Arc: The Journal of the School of Religious Studies

Folk Survivals, Spurned Witches, and Thwarted Inheritance, or, What Makes the Occult Queer?

Sydney Sheedy — 2022-12-01

Over the past few years there has been an explosion in popularity of so-called ‘occult’ practices like astrology and tarot, particularly among left-leaning people who tend to politicize their investments as forms of counterhegemony. In ethnographic fieldwork among queer occultists in Montreal, I explore how practitioners imagine themselves to be divesting from legacies of violence, opting instead for apparently queer genealogies of knowledge that are known in terms of the ways they have been repressed. Framing the occult as a historiographic mode, this article lays bare how certain knowledge practices emerged as the disciplinary excess of the regulatory ideal of modernity, and how this putative opposition offers an appealing location for social critique. Turning to literature on Victorian scientific cultures, I show how the occult becomes legible as always already about epistemic crisis and the struggle between sanctioned methods of inquiry. Put in conversation with queer temporality scholarship, this crisis may offer an allegory for queer historical encounter that explains its appeal among queer people, wherein the rubric of legitimacy or ‘truth’ is apprehended as an effect of power. The pervasive claim among my informants that queer people are ‘naturally’ drawn to the occult, and the emphasis on finding alternative routes/roots in order to disrupt heteronormativity, white supremacy, and patriarchy locates this phenomenon within cultural conversations about historical repair, and the extent to which we can divest from what we inherit in favour of something else.

"Fellow Travellers Along the Path"

Jonah Gelfand — 2022-12-01

In neo-Hasidism—which draws on traditional Hasidism while maintaining its position outside its sociological communities—the centrality of the idealised holy leader is nuanced, or outright rejected. In fact, by exploring its updated leadership models, it becomes clear that reformulating leadership was in fact one of the primary ways in which neo-Hasidism distinguished itself from traditional Hasidism. Whereas Hasidic leaders are traditionally charismatic by virtue of their exceptionalness, neo-Hasidic leaders are understood to be imperfect “fellow travelers along the path” who are charismatic by virtue of their relatability. And yet, despite this divergence, neo-Hasidism attempts to maintain its position within the Hasidic lineage.

Le pluralisme religieus selon Tierno Bokar Salif Tall

Ndiaga Diop — 2023-09-12

Selon l’enseignement du cheikh soufi Tierno Bokar, la seule lutte (jihad) que la religion islamique prescrit est uniquement celle qui prend pour objet l’homme lui-même. Ce mystique ouest-africain nous présente un pluralisme qui trouve sa source d’inspiration et sa force dans une profonde méditation du Message de Dieu, un Message Unique, partout le même, mais adapté toujours selon le lieu et le temps. Il enseigne que la reconnaissance de cette unité essentielle, qui ramène les diverses formes religieuses fondées sur une révélation divine à une source unique, prédispose de facto à une attitude : celle de la tolérance.

Experiential Pathways to Infusing Spirituality in Pre- Service Art Education

Laurel Campbell — 2022-12-31

This paper addresses diverse approaches to researching spirituality in art education. It then argues for the importance of such research today, given current controversies related to religion, and the general divisiveness that increasingly imperils public education along with other aspects of society. As we assert, addressing spirituality through art can help connect students rather than divide them, enabling them to find common ground through learning about art and through the experiences of making it. Each of these issues will be discussed in considering the following research agendas: definitions of spirituality, contemplative practice, and relations between spiritual traditions, East and West.

Exceptionalism in the Bible

Mark Glouberman — 2023-09-12

Three exceptionalisms divide up the bulk of the Torah: the position that the created world (created by God) is special among (possible) worlds; the position that men and women (inspired by God with his breath of life) are special among creatures; the position that the nation of Israel (chosen by God) is special among nations. It’s an a‑theological version of the second of these that is in fact the Bible’s core doctrine. Israelite exceptionalism (“chosenness”), vital though it is to Judaism, is incompatible with the unique status of persons in the creation, and hence has to be downgraded.

Engaging Agamben on the Time that Remains

Douglas Farrow — 2023-09-12

Giorgio Agamben's work at the intersection of political theology, biblical exegesis, and culture criticism is taken up appreciatively. In an argument framed by Paul's Damascus Road experience, key texts such as 1 Corinthians 7 and Romans 9–11 are explored with Agamben, new proposals being made, to set the stage for a discussion of 2 Thessalonians 2. Successful treatment of this last text, and of the dialectic of law and lawlessness as it appears there, requires more attention to context than Agamben affords. That includes the Thessalonian correspondence as a whole, the teaching of Jesus, and the book of Daniel that underlies both. It also includes an appreciation of the narrative and liturgical framing of Pauline eschatology. While Agamben is questioned on this score, and his reading of 2 Thessalonians 2 challenged, common cause is made in critique of church/state alliances around pandemic policy, alliances based on a lawless use of law.

Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity Across Eurasia, edited by Jaś Elsner and Rachel Wood

Nicola E. Hayward — 2022-12-01

The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World, edited by Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira

Jessica Gauthier — 2022-12-01

A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship Between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700, by Simon Mills

Mona Abousidou — 2022-12-01

Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from an Emerging Field, edited by Hans Gustafson

Elyse MacLeod — 2022-12-01

Hands of Doom: The Apocalyptic Imagination of Black Sabbath, by Jack Holloway

Daniel Fishley — 2022-12-01

Branding Bhakti: Krishna Consciousness and the Makeover of a Movement, by Nicole Karapanagiotis

Katie Khatereh Taher — 2022-12-01

Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration, by Cheryl L. Bruno, Joe Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski

William Perez — 2022-12-01

Talking Back to Purity Culture: Rediscovering Faithful Christian Sexuality, by Rachel Joy Welcher

Briana Grenert — 2022-12-01

Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary across a Millennium, by Joel Blecher

Scott Bursey — 2022-12-01

Editorial Address

Elyse MacLeod — 2023-09-04

Director's Address

Garth W. Green — 2023-09-04