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The article offers information on the poetic compositions of the Indian English Poet, Syed Liaqath Peeran. Topics discussed include information on the Peeran's inclination towards the Sufism and sufi poetry; discussions on the Peeran's interest towards the Qawwali, a orm of poetry that depicts relationship between moods of saint-poet-lover and beloved (God) immersed in the intensity of spirituality; and the Peeran’s poetry full of mystical and philosophical themes.

An attempt has been made to trace Humanism in the selected poems of Tagore and Devkota. Humanism is the type of thought that is centred on man himself, and it raises crucial questions to answer them without transcending the limits of what is human. Humanistic thinking is the cultivation of man, his self-cultivation and self-unfolding into full enlightened personality. It stands for the right relations between man, nature and God. Tagore's and Devkota's Humanism, which is spiritualistic in form, is influenced by the verses of Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha. Tagore's and Devkota's poetry shows man's dominant and ultimate reality as well as the value, truth, and reality of God interpreted in human ways. In them, the human and the divine are not in conflict. The divine steps down from its height and becomes human and the human has to rise from the smallness of the self to become divine. Their message is spiritual and universal at one and the same time. Indianness and Nepaliness acquire universal significance in their poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay describes the "scholarly enchantment" of pioneering women writers who combined academic research and occultism in fin-de-siècle Britain. It focuses on Jessie L. Weston's From Ritual to Romance (1920), a study infamous for interpreting medieval romances as coded records of an ancient fertility cult. Through a reception history and formal analysis of Weston's monograph, the essay identifies a set of shared characteristics that made both emerging humanities fields and occultism especially appealing to women, including a standard of coherence, a comparative methodology, and a tactic of conjecture. The same attributes constitute formal sources of enchantment in humanistic scholarship of the period that promised to reveal "real" spiritual meanings behind art and artifacts. In this sense, Weston does not analyze medieval romances as works of the human imagination, but claims to decode them to reveal spiritual facts. The essay goes on to show how the gendered appeal of these practices first fueled their popularity and then was eventually exploited to consolidate the masculine authority of professional, disenchanted literary scholarship. Ultimately, though a product of the early twentieth century, From Ritual to Romance helps us recognize not only unfamiliar disciplinary histories, but also Victorian-era narratives about religion other than secularization. In works such as Weston's, modernization is not defined by a decline of religion in the world but by a process of spiritual intensification leading to a "New Age" of women's prominence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thematically Usha Kishore's poetry dwells on both India and the UK. Her poems explore the history of postcolonial India, the traumatic history of the Partition, Indian gods and goddesses, Indian spirituality, Indian culture, lifestyle and so on, and at the same time, her experiences as an Indian immigrant in Britain-- homelessness, alienation, hybridity, racism or racial discrimination, multiculturism and last but not the least, marginalisation and the sense of otherness. Her poetry argues that the lives of the South Asian immigrants in Britain are haunted by the discourse of race -- a concept that is founded on biological difference, culture, colour, religion and nationality. Critics like Avtar Brah, Paul R. Lehman and Peter Ratcliffe note that the discourse of race is a marker of power-relation. So, it can be argued that 'race', like any other power-relation, suggests inclusion and exclusion, union and division. This article argues how Usha Kishore represents her experience of racial marginality as a woman of colour in Britain and how she poses resistance against racial discrimination through her poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People embark on journeys with different motives; for pleasure, for entertainment or for work. There are also people, who travel for enlightenment and illumination; they are spiritual travelers. Matteo and Liala, the protagonists of Anita Desai's Journey to Ithaca are two such people, who travel to satisfy their spiritual quest. They are ordinary people, who move towards spiritual depths to explore the meaning and nature of reality and also of illusion: two contrasting worlds of ideas and beliefs. It is a saga about soul's journey towards enlightenment and awakening. This is a story of multiple quests made by three different individuals Matteo, Sophie and Liala from three different countries Italy, Germany and Egypt respectively. Journey to Ithaca is a manifesto of Oriental philosophy, Vedanta and Upanishads. In this novel Anita Desai evokes spiritual India describing it as 'Ithaca' a divine destination for the suffering and wandering souls depicting a life of simplicity and high values as the prerequisite of a spiritual life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article discusses the rhetorical and pluralistic underpinnings of the 2010 novel The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta. It examines how the novel's characters manage their lives after the "Sudden Departure," a mysterious eschatological rapture event. By emphasizing the role of cooperative communication, the novel provides "pluralistic theater" wherein ideological rearrangement and pragmatic reasoning unfolds. By evaluating The Leftover's "pluralistic theater," the article establishes the novel as literary equipment that can help readers contemplate the fabric of democratic living and sustainable communicative relations. Moreover, it unpacks the value of eschatology and spirituality in driving such didactic aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Bohai University (Philosophy & Social Science Edition) / Bohai Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehuikexue Ban) is the property of Bohai Daxue 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.)

Matei Vişniec's novels always orbit around nuclei that hint at the breaking of a spiritual code. They range from a simple travesty, to the dropped masks, to the violence of the social dialogue, to the media aggression; in general, anything that puts on disharmonic spectacles of humanity. His prose puts forth dystopias, apocalypses small and big, absurdist scenarios, speculations rooted in the present, all centered around man becoming toxic to man. In other words, the diseased humanity of Vişniec passes before the reader through an always memorable spectacle. His novel Dezordinea preventivă (Preventative Disorder) is a breviary about media manipulation in democracy. The idea is that unselected and unselectable information transforms the individual into a parasite imprisoned by stupefaction. The need to ontologize the world is emergent, because, when mirrored into each other, the utopia of communism and the media engineered by capitalism do not offer solutions, but types of hell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the question of what poetry is made from by examining a number of cruxes in Hegel’sAesthetics(other aspects of Hegel’s work, including theEarly Theological Writings, thePhenomenology, and theEncyclopediaare also discussed). The essay takes its lead from recent attempts to recover the significance of Hegel’s aesthetics for thinking about modern and contemporary art (J.M. Bernstein’sAgainst Voluptuous Bodiesand Robert Pippin’sAfter the Beautiful, above all), but notes that Hegel’s consideration of the materiality of poetry is especially intractable, given that poetic material, language, is not as straightforwardly material as canvas, paint, stone, and wood may be taken to be. The essay shows that both recent interpreters of Hegel’s aesthetics and commentators on his theory of poetry in particular have somewhat stinted the complexity of his view of poetry’s materials. The relation of poetry to art – indeed, whether poetry is and remains an art form – is, moreover, central to the essay’s discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mia Couto's 1992 novel, Terra Sonâmbula, is known for its use of fantastic realism to convey the horrors of the Mozambican civil war and their effects. The supernatural invades the daily experience of the novel's characters, and these move from the known world into a frequently aqueous and spiritual one. In this essay, I examine Couto's use of water, the supernatural, and the feminine and link these to African religious and cosmological origins. I see Couto's use of the black feminine aqueous divine as an alternate form of national history that gives voice to those who often go unheard in the chaos of war, particularly women and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to critically examine the emerging discourse of religion and spirituality in family research to clarify how each construct is defined and to make visible hidden ontological, epistemological, and culturally situated assumptions. The use of the term spirituality has increased dramatically in published articles and has undergone a distancing from religion. This separation creates a dichotomy that associates religion with conservative traditions and spirituality with liberalism and individualism, thus aligning the emergent spirituality discourse with dominant Western values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Khushwant Singh carved a distinct place for himself in the realms of Indian literature in English, history and journalism chiefly for his versatility, authentic, outspoken and acerbic portrayal of social reality, accessible documentation of the Sikh religion and history in a plain, forthright and amusing manner. Doubtlessly, Singh's oeuvre, marked by deep concern for religion, can be thoroughly understood in the context of religion. This paper, focusing on Sabhrai, the woman protagonist of Singh's second novel I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (1959) as the apotheosis of the ideal Sikh woman and in the light of ennobling and empowering role of Sikhism in women's lives, is a humble step in that direction. Significantly, it aims to highlight the novel as an effective illustration of spirituality as a vehicle for women empowerment--the argument which is central to spiritual feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet in which Almustafa enlightens the people on the topics like love, marriage, children, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, laws, self-knowledge, teaching, good and evil, prayer, friendship, religion, and death. It reveals how the book unfolds the mystic appeal of the universe and kindles spiritual awakening though written in a simple language. Further, this paper brings out how this text motivates the reader to comprehend life in positive light and how it helps one lead a meaningful and harmonious life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the harbinger in Lemony Snicket’s children’s novel series,A Series of Unfortunate Events,The Bad Beginningunfolds subversively from the outset. This woeful tale is a far cry from what we traditionally expect to be a story written for children. Klaus, Violet and Sunny, the orphaned protagonists of the story, are literally the ‘magnets for misfortune’. As they experience the tragic events, the Baudelaires’ talents and abilities are constantly put to the test. A series of unfortunate events, this essay argues, leads to a fortunate and spiritual insight in the Baudelaires that underlines a sense of connectedness in the children who go through traumatic calamities, a spiritual sense that deals with both the bright and dark sides of the events. To substantiate this argument, Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalisation and degradation are utilised to shed a different and, of course, a spiritual shade of light on the seeming unfortunate events. Hierarchies are reversed and grotesque imageries reinforce degradation. This degradation, however, sparks off a new genesis in the life of the Baudelaires. Turning to the metafictional side of the novel and its conflicting relations with didacticism, this essay verifies the claim that Lemony Snicket provokes children into a critical reading of their own choice. Ultimately, the essay examines the mentioned Bakhtinian elements to gain a richer understanding of the melancholic narrative of the Baudelaires in the context of an upside down genre. This is when a tragic tale is read like a fairy tale. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Conradian journey into the African interior also signified, in the Western colonial imaginary, an encounter with a seemingly incomprehensible spirituality. African spirituality was the site of excess, epitomized by darkness, frenzy, madness, superstition, and illogicality. Based on a reading of Andrea Eames's The Cry of the Go-Away Birdand Peter Godwin's Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa, this article proposes that white-authored Zimbabwean narratives written after colonialism display a wider range of attitudes toward African spirituality, which are at once multiple and ambivalent. The two narratives, appearing at least a decade after Zimbabwe's independence from white minority rule, work against the dominant 'white' fear of Christian decline and the attendant descent into spiritual darkness and enable a secondary non-secular experimentation with African spirituality. I use the core concept of horror from Heart of Darknessto treat jointly the experience among whites in Africa of encountering an 'other' faith and the literary tradition of representing such an experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguistic manipulation in the service of theme of ultra-earthliness in Wordsworth's selected poetry is the ultimate end of the study. The motivation behind this study is the spiritual stance of the poetry clothed in the stylistic craftsmanship of the poet that reminds postmodern individuals: ishrat-e- qatrah hai darya mai'n fana ho jana i.e. One's ultimate pleasure lies in merging and unifying with Allah (Ghalib, 2010). Mainly, the paradigm of qualitative research has been employed along with quantitative approach. Sampling has been collected through the selected poems with hand picking technique (Non-probability sampling technique) using textual analysis as a tool. Computational and descriptive statistics techniques have been used to present analyze and interpret the data. The study concludes that Wordsworth's poetry revolves around manipulation of humanizing metaphor, nature imagery, oxymoron and symbolism leading to theme of ultra-earthliness and is an antidote for fever and fret of the day as the frustration and depression of the postmodern individuals can be alleviated through his/her reconciliation with nature. His poetry is a spiritual healing as reading Daffodils; an Eastern reader starts 'Dhamal' (dancing in ecstasy) with the rhythmic movements of the flowers. Humanizing metaphor and nature imagery are key stylistic features that foregrounds ultra-earthliness in the poetry which have been exploited more than oxymoron and symbolism. The postmodern who is far away from religion and moral values can find betterment by developing spiritual understanding of life is the implication of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors' respective experiences as Indigenous people, scholars, language activists, and Kwak'wala (Kwakw...k... 'wakw/ Kwakiutl language) and ḥiḥiškwiiʔath.a (Hesquiaht dialect of the Nuu-chah-nulth/Nootka language) adult language learners and teachers are discussed in relation to the literature on spirituality and the supernatural. Using dialogic and autoethnographical voices, the authors highlight the long-term effects of metaphysical interaction on learning, as well as acknowledging its role in Indigenous research as a foundational and continuous part of Indigenous search for knowledge. Indigenous cultural principles and the narrative research practice of Indigenous scholars guide the authors in drawing on the traditions of teaching through story, centering relationships, and practicing reciprocity in the context of where Indigenous researchers stand in continual relationship to their Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author views over association of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in promotion of spirituality. Topics discussed include maintenance of balance between commitment along with detachment for management of peace; association of WCC with promotion of theological anthropology mong society; prevalence of radicalism in different parts of the world such as Middle East; adoption of advocacy methodology for management of justice and indication of Suffering Servant presence.