazil: The Political Value of Money in a Ritual MarketAnsell, Aaron (2010-06)Fundraising auctions help people in a small rural town in Northeast Brazil reckon with the effects that currency stabilization and democratization have had on municipal politics. These simultaneous processes have made politics confusing for the people of Passerinho by creating multiple modalities of electoral reciprocity. In this article, I argue that the ritual procedures of the auctions commensurate these modalities of reciprocity through a semiotic procedure in which money signifies both exchange value and more personal forms of value. I consider the auction's impact on municipal politics by looking at its effect on the narrative of democratic progress and on the prestige of grassroots politicians, traditional elites, and voluntary associations.
- Models of Clientelism and Policy Change: The Case of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Mexico and BrazilAnsell, Aaron; Mitchell, Ken (2011-07)Clientelist systems vary, and this variation influences the adoption and evolution of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. We find that vertically integrated, corporatist clientelism in Mexico and more locally oriented, bossist clientelism in Brazil differentially shape the choices of governments to turn piecemeal, discretionary CCTs into more expansive and secure benefits.
- Biblical curses and the displacement of traditionBritt, Brian M. (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2011-12)Brian Britt discusses his book: Biblical Curses and the Displacement of Tradition. Brian Britt offers an intriguing perspective on curses as the focus of debates over the power, pleasure, and danger of words. Biblical authors transformed ancient Near Eastern curses against rival ethnic groups, disobedient ancestors, and the day of one’s own birth with great variety and ingenuity. Transformations of biblical curses proliferated in post-biblical history, even during periods of ‘secularization’. This study argues that biblical, early modern, and contemporary transformations of curses constitute displacements rather than replacements of earlier traditions. The crucial notion of displacement draws from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy, and Benjamin’s engagement with textual tradition; it highlights not only manifest shifts but also many hidden continuities between cursing in biblical texts and cursing in such ‘secular’ domains as literature, law, politics, and philosophy. The tradition of biblical cursing—neither purely ‘religious’ nor purely ‘secular’—travels through these texts and contexts as it redefines verbal, human, and supernatural power.
- Secularism and the Question of the ‘Judeo-Christian'Britt, Brian M. (Relegere, 2012)This essay comments on the papers in this special issue, paying special attention to "Judaism," "Christianity," and "Judeo-Christian" in relation to discussions of secularism and civil religion. It attempts an explanation of why "Judeo-Christian" has become a term we take for granted, suggesting that the term derives from a tradition of naming and group identity that combines obvious and subtle expressions, habits, and patterns. Finally, it poses questions for further research into the meaning and use of the terms "Judeo-Christian" and "civil religion."
- Syllabus - REL/HUM 4324 (Spring 2012)Gabriele, Matthew (2012)Syllabus for REL/HUM 4324: The Language of Religious Violence. Taught by Prof. Matthew Gabriele (Dept. of Religion and Culture).
- Syllabus - REL/HUM/HIST 3504 (Spring 2012)Gabriele, Matthew (2012)Syllabus for REL/HUM/HIST 3504: Age of the Crusades. Taught by Prof. Matthew Gabrielel (Dept. of Religion and Culture).
- Syllabus - REL/HIST 4074 (Fall 2012)Gabriele, Matthew (2012)Syllabus for REL/HIST 4074: Memory & Legend. Taught by Prof. Matthew Gabriele (Dept. of Religion and Culture).
- Psalm Recitation and Post-Secular Time: Augustine, the iPod, and Psalm 90Britt, Brian M. (The Whitestone Foundation, 2012)Psalm 90 accommodates multiple understandings and experiences of time, but its compositional coherence balances this diversity with unity. Practices of recitation, reading, and reflection on the Psalms accommodate this unity in diversity, naming but not resolving perennial questions about time. In the end what we have are complex selves, complex traditions, and complex texts interacting with each other. If there is any coherence in this complexity, it has to do with fictions and metaphors of coherence: spatial unity of the text, continuity of tradition, and unity of the self. Like all reading, the recitation of psalms is ultimately an aesthetic, subjective experience, though traditional instruction and ritual give this aesthetic a social dimension. As embodied recitation, the psalm affords an aesthetic not of private escape or disinterestedness but of embeddedness in history and social practice. The structure of Psalm 90, particularly with the framing repetition of terms “return” in vv. 3 and 13, along with the four imperatives in vv. 12-14 and the three jussives in vv. 14-17, lends the text unity without certain closure. Augustine’s Confessions contains abstract discussions of time, but this abstraction arises within a tradition of biblical reading and recitation. Secular philosophy, religious studies, and biblical scholarship commonly overlook biblical reading and recitation in Augustine’s thought and in biblical traditions more broadly. This oversight reflects a modern tendency to separate religion, typically construed as “faith” or belief, from the secular domains of reasoning on the one hand and aesthetics on the other. The modern reception of Psalm 90 splits in these two directions, one reading the text mostly as a meditation on human and divine time, and the other as an object for musical expression and enjoyment. The Psalms and their history, particularly traditions of recitation, resist both extremes of abstract thought and embodied desire. Beyond the false dichotomy of sacred and secular time, practices of recitation were always already post-secular.
- Syllabus - HUM 1214 (Fall 2012)Gabriele, Matthew (2012)A syllabus for HUM 1214: Medieval World, taught in Fall 2012 by Prof. Matthew Gabriele (Dept. of Religion and Culture).