Asian Ethnology

folklore tricksters horror infanticide adaptation retelling violence The Assamese film Kothanodi (2015) radically demonstrates how film adapts to folklore, rather than the other way around. It actively contributes to the folkloric tradition, notably th…

Asian Ethnology

precarity emotions secularization Fukushima Pure Land Buddhism Since the triple disaster of 2011, parents in Fukushima Prefecture have been raising their children under a cloud of uncertainty about possible radiation in their environment. This article …

Asian Ethnology

Taiwan material religion Daoism ritual whip craft cultural improvisation Among the most ubiquitous ritual implements in modern Taiwan, the ritual whip functions to dispel demons and to summon spirit soldiers, the material embodiment of a fearsome serpe…

Toward an Ontology of Peace I

This essay is the first of two seeking to draw out an ontology of peace from Paul Ricoeur’s thought.  This first essay (Part I) argues that Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of creation provides the best starting point because of its insistence on the goodne…

Toward an Ontology of Peace II

Following Part I, this essay (Part II) continues my attempt to develop an ontology of peace by drawing resources from Ricœur’s thought. I begin with Augustine, Dionysius, and Aquinas to show that peace is not contrary to our humanity but is a natural d…

The Narrative Possiblity of Peace and Understanding

With its emphasis on action and new possibilities opened by imagination, Paul Ricœur’s narrative theory offers insights to understanding each other in a world of polarized views. His theory is helpful in describing the potential that narrating has in s…

Narrative and Violence in Just Institutions

Beginning with images of rampant destruction and violence in our day, Paul Ricœur’s reflections on the political paradox and his “little ethics” (contained in Oneself as Another) are responses to peace and understanding. Ricœur is concerned with questi…

Occupied Spatiality: Non-Peace in Self-Affirmation

Paul Ricœur considered the theme of non-peace in self-affirmation to have such existential and phenomenological bearing that he devoted his intellectual capacity to explore the self that is never immediately present to oneself or at immediate peace wit…

Some Remarks upon the Memorial Writing of W.G. Sebald

In two well-known passages from Paul Ricœur’s work (Ricœur 1990b, 187; 2006, 260), the author proposes approaching memorial writing of the Holocaust not necessarily in the same terms as historiography. On the basis of these passages, the aim of this ar…

Peace and Understanding: A Ricoeurian Perspective

Persistent and newly emerging conflicts around the world have made the search for successful conflict resolution imperative. We need insights into how to prevent violent clashes, and how to find ways to peace and reconciliation. Since the 1970s, an inc…

The Troublemaker as a Non-intentional Social Activist

There is a tension in Ricœur’s thinking between the undeniable presence of violence and his trust in a primordial goodness of existence. This tension is linked to Ricœur’s understanding of the human being as ambiguous and fragile, torn between freedom …