Search

In order to trace pathways of secularisation and secularity in Africa this paper highlights a particular movement that carried great ideological weight at the time of most countries' independence in the 1950s and 60s, namely African socialism. The development toward state secularism was structurally very similar throughout the continent independently of whether political leaders opted for the 'West' or the 'East' in the cold war. However, in opposition to Soviet ideology, African Socialism was famously antiatheist. With the wish to fend off Marxist atheism as a supposedly necessary aspect of socialism, ideologues in African socialism were among the few politicians in Africa even to address the place of religion in a secular state at all. The roots of African socialism can be traced to US-American Pan-Africanism as well as the interconnected colonial opposition movement grounded in Marxist anti-imperialism. Another argument focusses on the education of some prominent state leaders, such as Nyerere, Nkrumah, Touré and Senghor, to explain the importance of Christian mission schools and Islamic madrasahs as points of access to social, intellectual, and institutional participation in global anti-colonial movements. In the framework of one-party politics, state leaders called on (Pan-)African traditions, but 'de-mystified' them (Touré) in order to enhance African Socialism 'as belief' (Nyerere). In conclusion it is argued that state secularism in Africa at the time of independence, as demonstrated most visibly in African Socialism, is more about suppressing and/or balancing the traditional powers of religious leaders than about a fundamental critique of a religious way of life. In turn, the implicit association of socialism and Marxism with atheism needs further scrutiny in a global perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the multiple interfaces of religion and museal spaces from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion as part of the European history of religion. It is said that aesthetics of religion brings new analytical angles and neglected aspects of religious traditions into center. Within cultural and media studies, the emerging field aesthetics of religion has taken up somatic, performative, spatial, and iconic turns within cultural and media studies.

In using the critical term museality in aesthetics of religion, it is our aim in this article to reveal the socio-cultural embeddedness of museums in Western societies and beyond. To do this we draw on two distinct cultural and sociological models of society, dispositive theory and Luhmann's communicational systems theory. Dispositive theory allows us to include non-discursive practices and materialisations in the aesthetic analysis of religious identification strategies mediated through museums and exhibitions. The boundaries, environment and self-referentiality of the system museum are discussed with a view to the shifting place and visibility of religious and secular messages in museum contexts. The focus on museality leads beyond museums to discover object wanderings, religious re-interpretations and museum displays in a number of other socio-cultural fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present the complex understanding of illness and healing in the Catholic Marian Faith Healing Ministry (MFHM) in Tanzania. The efficacy of religious healing should be understood as a social process dependent on the plausibility and attractiveness that the rituals have for the individual patients, as well as for their community. By contrasting an analysis of the publications of the leader of the group, Father Nkwera, with guided interviews among the members, I was able to develop a differentiated picture of the broad range of healing concepts within the group. While Nkwera translates local spirit beliefs into an apocalyptic worldview that associates physical healing with political critique—especially in the case of HIV/AIDS—his followers situate the healing process within a framework of personal salvation. In my study, I contextualise the MFHM within its pluralistic traditional, Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal and biomedical environment that impact it on local and global levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]