Contesting Sacrifice

Contesting Sacrifice
Author: Ivan Strenski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2002-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226777367

From the counter-reformation through the twentieth century, the notion of sacrifice has played a key role in French culture and nationalist politics. Ivan Strenski traces the history of sacrificial thought in France, starting from its origins in Roman Catholic theology. Throughout, he highlights not just the dominant discourse on sacrifice but also the many competing conceptions that contested it. Strenski suggests that the annihilating spirituality rooted in the Catholic model of Eucharistic sacrifice persuaded the judges in the Dreyfus Case to overlook or play down his possible innocence because a scapegoat was needed to expiate the sins of France and save its army from disgrace. Strenski also suggests that the French army's strategy in World War I, French fascism, and debates over public education and civic morals during the Third Republic all owe much to Catholic theology of sacrifice and Protestant reinterpretations of it. Pointing out that every major theorist of sacrifice is French, including Bataille, Durkheim, Girard, Hubert, and Mauss, Strenski argues that we cannot fully understand their work without first taking into account the deep roots of sacrificial thought in French history.


Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice

Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice
Author: Ivan Strenski
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2003-11-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047402731

Are social scientific theories and confessional theologies of sacrifice equally well suited as public discourse about religion? The French liberal Protestant theologians of the 5th Section of the École Pratique and the French doyen of sociology, Émile Durkheim and his two main followers, Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, engage in a struggle over the proper approach to sacrifice in the public university. The Durkheimians argued that theological language and assumptions were inappropriate for this purpose because of their confessional allegiances. Another approach to sacrifice, free of confessional entanglements, was required. This is what Hubert and Mauss sought to provide in the Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function.


Sacrifice and Value

Sacrifice and Value
Author: Sidney Axinn
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2010-10-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739140558

Sacrifice and Value: A Kantian Interpretation argues that we create values by making sacrifices. Values don't exist outside of us; they exist only when we give a gift without expecting a return. As Sidney Axinn demonstrates, we must have values in order to make decisions, to have friends or lovers, and to choose goals of any sort. Sacrifice is basic to almost everything of importance: care, love, religion, patriotism, loyalties, warfare, friendship, gift giving, morality. Axin uses Aristotle, Cicero, and Kant, and contemporary philosophers Oldenquest, Frankfurt, Friedman, Starobinski and others to analyze the role of sacrifice. A novel feature is the attention given to Kant's use of sacrifice. Sacrifice and Value will interest advanced students and scholars of philosophy_particularly value theory and moral theory_as well as women's studies, religion, political theory, and psychology.


Sacrifice and Modern Thought

Sacrifice and Modern Thought
Author: Julia Meszaros
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2013-10-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191634166

Sacrifice has always been central to the study of religion yet attempts to understand and assess the concept have usually been controversial. The present book, which is the result of several years of interdisciplinary collaboration, suggests that in many ways the fascination with sacrifice has its roots in modernity itself. Theological developments following the Reformation, the rediscovery of Greek tragedies, and the encounter with the practice of human sacrifice in the Americas triggered a complex and passionate debate in the sixteenth century which has never since abated. Contributors to this volume, leading experts from theology, anthropology, and literary and cultural studies, describe and discuss how this modern fascination for the topic of sacrifice has evolved, how it has shaped theological debate, the literary imagination, and anthropological theory. Individual chapters discuss in depth major theological trajectories, theories of sacrifice including those of Marcel Mauss and René Girard, and current feminist criticism. They engage with sacrifice in the context of religious and philosophical thought, works of literature and film. They explore different yet overlapping aspects of modernity's obsession with sacrifice. The book does not intend to impose a single narrative over all these diverse contributions but brings them into a conversation around a common centre.


Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice
Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2011-10-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199738963

An investigation of the multiple meanings and functions of sacrifice in diverse religious texts and practices from the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.


Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Author: David L. Weddle
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-09-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0814789315

Common features of sacrifice -- Theories of sacrifice -- Sacrifice in Jewish tradition -- Sacrifice in Christian tradition -- Sacrifice in Islamic tradition


Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice

Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice
Author: Christopher A. Faraone
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2012-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107378672

The interpretation of animal sacrifice, now considered the most important ancient Greek and Roman religious ritual, has long been dominated by the views of Walter Burkert, the late J.-P. Vernant, and Marcel Detienne. No penetrating and general critique of their views has appeared and, in particular, no critique of the application of these views to Roman religion. Nor has any critique dealt with the use of literary and visual sources by these writers. This book, a collection of essays by leading scholars, incorporates all these subjects and provides a theoretical background for the study of animal sacrifice in an ancient context.


The Headless Republic

The Headless Republic
Author: Jesse Goldhammer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801441509

In The Headless Republic, Jesse Goldhammer explores how the French revolutionaries retrieved a set of ideas about founding violence from the classical Romans and early Christians and incorporated it into postrevolutionary debates that echoed into the twentieth century. By linking sacrifice as expressed in revolutionary practices to modern French theory, Goldhammer shows how ancient ideas of violent political renewal made their way into the contemporary age.Goldhammer elucidates the theoretical and practical significance of sacrificial violence during the Revolution, and then turns his attention to postrevolutionary intellectuals whose work is inspired by the founding sacrifices of the French Republic. Showing how Georges Bataille, Joseph de Maistre, and Georges Sorel adapted concepts of sacrifice to their own particular political agendas--whether reactionary or revolutionary--Goldhammer challenges conventional readings of these three thinkers as "bloodthirsty intellectuals." Instead, he argues, their work reveals the limits of violence as an agent of political change and attacks the forms of violence later adopted by fascist regimes. More broadly, Goldhammer makes the case for including ancient concepts of collective bloodshed in the modern lexicon of political violence.


Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology

Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Author: R. Jon McGee
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 1053
Release: 2013-08-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1506314619

Social and cultural anthropology and archaeology are rich subjects with deep connections in the social and physical sciences. Over the past 150 years, the subject matter and different theoretical perspectives have expanded so greatly that no single individual can command all of it. Consequently, both advanced students and professionals may be confronted with theoretical positions and names of theorists with whom they are only partially familiar, if they have heard of them at all. Students, in particular, are likely to turn to the web to find quick background information on theorists and theories. However, most web-based information is inaccurate and/or lacks depth. Students and professionals need a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory and theorist with just the basics—the "who, what, where, how, and why". In response, SAGE Reference is publishing the two-volume Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. Features & Benefits: Two volumes containing approximately 335 signed entries provide users with the most authoritative and thorough reference resource available on anthropology theory, both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. To ease navigation between and among related entries, a Reader′s Guide groups entries thematically and each entry is followed by Cross-References. In the electronic version, the Reader′s Guide combines with the Cross-References and a detailed Index to provide robust search-and-browse capabilities. An appendix with a Chronology of Anthropology Theory allows students to easily chart directions and trends in thought and theory from early times to the present. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each entry and a Master Bibliography at the end guide readers to sources for more detailed research and discussion.