Silke Jansen – författare

Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas explores spirit-based religious traditions across vast geographical and cultural expanses, including Canada, the United States, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this collection of original perspectives breaks new ground by examining these traditions as typologically and historically related. This curated selection of the traditions allows readers to compare and highlight convergences, while the description and comparison of the traditions challenges colonial erasures and expands knowledge about endangered cultures.The inclusion of spirit-based traditions from a broad geographical area emphasizes the typology of religion over ethnic compartmentalization. The individuals and communities studied in this collection serve spirits through rituals, song, instruments, initiation, embodiment via possession or trance, veneration of nature, and, among some Indigenous people, the consumption of ritual psychoactive entheogens. Indigenous and African diaspora practices focused on service to ancestors and spirits reflect ancient substrates of religiosity. The rationale to separate them on disciplinary, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, or historical grounds evaporates in our interconnected world. Shared cultural, historical, and structural features of American indigenous and African diaspora spirit-based traditions mutually deserve our attention since the analyses and dialogues give way to discoveries about deep commonalities and divergences among religions and philosophies.Still struggling against the effects of colonialism, enslavement, and extinction, the practitioners of these spirit-based religious traditions hold on to important but vulnerable parts of humanity’s cultural heritage. These readings make possible journeys of recognition as well as discovery.

Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas explores spirit-based religious traditions across vast geographical and cultural expanses, including Canada, the United States, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this collection of original perspectives breaks new ground by examining these traditions as typologically and historically related. This curated selection of the traditions allows readers to compare and highlight convergences, while the description and comparison of the traditions challenges colonial erasures and expands knowledge about endangered cultures.The inclusion of spirit-based traditions from a broad geographical area emphasizes the typology of religion over ethnic compartmentalization. The individuals and communities studied in this collection serve spirits through rituals, song, instruments, initiation, embodiment via possession or trance, veneration of nature, and, among some Indigenous people, the consumption of ritual psychoactive entheogens. Indigenous and African diaspora practices focused on service to ancestors and spirits reflect ancient substrates of religiosity. The rationale to separate them on disciplinary, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, or historical grounds evaporates in our interconnected world. Shared cultural, historical, and structural features of American indigenous and African diaspora spirit-based traditions mutually deserve our attention since the analyses and dialogues give way to discoveries about deep commonalities and divergences among religions and philosophies.Still struggling against the effects of colonialism, enslavement, and extinction, the practitioners of these spirit-based religious traditions hold on to important but vulnerable parts of humanity’s cultural heritage. These readings make possible journeys of recognition as well as discovery.

This book analyses changing views on bilingualism in Cognitive Psychology and explores their socio-cultural embeddedness. It offers a new, innovative perspective on the debate on possible cognitive (dis)advantages in bilinguals, arguing that it is biased by popular “language myths”, which often manifest themselves in the form of metaphors. Since its beginnings, Cognitive Psychology has consistently modelled the coexistence between languages in the brain using metaphors of struggle, conflict and competition. However, an ideological shift from nationalist and monolingual ideologies to the celebration of bilingualism under multicultural and neoliberal ideologies in the course of the 20th century fostered opposing interpretations of language coexistence in the brain and its effects on bilinguals at different moments in time. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Multilingualism and Applied Linguistics, Cognitive andComputational Linguistics, and Critical Metaphor Analysis.

This book analyses changing views on bilingualism in Cognitive Psychology and explores their socio-cultural embeddedness. It offers a new, innovative perspective on the debate on possible cognitive (dis)advantages in bilinguals, arguing that it is biased by popular “language myths”, which often manifest themselves in the form of metaphors. Since its beginnings, Cognitive Psychology has consistently modelled the coexistence between languages in the brain using metaphors of struggle, conflict and competition. However, an ideological shift from nationalist and monolingual ideologies to the celebration of bilingualism under multicultural and neoliberal ideologies in the course of the 20th century fostered opposing interpretations of language coexistence in the brain and its effects on bilinguals at different moments in time. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Multilingualism and Applied Linguistics, Cognitive andComputational Linguistics, and Critical Metaphor Analysis.

Zwei Staaten unterschiedlicher sprachlicher und kultureller Prägung - Haiti und die Dominikanische Republik - teilen sich heute die Karibikinsel Hispaniola. In der Kolonialzeit war sie Schauplatz der ersten Begegnungen zwischen Indigenen und Spaniern und Spielball der Auseinandersetzungen zwischen europäischen Kolonialmächten. Plantagensystem und Sklaverei gelangten hier zu ihrer höchsten Blüte, bis die Haitianische Revolution und die Gründung des ersten unabhängigen Staats in Amerika das Kolonialsystem erschütterten. Die wechselvolle Geschichte der Insel spiegelt sich in vielschichtigen Sprach- und Kulturkontakten wider, die die karibische Sprachenlandschaft bis heute prägen und den Gegenstand des vorliegenden Bandes bilden. Die Beiträge beleuchten die frühesten indianisch-spanischen Sprachkontakte ebenso wie das Phänomen der Kreolisierung in Haiti, historische und aktuelle Austauschprozesse zwischen Spanisch und Kreol und die Weiterentwicklung dieser Sprachen in der Diaspora.

El presente volumen está dedicado al estudio del complejo tema de la traducción, con especial énfasis en el contexto europeo-latinoamericano. Partiendo de la base de que tanto los textos como los códigos lingüísticos son portadores de procesos de intercambio cultural, reúne a investigadores de diferentes disciplinas filológicas con el propósito de integrar la teoría literaria con la lingüística. Uno de sus objetivos es sondear los límites del concepto de traducción entre los polos de una interpretación más restringida, concentrada en la transferencia de un códigos lingüístico a otro, y de una interpretación más abarcadora, que entiende la traducción, en un sentido muy general, como un proceso multidimensional de apropiación y transformación de textos y de lenguas. Los catorce estudios aquí recopilados examinan múltiples situaciones de contacto entre América y Europa desde la época moderna temprana con sus reflejos en las estructuras y las prácticas lingüísticas, así como en sus escenificaciones en textos literarios y en otras formas mediales. De esta manera, revelan multifacéticos procesos de apropiación y difusión, interacciones e interdependencias entre la lengua y el lenguaje, las tradiciones escritas y los discursos, las corrientes literarias y —sobre todo en las últimas décadas— los mecanismos editoriales y de mercado.

Hoy en día se alza en la ciudad de Santo Domingo una estatua en recuerdo de Antonio de Montesino, primer europeo que denunció con vehemencia los abusos y la explotación de los nativos en el contexto de la colonización española de las Antillas. Aunque su iniciativa no pudo impedir la temprana desaparición de los indígenas, habría de definir el pensamiento de Bartolomé de las Casas, allanando el camino para el surgimiento de la Leyenda Negra.A pesar de su histórica relevancia, los trabajos científicos que se han ocupado de la figura del fraile y de las circunstancias en las cuales desarrolló su labor son muy esporádicos e incluso la recepción y el impacto de sus sermones han sido solo parcialmente investigados.Dirigido tanto al mundo científico, como a un público interesado en la historia y cultura latinoamericanas, el presente volumen se acerca a la temática desde diferentes perspectivas: histórica, lingüística, antropológica, teológica, jurídica y literaria. El enfoque interdisciplinario permite esbozar una imagen más nítida de la persona histórica de Antonio de Montesino y esclarecer aspectos de su recepción y de la repercusión de sus sermones en el discurso histórico. Con ello, el volumen pretende destacar la resonancia de los sermones como factor desencadenante del intenso debate sobre la cuestión indígena, aportando elementos de discusión en este momento coyuntural de los inicios de la colonización.