Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Deuchler, “Under the Ancestors’ Eyes”

This September, the Harvard University Press will release “Under the Ancestors’ Eyes: Kinship, Status, and Locality in Premodern Korea,” by Martina Deuchler (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London). The publisher’s description follows: 

Under the Ancestors’ Eyes presents a new approach to Korean social history by focusing on the origin and development of the indigenous descent group. Martina Deuchler maintains that the surprising continuity of the descent-group model gave the ruling elite cohesion and stability and enabled it to retain power from the early Silla (fifth century) to the late nineteenth century. This argument, underpinned by a fresh interpretation of the late-fourteenth-century Koryŏ-Chosŏn transition, illuminates the role of Neo-Confucianism as an ideological and political device through which the elite regained and maintained dominance during the Chosŏn period. Neo-Confucianism as espoused in Korea did not level the social hierarchy but instead tended to sustain the status system. In the late Chosŏn, it also provided ritual models for the lineage-building with which local elites sustained their preeminence vis-à-vis an intrusive state. Though Neo-Confucianism has often been blamed for the rigidity of late Chosŏn society, it was actually the enduring native kinship ideology that preserved the strict social-status system. By utilizing historical and social anthropological methodology and analyzing a wealth of diverse materials, Deuchler highlights Korea’s distinctive elevation of the social over the political.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Stoll, “Inherit the Holy Mountain”

In May, the Oxford University Press released “Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism,” by Mark Stoll (Texas Tech University). The publisher’s description follows: 

In Inherit the Holy Mountain, historian Mark Stoll introduces us to the religious roots of the American environmental movement. Religion, he shows, provided environmentalists both with deeply-embedded moral and cultural ways of viewing the world and with content, direction, and tone for the causes they espoused.

Stoll discovers that specific denominational origins corresponded with characteristic sets of ideas about nature and the environment as well as distinctive aesthetic reactions to nature, as can be seen in key works of art analyzed throughout the book.

Stoll also provides insight into the possible future of environmentalism in the United States, concluding with an examination of the current religious scene and what it portends for the future. By debunking the supposed divide between religion and American environmentalism, Inherit the Holy Mountain opens up a fundamentally new narrative in environmental studies.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down Arizona Municipality’s Sign Code as Violating Speech Clause

A busy First Amendment day at the Court today. In Reed v. Town of Gilbert, the Court unanimously strikes down the town’s byzantine sign ordinance as violating the Speech Clause, and in particular as being content-based regulations that do not survive strict scrutiny. Justice Thomas writes the opinion for the Court in which everybody joins except Justice Breyer (who concurs in the judgment only) and Justice Kagan (who concurs in the judgment only and is joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer).

The majority holds that the town’s sign code was content-based on its face, permitting larger signs for political and ideological messages than for other sorts of messages, such as the plaintiff’s desired sign concerning its church services. The Court had some rather pointed words for the Ninth Circuit, whose justifications for the restriction the Court rejected emphatically. I previously discussed the case here.

Perhaps of interest only to Supreme Court watchers, but note that this is yet another law and religion case decided 9-0 by the Roberts Court. True, there were a few concurrences in the judgment only, but it’s still an interesting feature of the case. As I discuss at greater length in this paper, the Roberts Court’s uniform pattern is 9-0 or 5-4 in this context. I speculate about why in the article.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Specialty License Plate Case Decided by the Supreme Court on Government Speech Grounds

The Supreme Court today decided Walker v. Sons of Confederate Victims, which dealt with a state’s capacity to deny a specialty license plate to a group that wanted to feature a Confederate flag and the words “Sons of Confederate Veterans.” In an opinion by Justice Breyer (and joined by Justice Thomas), the Court holds 5-4 that speech on license plates is “government speech,” and therefore that the First Amendment does not stop the state of Texas from choosing what sort of message it will endorse. It would be one thing, said the Court, if the state were demanding that individuals “convey the government’s speech”–in essence acting as the government’s mouthpiece. But “as a general matter, when the government speaks it is entitled to promote a program, to espouse a policy, or to take a position. In doing so, it represents its citizens and it carries out its duties on their behalf.” The Court relied extensively on Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, another government speech case concerning a municipality’s rejection of a religious organization’s proposed monument in a public park that contained a Ten Commandments monument as well as several others. In Summum, the Court held that the municipality had not made the park available for private speech; all of the displays were government speech. The majority opinion here held that such was the case with the speciality license plates as well (oddly enough, since Texas had accepted applications from other organizations for specialty plates). Justice Alito dissented on the ground that Texas in fact does authorize specialty plates with distinctive messages that are obviously not government-endorsed speech (do see the Appendix beginning at page 18 of his opinion).

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“Religion at the European Parliament” (Foret, ed.)

In July, Rutledge will release “Religion at the European Parliament” edited by François Foret (Université Libre de Bruxelles-ULB). The publisher’s description follows:

The interactions between religion and politics in the European integration process are the focus of increasing attention in political and academic debates. However the body of research that has been developing for several years relates mainly to the representation of religious interests at the European Commission. The influence of religious actors and networks within the European Parliament give rise to many suppositions, ambitions or fears, but there is nothing tangible with which to evaluate them. Studying the preferences of European legislators reveals the conditions in which religion exerts an influence.

This analysis also aims to provide useful information on the socialisation capacities of the European Parliament vis-à-vis its members by focusing on an aspect of the normative orientations of MEPs that has been the subject of very little study to date. Furthermore, the denominational dimension is a particularly key factor in understanding partisan formations in the European Parliament and possible divisions between old and new Member States. Finally, the religious variable provides an opportunity to investigate the way in coalitions are formed, particularly in relation to those matters that continue to move higher up the EU agenda (the fight against discrimination; ethical issues; geopolitical stakes; the accession of Turkey, etc.).

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“Material Religion in Modern Britain: The Spirit of Things” (Jones & Matthews-Jones, eds.)

In August, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Material Religion in Modern Britain: The Spirit of Things”  edited by Timothy Willem Jones (La Trobe University, Australia) and Lucinda Matthews-Jones (Liverpool John Moores University, UK). The publisher’s description follows:

A growing awareness of religious plurality and religious conflict in 9781137540553
contemporary society has led to a search for new ways to understand religious change beyond traditional subjects of British ecclesiology. Narratives of the gradual decline of Christianity dominate this field; yet many scholars now concede that Britain’s religious landscape was more varied and rich than these narratives would suggest. Material Religion in Modern Britain responds to this challenge by bringing emerging scholarship on material culture to bear on studies of religion and spirituality. The collection is the first to apply this suite of analytical methods to the traditional subjects of British religious studies and the full spectrum of religious denominations, sects, and movements that constituted Britain’s multi-faith landscape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book reveals how, across this religious spectrum, objects were, and continue to be, used in the performance and production of religious faith and subjectivity. In doing so it expands our understanding of the persistence of religious belief and culture in a secularising, secularized, and post-secular society.