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Blasphemy and other forms of blatant disrespect to religious beliefs have the capacity to create significant civil and even international unrest. Consequently, the sacrosanctity of religious dogmas and beliefs, stringent laws of repression and codes of moral and ethical propriety have compelled artists to live and create with occupational hazards like uncertain audience response, self-censorship and accusations of deliberate misinterpretation of cultural production looming over their heads. Yet, in recent years, issues surrounding the rights of minority cultures to recognition and respect have raised new questions about the contemporariness of the construct of blasphemy and sacrilege. Controversies over the aesthetic representation of the sacred, the exhibition of the sacred as art, and the public display of sacrilegious or blasphemous works have given rise to heated debates and have invited us to reflect on binaries like artistic and religious sensibilities, tolerance and philistinism, the sacred and the profane, deification and vilification. Endeavouring to move beyond ‘simplistic’ points about the rights to freedom of expression and sacrosanctity, this collection explores how differences between conceptions of the sacred can be negotiated. It recognises that blasphemy may be justified as a form of political criticism, as well as a sincere expression of spirituality. But it also recognises that within a pluralistic society, blasphemy in the arts can do an enormous amount of harm, as it may also impair relations within and between societies. This collection evolved out a two-day conference called ‘Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts’ held at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research at The Australian National University in November 2005. This is the second volume in a series of five conferences and edited collections on the theme ‘Negotiating the Sacred’. The first conference, ‘Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society’ was held at The Australian National University’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research in 2004, and published as an edited collection by ANU E Press in 2006. Other conferences in the series have included Religion, Medicine and the Body (ANU, 2006), Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum (ANU, 2007), and Governing the Family (Monash University, 2008). Together, the series represents a major contribution to ongoing debates on the political demands arising from religious pluralism in multicultural societies.

Art, Architecture & Applied Arts --- Fine Arts - General --- Arts and religion. --- Offenses against religion. --- Blasphemy. --- Crimes against religion --- Offenses, Religious --- Religious crimes --- Religious offenses --- Arts --- Religion and the arts --- Religious aspects --- Freedom of speech --- Libel and slander --- Offenses against religion --- Crime --- Religion --- Sacrilege. --- Church desecration --- Desecration --- Host desecration accusation --- Taboo

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This volume chronicles not only a human corpse's physical state but also its legal and moral status, including what rights, if any, the corpse possesses. The author argues that a corpse maintains a "quasi-human status" granting it certain protected rights-both legal and moral. One of a corpse's purported rights is to have its predecessor's disposal choices upheld. This work reviews unconventional ways in which a person can extend a personal legacy via their corpse's role in medical education, scientific research, or tissue transplantation. The author outlines the limits that post-mortem "human dignity" poses upon disposal options, particularly the use of a cadaver or its parts in educational or artistic displays. Contemporary illustrations of these complex issues abound.

Sacrilege. --- Offenses against the person. --- Burial laws. --- Dead --- Human body --- Dead bodies (Law) --- Church desecration --- Desecration --- Offenses against religion --- Host desecration accusation --- Taboo --- Abuse of persons --- Crimes against persons --- Crimes against the person --- Offenses against persons --- Crime --- Persons --- Burial --- Mortuary law --- Cemeteries --- Undertakers and undertaking --- Cadavers --- Corpses --- Deceased --- Human remains --- Remains, Human --- Death --- Corpse removals --- Cremation --- Cryomation --- Death notices --- Embalming --- Funeral rites and ceremonies --- Obituaries --- Law --- Legal status, laws, etc. --- Law and legislation. --- Law and legislation --- Dead bodies (Law).

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When Crusader armies on their way to the Holy Land attacked Jewish communities in the Rhine Valley, many Jews chose suicide over death at the hands of Christian mobs. With their defiant deaths, the medieval Jewish martyr was born. With the literary commemoration of the victims, Jewish martyrology followed. Beautiful Death examines the evolution of a long-neglected corpus of Hebrew poetry, the laments reflecting the specific conditions of Jewish life in northern France. The poems offer insight into everyday life and into the ways medieval French Jews responded to persecution. They also suggest that poetry was used to encourage resistance to intensifying pressures to convert. The educated Jewish elite in northern France was highly acculturated. Their poetry--particularly that emerging from the innovative Tosafist schools--reflects their engagement with the vernacular renaissance unfolding around them, as well as conscious and unconscious absorption of Christian popular beliefs and hagiographical conventions. At the same time, their extraordinary poems signal an increasingly harsh repudiation of Christianity's sacred symbols and beliefs. They reveal a complex relationship to Christian culture as Jews internalized elements of medieval culture even while expressing a powerful revulsion against the forms and beliefs of Christian life. This gracefully written study crosses traditional boundaries of history and literature and of Jewish and general medieval scholarship. Focusing on specific incidents of persecution and the literary commemorations they produced, it offers unique insights into the historical conditions in which these poems were written and performed.

Jews --- Judaism --- Martyrdom --- Martyrdom in literature. --- Hebrew literature, Medieval --- Hebrews --- Israelites --- Jewish people --- Jewry --- Judaic people --- Judaists --- Ethnology --- Religious adherents --- Semites --- Religions --- Martyrdom (Judaism) --- Persecutions --- History --- Judaism. --- History and criticism. --- Religion --- Abraham ibn Ezra. --- Allusion. --- Apostasy. --- Ashkenaz. --- Blood libel. --- Book burning. --- Book of Ezekiel. --- Books of Kings. --- Christian literature. --- Christianity. --- Conversion to Christianity. --- Conversion to Judaism. --- Crusades. --- Defection. --- Desecration. --- Desperation (novel). --- Elohim. --- Emeritus. --- Exegesis. --- Ezekiel. --- First Crusade. --- Gershom. --- God. --- Hagigah. --- Hagiography. --- Halevi. --- Harassment. --- Hazzan. --- Hebrew Bible. --- Hebrew language. --- Heresy. --- High Middle Ages. --- Historian. --- Host desecration. --- Humiliation. --- Illustration. --- In Death. --- Incorruptibility. --- Israelites. --- Jewish identity. --- Jewish studies. --- Jews. --- Kohen. --- Lament. --- Lamentations Rabbah. --- Laments (Kochanowski). --- Libation. --- Literature. --- Maimonides. --- Martyr. --- Martyrology. --- Medieval Hebrew. --- Meir of Rothenburg. --- Middle Ages. --- Mishnah. --- Nahmanides. --- Names of God in Judaism. --- Narrative. --- Old French. --- Penitential. --- Persecution. --- Piyyut. --- Poetry. --- Polemic. --- Princeton University. --- Prose. --- Psalms. --- Pyre. --- Quatrain. --- Rabbi. --- Rabbinic literature. --- Rashbam. --- Rashi. --- Relic. --- Religious text. --- Responsa. --- Righteousness. --- Second Crusade. --- Sefer (Hebrew). --- Sefer Hasidim. --- Simhah. --- Soloveitchik. --- Stanza. --- Suffering. --- Suggestion. --- Talmud. --- Tefillin. --- Ten Martyrs. --- The Other Hand. --- The Song of Roland. --- Torah scroll. --- Torah. --- Treatise. --- Troyes. --- V. --- Writer. --- Writing. --- Yechiel of Paris. --- Yom Tov of Joigny.