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Inspired by Max Weber's famous expression "the disenchantment of the world", in this article we refer to the growing secularization of Christmas, the event that divided history between before and after. When we compare recent secular festivities with the traditional celebrations, that authors like Leite Vasconcelos and Júlio Dinis describe, we conclude that Christmas has been merchandized. Yet, in the dramatic conditions we are living nowadays, we can assume that er need all the more to hear the "rumour of angels" and to celebrate the religious festivity of Christmas.

Symbolic representations of Christmas are associated to moral values that have been transmitted over two thousand years. In England, since the 19 th century, Christmas symbols have become popular and were disseminated all over the world. Charles Dickens is generally considered responsible for the invention of Christmas in the English collective imagination. This close association between Dickens and Christmas results from several of his publications that became extremely popular during his lifetime and still keep much of their magic as Christmas expressions today.

The iconographic representation of the Nativity is constant throughout the history of Christianity. In early times, the theme construction follows the setting of the feast of Christmas, but develops into two main themes: the Byzantine theme, centered on the childbirth with Mary lying and a duplicate Infant Jesus, bandaged and in the bath; the Western theme of worship, after the mystery of birth without pain, with Mary kneeling beside the shining Infant. The theme of the Adoration of the Magi, who in the early days of Christianity predominated over the representation of the Nativity, and the Adoration of the Shepherds later are complementary themes of the birth of Christ.

Since 1700 that the 13th of December is, in Sweden, the day of celebration of Santa Luzia – Lucia for the Swedish, a tradition that has become fixed and widespread in the early 1900s, becoming a celebration nationwide. The legend of Santa Luzia, venerated by Catholics as the patron Saint of sight and light, has no meaning for the Swedes, who mostly do not know about it. Lucia, young lady elected every year and crowned on the 13th December, with five or seven candles, clothes with a white long tunic, girded with a strip of red silk and is followed by a retinue of 12 young ladies, all dressed in white robes. Closing the procession come the "Star Boys ", also dressed in long white robes, who bear on the head a hat-shaped cone and in his hand a wand with a star on top. The tradition, nowadays, to ordinary Swedes, has the simple meaning that Lucia brings light on the longest night of the year. Like in Sweden, the Swedish communities around the world, always celebrate their 13th December in their homes, at school, in Swedish companies, and Embassies of Sweden.

Modern worldview, influenced by scientism and positivism, excludes some human essential categories. This can be perceived when we consider Architecture, whether in its historical dimension or in its dimension as Art: the recognition in the present of the value of an architectural object of the past is justified not by its documental content, deriving from the accomplishment of a certain function in a certain time, but rather by the survival of the significance of its space, conveyed by a form pregnant with references to environments anchored in Tradition. This diatribe will be explained through an analysis of the historical process which gave origin to the architectural form of the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory (at Tapada da Ajuda): a paradigmatic type of architecture in the 20th century – subsequent to the civilizational alterations deriving from the invention of the telescope – and a prime example, at worldwide level, of the architecture of astronomical observatories.

When the relationship between Burke and Rousseau is being evaluated, the most common stance is to consider that these two authors are at opposite poles. What some specialists, acquainted with both authors, assert is that the interpretation that sees them as opposites is based on a superficial evaluation and that, if we set aside any preconceptions and apparent divergences, we would find more common ground than we expected. This article aims to analyse the differences in the way of thinking of each of them as regards the concept of human nature.

The critical review of the work Understanding digital humanities, edited by David M. Berry, in 2012, begins with a brief definition of digital humanities in order to approach its content and the various contributions that integrate this volume. Written by the most trusted and recognized authorities in this field, the articles are developed around the 'computational turn' and the paradigm shift in the acquisition and production of knowledge caused by the introduction of digital tools.

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Many cultures have acknowledged the existence of a psychological principle designated as Soul. From a religious and philosophical perspective, the immaterial aspect of a human being is often considered as synonymous of mind or character. In theology, the soul is defined as the part which participates of divinity and survives the body. While ancient Greek civilization had a mainly dualistic perspective of man, the biblical culture has always had a unitary vision. We know that the word soul derives from the Hebrew nephesh and also of the Latin animu and thatin old Greek, the term used to designate soul was Pneuma. Considering the evolving history of the concept, in this Editorial, we will refer to the visions of Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, Aristotle, the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Aquino, Descartes and Spinoza. Afterwards, from all this ideology – by incrementing the roots of which they derived – we have the present concepts of soul, that were the basis of many religions, whose followers believe to possess souls, or being accompanied by them or even to being souls themselves.

The idea of soul is central in the narrative of ancient Egyptians especially as it relates to the idea of eternal life. Questions about what happens after death to the body and whether there is any aspect of the human being that lives after the khat is dead are concerns about life rather than about death itself. The complexity of the concept of human being for ancient Egyptians shows that the objective of the human is tohold back the chaos that comes when one is not prepared to live eternally. Therefore, creating the conditions for a truly everlasting future is the work of the physical lifetime.

Projecting the invisible, namely the soul, onto the screen or other surfaces has always been a human ambition; its technical realization began with the dawn of mankind. Exteriorizing the soul and making it visible meant gaining control over it. Its imagery in our western collective imaginary was influenced by myths such as ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ and descriptions in literature (e.g. Ulysses’ visit to Hades in Homer’s Odyssey). The underworld and its inhabitants were depicted by many painters (Rubens, Kratzenstein, Kasparides), in the 18th and 19th centuries the phantasmagorias of Schröpfer and Robertson anticipated ‘spirit photography’ (Mumler, etc.), but only the technology of cinematography would provide the ideal habitat for the pictorial heritage of the soul. In this article I discuss some of its various cinematographic representations, from Méliès to Matrix.

In cultures that are essentially oral and shamanic in nature, such as North-American Indian cultures, it is difficult to approach a theme that, among us, Westerners, is associated with strong philosophical and religious beliefs, whereas, among them, it is primordially an individual spiritual experience, and a very diverse, and apparently extremely heterogeneous one. We shall focus upon a few aspects of the notions of "soul" in traditional Native American cultures, as well as on some of the contexts in which they appear.

In Zoroastrianism, the concept of the soul has a preponderant place both in the system of religious thinking and in everyday life since man has to choose between Good and Bad based on the individual’s free will and is liable for the actions and choices made during his lifetime which affect the fate of an individual’s soul. The concept of the soul is complex and various scholarly circles had their own sophisticated systems, which were at variance with each other but all were regarded as orthodox. Regarding the fate of the soul, though punishments in Hell are brutal, they are not eternal but limited in time. Persian society believed that the living had to mitigate the sufferings of the dead with all the means they could. Trusts or foundations for the benefit of the soul or to erect Fire Temples, remained in practice and continue to function even today (it is, in fact, a real obstacle among contemporary Iranian Zoroastrians). The law is not the solution in itself but only a means by which one could achieve relief for the soul: praying with all the related ceremonies. The fact that this practice goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times and is at variance with Zoroaster’s teaching about the fate of the soul and individual responsibility is no hindrance in the popularity of these rites as it never was during the previous centuries.

To the Egyptian view of human nature, man was a unit that gathered in itself all human qualities and characteristics that marked the cycle ofexistence in the Herelife and in the Afterlife. The functionality or not of these elements or their separation or juxtaposition explained all the great moments of life of the individual: conception, birth, death, mummification, resurrection, eternal life. This notion therefore has enormous impact on the study of the imagery of ancient Egyptian people and is inseparable from their representations about life, about death, about their funeral customs, about immortality and on their relationship with the Cosmos. Among the distinct and complementary elements of the human personality in ancient Egypt we found khet (body), ren (name), ka ("double"), ba (" soul") chut (shadow), akh (transfigured being or spirit) and ib (heart). Each element represented a distinct facet of man which is manifested in a certain specific way and, therefore, becameidentifiable. All elements were necessary to ensure their earthly existence and continuity in extra-terrestrial life. 

The topic "The Concept of Soul" is related to some of the themes, which are always present in poetry. We will, therefore, focus on Agora e na hora da nossa morte by José Agostinho Baptista. The mourning color of the cover of the book referring to the "now" and the "hour", directs us to a reading strategy that the dedication "To my father. In his memory" confirms. The words of the title 'copy' our prayer "Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen". To each word and/or ensemble of expressions that are taken from the prayer, there corresponds a poem in the collection. We will go back to the 16th century and make some references to Saint Teresa of Ávila.

Challenging the growing inhumanity of contemporary societies, steeped i individualism, mechanical and materialistic, this work presents a philoand anthropological reflection of Maat, the spiritual and ethical legacy of Egypt. It discusses Maat as the moral ideal of the first human civilizatprovides a holistic perspective of the world and of human existence, the Kemetic ontology and cosmogony and an ethical philosophy of responsibility towards an integral project of human and social sustainabinature and the world.

Lors de cet article nous étudierons selon une perspective d’histoire de la littérature deux textes, un du XIXe siècle, Les Âmes mortes, de Nicolas Gogol, et l’autre du XXe siècle, Les Âmes fortes, de Jean Giono, où la question de l’âme, en une acception polysémique chez l’auteur russe et plus monosémique chez l’auteur français, surgit dès le titre. Nous verrons que les projets initiaux évoluent, acquièrent souffle et dimension jusqu’à devenir, dans le cas de LesÂmes mortes, l’oeuvre totale d’une vie chez Gogol, ou un roman polyphonique, Les Âmes fortes, ce qui ne devait être qu’un simple conte de Giono.

What analogies and symbols are used to graphically represent the immaterial soul? What devices are used to make it visible? According to the Jewish and the biblical texts traditions, the soul is a breath that gives life to the body. The Greeks associated the immateriality with the image of a winged Psyche. The first images of the soul in Christian iconography are based on these concepts. Aquinas confirms the possibility of representing it this way, saying that soul and body form a unitary substance. Thus, throughout the Middle Ages, the soul in the picture of a human body appears in distinct iconographic themes: leaving the body on the Virgin or of the saints; in judgments after death, the first and special one, being of the Archangel Michael weighing souls, or in the final one, from which the scenes of Paradise and Hell are designed.

In a post-war panorama of secular humanism, morality has taken on new contours that allow Goodness to be achieved via the forgoing of the Self. This seems to be the lesson of the late Iris Murdoch, who dedicated her life to the study of philosophy in an attempt to create a unified moral code to offer guidance to (wo)mankind. Increasingly worried by the ethical road society was travelling down in the twentieth century, its lack of religious direction and consequent spiritual void, the novelist creates a moral philosophy based on the precept that one must reject one’s natural predisposition for egotism -a form of Evil. The soul must enter a path of knowledge that will allow man to see Reality and Truth. The secular redemption of the soul can only be achieved through a life dedicated to art and looking beyond oneself. Female Gothic, a tangential strain that developed out of the eighteenth century Gothic, has been used to express social anxieties concerning such issues as identity, sexuality, the fragmentation of the self and the redemption or damnation of the soul. This article explores how Iris Murdoch appropriates Female Gothic in order to explore these anxieties, as well as to propagate her own moral philosophy in an attempt to reform our spiritual world through a suggested model of Goodness.