ארכיון Academic - Page 3 of 9 - Prof. Marianna Ruah-Midbar Shapiro (PhD)

Lecture: “And the Canaanite was then in the land” – Local Deities from Ba’al to Mother Earth in the Last Century

Two Israeli Pagan movements of the last century have glorified an ancient panteon of god. What is the difference between them? In this lecture we've presented both similarities and differences in the relation to deities in the two movements.

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May 17, 2023

Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Education and higher education / Postmodernism / Science/medicine and technology / State politics and law

Lecture: Criticism of New Age Culture, or New Age as Cultural Criticism

cults, the anticult movement, academia, the scientific discourse, objectivity, values, predisposition, Nurit Zaidman

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January 20, 2023

Feminism gender and sex / History / Identity / Israel / Mind and psychology / Myth

Lecture: Time Perceptions and Body Images in the Contemporary Spiritual Discourse

Many Cultures share the yearning to a far ideal past - the lost paradise. What is special in the past-time perception of New Age Spirituality, especially in its Jewish/Israeli version? How does this spiritual discourse narrates the Jewish and human history? Answers to these questions were presented in a lecture at the conference of the Israeli Anthropological Association. These theses also appear in studies published by Ruah-Midbar Shapiro.

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January 20, 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

Read more about the article Lecture: The Oriental as a Spiritual Symbol – The Reification of the Liturgical Poem ‘Im Nin’alu in Contemporary Popular Musical Performances

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Critical theory / Identity / Israel / Judaism and Kabbalah / Popular culture and mass media / Postmodernism / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: The Oriental as a Spiritual Symbol – The Reification of the Liturgical Poem ‘Im Nin’alu in Contemporary Popular Musical Performances

For the west, the oriental is an object to project upon desires and fantasies. This is similar also in the spiritual context: New Age orientalism molds the "orient" (especially India) in its spirit, as an "Other" significant culture. Kabbalah undergoes a similar process, as an "Other" of the west. This lecture presents the meeting between the "Orient" and Kabbalah in a Yemenite (also "oriental") version - through an inquiry of contemporary performances of the liturgical Poem "Im Nin'alu".

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January 9, 2023

Education and higher education / Mind and psychology

Conference: Contemplative Pedagogy – Spirit, consciousness, and Magic in Education

This conference dealt with the space between spiritual, alternative, and contemplative education. It had workshops demonstrating these kinds of education, as well as research presentations of support (and criticism) on them. "Contemplative Education" is an umbrela term for education, teaching and learning approaches that turn the gaze into the mind and soaul of the individual, and to their deep link to life, other humans, and the world. Contemplative Education stems from a humanistic perceptionof human nature and the goals of education. It stresses the advancement of personal development and realization of the higher human potential, bot among students and teachers.

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December 7, 2022

Critical theory / Disputation or conflict / Feminism gender and sex / Israel / Magic and paganism / Methodology and models

Lecture: Neo-Shamanism in Israel – Authenticity and the Invention of Tradition

This lecture dealt with Neo-Shamanism in Israel, but… actually, how can one describe Neo-Shamanism in Israel when it's unclear what Neo-Shamanism is? And indeed, the tern is unclear. The lecture discussed the term and its problematization, the question of relation between Shamanism and Neo-Shamanism, the search for the common denominator of "Shamanic" phenomena, and more.

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December 6, 2022

Art (music\film\literature etc.) / Mind and psychology / Popular culture and mass media / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: Did God Attend the Screenings of “2001: Odyssey “in Space?

The film 2001: Odyssey in Space is known as idiosyncratic and became a cult film, however was also harchly criticized. In this lecture we argue that the filmmaker (Stanley Kubric) uses hypnotic technics in order to immerse the audience in a mystical/spiritual trance experiences. In the research we describe three such technics (the article is being prepared), while explaining the contradicting reactions to the film.

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December 5, 2022

Critical theory / Identity / Methodology and models / Typology and comparative study

Lecture: New Age – A Spiritual Secular Religion?

Is New Age a religion? Is it a secular phenomenon? Is a "secular religion" possible? These questions were dealt with in a lecture at a conference than conviened academia spokespersons, thinkers, and various public personalities, to siddcuss the definitions and conceptualizations of hybrid and blurry phenomena. The lecture disscussed the definitions of "religion", the emic and etic discourses, issues of labeling in the New Age field, the question of the essence of "secularism", the feasibility of "secular religion", the definition of "Spiritual But not Religious" (SBNR), and more. Furthermore, the lecture dealt with the blurring between definitions and conceptualizations within the alternative spiritualities, and analysed the motivation of creating this blurring.

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December 5, 2022