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Culture and Review - Race and Identity

Race and Identity

  • 22 Jun 2011
    'Saving the Indians' souls' in colonial Peru

    Ethnohistorical and other studies show the great influence and power the historic Spanish mission had over the native population?s lives and souls in the Andean region, says Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar. At the same time as they document the missionaries' daily struggle to impose European ways of life onto other cultures, they also indicate that indigenous people were not only victims, but also agents in re-shaping their living conditions and their cultural identities.

  • 10 Mar 2011
    Haggadah and Jerusalem: personal and political

    With the arrival of spring and the marking of Passover, Lent and Easter come two new and very different books that chronicle the pleasures and challenges of an interfaith world.

  • 3 Feb 2011
    The pernicious 'good Muslim, bad Muslim' game

    Western stereotypes frequently cast Muslims as either "good" (quietist) or "bad" political, with Sufis wholly identified with the former camp, says Omid Safi. This dichotomy ignores a third group of Muslims: Those who, whether mystically inclined or not, want to neither destroy the world nor acquiesce to the wishes of the Empire, but rather seek to redeem the world by speaking truth to power.

  • 6 Dec 2010
    A young Mapuche speaks up for her people

    Natividad Llanquileo is a young woman from the Mapuche people, an indigenous group that makes up some four per cent of the Chilean population. She is also the youngest representative of the Mapuche political prisoners in Concepción. Alberto Dufey hears her story, and that of her people.

  • 27 Jul 2010
    Christians of the Holy Land: An indigenous pilgrimage

    What do Christians witness in the land of frequent pilgrimages but also of infrequent visions known popularly as 'the Holy Land', but riven with conflict? Harry Hagopian draws attention to the history and presence of indigenous Christian communities in the region through a personal exploration and pilgrimage.

  • 22 Jul 2010
    Turbulent times: The British Jewish community today

    The willingness to stand out has brought about both a kind of ‘Jewish renaissance’ in Britain and also a very public discourse of insecurity, says Keith Kahn-Harris. But the resulting turbulence that has brought about some very positive outcomes.

  • 10 Jun 2010
    An Armenian-Turkish encounter in Germany

    Our humanity - with all its redeeming points - can overtake our particular fears, angers and doubts, says Harry Hagopian. For him, an Armenian, a chance encounter with a Turk proved a compass point in this quest and possibility to move beyond confrontation.

  • 14 Jul 2007
    How Islam can challenge those who abuse it from within

    An easy assumption that religion is less dangerous when it is 'less religious' is wrong, says Simon Barrow. As an article in the International Herald Tribune points out, the path from death to life is found within as well as beyond each tradition.

  • 22 Apr 2007
    Why St George is no crusader

    Far from being a crusader, St George of Lydda was a defender of the powerless, says Garth Hewitt. He is a figure for Muslims, Jews, Christians - and for the church in Palestine.

  • 16 Apr 2007
    Muslims, Christians and the global human challenge

    Simon Barrow gives an overview of three scholarly contributions by Kenneth Cragg, perhaps the world's leading interpreter of the relations between the Semitic faiths and their encounters with Western culture.

  • 17 Mar 2007
    The History of Christian Thought - Review

    Simon Barrow appraises an effective and lively potted history of Christian thought throughout the ages.