Wilderness in Mythology and Religion: Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature

Published by De Gruyter 2012

Wilderness in Mythology and Religion

Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature

Edited by: Laura Feldt

Volume 55 in the series Religion and Society

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614511724

Overview
Contents

About this book

Wilderness is one of the most abiding creations in the history of religions. It has a long and seminal history and is of contemporary relevance in wildlife preservation and climate discourses. Yet it has not previously been subject to scrutiny or theorising from a cross-cultural study of religions perspective. What are the specific relations between the world’s religions and imagined and real wilderness areas? The wilderness is often understood as a domain void of humans, opposed to civilization, but the analyses in this book complicate and question the dualism of previous theoretical grids and offer new perspectives on the interesting multiplicity of the wilderness and religion nexus. This book thus addresses the need for cross-cultural anthropological and history of religions analyses by offering in-depth case studies of the use and functions of wilderness spaces in a diverse range of contexts including, but not limited to, ancient Greece, early Christian asceticism, Old Norse religion, the shamanism-Buddhism encounter in Mongolia, contemporary paganism, and wilderness spirituality in the US. It advances research on religious spatialities, cosmologies, and ideas of wild nature and brings new understanding of the role of religion in human interaction with ‘the world’.

Author / Editor information

Laura Feldt, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reviews

"The fact that the anthology raises major and crucial questions about
how we should understand the relationship between man and nature, while
at the same time provides us with rich empirical material and analysis at the
highest academic level, speaks for the significance and relevance of Wilderness in Mythology and Religion."
Stefan Arvidsson in: Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 27/2015

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	v
1. Wilderness in Mythology and Religion Laura Feldt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Greek Demons of the Wilderness: the case of the Centaurs Jan N. Bremmer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
3. Wilderness and Hebrew Bible Religion – fertility, apostasy and religious transformation in the Pentateuch Laura Feldt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
4. “The mountain, a desert place”: Spatial categories and mythical landscapes in the Secret Book of John Ingvild Sælid Gilhus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
5. “The truth is out there”: Primordial lore and ignorance in the wilderness of Athanasius’ Vita Antonii Dag Øistein Endsjø Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
6. Wilderness as a Necessary Feature in Hindu Religion Marianne C. Qvortrup Fibiger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
7. Notes on Qur’ānic Wilderness – and its absence Thomas Hoffmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
8. Wilderness, Liminality, and the Other in Old Norse Myth and Cosmology Jens Peter Schjødt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
9. Making a Garden out of the Wilderness: landscape, dwelling and personhood in the encounter between European settlers and the Mi’kmaq in “New France” Anne-Christine Hornborg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
10. William Robertson Smith on the Wilderness Robert A. Segal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
11. The Taiga Within. Topography and personhood in Northern Mongolia Morten Axel Pedersen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
12. Ritual is Etiquette in the Larger than Human World: the two wildernesses of contemporary Eco-Paganism Graham Harvey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
13. Wilderness, Spirituality and Biodiversity in North America – tracing an environmental history from Occidental roots to Earth Day Bron Taylor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Contributor biographies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	325
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics, Libraries, Institutes, and Members of Ecological, Wildlife, and Biodiversity Conservation Movements and Societies.
Pages
- Front matter: 6
- Main content: 341
Keywords: Religion; Wilderness; Cosmology; Nature; Spatiality

eBook

Published: October 1, 2012
ISBN: 9781614511724

Hardcover

Published: September 14, 2012
ISBN: 9781614512240