Amplitude and frequency-modulated stimuli activate common regions of human auditory cortex

Hall et al. (Hall et al., 2002, Cerebral Cortex 12:140–149) recently showed that pulsed frequency-modulated tones generate considerably higher activation than their unmodulated counterparts in non-primary auditory regions immediately posterior and lateral to Heschl’s gyrus (HG). Here, we use fMRI to explore the type of modulation necessary to evoke such differential activation. Carrier signals were a single tone and a harmonic-complex tone, with a 300 Hz fundamental, that were modulated at a rate of 5 Hz either in frequency, or in amplitude, to create six stimulus conditions (unmodulated, FM, AM). Relative to the silent baseline, the modulated tones, in particular, activated widespread regions of the auditory cortex bilaterally along the supra-temporal plane. When compared with the unmodulated tones, both AM and FM tones generated significantly greater activation in lateral HG and the planum temporale, replicating the previous findings. These activation patterns were largely overlapping, indicating a common sensitivity to both AM and FM. Direct comparisons between AM and FM revealed a higher magnitude of activation in response to the variation in amplitude than in frequency, plus a small part of the posterolateral region in the right hemisphere whose response was specifically AM-, and not FM-, dependent. The dominant pattern of activation was that of co-localized activation by AM and FM, which is consistent with a common neural code for AM and FM within these brain regions

Richard Madsen, Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan

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Globalizing Daoism at Huashan: Quanzhen Monks, Danwei Politics, and International Dream Trippers

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A Sociology of Spirituality, edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter C. Jupp

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Embodying Utopia: Charisma in the Post-Mao Qigong Craze

This article discusses the dynamics of charismatic religious movements through the case of the qigong craze, which was the largest mass spiritual/religious movement in urban China in the 1980s and 1990s, until the banning of Falun Gong in 1999. Charisma can be apprehended at three levels: as the embodied experience of individuals; as the emotional affect between masters and followers; and as a collective movement within a macro-social context. This article examines the articulation between these three dimensions of the charismatic phenomenon, tracing how, through breathing and meditation exercises, the masters teaching them and the organizations promoting them, charismatic experiences could be generated within and between millions of individual bodies and articulated with utopian expectations at a specific juncture of modern Chinese history. The emic notion of qi as an objectified power that can be experienced, manipulated, and produced is discussed, showing how it both facilitated the emergence of charisma but prevented its consolidation, leading groups based on qi experiences towards post-charismatic outcomes of commodification, radicalization or traditionalization.postprin

Qigong

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Claiming Knowledge. Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age, par Olav Hammer.

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Negotiating Religion in Modern China: State and Common People in Guangzhou, 1900-1937, by Shuk-wah Poon. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2011. X+208 pp.

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Cyberspace and the Emerging Chinese Religious Landscape – Preliminary Observations

It is still too early to assess the full impact of the Internet on China’s rapidly evolving religious landscape. The effectiveness of Falun Gong’s cyber-militancy has, however, underscored the role new information technologies are playing in the shifting relations of power between a classic repressive state apparatus and deterritorialized religious or sectarian movements. While the impact of the development of the Internet and other information technologies on the economy and politics of the Chinese world has been amply commented upon, to my knowledge no in-depth research has yet been conducted on how the Internet is changing the form of religion in China. And yet, religious changes represent an important dimension of the cultural recomposition and transformation of the Chinese-speaking world. This chapter proposes some initial hypotheses and observations on these issues, a preliminary report on what will, I hope, become a full-fledged study on the expansion of religion in Chinese cyberspace and its impact on religious practices, communities, and state-religion relations in contemporary China. I will begin with some general considerations on the relationship between information technology and religion; briefly present the types of religious information available on the Chinese Internet; and consider the cases of Daoism and of Falun Gong. In these case studies, we will see how, as a “virtual panopticon” closely monitored by the state while at the same time a space allowing unprecedented freedom of expression and access to information, the Internet is becoming a new zone of tension in the age-old agonistic relationship between religion and state in China. I began this study with three hypotheses. It was assumed that new information technologies would have three effects on the Chinese religious landscape: (1) the emergence of a new space for religious expression, characterized by an autonomous quest for meaning rather than collective rituals; (2) a further undermining of orthodoxies accompanied by the emergence of new centers of religious influence; (3) greater integration of Chinese communities on the mainland and overseas, as well as between Chinese and non-Chinese communities. So far, while the data seems to support the first two hypotheses, the third needs to be reformulated: a clear difference appears between online religion in mainland China and Hong Kong-Taiwan, with, surprisingly, the potentialities of the Web being more fully exploited on the mainland than in Hong Kong and Taiwan. This discrepancy will be described and explained in our case study of Daoism.postprin

Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity

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