Idols In The East

Author : Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801464986
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Idols in the East written by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over centuries, the figure of the wily Arab has given rise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, to the "Islamist" terrorist. In Idols in the East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari explores the premodern background of some of the Orientalist types still pervasive in present-day depictions of Muslims-the irascible and irrational Arab, the religiously deviant Islamist-and about how these stereotypes developed over time. Idols in the East contributes to the recent surge of interest in European encounters with Islam and the Orient in the premodern world. Focusing on the medieval period, Akbari examines a broad range of texts including encyclopedias, maps, medical and astronomical treatises, chansons de geste, romances, and allegories to paint an unusually diverse portrait of medieval culture. Among the texts she considers are The Book of John Mandeville, The Song of Roland, Parzival, and Dante's Divine Comedy. From them she reveals how medieval writers and readers understood and explained the differences they saw between themselves and the Muslim other. Looking forward, Akbari also comes to terms with how these medieval conceptions fit with modern discussions of Orientalism, thus providing an important theoretical link to postcolonial and postimperial scholarship on later periods. Far reaching in its implications and balanced in its judgments, Idols in the East will be of great interest to not only scholars and students of the Middle Ages but also anyone interested in the roots of Orientalism and its tangled relationship to modern racism and anti-Semitism.

Author : Hiroshi Aoyagi
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 168417418X
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Islands of Eight Million Smiles written by Hiroshi Aoyagi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Since the late 1960s a ubiquitous feature of popular culture in Japan has been the ""idol,"" an attractive young actor, male or female, packaged and promoted as an adolescent role model and exploited by the entertainment, fashion, cosmetic, and publishing industries to market trendy products. This book offers ethnographic case studies regarding the symbolic qualities of idols and how these qualities relate to the conceptualization of selfhood among adolescents in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia. The author explores how the idol-manufacturing industry absorbs young people into its system of production, molds them into marketable personalities, commercializes their images, and contributes to the construction of ideal images of the adolescent self. Since the relationship between the idols and their consumers is dynamic, the study focuses on the fans of idols as well. Ultimately, Aoyagi argues, idol performances substantiate capitalist values in the urban consumer society of contemporary Japan and East Asia. Regardless of how crude their performances may appear in the eyes of critics, the idols have helped establish the entertainment industry as an agent of public socialization by driving public desires toward the consumption of commoditized fantasies. "

Author : Amy L. Balogh
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1978700318
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moses among the Idols written by Amy L. Balogh and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Moses among the Idols: Mediators of the Divine in the Ancient Near East, Balogh simultaneously redefines one of the greatest figures in the history of religion and challenges the historically popular understanding of ancient Mesopotamian idols as the idle objects of antiquated faiths. Drawing on interdisciplinary research and methods of comparison, Balogh not only offers new insight into the lives of idols as active mediators between humanity and divinity, she also makes the case that when it comes to understanding the figure of Moses, Mesopotamian idols are the best analogy that the ancient Near East provides. This new understanding of Moses, idols, and the interplay between the two on the stage of history and within the biblical text has been made possible only with the recent publication of pertinent texts from ancient Mesopotamia. Drawing from the fields of Assyriology, biblical studies, comparative religion, and archaeology, Balogh identifies a problem with Moses’s status, and offers an unexpected solution to that problem. Moses among the Idols centers on the question: What is it that transforms Moses from an inadequate representative of Yahweh who is “uncircumcised of lips” to “god to Pharaoh” (Exodus 6:28-7:1)? In this moment, Moses undergoes a status change best understood through comparison with the induction ritual for ancient Mesopotamian idols as described in the texts of the Mīs Pȋ, “Washing” or “Purification of the Mouth.” This solution to the problem of Moses’s status explains not only his status change, but also why Moses radiates light after speaking with YHWH (Exod 34:29-35), and his peculiar relationship with YHWH and people of Israel. The comparative, interdisciplinary perspective provided by Balogh allows one to read these and other millennia-old interpretive issues anew, and to do so in a way that underscores the contribution of in-depth comparison to our understanding of ancient civilizations, texts, and intellectual frameworks.

Author : David M. Freidenreich
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520344715
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Jewish Muslims written by David M. Freidenreich and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovering the hidden history of Islamophobia and its surprising connections to the long-standing hatred of Jews. Hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims have been intertwined in Christian thought since the rise of Islam. In Jewish Muslims, David M. Freidenreich explores the history of this complex, perplexing, and emotionally fraught phenomenon. He makes the compelling case that, then and now, hate-mongers target "them" in an effort to define "us." Analyzing anti-Muslim sentiment in texts and images produced across Europe and the Middle East over a thousand years, the author shows how Christians intentionally distorted reality by alleging that Muslims were just like Jews. They did so not only to justify assaults against Muslims on theological grounds but also to motivate fellow believers to live as "good" Christians. The disdain premodern polemicists expressed for Islam and Judaism was never really about these religions. Rather, they sought to promote their own visions of Christianity—a dynamic that similarly animates portrayals of Muslims and Jews today.

Author : G. R. Hawting
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139426354
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.50/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam written by G. R. Hawting and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-12-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and under what circumstances did the religion of Islam emerge in a remote part of Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century? Traditional scholarship maintains that Islam developed in opposition to the idolatrous and polytheistic religion of the Arabs of Mecca and the surrounding regions. In this study of pre-Islamic Arabian religion, G. R. Hawting adopts a comparative religious perspective to suggest an alternative view. By examining the various bodies of evidence which survive from this period, the Koran and the vast resources of the Islamic tradition, the author argues that in fact Islam arose out of conflict with other monotheists whose beliefs and practices were judged to fall short of true monotheism and were, in consequence, attacked polemically as idolatry. The author is adept at unravelling the complexities of the source material, and students and scholars will find his argument both engaging and persuasive.

Author : Xiaofei Tu
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793608180
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Japanese Idols Go to China written by Xiaofei Tu and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book situates the Chinese acceptance of Japanese popular culture, specifically the intriguing and sometimes awkward relationship between the “idol” groups AKB48 and SNH48, within the broad context of nationalist ideology and international relations in East Asia. It aims to enhance the knowledge and understanding of the reader about contemporary East Asian cultural exchanges and nationalist expressions in concrete forms. Additionally, this book attempts to discover heretofore overlooked aspects of nationalism’s metamorphosis in both China and Japan and challenge the existing scholarly and popular understandings of nationalism. By interrogating the nationalism factor in popular culture in Chinese and Japanese contexts, this books concludes that popular culture fandom can both be a culprit in promoting hegemonic political ideologies and serve as a potential antidote.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 772 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia written by and published by . This book was released on 1840 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Carlos M. N. Eire
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521379847
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book War Against the Idols written by Carlos M. N. Eire and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-01-27 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second decade of the sixteenth century medieval piety suddenly began to be attacked in some places as 'idolatry', or false religion. Wherever these ideas became accepted, churches were sacked, images smashed and burned, relics destroyed, and the Catholic Mass abolished. This study calls attention to the centrality of the idolatry issue for the Reformation. It traces the development of Protestant iconoclastic theology and practice, provides a survey and synthesis of its unfolding from Erasmus through Calvin, and lays a foundation for understanding the Reformed ideology that stood in conflict with Catholicism and Lutheranism. Professor Eire's main thesis is that the argument against 'idolatry' was central to Reformed Protestantism, both in its theological aspect and in its political ramifications, and that it reached its fullest and most enduring expression in Calvinism.

Author : Thomas A. Judge
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567689336
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Other Gods and Idols written by Thomas A. Judge and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study questions why the relationship between the worship of other gods and the worship of idols within the Old Testament is difficult to define, acknowledging how various traditions have seen these two issues as synonymous and others have viewed them as separate commandments. Judge argues that there are four factors at play in this diversity. He introduces the first three through an examination of the relationship between the prohibitions listed in the biblical text, and the fourth through a study of the biblical depiction of the war against idols before and after the fall of the Northern Kingdom. Judge argues that texts depicting the era before the fall provide a context in which there are strong grounds to distinguishing the worship of the “wrong gods” and the worship of the right God in the wrong way. However, texts depicting the era after the fall provide a context in which the issues appear to have been fused.

Author : Amanda Sikarskie
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350283339
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Male Idols and Branding in Chinese Luxury written by Amanda Sikarskie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-12-29 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging the Western view of idols as objects of worship, this book explores the role that male idols play in fashion and cosmetics brand marketing in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau; including the role of the female gaze. It examines idols in the more modern, pan-Asian sense of the word - as objects of social devotion, worshipped by the adoring masses and, in China and Korea, as objects of social and moral uplift. The contemporary idol wields great power - the power to influence taste, and to sell - and Male Idols and Branding in Chinese Luxury focuses on their ability to arouse the consumer appetite to buy. In China, popular culture idols play a vital role in the luxury fashion and cosmetics industries as brand ambassadors and this volume fills a critical gap in the English-language literature on this key element of the marketing industry, bringing together authors from the United States and China, and featuring case studies on idols Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan. Through considering the subtleties of branding and marketing in China, Korea, and Japan, and the relationship of Chinese idols to fans and consumers in other Asian countries, the authors delve into brand-idol collaborations, particularly through lenses of brand image and toxic fan culture.