Martyrs create space and time through the actions they take, the fate they suffer, the stories they prompt, the cultural narratives against which they take place and the retelling of their tales in different places and contexts. The title "Desiring Martyrs" is meant in two senses. First, it refers to protagonists and antagonists of the martyrdom narratives who as literary characters seek martyrs and the way they inscribe certain kinds of cultural and social desire. Second, it describes the later celebration of martyrs via narrative, martyrdom acts, monuments, inscriptions, martyria, liturgical commemoration, pilgrimage, etc. Here there is a cultural desire to tell or remember a particular kind of story about the past that serves particular communal interests and goals. By applying the spatial turn to these ancient texts the volume seeks to advance a still nascent social geographical understanding of emergent Christian and Jewish martyrdom. It explores how martyr narratives engage pre-existing time-space configurations to result in new appropriations of earlier traditions.

This volume works through spatio-temporal concepts to be found in imperial practices and their representations in a wide range of media. The individual cases investigated in the volume cover a broad spectrum of historical periods from ancient times up to the present. Well-known international scholars treat special cases of the topic, using cutting-edge theory and approaches stemming from historical, cartographic, religious, literary, media studies, as well as ethnography.

This volume focuses on the connection between modern design and architectural practices and the construction of "sacred spaces." Not only language and ritual but space, place, and architecture play a significant role in constructing "special" or "religious" spaces. However, this concept of a constructed "sacred space" remains undertheorized in religious studies and the history of art and architecture in general. This volume therefore revisits the question of a "modern sacred space" from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on religion, space, and architecture during the emergence of the modern period and up until contemporary times. Revisiting the ways in which modern architects and artists have endeavored to create sacred spaces and buildings for the modern world will addresses the underlying questions of how religious ideas—especially those related to esotericism and to alternative religiosities—have transformed the way sacred spaces are conceptualized today.

Fragen des KArpers und der KArperlichkeit finden zunehmend das Interesse der kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung; gerade dem spAtantiken Christentum gilt in diesem Zusammenhang immer wieder besondere Beachtung. Der Sammelband stellt in den Mittelpunkt das Motiv des leidenden KArpers, der aufgefasst ist als kulturelles Symbol und Kommunikationsmedium bei Integration und Abgrenzung des Christentums in seinem Bezug auf die spAtantike Gesellschaft und Geisteswelt. MAnchsaskese und Martyrium, Krankheit und Schmerz bilden die wichtigsten Bezugspunkte der einzelnen BeitrAge.

Die Autorin untersucht eine Gruppe von Mythen und Festen der antiken griechischen Religion, in denen die Motive des Geschlechterrollentauschs und der Geschlechtsumwandlung eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Die Anwendung aktueller religionswissenschaftlicher Theorien und der Ergebnisse der Gender Studies fuhrt zu einem neuen differenzierten Bild des gesamten Komplexes im historischen Kontext der griechischen Polisreligion in archaischer und klassischer Zeit.