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Showing 141 - 160 of 18376 items
By Wendy Doniger. 2011
Wendy Doniger's foundational study is both modern in its engagement with a diverse range of religions and refreshingly classic in…
its transhistorical, cross-cultural approach. By responsibly analyzing patterns and themes across context, Doniger reinvigorates the comparative reading of religion, tapping into a wealth of narrative traditions, from the instructive tales of Judaism and Christianity to the moral lessons of the Bhagavad Gita. She extracts political meaning from a variety of texts while respecting the original ideas of each. A new preface confronts the difficulty of contextualizing the comparison of religions as well as controversies over choosing subjects and positioning arguments, and the text itself is expanded and updated throughout.By Gerard Russell. 2014
Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the…
Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges of the magnificent civilizations in ancient history: Persia, Babylon, Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Their followers have learned how to survive foreign attacks and the perils of assimilation. But today, with the Middle East in turmoil, they face greater challenges than ever before. In Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, former diplomat Gerard Russell ventures to the distant, nearly impassable regions where these mysterious religions still cling to survival. He lives alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and others. He learns their histories, participates in their rituals, and comes to understand the threats to their communities. Historically a tolerant faith, Islam has, since the early 20th century, witnessed the rise of militant, extremist sects. This development, along with the rippling effects of Western invasion, now pose existential threats to these minority faiths. And as more and more of their youth flee to the West in search of greater freedoms and job prospects, these religions face the dire possibility of extinction. Drawing on his extensive travels and archival research, Russell provides an essential record of the past, present, and perilous future of these remarkable religions.By Maia Szalavitz, Bruce D. Perry. 2017
Child psychiatrist Bruce Perry has treated children faced with unimaginable horror: genocide survivors, witnesses, children raised in closets and cages,…
and victims of family violence. Here he tells their stories of trauma and transformation.By George Weigel. 2015
In this remarkable exploration of the Catholic world, the preeminent Catholic theologian George Weigel offers a luminous collection of letters…
to young Catholics, not-so-young Catholics, and curious souls who wonder what it means to be a Catholic today. Weigel takes readers on an epistolary tour of Catholic landmarks--from Chartres Cathedral to St. Mary’s Church in Greenville, South Carolina; from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to G. K. Chesterton’s favorite pub in Oxford; and from the grave of a modern martyr in Warsaw to the Sistine Chapel. Weaving together insights from history, literature, theology, and music, Weigel illuminates the beliefs that have shaped Catholicism from its birth. Revised and updated with several new essays, Letters to a Young Catholic will inspire not only the young generation of Catholics, but also the faithful, doubtful, and searchers of every age.By Michael Schuman. 2015
Confucius is perhaps the most important philosopher in history. Today, his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.…
6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius’s influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius’s doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture. It is impossible to understand East Asia, journalist Michael Schuman demonstrates, without first engaging with Confucius and his vast legacy. Confucius created a worldview that is in many respects distinct from, and in conflict with, Western culture. As Schuman shows, the way that East Asian companies are managed, how family members interact with each other, and how governments see their role in society all differ from the norm in the West due to Confucius’s lasting impact. Confucius has been credited with giving East Asia an advantage in today’s world, by instilling its people with a devotion to learning, and propelling the region’s economic progress. Still, the sage has also been highly controversial. For the past 100 years, East Asians have questioned if the region can become truly modern while Confucius remains so entrenched in society. He has been criticized for causing the inequality of women, promoting authoritarian regimes, and suppressing human rights. Despite these debates, East Asians today are turning to Confucius to help them solve the ills of modern life more than they have in a century. As a wealthy and increasingly powerful Asia rises on the world stage, Confucius, too, will command a more prominent place in global culture. Touching on philosophy, history, and current affairs, Confucius tells the vivid, dramatic story of the enigmatic philosopher whose ideas remain at the heart of East Asian civilization.By John Merriman. 2014
The Paris Commune lasted for only 64 days in 1871, but during that short time it gave rise to some…
of the grandest political dreams of the nineteenth century—before culminating in horrific violence. Following the disastrous French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, hungry and politically disenchanted Parisians took up arms against their government in the name of a more just society. They expelled loyalists and soldiers and erected barricades in the streets. In Massacre, John Merriman introduces a cast of inimitable Communards—from les pétroleuses (female incendiaries) to the painter Gustave Courbet—whose idealism fueled a revolution. And he vividly recreates the Commune’s chaotic and bloody end when 30,000 troops stormed the city, burning half of Paris and executing captured Communards en masse. A stirring evocation of the spring when Paris was ablaze with cannon fire and its citizens were their own masters, Massacre reveals how the indomitable spirit of the Commune shook the very foundations of Europe.By Benjamin Wittes, Gabriella Blum. 2015
The ability to inflict pain and suffering on large groups of people is no longer limited to the nation-state. New…
technologies are putting enormous power into the hands of individuals across the world--a shift that, for all its sunny possibilities, entails enormous risk for all of us, and may even challenge the principles on which the modern nation state is founded. In short, if our national governments can no longer protect us from harm, they will lose their legitimacy. Detailing the challenges that states face in this new world, legal scholars Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum controversially argue in [Title TK] that national governments must expand their security efforts to protect the lives and liberty of their citizens. Wittes and Blum show how advances in cybertechnology, biotechnology, and robotics mean that more people than ever before have access to technologies--from drones to computer networks and biological data--that could possibly be used to extort or attack states and private citizens. Security, too, is no longer only under governmental purview, as private companies or organizations control many of these technologies: internet service providers in the case of cyber terrorism and digital crime, or academic institutions and individual researchers and publishers in the case of potentially harmful biotechnologies. As Wittes and Blum show, these changes could undermine the social contract that binds citizens to their governments. In this brave new world of dispersed threats, Wittes and Blum persuasively argue that the best means for safeguarding our liberty and privacy are strong governmental surveillance and security networks. Indeed, they show--through engaging looks at political thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to the Founders and beyond--that security and liberty are mutually supportive, rather than existing in a precarious balance in which the increase in one leads to a proportional decrease in the other. And not only must we bolster our domestic security efforts, but we must think internationally. Our best defense is increasingly a transnational one: more multinational forces and greater action to protect (and protect against) the territory of weaker states who do not yet have the capability to police themselves. [Title TK] is at once an exposé of our emerging world--one in which students can print guns with 3-D printers and scientists’ manipulations of viruses can be recreated and unleashed by ordinary people--and an authoritative blueprint for how government and individuals must adapt to it.By Lin Wang. 2014
This book explores the mechanisms and significance of China's private economy participating in poverty alleviation. By basing its analysis on…
theories of development economics and public economics, the book stresses practical significance and abandons unreasonable assumptions. It uses a systematic set of statistical analysis tools and descriptive statistics to provide a multidimensional and highly visual format. Beyond the traditional qualitative comparison of countries, it also introduces quantitative comparison. Considering the increasing concern and curiosity about China's booming economy and rising private sector, the book is highly topical, offering readers theoretical insights into China's poverty alleviation mechanisms and essential information on the role played by the private economy in social and economic development. By Willem H. Vanderburg. 2016
Western society has become saturated with scientific and technological modes of thinking that impact our lives and our relationships. Expanding…
social inequality, the use of social media and the rise of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression are manifestations of this shift in our civilization.Our Battle for the Human Spirit is a comprehensive probe into what is happening to human life in the beginning of the 21st century. It explores how culture, experience, and symbolization have been replaced by scientific, discipline-based, approaches. Willem H. Vanderburg argues that these approaches are inadequate in understanding the complexity of human lives and societies. In order to transcend these limits, Vanderburg calls for the reintegration of culture and symbolization into our daily lives.By R. Marie Griffith. 2017
From an esteemed scholar of American religion and sexuality, a sweeping account of the century of religious conflict that produced…
our culture wars Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control--sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion. Both those who advocated for greater openness in sexual matters and those who resisted new sexual norms turned to politics to pursue their moral visions for the nation. Moral Combat is a history of how the Christian consensus on sex unraveled, and how this unraveling has made our political battles over sex so ferocious and so intractable.By Dirk Evers, Michael Fuller, Anne Runehov, Knut-Willy S ther. 2016
This volume examines emotions andemotional well-being from a rich variety of theological, philosophical andscientific and therapeutic perspectives. To experience emotion…
is a part ofbeing human; but what are emotions? How can theology, philosophy and thenatural sciences unpack the nature and content of emotions? This volume is based on contributions to the15th European Conference on Science and Theology held in Assisi, Italy. Itbrings together contributions from scholars of various academic backgrounds from around the world, whose individual insights are made all the richer bytheir juxtaposition with those from experts in other fields, leading to aunique exchange of ideas.By Bruno Santos, Editor Juan Pedropablo, Hermano Esteban de Emaús. 2017
É inesgotável a riqueza que encerra todo o intervalo de oração, mas é mais palpável quando se prolonga por vários…
dias. Na solidão do solidão e gostando da presença de Deus. Nesse momento o Senhor revela-se de uma maneira clara e profunda que pouco a pouco vai impregnando todos os aspectos da nossa vida. O irmão Esteban de Emaús aproxima-nos à experiência do seu itinerário espiritual, mediante diálogos, descrições e memórias. Tenta aproximar-nos ao encontro místico com Cristo num caminho atual muito semelhante ao dos padres do deserto. É um convite mas também um guia que nos dá sinais precisos até à Ermida Interior. O IRMÃO ESTEBAN DE EMAÚS é um eremita católico, que consagrou a sua vida à vida do Nome. Depois do seu livro A Oração de Jesus, volta a transmitir-nos um pouco mais do que significa viver este modo tão especial de rezar, repetindo uma e outra vez o Santo Nome.By Anna Halafoff. 2012
This book documents the ultramodern rise of the multifaith movement, as mulitfaith initiatives have been increasingly deployed as cosmopolitan solutions…
to counter global risks such as terrorism and climate change at the turn of the 21st century. These projects aim to enhance common security, particularly in Western societies following the events of September 11, 2001 and the July 2005 London bombings, where multifaith engagement has been promoted as a strategy to counter violent extremism. The author draws on interviews with 56 leading figures in the field of multifaith relations, including Paul Knitter, Eboo Patel, Marcus Braybrooke, Katherine Marshall, John Voll and Krista Tippett. Identifying the principle aims of the multifaith movement, the analysis explores the benefits--and challenges--of multifaith engagement, as well as the effectiveness of multifaith initiatives in countering the process of radicalization. Building on notions of cosmopolitanism, the work proposes a new theoretical framework termed 'Netpeace', which recognizes the interconnectedness of global problems and their solutions. In doing so, it acknowledges the capacity of multi-actor peacebuilding networks, including religious and state actors, to address the pressing dilemmas of our times. The primary intention of the book is to assist in the formation of new models of activism and governance, founded on a 'politics of understanding' modeled by the multifaith movement.By Konstantinos Retsikas, Magnus Marsden. 2012
This collection of arresting and innovative chapters applies the techniques of anthropology in analyzing the role played by Islam in…
the social lives of the world s Muslims The volume begins with an introduction that sets out a powerful case for a fresh approach to this kind of research exhorting anthropologists to pause and reflect on when Islam is and is not a central feature of their informants life-worlds and identities The chapters that follow are written by scholars with long-term specialist research experience in Muslim societies ranging from Kenya to Pakistan and from Yemen to China thus they explore and compare Islam s social significance in a variety of settings that are not confined to the Middle East or South Asia alone The authors assess how helpful current anthropological research is in shedding light on Islam s relationship to contemporary societies Collectively the contributors deploy both theoretical and ethnographic analysis of key developments in the anthropology of Islam over the last 30 years even as they extrapolate their findings to address wider debates over the anthropology of world religions more generally Crucially they also tackle the thorny question of how in the current political context anthropologists might continue conducting sensitive and nuanced work with Muslim communities Finally an afterword by a scholar of Christianity explores the conceptual parallels between the book s key themes and the anthropology of world religions in a broader context This volume has key contemporary relevance for example its conclusions on the fluidity of people s relations with Islam will provide an important counterpoint to many commonly held assumptions about the incontestability of Islam in the public sphereBy Alexander Thurston. 2016
The spectre of Boko Haram and its activities in Nigeria dominates both media and academic analysis of Islam in the…
region. But, as Alexander Thurston argues here, beyond the sensational headlines this group generates, the dynamics of Muslim life in northern Nigeria remain poorly understood. Drawing on interviews with leading Salafis in Nigeria as well as on a rereading of the history of the global Salafi movement, this volume explores how a canon of classical and contemporary texts defines Salafism. Examining how these texts are interpreted and - crucially - who it is that has the authority to do so, Thurston offers a systematic analysis of curricula taught in Saudi Arabia and how they shape religious scholars' approach to religion and education once they return to Africa. Essential for scholars of religion and politics, this unique text explores how the canon of Salafism has been used and refined, from Nigeria's return to democracy to the jihadist movement Boko Haram.By Dirk Evers, Michael Fuller, Antje Jackel n, Knut-Willy S ther. 2015
This book explores the concept of Life from a range of perspectives. Divided into three parts, it first examines the…
concept of Life from physics to biology. It then presents insights on the concept from the perspectives of philosophy, theology, and ethics. The book concludes with chapters on the hermeneutics of Life, and pays special attention to the Biosemiotics approach to the concept. The question 'What is Life?' has been deliberated by the greatest minds throughout human history. Life as we know it is not a substance or fundamental property, but a complex process. It is not an easy task to develop an unequivocal approach towards Life combining scientific, semiotic, philosophical, theological, and ethical perspectives. In its combination of these perspectives, and its wide-ranging scope, this book opens up levels and identifies issues which can serve as intersections for meaningful interdisciplinary discussions of Life in its different aspects. The book includes the four plenary lectures and selected, revised and extended papers from workshops of the 14th European Conference on Science and Theology (ECST XIV) held in Tartu, Estonia, April 2012.By Omise'Eke Natasha Tinsley. 2018
From the dagger mistress Ezili Je Wouj and the gender-bending mermaid Lasiren to the beautiful femme queen Ezili Freda, the…
Ezili pantheon of Vodoun spirits represents the divine forces of love, sexuality, prosperity, pleasure, maternity, creativity, and fertility. And just as Ezili appears in different guises and characters, so too does Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley in her voice- and genre-shifting, exploratory book Ezili's Mirrors. Drawing on her background as a literary critic as well as her quest to learn the lessons of her spiritual ancestors, Tinsley theorizes black Atlantic sexuality by tracing how contemporary queer Caribbean and African American writers and performers evoke Ezili. Tinsley shows how Ezili is manifest in the work and personal lives of singers Whitney Houston and Azealia Banks, novelists Nalo Hopkinson and Ana Lara, performers MilDred Gerestant and Sharon Bridgforth, and filmmakers Anne Lescot and Laurence Magloire—none of whom identify as Vodou practitioners. In so doing, Tinsley offers a model of queer black feminist theory that creates new possibilities for decolonizing queer studies.By G. Jeffrey Macdonald. 2010
What has become of the Christian Church? Once devoted to molding Americans into better people, in recent years the Christian…
Church has gotten a corporate makeover. In a desperate attempt to bolster membership rolls, ministers have begun to treat their churches more like companies, and their congregations more like customers. As a minister in a small church and as a national religion reporter, journalist G. Jeffrey MacDonald witnessed firsthand this lapse into consumerism. He realized that in an effort to cast a wide net for souls churches have sacrificed their authority to transform Americans' self-serving impulses for the better. In the headlong rush to operate more like businesses, churches are sacrificing their moral authority, perhaps permanently. The result is a crisis for the American conscience. MacDonald's incisive critique of today's movement away from true religion shows how desperately America needs a new religious reformation.By Juliana Finucane, R. Michael Feener. 2014
This volume brings together a range of critical studies that explore diverse ways in which processes of globalization pose new…
challenges and offer new opportunities for religious groups to propagate their beliefs in contemporary Asian contexts. Proselytizing tests the limits of religious pluralism, as it is a practice that exists on the border of tolerance and intolerance. The practice of proselytizing presupposes not only that people are freely-choosing agents and that religion itself is an issue of individual preference. At the same time, however, it also raises fraught questions about belonging to particular communities and heightens the moral stakes in involved in such choices. In many contemporary Asian societies, questions about the limits of acceptable proselytic behavior have taken on added urgency in the current era of globalization. Recognizing this, the studies brought together here serve to develop our understandings of current developments as it critically explores the complex ways in which contemporary contexts of religious pluralism in Asia both enable, and are threatened by, projects of proselytization.By James Davison Hunter. 2000
The Death of Character is a broad historical, sociological, and cultural inquiry into the moral life and moral education of…
young Americans based upon a huge empirical study of the children themselves. The children's thoughts and concerns-expressed here in their own words-shed a whole new light on what we can expect from moral education. Targeting new theories of education and the prominence of psychology over moral instruction, Hunter analyzes the making of a new cultural narcissism.