Zylberberg brings up blood several times a symbol of women and their experience of menstruation. I thought it was interesting that she did not connect and compare that with the other blood symbol in the Passover seder, the wine that is dipped out of the glass to represent the plagues. I think it is interesting how the blood orange is used to symbolize blood as a wonderful thing, when the wine as blood is meant to represent sorrow and pain. This does not necessarily detract from the blood orange’s symbolism, but it is an interesting juxtaposition.
Religious Identities
Looking at Abraham ibn Daud’s summary of the career of Samuel ha-Nagid, it seems that religion identity is far more significant than religious belief or practice on its own. Religious identity signified a person’s background and the community to which they hold attachments. In Samuel ibn Naghrela’s case, this can be seen when ibn al-‘Arif asks who wrote letters from his household, and he is told that they were written by “A certain Jew of the community of Cordoba.” Religious identity here is a way of recognizing the community which Samuel came from, more than a statement on his morals, beliefs, or practices. When Samuel rose to the position of nagid, he invested in his religious community across the Mediterranean. It is in this position of power that his religion is most strongly portrayed in this passage from Sefer ha-Qabbalah. Before this, ibn Daud mainly focuses on Samuel’s rise to political power, in which his identity as a Jew is just a statement on his background. Once he is in power, however, ibn Daud records his contributions to the religious education and activities of his coreligionists. Ibn Daud mentions that Samuel had earned “the crown of Torah” among others, implying that Samuel had invested just as heavily in his own religious education as in that of other students.
Post-Class Week 3: Catacomb Art
I think one of the most interesting things we talked about in class this week was the idea of narratives in relation to art. The art tells a different narrative to insiders and outsiders, and different narratives can be placed onto the art in order to make it conform to popular discourse. The notion that Schenk repeatedly returns to of people placing meaning on the art of the catacombs that simply did not fit, in order to make sense of the art in church-approved context, is something important to be aware of when studying any aspect of art or religion. It is important to keep in mind the agenda of any source, primary or secondary, and take it into consideration when doing our own analysis.
Reading Reflection 1/29 – Christian Catacombs
It is interesting to see how the meanings of certain art styles and symbols evolve over time. The idea of light in art, and how it began with the flat gold halos of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance portrayals of light sources shining in a particular direction, creating shadows and depth, is fascinating. Similarly with the symbols the Christians adopted from the society around them, creating their own meaning from letters and symbols and acronyms. This reminded me of the notion that nothing is created in a vacuum, and nothing is entirely new. Everything that humans create is influenced by what they’ve seen in the past and what surrounds them. Images of the Good Shepard, or the fish and dove and other symbols were chosen by early Christians to represent their minority cult because those were the images that they recognized and could affix meaning to.
Menocal and Kamen – Approaches to History
Menocal’s book is very focused on a chronological recounting of power. Whether it was political, technological, or cultural, she offers in her first chapters an overview of which rulers and cities held significance in their time. Kamen, on the other hand, is concerned with identity, and how people choose to understand the past. In speaking of Catalonia, he writes “In the earlier phase, the refrain among Catalanists had been ‘Catalonia is the patria, Spain is the nation.’ In the later phase, the refrain was: ‘Catalonia is the nation, Spain is the state.’” (Kamen 25). Kamen gives less of an idea, in this chapter at least, of what events occurred on the Iberian Peninsula, but rather how their various identities developed in relation to one another, and how it is significant that many of these identities are based on historical myths. While the history may be myth, the identities that have developed are very real to this day. Menocal, contrastingly, opens her book with a brief history of power, rather than identity, in Spain.
Post-Class Week 2: Dance and Creativity
We talked a lot today about fine lines: between ritual and performance, religious and cultural, creative and productive, religion and ethnicity. One thing that we didn’t quite get a chance to discuss explicitly was Haynes’s ideas about creativity as they do or do not apply to the forms of Indian dance. Are those creative? If they are supposedly performed exactly as they have been for centuries, can they still be considered creative performance, despite lacking novelty? If it breaks from tradition, is it still religious? I think it goes back to perspective. The performer may experience their dancing as religious, even while the audience is viewing it merely as entertainment. Conversely, someone viewing a dance performance can experience it religiously, even if the performer does not intend it as such.
Starting the Story – Menocal
“The convergence of mixed ethnicity and a religion of converts meant that the ancestors of a Muslim from Cordoba in the year 900 (let alone another two hundred or four hundred years later) were as likely to be Hispano-Roman as Berber, or some measure of each, perhaps with smaller dollops of either Syrian-Arab or Visigothic, these latter two having always been the smaller but politically dominant groups.” P.28
Reading the first chapters of this book brought my attention to notions of identity and heritage. The concepts of ethnicity, race, religion, culture, and nationality are so muddled and mixed through intermarriage and other instances of cultural transmission, and yet people often define themselves by these labels, not accounting for the diversity within a label and the diversity within their own heritage. Al-Andalus seemed to exemplify this diversity, with so much of the population coming from a mix of ethnicities and even religions as people converted, intermarried, and moved around. I appreciate how this was demonstrated on the tomb of Ferdinand III, commemorating a Christian king in four different languages including Arabic and Hebrew. And yet, despite this diversity, there was still a social hierarchy placing certain ethnic and religious ancestries over others. To have Syrian heritage or to live as a Muslim was still preferable, despite the common backgrounds and cultures that so many people shared.
Post-Class Week 1: Reflecting on Religious Studies
Today’s class was a good reflection of not only the ideas I’ve learned in the past few years, but the values as well. It was a solid reminder of why I chose to study religion and why I think it is so important. To be able to find that balance between relating to a movement and being critical of it makes all of the difference in understanding others and the world around us, making it easier to communicate effectively. Something that I’ve learned in my studies is the importance of the words we choose, and the meaning behind how we’ve chosen to phrase a certain claim or question. It comes up a lot for me, and I have friends and family who don’t understand why I will get so hung up on the precise wording of something, because no matter the intentions of the words chosen, the meaning they convey is decided by the reader. I am excited to have this opportunity to study religion with others who come from a similar background of understanding and caring about the theories and methods of the field.
Reflection Week 13
A lot of what we discussed this week was branding, in a sense. It has always been important for rulers and other diplomatic figures to be aware of how they present themselves to the world in order to achieve their goals. For the Hongwu Emperor, it was important to brand his Ming Dynasty after the Tang, in order to portray a sense of proto-nationalism and a romanticization of Chinese history. Matteo Ricci and the other Jesuits realized that to bring Christianity into China, they would need to take on the aesthetic of Confucianism to make their foreign religion palatable. And Hong Taiji re-branded his people as the Manchu in order to distance his dynasty from the fall of the Jurchen Jin.
Reflection Week 12
We’ve discussed how the Sinocentric worldview of the Chinese was flipped during the long periods of non-Han rule. Instead of others bringing their tribute to China as the center of the world, they had to pay tribute to others. Zheng He’s voyages represent another adaptation of this worldview, in a sense. It still breaks with the original opinion that all others should be coming to China with tributary gifts, maintaining China as the superior center. However, despite Zheng He going into the “outer circles”, there are still tributary gifts being given, and the Ming are showing off their power and the place of superiority that they hold.
