The multifunctionality of -o in Rukiga

This paper discusses the particle -o in Rukiga (Bantu JE14, Uganda), aiming to establish its origin and function. At first sight, the particle appears to be an independent pronoun agreeing in noun class, reported in previous studies as an emphatic pron…

Rethinking African Futures after COVID-19

Africa Spectrum, Ahead of Print. This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa, describes its effects for ongoing research, and asks how it may impact African studies. In Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the pandemic is changing the way pe…

Announcement – Call for Book Reviews

IJAPS welcomes critical book reviews that are relevant to the study of Asia Pacific in the following disciplines: politics, history, indigenous languages and literature, religion, man and the environment, ethno-history, anthropology, cultural heritage, social issues, economic development, war and conflict resolution, prehistory and archaeology, and the arts. The books to be reviewed should be: recent … Continue reading

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Tyra Kleen

The Swedish artist and writer Tyra Kleen (1874–1951) was a professional artist and a constant traveller who had a great interest in different religious questions. This article describes her Symbolist artistry, her interest in Theosophy and her journeys…

Seekers of the spiritual art and higher wisdom

Editorial of Approaching Religion, Vol. 11 Issue 1,  based on a two-day seminar arranged in Helsinki in August 2020 by the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation under the title ‘Clear-sighted Art – Open Mind? Encounters between Art and Esoteric…

Artists as truth-seekers

This article focuses on the concept of the seeker and considers how the analytical tool of seekership, defined and developed in the sociology of religion, could be applied to the study of art and esotericism. The theoretical argument is made more tangi…

‘Mirages and visions in the air’

Around the year 1900, European discourse on art was becoming increasingly ‘esotericized’. The 1890s saw esoteric art salons create a sensation in Paris, and art critics and theorists painted a picture of the true artist and the esotericist as overlappi…

Decadence and occulture

This article contributes to the understanding of relations between occulture and Decadence in Finnish art at the turn of the twentieth century, focussing on occulture and Decadence in the works of the Finnish artist Oscar Parviainen (1880–1938). The ai…

Architectural visions

In this article I examine the architecture and architectural thinking of Finnish Academician Reima Pietilä (1923–93) in relation to his design methodology. Pietilä was an architect with an original, creative, artistic personality, who set out early in …