Religious Subcultures

Islam and youth culture have rarely been associated within and outside academia. Especially in the European context, young German, French or British Muslims are assumed to live a life entirely devoted to religion or to be secular and to consume European youth culture. In the 2000s, however, a new trend has emerged that combines Western forms of pop culture with Islamic substance, e.g. religious hip-hop, sports wear with Islamic slogans or media catering for "cool" religious Muslim youths.

The empirical basis of this research are qualitative data collected in Germany, France and Britain in 2008-2009, comprising in-depth interviews with producers of Islamic youth culture and ethnographies investigating the consumer side. The results will be discussed in light of the societal context of the movement and the tools for grasping it from a subcultural point of view.

The data suggest that there are five main types of motivation among the producers of Islamic youth culture: political, social, proselytising, artistic and (perhaps) business motives. Young Muslims are negotiating their having a say, confounding their own community by innovative forms of expression and bewildering subcultural scenes by strong moralistic values – which is why they could be referred to as a "conservative avant-garde".

"Jutta of Sangerhausen. A ‘new saint’ in the wake of Elizabeth of Thuringia?

Jutta of Sangerhausen (Thuringia/Germany) is a less known representative of the religious movements of the 13th Century Western Europe, a lay woman who spent the last four years of her life as anchoress in the neighborhood of the town Kulm in Prussia (today: Poland) and probably died in 1260. There is no reference to her neither in HERBERT GRUNDMANN’s standard work about the “Religious movements in the Middle Ages” (Berlin 1935/Darmstadt 1977) nor in the books written by KURT RUH and BERNARD MCGINN about the history of mysticism in Western Europe (see Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, Vol. 2, München 1993 and The Flowering of Mysticism, New York 1998). Not even ANNEKE B. MULDER-BAKKER mentioned Jutta in her recent publication about the “Lives of the anchoresses” (Philadelphia 2005). The reason for this ignorance may be the lack of a modern edition of the sources about Jutta. Now, that a new edition appeared last year (ed. by PETER GERLINGHOFF, Sangerhausen 2006) we finally have the opportunity to situate Jutta in her historical context. Some scholars are of the opinion that Jutta modelled herself on the Hungarian princess and Thuringian countess Elizabeth, a contemporary and compatriot of Jutta who died in 1231 and was canonized as early as 1235. The purpose of this paper is to prove the validity of this claim. My methodological procedure will be a textcritical one. Such an approach is inevitable because all the sources came from the 16th and 17th century. The question is: Couldn’t have been Jutta a ‘new Elizabeth’ before the 17th century? Or do we have to do with a ‘falsification’? In other and less provocative words: Is Jutta a ‘sainte construite’?"

The study focuses on the republican murals painted on the walls of two cities, Belfast and Derry, in May 2009. The idea for the study was born during a trip to Northern Ireland during which I had the opportunity to observe the murals and to talk with some of the authors and with persons who had actually experienced
the events represented in the murals.
The nationalist murals have been studied by the author under different perspectives: language, iconography, political symbolism and social environment. Murals are, for sure, the community’s reaction to the British political and violent domination on Northern Ireland and they become instruments of rebellion representing
a collective request for freedom and independence. But they also represent a more complex phenomenon as they embody values and perspectives of the entire nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The study analyses the murals both as single artworks and as a collective phenomenon.A strong focus is given at all the political and social themes represented in the murals and at the different linguistic and iconographic styles of communication
as well as how different themes and styles combine. The nationalist murals are also examined under an artistic perspective with a special focus on the figure of the “artista armato”, the artist as a warrior that uses art as an instrument for communicating higher, collective (moral, social, religious, political) values. This
perspective brings the author to draw and analyse a parallel between the phenomenon of nationalist murals and Futurist art: a comparison based on the themes represented in the artworks, on the placing of the art pieces and on the social role of the artists.
If words, pictures and colours used in the nationalist murals become, as analysed in the study, the voice of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, a voice not so often listened in the EU, it becomes crucial to understand what the artists
want to communicate, why and how. This study aims also to open up to a new research perspective based on a multidisciplinary approach through the integrated use of semiotics and semantics in ethnography in order to offer a more complete and holistic interpretation of the phenomenon of the Northern Irish republican
murals.

Lingua viva. L’italiano, i neologismi e le etimologie.


1. La lingua italiana, una lingua naturale: l’importanza dello studio dei neologismi e delle etimologie.

2. Il rapporto lingua e cultura: il ruolo dei neologismi (nuovi fenomeni – nuovi lessemi) e dell’etimologia (origine e storia dei neologismi).

3. Il neologismo come specchio dei cambiamenti culturali e sociali: neologismi e neologismi semantici.

4. Il neologismo e la diamesia scritto/parlato: neologismi ufficiali e neologismi d’uso corrente. Italo Calvino e il terrore semantico nell’italiano.

5. L’utilità della conoscenza dei neologismi e della loro etimologia nella traduzione: oltre il solo vocabolario.

6. La lingua italiana e la diatriba accademica delle lingue speciali, dei linguaggi settoriali, dei sottocodici, dei gerghi. Il ruolo dei neologismi tecnici come strumento di classificazione.

7. I neologismi e la loro etimologia nel linguaggio politico del ’68.

8. I neologismi e la loro etimologia nel linguaggio politico della Seconda Repubblica.

9. I neologismi e la loro etimologia nel radicalismo politico.

10. La lingua speciale del calcio: neologismi ed etimologie.

11. Il linguaggio del business: neologismi, forestierismi, prestiti o adozioni linguistiche.

12. Il linguaggio elettronico: i neologismi e l’uso crescente dei grafemi X, K.

13. Il linguaggio murale e i neologismi: graffitismo, muralismo, stickerismo.

14. Il linguaggio del Rap e del Hip-hop, la fabbrica dei neologismi giovanili: gergo o lingua speciale?

15. Il linguaggio dello spettacolo e i neologismi televisivi.

16. I neologismi della moda e delle riviste specializzate.

17. Linguaggi e lessemi delle sottoculture: mods, skinhead, casual. Una analisi dei termini riportati nei dizionari di lingua italiana.

Vgl. auch Jutta von Sangerhausen (13. Jahrhundert) – eine ‚neue Heilige’ im Gefolge der heiligen Elisabeth von Thüringen?, in: Zeitschrift für Thüringische Geschichte 63 (2009), S. 39-73

A Jutta-kutatásokhoz kapcsolódó közelmúltban megjelent tanulmányában Hedwig Röckelein elővigyázatosságra int Jutta életrajzának eddig feltárt adatai kapcsán. Röckelein továbbá azt a kérdést veti fel, hogy Erzsébet nem inkább hagiográfiai példaképként szolgálhatott-e, illetve hogy életrajzának bizonyos elemeit nem ruházták-e át egyszerűen Juttára (ld. Jutta von Sangerhausen (13. Jahrhundert) – der gescheiterte Versuch einer Kanonisation? in: Homines et historia VIII: Die Vorträge der Gäste des Instituts für Geschichte und Archivkunde der Nikolaus-Kopernikus Universität im Studienjahr 2004/2005, szerk. W. SIERADZAN, Torún, 2006, 99–138, 102). Ez a Röckelein által tanácsolt elővigyázatosság, mint ahogy azt látni fogjuk, teljesen helyénvaló. Számomra mindenesetre az is kérdésként merül fel, hogy a szöveg- és hagyománytörténet mely pontján mehetett végbe a stilizálás. Ezzel a Jutta-életrajz problematikus hagyományozódása kerül a figyelem középpontjába. Azért is ajánlatos a hagyományozódásra odafigyelnünk, mivel ez a folyamat is felelőssé tehető azért, hogy Juttát – az általam már jelzett nem túlságosan gazdag Jutta-szakirodalmon kívül – a kutatás más területei (pl. a misztika, illetve az aszketikus életmódról szóló értekezések) eddig nem fedezték fel maguknak. Ez azért meglepő, mivel Jutta azt az először a brabant térségben fellelhető ‘új szent’ (sancta moderna) típust képviseli, akinek az aszkézis és az eksztázis jegyében eltöltött életét – az európai szegénységmozgalmak jószemű megfigyelője – Jakob von Vitry a későbbi hagiográfiák mintájául szolgáló Marie-von-Oigines-életrajzában (Prológus) túláradóan dicséri.

In Europe the interaction of biker clubs with Christian churches is not surprising, biker churches and services became a usual thing, Catholics and Lutherans, led by their pastors, regularly hold large-scale national motorcycle events. In Russia biker movement emerged as a copy of west motocycle associations, but it gradually acquired its own specific features imposed, in particular, by the interaction between bikers and the Russian Orthodox Church. Such intertwining of Orthodox Christianity and biker clubs generates specific practices such as religious processions on motorcycles, motocycle religious services, motopilgrimages etc. Bikers take active part in patriotic events. Forms of interaction between bikers and the Russian Orthodox Church are the subject of my study.

В Европе взаимодействие байкерского движения с христианскими церквями давно не вызывает удивления, байкерские церкви и богослужения стали привычным делом, католики и лютеране во главе со своими пасторами регулярно организуют масштабные национальные мотоциклетные акции. В России байкерское движение возникло как калька с западного, но постепенно приобрело свои специфические особенности продиктованные, в частности, взаимодействием байкеров с Русской православной церковью. Подобное переплетение православия и байкерства порождает специфические практики, такие как крестные ходы на мотоциклах, мотомолебны, мотопаломничества и пр. Особенно заметно их присутствие на патриотических мероприятиях. Формы взаимодействия байкеров с Русской православной церковью и являются предметом моего социологического исследования.