Art (music\film\literature etc.)

Read more about the article Session: Ecology and Nature in Contemporary Spiritualities
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Popular culture and mass media

Session: Ecology and Nature in Contemporary Spiritualities

The relation to nature and the environment in religions is a fascinating subject, and it takes a new and surprising form these days - with the rise of the ecological discourse, and in light of the apocalyptic fears of an imminent ecological disaster. Some of the new religions place a special emphasis on the sanctification of nature (such as neo-shamanism). In the popular spiritual discourse the concept of nature adoration and caring for the environment feature, in the context of spiritual values. In this session, four studies dealing with ecology and nature in contemporary spiritualities are presented.

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May 26, 2024
Read more about the article Lecture: How the Deluge Myth became a Symbol of the Ecological Crisis – A Comparative Cinematic Study
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / History / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: How the Deluge Myth became a Symbol of the Ecological Crisis – A Comparative Cinematic Study

The deluge myth was used by generations of commentators as a tool for social criticism - it provided them with an opportunity to explain what kind of humanity deserved total annihilation. In recent films, connections are made between the current ecological crisis and the deluge... Are we (yes, we!) this generation that deserves to be destroyed, and why? This lecture presents a comparative study of Hollywood films throughout the last century, all of which have allusions to the biblical flood myth. The focus will be on how the flood becomes a symbol of the worsening ecological crisis nowadays.

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May 26, 2024
Read more about the article Lecture: The Film “Noah” (2014) as an Intersection Between Alternative Spiritualities and Popular Culture
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Judaism and Kabbalah / Myth / Popular culture and mass media

Lecture: The Film “Noah” (2014) as an Intersection Between Alternative Spiritualities and Popular Culture

The film Noah (2014) is analyzed in this lecture as a cinematic Midrash, that presents three different contemporary worldviews, and promotes eco-feminist values while criticizing materialism and fundamentalism. The lecture presents central theses formulated in a couple of articles published by Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro and Dr. Lila Moore as part of this research project.

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December 26, 2023
Read more about the article Lecture: The Status of Symbols in Virtual Divinasion – Between Iconography and Arbitrariness
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Science/medicine and technology / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: The Status of Symbols in Virtual Divinasion – Between Iconography and Arbitrariness

Does the statue represent God? Is the flag sacred? What is the status of the sacred symbols, and what happens to them when they move to the cyberspace? In this lecture, computerized icons in religious/spiritual/magical ceremonies and their status were examined and analyzed. The lecture is part of a research project in which an article was published and lectures were presented in other directions.

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November 3, 2023
Read more about the article Lecture: Recycled Witches – The Retelling of Narratives from Rabbinical Literature within Contemporary Alternative Spirituality
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / Myth / Popular culture and mass media / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: Recycled Witches – The Retelling of Narratives from Rabbinical Literature within Contemporary Alternative Spirituality

This lecture presents a surprising and innovative spiritual-alternative strategy of Israeli-Jews to refer to the Jewish tradition - an interpretation of the tradition while identifying with the anti-heroines of an ancient Jewish legend. In this way, the characteristic approach of the "spiritual-but-not-religious" (SBNR) trend that criticizes the religious establishment is expressed, while adopting the criticism inherent in the ancient Jewish sources. In our case it's the retelling of an ancient Jewish legend - about a witch hunt conducted by Rabbi Shimon ben Shatach in Ashkelon in the second century BC.

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October 13, 2023
Read more about the article Panel: Spiritual Leadership in Israel
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Feminism gender and sex / Geography / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Magic and paganism / State politics and law

Panel: Spiritual Leadership in Israel

This panel concluded the 9th Israeli Conference (and the last one - 2018) for the Study of Contemporary Spiritualities. It included four Israeli spiritual teachers who examined contemporary society, in Israel in particular, and its challenges, from the spiritual aspect they are occupied with.

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May 21, 2023
Read more about the article Essay: A Reckoning of the Soul in an Artistic Style
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah

Essay: A Reckoning of the Soul in an Artistic Style

"God willing - the worldwide contemporary spiritual awakening is finally attacking us too, and the art exhibition in front of us is one of the expressions of that." This quote appears in the main text of the catalog of the art exhibition "Heshon Nefesh", curated by Dafna Naor, and with the participation of 43 artists, presented at HiTouch in Herzliya Pituach in 2009. The text was written by Marianna Ruah-Midbar.

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January 17, 2023
Read more about the article Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: The Doors of Creativity Shall Never be Barred – The Iconization Process of the Piyyut “Im Nin’alu” in Contemporary Pop Music

Yes, the liturgical poem (piyyut) “Im Nin'alu” signifies orientality. But what is Orientality? Is this traditional, perhaps even religious, Yemenite Judaism? Is this Yemen similar to exotic India? Is this a symbol of the mystical/spiritual "other" (as we already mentioned India...)? And maybe it is a symbol of Kabbalah, another contemporary "Other" that turns out to be similar to all the other "Others", including the "Other East"... In this article we follow the change process of “Im Nin'alu” as a symbol, which symbolizes different things each time. The peyote has - it turns out - gone a long way, erasing traditional Yemenite Judaism into the contemporary universal and spiritual-alternative space.

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January 10, 2023
Read more about the article Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music
Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Methodology and models / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Article: Outdoing Authenticity – Three Postmodern Models of Adapting Folklore Materials in Current Spiritual Music

The liturgical poem “Im Nin'alu” got various popular musical adaptations in recent decades. These adaptations raise questions - and provide different answers - regarding authenticity, identity, tradition, and more. Each of them embodies a different way of coping with the postmodern situation. The article presents three different models of relation to traditional materials, which are different ways of dealing with the problems of individuals in relation to these questions.

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January 9, 2023