Dans les études religieuses contemporaines, on dit que le terme «mysticisme» a été relégué et remplacé par le terme «corps». Cependant, lorsque l'on considère le développement actuel des théories du corps, la problématique de la mystique apparaît plutôt avec un attrait nouveau. Cet article vise à héritier et développer davantage la recherche inachevée de Michel de Certeau, intitulée «poétique du corps» et à ouvrir de nouveaux horizons de recherche, en utilisant comme point de départ les concepts clés: «corps», «féminin» et «esprit». Il a pour but de chercher à saisir des «paroles» propres qui résonnent dans les textes des mystiques ou des spirituels d'Occident, en particulier Augustin, Thérèse d'Avila, Jean de la Croix et Jean-Joseph Surin. Il examine également les transformations que ces paroles ont subies à l'époque de la modernité occidentale. La tentative de cet article consiste à écouter les «gémissements spirituels» devenus difficiles à entendre dans le cadre du savoir moderne, en tant que paroles témoignant d'un autre type de savoir, et elle suggère des possibilités fructueuses de remettre en question «l'esprit» comme sujet de recherche dans les études religieuses d'aujourd'hui.

During the medieval and early modern periods, knowledge of Onmyōdō diffused to all corners of society. In particular, knowledge of the calendar developed independently outside of aristocratic society. The Hokinaiden has conventionally been regarded as a representative example of this trend. In this book, calendar divination is linked to the religious world of the syncretism of Shinto and Buddhism, a world that is alien to the Kamo clan's rekidō (masters of the almanac). However, there were other discourses about calendar divination. In this paper, I focus on military texts and argue that a unique logic that emphasizes historical events as the basis for calendar divination was formed in the military strategy books of the late-medieval and early-modern periods. By the early-modern period, various logics of calendar divination had emerged, and Hokinaiden was only one of them. One of the reasons for the prominence and influence of Hokinaiden among the various calendar divination logics is that it stripped away the esoteric context of the yin-yang and five elements theory that originally accompanied calendar divination and replaced it with knowledge that could be understood by anyone. The fact that this role was demanded of Hokinaiden reflects the fact that early-modern calendar divination had become established as a practical knowledge that was complete on its own, free of any context.

In 1886, Harvard College abolished a tradition that had been maintained for 250 years since its foundation: compulsory morning chapel services. The aim of this paper is to analyze the process of transition from compulsory to voluntary chapel services at Harvard in the light of secularization theories. At first glance, this chapel reform appears to follow the pattern of “differentiation” where religion comes to be set apart from other social institutions. In this account of secularization, it is understood that as American higher education went through modernization and specialization, religion, which had been an integral part of Western academic life for centuries, was marginalized on college campuses. Yet a close examination of Harvard's chapel services after the 1886 reform reveals a far more complex story. Analyzing roughly 200 sermons delivered by the college chaplain, Francis Greenwood Peabody, between 1886 and 1907, this paper points out a strong, almost reactionary impulse at Harvard during these years to keep religion relevant to academic life. Worrying that excessive differentiation of higher education from religion might turn students into selfish, heartless dilettantes, Peabody stressed that religion was primarily a dynamic “power” that gave individuals meanings and efficiency in their daily activities, including academic work. With his pragmatic emphasis on spiritual power's effect on all human activities, Peabody presented one way individuals could maintain a sense of religious wholeness in the otherwise increasingly differentiated modern world.

Scholars generally agree that Japanese religious policy fundamentally changed in 1899. That year, new treaties abolished consular jurisdiction and foreign settlements. As a result, the Japanese government began to have jurisdiction over the foreign Christian missions that had engaged in religious, educational, and medical activities in Japan for a long time.

Many studies have examined the religions bill (shūkyō hōan) that would have made it possible to establish religious corporations but was abandoned by the Imperial Diet in 1900. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the fact that many foreign Christian missions organized another type of religious corporation: religion-related Civil Code nonprofit corporations.

In this paper, I consider the Japan-US negotiations from 1899 to 1901 regarding the right of foreign Christian missions to establish corporations under the provisions of the Japanese Civil Code. The main actors were the Japanese government (the Ministry of Education), the United States government (the US legation to Japan and the Department of States), and the American Baptist Missionary Union, the first mission to organize one.