Popularizing islam: muslims and materiality—introduction

ABSTRACT

This special issue centers on how Islam becomes present in the public through material, tangible forms, including mosques, headscarves, and movies in a wide variety of locations, such as Morocco, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and the Netherlands. It zones in on how both nation-states and Islamic movements have developed new kinds of cultural politics, taking into account the twin forces of the state governance of Islam and consumer capitalism.     

Glenn Murcutt,Pritzker Prize Laureate for 2002:an introduction

The award of the Pritzker Prize for architecture to Glenn Murcutt recently may have come as a surprise to some architects internationally, but it was a decision received with some sense of inevitability in Australia. Australians constantly monitor their status worldwide, and have been conscious for some time that Murcutt has replaced Harry Seidler as our most visible architect internationally.     

People,transport systems,and the urban scene: an overview—I

This paper—which is divided into two parts—examines the problem of transport in towns, with particular relevance to the relationship between the motor vehicle and the urban environment.

This, the first part, briefly traces the development of urban transport to the situation where it is today. In so doing particular attention is paid to the motor car, and to its effects on the environment, after which discussion is turned toward how best to reconcile the quality of life in urban areas with long‐term land use and transport developments. Future developments in relation to transport in towns are discussed at length, and it is concluded that no radical developments in movement technology are likely within the foreseeable future.     

Of faith and visual alertness: the message of “mediatized” religion in an african pentecostal context

Pentecostalism and its recent progenies, the Charismatic movements, have within the last three decades moved from the periphery to the center of Christian life in Africa (Asamoah-Gyadu 2005; Gifford 1998). An unprecedented use of the mass media by these relatively new religious collectivities has contributed significantly to the visibilities they enjoy. This paper looks at the relevance of visual media in contemporary African Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity. I will first place the movements in question in their proper religious context and then examine how they have colonized public space through an extensive appropriation of modern media technologies, and what this teaches us about this type of African Christianity. The sub-Saharan African country, Ghana, is the immediate geographical context for the study. In this paper, “Pentecostalism” refers to the spirituality of Christian churches and movements, which in continuity with occurrences in the Acts of the Apostles, value, affirm, and consciously encourage the experiential presence of the Holy Spirit as part of normal Christian life and worship. The coterminous expression “Charismatic” usually refers to historically younger streams of Pentecostal groups that function within existing historic mission denominations as “renewal movements.” Drawing their members mainly from among disenchanted youths of historic mission churches, several of these charismatic renewal groups have since the late 1970s been incorporated as autochthonous churches operating in urban settings in Africa. In Ghana, the new churches are popular referred to as, Charismatic ministries (CMs).     

Changing conceptions of “mandala” in tang china: ritual and the role of images

ABSTRACT

“Changing Conceptions of ‘Mandala’ in Tang China: Ritual and the Role of Images” is concerned with the intersection of visionary experience with visual forms. The focus of the study is a Buddhist incantation, or Dhāranī, titled the Revered and Victorious Dhāranī of the Buddha's Usnīsa. This particular dhāranī was widely circulated in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907); for this reason, it may be approached as an important case study for studying the conceptualization of mandalas in China prior to their transmission to Japan in the early ninth century. Through a detailed examination of successive translations and ritual manuals associated with the Revered and Victorious Dhāranī of the Buddha's Usnīsa, different conceptions of mandalas and the roles that were played by images may be observed. This, in turn, responds to larger questions in East Asian Buddhism and studies of Buddhist art regarding the functions of painted mandalas during Buddhist rituals. Lastly, this article seeks to shed light on lesser-known aspects of esoteric Buddhist art in Asia, as the scholarship to date on Buddhist mandalas has primarily focused upon studies of Japanese and Himalayan works.     

Relics,liṅgas,and other auspicious material remains in south asian religions

ABSTRACT

This article reconsiders sites, practices, and ideas about the physical remains of the special dead in South Asian religions. Questioning the common notion of “relics” as a point of distinction between “Buddhism” and “Hinduism,” it explores the constellation of ideas and practices surrounding the remains of gods, demons, people, and animals in South Asian religions. Archaeological and literary evidence for li?gas, stūpas, and related sites and structures are used to explore shared discourses and practices among Buddhists and ?aivas in particular. Through such test cases, it shows how bones and other physical remains of the special dead could become areas of engagement, especially when linked to sacred landscape. Attention to these contact zones reveals sharing, borrowing, and competition among ancient and medieval groups that modern scholarship has studied primarily in terms of assumed differences between “Hinduism” and “Buddhism.”     

Risk assessment and management in underground rock engineering——an overview

This paper attempts to provide an overview of risk assessment and management practice in underground rock engineering based on a review of the international literature and some personal experience. It is noted that the terminologies used in risk assessment and management studies may vary from country to country. Probabilistic risk analysis is probably the most widely-used approach to risk assessment in rock engineering and in geotechnical engineering more broadly. It is concluded that great potential exists to augment the existing probabilistic methods by the use of Bayesian networks and decision analysis techniques to allow reasoning under uncertainty and to update probabilities, material properties and analyses as further data become available throughout the various stages of a project. Examples are given of the use of these methods in underground excavation engineering in China and elsewhere, and opportunities for their further application are identified.     

From tradition to innovation: Lewerentz's designs of ritual spaces in Sweden, 1914–1966

Sigurd Lewerentz's architectural production throughout the twentieth century set a course for subsequent developments in Sweden, and the various monographs and analyses featuring his work to date reveal his lasting influence on international architectural discourse. Reyner Banham included Lewerentz in his book The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?. While his British Brutalist counterparts explored everyday life after the 1950s, Lewerentz's connection with popular culture was strongly tied to tradition. This paper analyses how Lewerentz's study of traditional construction methods affected his design of ritual spaces from 1914 to 1966, and explores his statements about tradition as compared with his built projects. His initial years reflect his adhesion to tradition, as a reaction to some of the existing practices in Sweden. After 1940, Lewerentz sought to reassess existing models and in his last projects referred to heritage as a basis for innovation and for interpreting traditional construction elements in novel ways. Lewerentz's shifting regard for tradition defines a novel framework in which to consider his extensive production in an all-inclusive way. His use of tradition as a resource to produce novel designs provides a lens through which to examine innovation, establishing continuity with existing designs.     

Information,rational expectations and network equilibria — an analytical perspective for route guidance systems

This paper tries to provide with a unified framework for understanding how drivers act in response to exogenously provided route guidance information; and how they form subjective expectations on traffic conditions from repeated learning. The learning problems are placed in the context of iterative adjustment processes which achieve equilibrium if drivers have rational expectations. Route choice models with rational expectations find a new justification since the models appear as the limits of drivers' learning procedures. This paper is also devoted to the question of whether route guidance information can convey substantial information to drivers even if drivers behave with rational expectations of their environment. The author also tries to propose a framework for designing the optimal route guidance systems.This paper was presented in draft form at an International Workshop on Trade, Knowledge and the Network Economy, held in December 1992 at Mallacoota, Australia.     

COMIS—an international multizone air-flow and contaminant transport model

A number of interzonal models have been developed to calculate air flows and pollutant transport mechanisms in both single and multizone buildings. A recent development in multizone air-flow modeling, the COMIS model, has a number of capabilities that go beyond previous models, much as COMIS can be used as either a stand-alone air-flow model with input and output features or as an infiltration module for thermal building simulation programs. COMIS was designed during a 12 month workshop at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in 1988–1989. In 1990, the Executive Committee of the International Energy Agency's Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems program created a working group on multizone air-flow modeling, which continued work on COMIS. The group's objectives were to study physical phenomena causing air flow and pollutant (e.g., moisture) transport in multizone buildings, develop numerical modules to be integrated in the previously designed multizone air flow modeling system, and evaluate the computer code. The working group supported by nine nations, officially finished in late 1997 with the release of IISiBat/COMIS 3.0, which contains the documented simulation program COMIS, the user interface IISiBat, and reports describing the evaluation exercise. This paper serves as an introduction for the other publications included in this Special Issue.