Search

'The Sequence on the Virgin Mary and Christ', by the poet and martyr St Robert Southwell, S.J. (1561–95), is a beautiful work that is generally still undervalued. The sequence explores the physical, moral, and emotional unity of Mary and her Son in the work of our salvation. The larger context is the Protestant devaluing of hyperdulia. In its historical moment – it was written sometime in the 1580s – it is a subtle exploration of the theme of kenosis and of what a 'prince' or 'queen' should really be. While being relatively inexplicit, Southwell seems to poise the Virgin Mary against that other 'empress', Elizabeth I, and writes with intimacy from the perspective of his own self-understanding as 'Beatae Virginis filius' (a son of the Blessed Virgin). The sequence's modern, editorial title needs to be replaced with one that matches its devotional aims and content. As he faced up to the almost certain prospect of his own martyrdom, Southwell looked to Mary as true mother and queen to sustain him in his sacrifice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ὑμετέρης γενεῆς τε καὶ αἵματος εὔχομαι εἶναι (Eudocia's Laudes Antiochiae ; cf. Il. 6.211, 20.241). The article argues that in Eudocia's fifth-century Martyrdom of St Cyprian – the only surviving Greek verse paraphrase of a hagiography – certain Odyssean lexical items and intertexts may be thematically grouped. A new category, the 'diatext', is introduced to describe this function of the Odyssey as an intermediate thematic model used to transpose the Cyprianic hagiographies (the 'hypotext') into Eudocia's verse paraphrase (the 'hypertext'). A particularly important and complex example is the way in which Eudocia's metapoetic/narratorial and biographical alter ego, the ex-pagan Christian convert Cyprian, is modelled after Odysseus (especially in book 2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book review discusses "The cult of Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a patron martyr" by Hugo Méndez. The book explores the origins and development of the cult of St. Stephen in Jerusalem between 350 and 500. Méndez examines the earliest dates for Stephen's feast, the veneration of his relics, and the introduction of new feasts in Jerusalem after the discovery of his relics. The book also discusses the basilica built in honor of St. Stephen by Eudocia, the wife of Emperor Theodosius II. While the book provides valuable insights, the reviewer raises some critical points regarding the actions of John II and the significance of Stephen compared to other saints in Jerusalem. Overall, the book offers a fascinating exploration of the cult of St. Stephen in late antique Jerusalem. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper compares the Ḥamzanāma (Book of Ḥamza) with the Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), the two most popular works performed by the storytellers of Safavid Iran (1501–1736), focusing on their heroes, Ḥamza and Rustam, respectively. Following an overview of the Ḥamzanāma that helps to identify its main intertexts, themes, and narrative elements: the Shāhnāma ; the Islamic Alexander tradition; and ʿayyārī (trickery); the paper re-examines how Ḥamza is modelled after Rustam by looking at his epithets and narrative functions. It then turns to their differences, which are most discernible in Rustam's epithet used as the name of Ḥamza's enemy, the split between the ideals of jawānmardī (generosity) and ʿayyārī , and Ḥamza's unheroic weaknesses. This latter serves to emphasize God's compassion at his martyrdom while giving storytellers an impetus to continue their performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is highly likely there were Arabic Christians before the Islamic conquests of the seventh century, it was in the lands conquered by the Muslims that Christian Arabic theology established itself. To begin with Syriac makes good sense, as Syriac is close to the language that Jesus and his disciples likely spoke. There is an extract from the first, and maybe the greatest, Christian Arabic theologian, Theodore Abu Qurrah, fluent in both Greek and Arabic and deeply indebted to John Damascene (without actually knowing him). [Extracted from the article]

An editorial is presented on diverse works share a common theme and reflecting a particular moment in historiography. Topics include focusing on a devotional site commemorating the martyrdom of a Portuguese Jesuit, João de Brito, in the late 17th century; and commemoration of a Jesuit martyr in India, the political and social significance of celebrations in Peru.

This article examines the cultural and political repertoire that contributed to Catholics' understanding of violence as a legitimate means to resist the secular state in 1930s Mexico. Following the end of the Cristero War (1926-29), the Church officially and overtly rejected the use of violence by Catholics as a means to defend religious freedom. However, many Catholic militants and organizations continued to support violence as a last but necessary recourse to resist the country's so-called tyrannical government and to build a Catholic nation that would recognize the kingship of Christ on earth. Informed by noncanonical understandings of martyrdom, sacrifice, and redemptive violence, as well as by an intransigent view of politics, these Catholics regarded violence as a moral response against the injustices and dangers posed by what they considered an oppressive and blasphemous state. The article is based on the examination of a series of violent events perpetrated by Catholic militants during the 1930s, as well as on the analysis of several newspapers, official documents, and Catholic publications. Contrary to government portrayals of Catholicism as a top-down, monolithic, and unchanging set of institutions and practices that promoted recalcitrant forms of religious militancy, Catholics were in fact deeply divided regarding the legitimacy of violence along theological, moral, and practical grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assassination of Talat Pasha by Soghomon Tehlirian on 15 March 1921 in Berlin, as well as Tehlirian's trial and acquittal on 2–3 June 1921, have contributed to the formation of conflicting legacies of the Armenian Genocide. Though minuscule in terms of violence and legal ramifications, these events and their reimagination in contentious narratives have shaped a dominant prism of sensemaking in Turkish-Armenian relations. In the imagination of rival groups, Talat and Tehlirian compete for the very same normative categories of hero and victim at once and each are demonized as a villain and perpetrator. Moreover, it is each figure's embodiment of martyrdom and revenge that explains why their heroizations have proved so enduring and effective across time and space. This mutual framework of sensemaking, which I call the Talat-Tehlirian complex, ultimately denies the chances of historical reconciliation. In terms of its theoretical implications, this case study explains how a martyr-avenger complex can continuously demand solidarity, sustain grievances, and sacralize violence in post-conflict societies. Based on a thick description of what happened in Berlin in 1921 and its contentious narratives across different generations, this paper calls for a transition to a post-heroic age in Turkish-Armenian relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives and representations of suffering, failure, and martyrdom. The post-Tridentine Catholic perspective is represented principally by missionaries from the Society of Jesus, based on their private and public correspondence from the sixteenth through to the twentieth century. The essays consider 'both how missionaries and devout Catholics gave meaning to these disconsolate experiences and the modes of expression reflecting unfulfilled expectations' (p. 34). [Extracted from the article]

The cult of death and the celebration of martyrdom lay at the core of interwar fascist movements across the European continent. However, it was in the Romanian Legionary Movement (also known as the Iron Guard) that these were articulated into a full-fledged ideology of thanatic ultranationalism. In this article, I examine the spectacular fascist necropolitics staged as state-sponsored funeral performances during the short-lived National Legionary State (September 14, 1940–February 14, 1941). A detailed description of the massive campaign of exhumations and reburials of the so-called "legionary martyrs" carried out during this short time span, culminating with the grandiose ceremony organized for the reburial of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on November 30, 1940, provides insight into the legionary thanatic worldview and ritual praxis. It also sheds light on the movement's politics of commemoration, death, and afterlife and shows how these were embedded into a religious framework underpinned by theological concepts such as heroic martyrdom, vicarious atonement, and collective redemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within Prudentius' Peristephanon there are three main episodes which focus upon the torture and/or death of women: the torture and death of Eulalia in Perist. 3, that of Encratis in Perist. 4 and the death of Agnes in Perist. 14. This article compares the variety and types of pain that these women are depicted as undergoing during their martyrdoms, analysing the extent to which gender and sexuality play a role in their responses to pain or to the threat of it. The article first examines the martyrdoms of Agnes and Eulalia and uses these as a basis for analysing the torture of Encratis who is depicted as suffering the most pain and who, even more than the other two, is represented as a liminal figure, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of her status as a living being. A comparison and contrast between Prudentius' representation of Encratis and his depiction of Loth's wife in his Hamartigenia will give further insight into the significance of Encratis' suffering and the way in which the slow and painful decay of her flesh links her with the city she protects. It will be shown how the vulnerability of these martyrs' female flesh and the threatened or actualized violation of their virginal bodies are rendered at once shocking and their source of triumph over traumatic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rule of the Qajar dynasty was a vibrant period for the Iranian taʿziyeh tradition; the genre's anonymous dramatists not only developed the verse of the central plays of the Karbala cycle but innovated new narrative content. This study investigates one such innovation, the curious appearance of two new characters in the climactic play The Martyrdom of Imam Husain. They are the Dervish of Kabul and Sultan Qais of India, both of whom Husain encounters shortly before his martyrdom and neither of whom were previously mentioned in historical literature or religious traditions pertaining to Karbala. Through analysis of fifteen taʿziyeh renditions of Husain's martyrdom dating from 1204/1790 to the 1950s, including rare manuscripts, this study provides a date window for the incorporation of these characters and argues that they were added to complete a trilogy of trials faced by Husain at Karbala. It also traces their literary origins and considers their social significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abtract: In the Gospel of John, Jesus declares himself to be the way to the Father; in the First Apocalypse of James, Jesus explains exactly what this way entails. This article analyzes how 1 Apoc. Jas. uses the Johannine christological themes of identity, death and ascension and makes them applicable for human salvation. The identity of Jesus as a son of the Father, as opposed to the inhabitants of the world/cosmos, his autonomous death that conquers cosmic evils, and his immediate ascension and fleshly return are all Johannine motifs that are reformulated in 1 Apoc. Jas. Jesus reveals to James that he too is a son of the Father, and James must declare this identity during his postmortem journey through the celestial toll-collectors. He must not fear his impending stoning as, like other martyrdom literature, the martyr is immune to earthly concerns, and the real challenge lies in the cosmic sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lamentations Rabbah Proem 24, a late ancient rabbinic midrash, is in many ways a unique text within the entire rabbinic corpus. It presents an extraordinary array of characters (including Abraham, Moses, the Torah, and even the alphabet) who are called upon to placate God, but fail. As their quest proves inconclusive, the biblical Rachel jumps into the fray to tell her story: how out of sisterly compassion she allowed Leah to take her own place in the conjugal bed on "her" wedding night. Disclosing to her sister the secretive "signs" she had shared with Jacob, Rachel crawled under the nuptial bed to respond to Jacob whenever he spoke. This scandalous autobiography transforms an apparent instance of illicit sex, the ideal material for theatrical stage mimes, into an act of martyrdom and sublime compassion. This article argues that the performance culture of the late ancient Mediterranean world provides the key for assessing this text's originality. We begin with an analysis of the text, drawing attention to its theatrical qualities and its relationships with contemporary visual imagery (mosaics) and texts from outside the rabbinic milieu (Christian Apocrypha). We then examine the casting of midrashic Rachel as a response to both the mimic adulteress and the Christian martyr. Finally, we consider rabbinic familiarity with mime, particularly with its usefulness as a social mediator and agent of collective catharsis. It is precisely these aspects of mimic performance, we argue, that Rachel's vignette appropriates in this fascinating rabbinic text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memory of the period of political violence known as the anni di piombo continues to form part of the neofascist-antifascist antagonism in contemporary Italy. One of the most notable tragedies from that time occurred in Rome on 16 April 1973, when Stefano and Virgilio Mattei (sons of a local leader of the Movimento Sociale Italiano, MSI) died in an arson attack on the family home. In the wake of the attack, a campaign of misinformation and a failed judicial process created an incorrect but dominant narrative that implicated the MSI in the fire that killed Stefano and Virgilio. This article examines the subsequent construction of a counter-memory by the MSI leadership, who immediately cast the attack as a party tragedy and the deaths as martyrdom. It also considers the subsequent antagonistic approach to remembering adopted by neofascist groups in commemoration of the Mattei brothers following the dissolution of the MSI in 1995, and the ongoing incorporation of the brothers' memory into fascist martyrology dating back to Mussolini's regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Sociology is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Amid the great Protestant martyrologies of the mid-sixteenth century, Heinrich Pantaleon's Martyrvm historia (1563) has been comparatively overlooked. This article argues that Pantaleon's martyrology acted as a capstone to the narrative framework of Protestant suffering and resistance. Pantaleon's command of vernacular languages gave him access to a wider range of material than other martyrologists, material which his Latin text made accessible to learned readers across Europe. This article also examines the collaboration between Pantaleon and John Foxe, which directly inspired Pantaleon's martyrology and enabled Foxe to give a cohesive, trans-European account of Protestant martyrs in his Acts and monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the present status of our knowledge about the phenomenon of ``suicide'' bombing or ``martyrdom'' operations is identified. A review of many studies located at different levels of analysis is conducted, followed by an analysis and evaluation of the state of the research at each level. In addition, an exploration of the evolution in the characteristics of this tactic and the differences, if any, between subnational and transnational acts is undertaken. The conclusion identifies what we know and what may be appropriate for future research and public policy initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a framework for understanding the continuing political potential of the anticolonial dead in twenty-first-century India. It demonstrates how scholars might move beyond histories of reception to interrogate the force of inheritance in contemporary political life. Rather than the willful conjuring of the dead by the living, for a politics in the present, it considers the more provocative possibility that the dead might themselves conjure politics-- calling the living to account, inciting them to action. To explicate the prospects for such an approach, the article traces the contested afterlives of martyred Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh (1907-1931), comparing three divergent political projects in which this iconic anticolonial hero is greeted as interlocutor in a struggle caught "halfway." It is this temporal experience of "unfinished business"-- of a revolution left incomplete, a freedom not yet perfected--that conditions Bhagat Singh's appearance as a contemporary in the political disputes of the present, whether they are on the Hindu nationalist right, the Maoist student left, or amidst the smoldering remains of Khalistani separatism in twenty-first-century Punjab. Exploring these three variant instances in which living communities affirm Bhagat Singh's stake in the struggles of the present, the article provides insight into the long-term legacies of revolutionary violence in India and the relationship between politics and the public life of history in the postcolonial world more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his sermons, Answer to Faustus a Manichean, and other works, Augustine insisted that belief in Christ's resurrection establishes the identity and defines the faith of Christians. In justifying resurrection belief, he appealed to evidence from (1) created nature and (2) human history, and to (3) the desires and experiences of those he addressed. From the perspective of creation, 'the miracle' of the world and all the wonders it contains (particularly the worldly pattern of 'new life after death') support Easter faith. Historically, Augustine argues from a visible effect (almost the whole of Roman society accepting the resurrection) to the only adequate cause of this phenomenon (Christ's victory over death). Finally, the human hunger for happiness, Augustine argues, finds its fulfilment only through sharing in Christ's resurrection -- though in this context he does not forget the light provided by the Holy Spirit, through whom 'with the eyes of the heart we behold' the risen Christ (Sermon 263). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conventional certainty is that the first state-driven persecution of Christians happened in the reign of Nero and that it involved the deaths of Peter and Paul, and the mass execution of Christians in the aftermath of the great fire of July 64 c.e. The argument here contests all of these facts, especially the general execution personally ordered by Nero. The only source for this event is a brief passage in the historian Tacitus. Although the passage is probably genuine Tacitus, it reflects ideas and connections prevalent at the time the historian was writing and not the realities of the 60s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper situates Roman actions undertaken against Christians amidst an unofficial pattern of measures employed throughout the imperial period to manage the expanding influence of freelance religious experts. Questions about the historical circumstances of martyrdom or persecution tend to proceed from the assumption that Christians were perceived and dealt with as a distinct religious community. However, the penalties alleged by writers such as Paul and Justin were more commonly issued against self-authorized individuals (magi, astrologers, prophets, diviners, philosophers, and so forth) than against undifferentiated religious groups. Thus, I propose that Roman motivations for investigating and punishing Christians, at least in the first and second centuries, are best understood in relation to the wider phenomenon of freelance expertise and the range of concerns that it engendered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers proposes that suicide terrorists are psychologically and behaviorally similar to other people who commit suicide, due to a range of individual, social, and situational factors. Some commentators agree, while others are skeptical, given the lack of information about many attackers' lives. However, the book's position is not simply based on individual case studies; it is also supported by other independent assessments, the confirmation of empirical predictions, the paucity of contradictory evidence, and new applications of evolutionary theory. It is undisputed that human beings behave as the author suggests; it is unknown if they behave as the conventional wisdom suggests. Those who argue that suicide terrorists are psychologically normal and altruistically sacrificing their lives for an ideological cause should bear the burden of proof for those claims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the various mechanisms by which the religious figure of the Christian martyr became a useful notion in Argentine political discourse. It argues that the process by which the idea of the ‘martyr’ was secularised and politicised was actually initiated by religious agents themselves. The analysis considers how commemoration initiatives devised by religious agents, social movements and political actors have brought ‘Catholic martyrs’ into the pantheon of national symbols. It also deals with the various semantic shifts seen in the public discourses of religious agents themselves, shifts that extend the boundaries of an eminently religious category by associating it with other figures in a more specifically political imaginary, such as that of the hero and the victim. The article shows how the political power of the religious figure of the martyr lay in the way various actors could use it to invoke the image of a legitimate and heroic victim of political violence. It thus allowed those actors to sidestep the vexed public question of whether those being commemorated had had any involvement in armed struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In May 1828 the authorities in eastern Siberia uncovered plans, hatched by the Decembrist Ivan Sukhinov, to stage an armed rebellion among the penal laborers of the Nerchinsk mines. Sukhinov was planning to march on Chita in order to liberate his fellow Decembrists from captivity. Found guilty of the charges, the ringleaders were executed and Sukhinov committed suicide. Yet the conspiracy was a fantasy, conjured into being by the chaotic conditions of penal labor and official fears of exiled revolutionaries directing insurgencies in Siberia. The state's destruction of Sukhinov and his alleged co-conspirators created the fictional memory of a revolutionary hero and a noble, if doomed, rebellion. In their memoirs published in the postreform era, the Decembrists offered contemporaries an inspiring tale of insurgency and martyrdom in Siberia. The "Zerentui conspiracy" articulated new possibilities of revolutionary protest in exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Church History, Eusebius quotes a passage from Hegesippus's lost Memories in which he relates the martyrdom of James the Just; according to this account, the latter was called ᾽Ωβλίας. This article proposes to examine this odd term whose precise meaning remains obscure. Beyond issues related to its signification, the analysis of this word is likely to shed new light on the milieu in which the tradition quoted by Hegesippus appeared. This study seeks to demonstrate through various examples that the figure of the ᾽Ωβλίας was particularly popular in Jewish literature following the destruction of the Second Temple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike most manifestoes that are created as mere written documents, Avini?s Ravaayat e Fath is a manifesto in motion. The voiceover is a manifesto of martyrdom woven together with laments and a poetic account of what was happening in and around the battlefields during the Iran?Iraq war in about seventy episodes. Although Ravaayat e Fath is in film format, it aligns itself with the characteristics of a formal manifesto. Ravaayat e Fath, as mentioned in Janet Lyon?s account of a formal Manifesto, is ?the testimony of a historical present tense spoken in the impassioned voice of its participants? and ?embellishes the urgency of struggle through a variety of conventions?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses ethnographic studies of violence in everyday life, with information on anthropological research on the role of pain in relationships and the interlocutory dimension of pain. Topics include social attitudes toward the body's physical vulnerability; the moral and ethical dimensions of regimes of historicity; and the use of ethnography to study social attitudes toward martyrdom in Palestinian refugee camps in Southern Lebanon. The work of anthropologists Talal Asad, Veena Dasa, and Elizabeth Povinelli on the history of violence, pain, and martyrdom in Islam is examined.

Ever since Augustine narrated an account of his mother’s death at Ostia, social historians have tried to adduce the identity of the person who erected Monica’s tombstone, a copy of which is preserved in a ninth-century codex. Three members of the gens Anicii, all of whom were Augustine’s contemporaries, have become usual suspects in the secondary literature. Throughout these debates the epitaph itself, a fragment of which was found in 1945, is frequently cited but rarely treated as a primary text. This article presents a new study of that epigraph and proposes that it was erected much later than previously suspected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the strategic objectives of those who organize suicide terrorism may be explained in rationalist terms, the choice of those who volunteer to be candidates for death is far more problematic, given the high premium, at least within international relations theory, on survival as the ultimate rational end. The rational choice model also makes it difficult to take language or emotion into account as factors in constituting the meaning of the act. This article begins with an observation: In Western discourse the acts of human bombs tend to be referred to as ‘suicide terrorism’ or ‘suicide bombings’; by contrast the terminology of ‘martyrdom operations’ is more prevalent in the Arab and Muslim Middle East, or among Islamists in the West. The first section of the paper examines the importance of context for understanding the rationality of an action. The second explores ‘martyrdom’ and ‘suicide’ as two distinct frameworks for giving meaning to an act of voluntary death in the post-9/11 world, and the emotional dynamics that link these two ‘games’ to a larger structural logic. The third section further develops the structural logic that emerges from the interaction of the two. The conclusions analyse the significance of this argument for rethinking both the structural dynamics of this international context, as well as the theoretical model of games. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first century of the Catholic Church in Korea was characterised by recurrent and often severe persecutions. Consequently a cult of martyrs developed from early in the Church's history. Wider Catholic concepts relating to martyrdom and spirituality, in particular belief in a corrupting world and the significance of martyrdom in offering a means of release, set individuals on the path of martyrdom. They were then informed and encouraged by the development of the cult itself, and the solidarity and support of the Christian community. However, Korean Christians also carried with them Confucian and Buddhist concepts concerning the nature of virtue, asceticism, world-renunciation and self-sacrifice, and they subscribed to a set of social values which saw kinship ties and posthumous reputation as paramount. In the area of martyrdom these indigenous concepts and values complemented and reinforced those derived from Catholicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philippians 3 is central to the question of integrity of the letter. While those who argue for three fragments struggle with the intention of the chapter, those who argue for the letter's integrity vote for its function as an exemplum. This article argues that there is some truth in both positions. Philippians 3 imitates the Jewish testament genre in which an ideal biography is depicted to become a model of religious advice. But while Paul deals critically with genre, he became a religious hero in the canonical letter, which was edited by the Philippians in the early second century CE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the significant contribution of Austrian peasant farmer Franz Jägerstätter to the realization of true martyrdom and sainthood. It notes the controversy left by the beatification of Jägerstätter that includes his belief and notion about pacifism and justice brought up against the principles of Nazi war. It also mentions the teachings of saints Aquinas and Agustine about the reality of wars and the benefit of doing what is for the greater good.

The article discusses the martyrdom and memorialization of the supporters of Hizbullah party in Lebanon. The commemoration acts of the Hizbullah martyrs composed of the Lebanese have been undertaken without the support of the government and endorsement of the state officials. The commemoration of the Hizbullah will make their deaths part of larger narratives of the Arab, Lebanese and Muslim liberation. The attempts for martyrdom and memorialization of the Hizbullah have been contested by the Lebanese, as well as by the Israeli who intervened in the historicizing scheme by demolishing the sites of commemoration.

The article discusses the cautions and contradictions that drive the success and failures of the Palestinians in building memorials in Israel. The Arab citizens in the country are confronted with terrible obstacles in building memorials because they are being considered by the county as internal enemies. The memorials will commemorate the martyrdom of the Palestinians, as well as signify the massacres and killings of their fellowmen during the intercommunal violence and Israeli-Arab wars. Israelis are suppressing these schemes because they will possibly threaten their government.

Bind Us Together argues that in naming both the Anglican and Catholic Ugandans killed in the mid 1880s as “martyrs” a visible unity is implied that is useful in contemporary ecumenical theology. By recounting the story of the Ugandan martyrs told through both Catholic and Protestant sources, I am able to perform the Christian unity that I am arguing for. I also engage historical and theological obstacles to my argument. The historical obstacle is brought about by the mutual condemnation of both Catholic and Protestant martytrs by each side during the 16th century. The theological obstacle is the work of Ephraim Radner. Being indebted to Radner's understanding of repentance, I use John Paul II to overcome both of these obstacles. I conclude by discussing more explicitly the connections between the Ugandan martyrs and church unity showing that these martyrs provide Christians with language to speak intelligibly about Christian unity today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an overview of post-Mao museum representations of modern Chinese history. Changes in exhibitionary practices and historical narratives in Chinese history museums during the period of market reforms and globalization; Reshaping of conventional socialist narratives of martyrdom and revolutionary liberation; Ways in which museums responded to social, economic and cultural transformations.

Argues that the anti-Catholic nature of the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford, England, has been overlooked, largely as a result of interpreting the scheme in the light of subsequent developments. Examination of the debate over the wording of the inscription; Discussion on what form the Martyr's Memorial should take; Chief motivation for many in supporting the memorial.

Discusses the historian Eusebius' reference to the trial of five Egyptians in his 'De Martyribus Palestinae 11.6-13.' Claim that the Egyptians were martyred with Pamphilus and his companions in the seventh year of the Great Persecution; Argument that Eusebius invented the story; Eusebius' working out of his own view of the heavenly Jerusalem; Theological framework for the account of Pamphilus' martyrdom.

Analyses martrydom's sociological and historical significance and the causes of its politicization and popularization since the 1960s in Iranian political culture. Exploration of the relationship between the preeminence of tragedy in Iranian pre and post-Islamic popular culture and martyrdom; How martyrdom has impacted on the sense of solidarity.