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Abstract Not Provided / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study will examine the integral role of owls in Ainu spiritual belief systems through the means of Ainu oral literature and Ainu material arts. In the past, the indigenous people known as Ainu lived only in northern Japan, including Kurile Islands (“Kurile Ainu”), Sakhalin (“Sakhalin Ainu”), and Hokkaido (“Hokkaido Ainu”). Today, Ainu people live across Japan; however, Hokkaido is considered their spiritual homeland and the majority of the population lives in this northern prefecture. This paper will focus on the group of people called “Hokkaido Ainu”. Before a large number of Japanese migrated to Hokkaido during the Meiji era (1868-1912), Ainu people had lived close to nature through various activities such as fishing, hunting, and gathering. As a result of these daily activities involving nature, the Ainu developed their spiritual belief systems. For example, they believe that various spirits exist in natural phenomena such as plants, insects, and animals. Among these animals, the bear, killer whale and owl are considered in many Ainu societies as the highest-ranked animal kamuy, meaning gods or deities. The Owl God in particular, is believed to be the guardian of the village. In this project, the symbolic representation of the Owl God in four different Ainu traditional folklores and various forms of arts will be carefully examined. The goal of this study is to demonstrate that although the language and physical communities are under threat by Japanese migration and a modern industrial economy, the spiritual belief in the Owl God as the guardian of the village continues to exist in contemporary Ainu works of art. In addition, I will argue that the representation of the Owl God, Kotan-kor-kamuy, is an important symbolic expression of Ainu cultural identity. / Graduate

Some Names for Empty Space is a collection of poems that considers how poetry and language operate to define human experience, reconciling the 'empty spaces' between the self and the abstracted variables of all things. The poems here often find their impetus in fatherhood and a parent's efforts to explain the world to a child.

<p>The thesis shows in its historical introduction, that a serious split had developed in the Indian Religious Tradition between the actions necessary for achieving religious liberation (moksa) and the actions necessary for fulfilling the individual caste duty. The central. The central theme of the thesis is that the Bhagavad Gītā and in particular its central theme, karma-yoga, or action done with non-attachment to its results, establishes a new synthesis of action and meaning for the tradition.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Muslim groups in Karlstad are rarely visible online. There is also no previous research about them. Through an interview-based mapping study, I want to research what activities take place in Muslim mosques in Karlstad. The aim of the study is to document and analyze Muslim activities. This study is included in a research project at Karlstad University: Karlstad’s mosque - negotiations on Islam in Värmland. It aims to illuminate Islam’s development in Värmland from various aspects. Religious change and religion collision are theoretical starting points for the study. The results of this study show that three congregations are active in Karlstad: Islamiska Kulturföreningen [sunni], Bosniska Islamiska Kulturföreningen [sunni] and Mahdi Al Montazar [shia]. They established their congregations since 1990s. They are dependent on their main organizations and do not cooperate with other Muslim associations. Members of the congregation are very important for the organization’s existence. The result indicates that the religious activities of groups are not affected by data-based communication. Different branches work for their own community and have different views about Islam. In a Christian society, these Muslim congregations try to adapt to the rules of majority society in different ways. They find new ways to practise their religion. Minority groups want to preserve their own cultural and religious traditions through the mosque building or association board. It will be a way to be included and recognized by the majority.

The basic question underlying this thesis concerns the identification of the fundamental elements constituting the Western religious tradition and the way in which these elements manifest themselves in the writings of French writers and philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, authors chosen as the subject of this work not only because of their historical and biographical resemblance to one another but also because both are inscribed within the same existentialist and pseudo-existentialist literary tradition emerging in post-war Europe during the nineteen-forties. In the case of both Sartre and Camus, this tradition is particularly characterised by a literature seeking to affirm itself as resolutely atheist on the one hand yet infused with an unshakeable moral imperative on the other, obliging not only an active engagement by their readers in the cause of those less fortunate, but also a continuous effort by the two authors themselves to justify this imperative in the face of their maintained conviction that the universe has neither creator, nor existential reason, nor inherent meaning. It is precisely the contradiction between these two characteristics, and particularly the fact that the first cannot be logically derived from the second, which leads me to propose that the atheism affected by both writers might not be as absolute, as natural or as real as it seems, and that, despite their efforts throughout their work to show to what extent they reject the notion of divine existence, the moral imperative both support with such fervour is actually derived from a lingering religious faith so psychologically primal that neither of them ever manages to rid himself of it entirely. Of course this faith is not based on any true intellectual conviction, but rather the result of two distinct factors: firstly, the adherence of both authors to a cultural and intellectual tradition wholly constructed on religious thought, thus forcing their art to reflect this thought and its constituent elements despite their own conscious objectives and desires, and secondly the irresistible influence of such personal and particularly psychological factors as prohibits either from partaking of an authentic atheist conviction. However, as both continue throughout their lives to deny the existence of this faith whose influence neither is capable of escaping, I also propose that this influence on their writing is necessarily opaque, and the god itself on which it is based, a hidden god. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Modern European Languages / unrestricted

The group known as “non-religious” have in recent time received attention in sociology of religion due to the need of presenting a more accurate and nuanced image of these individuals.  In the following study, young adults who ascribe themselves as religious to a low degree are investigated through quantitative analysis on previously collected survey material from the project Religion som resurs? (2008).  The study examines what reasons the respondents have stated for assigning themselves a religious affiliation, and to what degree they value the importance of religious tradition in their lives. Furthermore, the study includes a comparative analysis of two non-religious groups which were ethnic Swedes and Swedish born second-generation immigrants whose parents originate from outside of Scandinavia. The purpose of this comparison is to detect whether non-religiosity is expressed differently depending on ethnic background. Finally, the study also examines how the two groups differ in the degree of religious socialisation during their childhood years. Due to restrictions in method and material, this study can only show correlation or lack thereof in regard to the respondents’ answers, rather than explain what the causes behind the differences between the two non-religious groups are. The results were constructed through cross-tabulation of the two groups and six questions from the mentioned survey. In analysing the results, the theories used are socialisation theory as it is expressed by Berger &amp; Luckman, but more so theories developed by Day (2011) from her qualitative study. The analysis uses Days categorisation of nominalist identities, belief orientations and the term which she calls performative belonging. The results of this essay show that the majority of both groups did not grow up exposed to religious socialisation, however a larger share of the second-generation immigrants than the ethnic Swedes stated that they did. Furthermore, almost twice as many second-generation immigrants than ethnic Swedes ascribe themselves a religious affiliation to a high degree. As for why the respondents ascribe themselves a religious affiliation, the reasons, and the degree of which the respondents agree to these reasons, differ slightly between the two groups. The biggest differences which can be seen is that the second-generation immigrants ascribe themselves a religion based on their relationships with family. Finally, regarding the respondents’ opinions on tradition, the results show that they have varied opinions on the question of how important traditions are, but that religious tradition largely does not affect their life-view.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:21:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 1-200.pdf: 3556860 bytes, checksum: 387d9dbcfae1704d703d55a6bf03316d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present thesis is a study of the religious tradition and transmission of the Christian Congregation in Brazil in an area of deep social vulnerability. The study is carried out in the light of the institution and its members. Religious reproduction in the contemporary scene of modernity is difficult due to the diminishing capacity of religious institutions to regular the beliefs of its faithful. It is exactly this capacity of the Christian Congregation in Brazil that is analyzed in a situation of social vulnerability in the front region of São Bernardo do Campo and Diadema. The social dimensions of the Christian Congregation in Brazil are studied in the light of a statistical overview of Brazilian pentecostalism. The social reality of the location is carefully analyzed as well as the specific peripheric situation of the area under study. An ethnography of the worship of the Christian Congregation offers the data to analyze the cultic performers, the ritual process and the function of cultic worship that help to articulate religious identity. Finally, in the light of detailed interviews and field observation the thesis presents an ethnography of its members both men and women, in situations of differentiated vulnerability. The thesis studies both the internal and external social network the members create. The thesis takes a close look to see how doctrines and the practice of the Congregation as transmitted in ritual (ritual as a privileged source of institutional reproduction) succeed in forming the subjectivity of its faithful, understood as the complex set of perception, affect, thought, desire and fear.(AU) / Esta tese estuda a tradição e transmissão religiosa da Congregação Cristã no Brasil, numa área de maior vulnerabilidade social, a partir da instituição e dos sujeitos. A reprodução religiosa, na modernidade contemporânea, é dificultada pela capacidade diminuída das instituições religiosas de regular as crenças dos seus fiéis, e esta capacidade é analisada no caso da Congregação Cristã no Brasil, num bairro de alta vulnerabilidade social, na fronteira entre São Bernardo do Campo e Diadema. São estudadas as dimensões sociais da Congregação Cristã no Brasil, a partir de um olhar estatístico do campo pentecostal brasileiro. É analisada a realidade social local e elaborada a situação periférica específica do bairro estudado. Uma etnografia do culto da Congregação Cristã fornece os dados para análise dos atores no culto, do processo ritual, e da função do culto para a articulação da identidade religiosa. Finalmente é elaborada, a partir de entrevistas em profundidade e detida observação de campo, uma etnografia dos sujeitos membros da Congregação Cristã, homens e mulheres, em situações diferenciadas de vulnerabilidade. Analisa-se quais redes sociais, internas na Congregação Cristã no Brasil e externas, estes membros criam e até onde as doutrinas e práticas da Congregação, transmitidas no rito, dispositivo de reprodução institucional por excelência, conseguem formar a subjetividade dos seus fiéis, entendida como complexo conjunto de percepção, afeto, pensamento, desejo e medo.(AU)