"The German empire that emerges from the volume edited by Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer is one very much embedded in a broader European colonial discourse. Just like any other empire, Germany believed itself to be a "better" empire, more benevolent, more efficient, more civilized. Yet we le
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arn that in spite of these propositions the German was a very violent, indeed genocidal, empire, whose brutal deeds were matched in its racist and aggressive representations. And we learn that while Germany's academic and political elite has sought to confront the colonial past, its general public remains for the most part detached and uninterested. While the volume gives a rich and variegated overview of the cultural processes that relate to German colonialism, the individual essays are rather short, and some of them lack the evidence and stringency of argument that one would expect of a full-fledged essay. The short introduction to the volume outlines the individual contributions, but it does not provide a theoretical framework that reflects on the culturalist approach of the volume or the claim posited in the title of a nexus between German colonialism and "German identity." A more comprehensive treatment of these overarching questions in the introduction would significantly have improved this extensive and insightful collection." (www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32217)
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"Increasingly, Pentecostal, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and indigenous movements all over the world make use of a great variety of modern mass media, both print and electronic. Through religious booklets, radio broadcasts, cassette tapes, television talk-shows, soap operas, and documentary film
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these movements address multiple publics and offer alternative forms of belonging, often in competition with the postcolonial nation-state. How have new practices of religious mediation transformed the public sphere? How has the adoption of new media impinged on religious experiences and notions of religious authority? Has neo-liberalism engendered a blurring of the boundaries between religion and entertainment? The vivid essays in this interdisciplinary volume combine rich empirical detail with theoretical reflection, offering new perspectives on a variety of media, genres, and religions." (Publisher description)
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"Starting out from a celebrated 1995 controversy which arose from a late-nigt incident on Brazilian TV, the relationaships between neo-Pentcostalism and establishe culture are explored. Taking into account traditions of legal rhetoric and of political adherence, the paper shows that what appears at
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one level as a religious conflict is at another level a conflict over political power, over the rhetoric and imagery of power, and for control of the popular imaginary." (Abstract)
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