Martyrdom: Canonisation, Contestation and Afterlives

Published by Amsterdam University Press 2020

Martyrdom

Canonisation, Contestation and Afterlives

Edited by: Ihab Saloul and Jan Willem Henten

Volume 11 in the series Heritage and Memory Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048540211

Overview
Contents

About this book

The phenomenon of martyrdom is more than 2000 years old but, as contemporary events show, still very much alive. Martyrdom: Canonisation, Contestation and Afterlives examines the canonisation, contestation and afterlives of martyrdom and connects these with cross-cultural acts and practices of remembrance. Martyrdom appeals to the imagination of many because it is a highly ambiguous spectacle with thrilling deadly consequences. Imagination is thus a vital catalyst for martyrdom, for martyrs become martyrs only because others remember and honour them as such. This memorialisation occurs through rituals and documents that incorporate and re-interpret traditions deriving from canonical texts. The canonisation of martyrdom generally occurs in one of two ways: First, through ritual commemoration by communities of inside readers, listeners, viewers and participants, who create and recycle texts, re-interpreting them until the martyrs ultimately receive a canonical status, or second, through commemoration as a means of contestation by competing communities who perceive these same people as traitors or terrorists. By adopting an interdisciplinary orientation and a cross-cultural approach, this book goes beyond both the insider admiration of martyrs and the partisan rejection of martyrdoms and concisely synthesises key interpretive questions and themes that broach the canonised, unstable and contested representations of martyrdom as well as their analytical connections, divergences and afterlives in the present.

Author / Editor information

Saloul Ihab :

Ihab Saloul is Professor of Heritage, Memory and Narrative, founder and Academic Director of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM), University of Amsterdam. His interests include heritage and memory studies, cultural studies, narrative theory and semiotics, postcolonialism, aesthetics, and diaspora and exile in contemporary cultural thought in Europe and beyond. His latest publications include W.G. Sebald’s Artistic Legacies: Memory, Word and Image (2023), and Diasporic Heritage and Identity (2023).Henten Jan Willem :

Prof. Jan Willem van Henten is Professor of Religion (in particular Ancient Judaism and Ancient Christianity) at the University of Amsterdam, and extra-ordinary Professor of Old and New Testament at Stellenbosch University (South-Africa).

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
List of Illustrations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	6
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Introduction Jan Willem van Henten and Ihab Saloul Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
1. The Interaction of Canon and History. Some Assumptions Tobias Nicklas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
2. The Changing Worlds of the Ten Rabbinic Martyrs Yair Furstenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
3. ‘Who Were the Maccabees?’ The Maccabean Martyrs and Performances on Christian Difference Jennifer Wright Knust Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
4. Perpetual Contest Mieke Bal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
5. ‘Martyrs of Love’. Genesis, Development and Twentieth Century Political Application of a Sufi Concept Asghar Seyed-Gohrab Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
6. Commemorating World War I Soldiers as Martyrs Jan Willem van Henten Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
7. The Scarecrow Christ. The Murder of Matthew Shepard and the Making of an American Culture Wars Martyr Paul Middleton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
8. Icons of Revolutionary. Upheaval Arab Spring Martyrs Friederike Pannewick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
9. Yesterday’s Heroes? Canonisation of Anti-Apartheid Heroes in South Africa Jeremy Punt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
10. The Martyrdom of the Seven Sleepers in Transformation. From Syriac Christianity to the Qur’ān and to the Dutch-Iranian Writer Kader Abdolah Marcel Poorthuis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
11. ‘Female Martyrdom Operations’. Gender and Identity Politics in Palestine Ihab Saloul Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
12. Hollywood Action Hero Martyrs in ‘Mad Max Fury Road’ Laura Copier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 15
Keywords: Martyrdom; canonization; commemoration

eBook

Published: January 31, 2020
ISBN: 9789048540211