PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS - Università degli Studi di Messina

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personaggi in vista del mondo intellettuale, politico e artistico. Questo impatto fu ovviamente
colorato dal particolare clima culturale e politico italiano, che impresse a questi movimenti uno
sviluppo particolare. L’avvento del fascismo soprattutto portò a una polarizzazione tra fazioni
più o meno favorevoli al regime. Dal suo canto, il regime mise obiettivamente un freno allo
sviluppo delle due organizzazioni, e adottò in certi casi misure repressive nei loro confronti.
L’internazionalismo di entrambe, come quello del resto della massoneria, non poteva che
scontrarsi con la retorica nazionalista del regime.La relazione presenterà sommariamente le
linee di sviluppo che i due movimenti conobbero in Italia sino alla Seconda guerra mondiale,
soffermandosi su alcune figure particolarmente rappresentative.
Rachela Permenter, Slippery Rock University, PA, USA
The Persistence of the White Man’s Indian and the Ungraspable Religious Fact
Tue 15 th , 9.00, Classroom 5
The pitfalls of appropriation, objectification, and interpretive error are clear to most
contemporary scholars who study non-Western religions. Yet it remains that even the best
intentioned white scholarship can confuse as much as it uncovers about Native American
religious experience. Through literary and narrative analysis, this paper will explore religious
encounters between American Indians and Euro-Americans in early America, as well as the
contemporary phenomenon of Euro-Americans embracing their constructed images of Native
American spirituality. In doing so, the paper will consider the question of how to let the “oral”
religiosity of indigenous Americans speak through the Anglo-European written word, as it
examines the issues of otherness and comparative approaches to Native American studies.
Bodil Liljefors Persson, Malmö University, Sweden
Wed 16 th , 17.40, Classroom 11
Romanticism, Colonialism and Images of Indigenous Religions. A Study of Representations of
American Indian Religions in Swedish Textbooks
In this paper the notion of Religion will be discussed on the basis of how Native American
Religions, and other Indigenous Religions as well, is represented in the Swedish textbooks in
Religious Education. This will also be related to the National Curricula and syllabuses in
Religious Education. What do these documents focus on regarding the content and goals for
Religious Education? Which aspects of religion, which images do the representations in the
textbooks focus upon and which aspects are not being represented? Whose voices are heard
and which narratives are told about the Amerindian Religions? Aided by a contextual approach
and critical close readings as well as analysis of the photos and images in the textbooks, this
paper aims at also discussing questions of selection of knowledge and of didactic consideration
regarding exoticism, ethnocentrism and eurocentrism in the Swedish Textbooks.
Tue 15 th , 9.20, Classroom 4