Author: John Grattan File Type: pdf Natural Disasters explores the role played by catastrophic natural events in generating cultural change. Revisiting famous catastrophes, such as the eruption of Vesuvius, while examining less well-known natural disasters, these studies demonstrate that diverse human cultures had well-developed strategies which facilitated their response to extreme natural events.
Author: Josef Bengtson
File Type: pdf
This book explores the metaphysical assumptions that underlie different interpretations of the relationship between religion and the secular, faith and reason, and transcendence and immanence. It explores different answers to the question of how people of diverse religious and cultural identities can live together peacefully. **
Author: Ceri Sullivan
File Type: pdf
Historians and sociologists have been consistently - albeit gloomily - enthralled by Max Webers model of the inevitable rise of the neurocrat. However, literary critics positively boast that writers, like academics, cannot do admin. While Webers thesis about the rise of the entrepreneur all fire, individuality, thrust is in tune with what we think literature is about, his thesis about the rise of the bureaucrat is not, yet creative bureaucracy is not only a euphemism for bending the rules. Literature in the Public Service shows how the public service makes its workers original, taking them beyond an individuated point of view to imagine the perfect public system. Creativity theorists too have swapped the model of solitary inspiration for a managed creative environment. John Milton, Anthony Trollope, and David Hare are examples of how authors work in and write about the public service, during its crisis moments. **
Author: Lien-Hang T. Nguyen
File Type: pdf
While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam.Hanois War renders transparent the internal workings of Americas most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.
Author: Kimberly Stratton
File Type: pdf
Kimberly B. Stratton investigates the cultural and ideological motivations behind early imaginings of the magician, the sorceress, and the witch in the ancient world. Accusations of magic could carry the death penalty or, at the very least, marginalize the person or group they targeted. But Stratton moves beyond the popular view of these accusations as mere slander. In her view, representations and accusations of sorcery mirror the complex struggle of ancient societies to define authority, legitimacy, and Otherness. Stratton argues that the concept magic first emerged as a discourse in ancient Athens where it operated part and parcel of the struggle to define Greek identity in opposition to the uncivilized barbarian following the Persian Wars. The idea of magic then spread throughout the Hellenized world and Rome, reflecting and adapting to political forces, values, and social concerns in each society. Stratton considers the portrayal of witches and magicians in the literature of four related periods and cultures classical Athens, early imperial Rome, pre-Constantine Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. She compares patterns in their representations of magic and analyzes the relationship between these stereotypes and the social factors that shaped them. Strattons comparative approach illuminates the degree to which magic was (and still is) a cultural construct that depended upon and reflected particular social contexts. Unlike most previous studies of magic, which treated the classical world separately from antique Judaism, Naming the Witch highlights the degree to which these ancient cultures shared ideas about power and legitimate authority, even while constructing and deploying those ideas in different ways. The book also interrogates the common association of women with magic, denaturalizing the gendered stereotype in the process. Drawing on Michel Foucaults notion of discourse as well as the work of other contemporary theorists, such as Homi K. Bhabha and Bruce Lincoln, Strattons bewitching study presents a more nuanced, ideologically sensitive approach to understanding the witch in Western history. **Review Naming the Witch is a well argued, well constructed book that can be highly recommended. (Patrick Maille Bryn Mawr Classical Review) A scrupulous and highly innovative study of the phenomenon of magic in the ancient world... A significant contribution to the discussion... Recommendable to all readers. (Thomas J. Kraus Review of Biblical Literature) This is one of the most stimulating and intelligent of many studies of ancient magic in recent scholarship... (Ian H. Henderson Toronto Journal of Theology) Review Naming the Witch is a theoretically and historically sophisticated account of magic and gender in late antiquity that thoroughly denaturalizes both categories. Kimberly B. Stratton makes an excellent contribution to the theoretically informed study of gender, magic, and religion. (Amy Hollywood, Elizabeth H. Monrad Professor of Christian Studies, Harvard Divinity School) Naming the Witch breaks new ground in the contested territory of gender and magic in the ancient world. Kimberly B. Stratton examines charges and practices of magic from ancient Greece to the Babylonian Talmud with a fresh eye and ideological sophistication. Her attentive readings offer insights into gender, magic, and religion that will challenge and engage expert and neophyte alike. (Mary R. DAngelo, associate professor of theology, University of Notre Dame, and coeditor of Women in Christian Origins) Kimberly B. Stratton provides a fascinating exploration of the ways that people in the ancient Mediterranean world used the idea of magic to marginalize particular groups and thereby reaffirm cultural norms. By juxtaposing four different cultural contexts, she reveals how this discourse of magic, while displaying some consistent features, was modulated to meet particular needs. This lively and stimulating book will be of interest not only to scholars of ancient magic but also to anyone working on gender and social relations. (J. B. Rives, Kenan Eminent Professor of Classics, the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill) Naming the Witch sets a new path in the study of magic. Sensitive to the literary and social conventions of both the classical and Semitic cultures of late antiquity, Kimberly B. Stratton leads us to a new understanding of the mechanisms by which magic does its work in society. This book should be read by all scholars of the period and all who have struggled to theorize about magic. (Alan F. Segal, professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies, Barnard College)
Author: Noah Salomon
File Type: pdf
For some, the idea of an Islamic state serves to fulfill aspirations for cultural sovereignty and new forms of ethical political practice. For others, it violates the proper domains of both religion and politics. Yet, while there has been much discussion of the idea and ideals of the Islamic state, its possibilities and impossibilities, surprisingly little has been written about how this political formation is lived. For Love of the Prophet looks at the Republic of Sudans twenty-five-year experiment with Islamic statehood. Focusing not on state institutions, but rather on the daily life that goes on in their shadows, Noah Salomons careful ethnography examines the lasting effects of state Islamization on Sudanese society through a study of the individuals and organizations working in its midst. Salomon investigates Sudan at a crucial moment in its history--balanced between unity and partition, secular and religious politics, peace and war--when those who desired an Islamic state were rethinking the political form under which they had lived for nearly a generation. Countering the dominant discourse, Salomon depicts contemporary Islamic politics not as a response to secularism and Westernization but as a node in a much longer conversation within Islamic thought, augmented and reappropriated as state projects of Islamic reform became objects of debate and controversy. Among the first books to delve into the making of the modern Islamic state, For Love of the Prophet reveals both novel political ideals and new articulations of Islam as it is rethought through the lens of the nation. **
Author: George Lakoff
File Type: epub
When Moral Politics was first published two decades ago, it redefined how Americans think and talk about politics through the lens of cognitive political psychology. Today, George Lakoffs classic text has become all the more relevant, as liberals and conservatives have come to hold even more vigorously opposed views of the world, with the underlying assumptions of their respective worldviews at the level of basic morality. Even more so than when Lakoff wrote, liberals and conservatives simply have very different, deeply held beliefs about what is right and wrong. Lakoff reveals radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. Moral worldviews, like most deep ways of understanding the world, are unconsciouspart of our hard-wired brain circuitry. When confronted with facts that dont fit our moral worldview, our brains work automatically and unconsciously to ignore or reject these facts, and it takes extraordinary openness and awareness of this phenomenon to pay critical attention to the vast number of facts we are presented with each day. For this new edition, Lakoff has added a new preface and afterword, extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the books original publication, from the Affordable Care Act to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recent financial crisis, and the effects of global warming. One might have hoped such massive changes would bring people together, but the reverse has actually happened the divide between liberals and conservatives has become stronger and more virulent. To have any hope of bringing mutual respect to the current social and political divide, we need to clearly understand the problem and make it part of our contemporary public discourse. Moral Politics offers a much-needed wake-up call to both the left and the right. **Review[Moral Politics] isnt just an issue-by-issue debate. . . . [It is an] unusual mix of judicious scholarship, tendentious journalism, and inflammatory wake-up call.(San Francisco Chronicle, praise for the previous editions) Lakoff, the cognitive linguist, understands how you understand . In Moral Politics, [he] deftly applies that seemingly arcane understanding to the heart of American politics. . . . Even those who disagree with him will profit deeply from encountering his challenging ideas.(Christian Science Monitor, praise for the previous editions) About the Author George Lakoff is Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books.
Author: Bob Altemeyer
File Type: pdf
The Authoritarians summarizes the research of Dr. Robert Altemeyer, whose professional career has focused on the study of the Authoritarian Personality, and development of the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) personality and ideological variable widely studied in political, social, and personality psychology. The foreword is provided by John W. Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel and New York Times bestselling author.**
Author: Linda Parker
File Type: pdf
The cannabis plant has been used for recreational and medicinal purposes for more than 4,000 years, but the scientific investigation into its effects has only recently yielded useful results. In this book, Linda Parker offers a review of the scientific evidence on the effects of cannabinoids on brain and behavioral functioning, with an emphasis on potential therapeutic uses. Parker describes the discovery of tetrahydocannbinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of cannabis, and the further discovery of cannabinoid receptors in the brain. She explains that the brain produces chemicals similar to THC, which act on the same receptors as THC, and shows that the endocannabinoid system is involved in all aspects of brain functioning. Parker reports that cannabis contains not only the psychoactive compound THC, but also other compounds of potential therapeutic benefit, and that one of them, cannabidiol (CBD), shows promise for the treatment of pain, anxiety, and epilepsy. Parker reviews the evidence on cannabinoids and anxiety, depression, mood, sleep, schizophrenia, learning and memory, addiction, sex, appetite and obesity, chemotherapy-induced nausea, epilepsy, and such neurodegenerative disorders as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimers Disease. Each chapter also links the scientific evidence to historical and anecdotal reports of the medicinal use of cannabis. As debate about the medical use of marijuana continues, Parkers balanced and objective review of the fundamental science and potential therapeutic effects of cannabis is especially timely. **