Seminars

Sadegh Hedayat (1903-1951) is one of the defining figures of Iranian modernity. This seminar aims to contribute to the existing scholarship on Hedayat by focusing on one of the relatively neglected areas of his work: his pioneering research on Zoroastrian literature. Over the course of the 1940s, Hedayat published the first Modern Persian translations of seven late antique and early Islamic Zoroastrian texts. I will focus on Hedayat’s translation of and introduction to one text: the ninth-century Mu’tazilite theological and polemical treatise the Škand Gumānīg Wizār (ŠGW). The seminar will situate Hedayat’s research in the context of the history of scholarship on Zoroastrianism and the entangled histories of India and Iran in the twentieth century.

Pastoral power in Christianity originated in the biblical image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Before his Ascension, Christ passed this power to his apostles by calling onto them the Holy Spirit. In the emergent Church, bishops became the heirs of the apostolic pastoral power. In fourth-century Egypt, the new type of the monastic pastor appeared on the historical scene in the person of Pachomius (d. 348). There are striking similarities between the lives of Pachomius and Francis of Assisi (d. 1226). The story of Francis and the early formation of the Franciscan Order bears many elements of the original monastic pastorate, albeit in an entirely different economic and geographical setting. The seminar will examine these similarities.

Antisemitism is frequently called “the eternal hatred,” tracing anti-Jewish hostility from ancient times to the present. In this seminar I will examine the nature of antisemitism – moving away from emotions and fear as well as from debates over definitions – to help us think more deeply about the roles religion and power have played in shaping the habits of thinking about Jews in order to reconsider antisemitism and its ramifications for the current moment.

With more than 400 extant manuscripts in vernacular languages and Latin, together with countless block books and incunables, the Speculum humanae salvationis is one of the most successful works of devotional literature in late medieval Europe. A typological framework forms its basic structure, juxtaposing New Testament episodes about the lives of Christ and Mary (that is, “antitypes”) with corresponding Old Testament episodes which were understood as their prefigurations (that is, “types”). Speculum manuscripts visualize the idea of a typological relation between the Old and the New Testament by arranging pictorial elements and script in conventionalized layouts. Their multigraphic concept is explicitly tailored to the needs of a lay audience and their religious teachers. Using different examples of the visualization of hell, I will discuss the Speculum’s twofold objective of presenting basic theological knowledge while facilitating hermeneutic interpretation with the help of both verbal and visual means. Focusing on vernacular German translations, with glances at the Latin tradition, I will explore three aspects: firstly, the interplay of pictorial and verbal visualization meant to guide processes of understanding, interpreting, and contemplating Scripture; secondly, the effects of visual organization on these processes; and thirdly, the status of material images rather visualizing abstract motifs than depicting narrative episodes. By focusing on these three aspects, my presentation will provide new insights into the role of multigraphic artefacts in religious reading practices.

Historically in Chinese traditions of Buddhism, the monastic community has stood as the guarantor of orthodoxy while independent lay Buddhism has operated under the specter of heresy. The valorization of texts in Buddhist modernism, however, has created new opportunities for lay Buddhism even as old suspicions and challenges linger. This talk examines the Maitreya Lodge, a small working class lay community in Taiwan under the leadership of a charismatic autodidact and ex-gangster. The canon looms large at the Lodge as a source of cultural capital with which to stake claims to orthodoxy and distinguish itself from the larger religious field. Yet the inaccessible character of the Chinese Buddhist canon makes acquiring that capital challenging. This talk will investigate the role of scripture in the Lodge’s strategies of legitimation and unpack the mediations by which a group of adults with limited education have become conversant in advanced Buddhist philosophy.