Arendarcikas, Birute Since the Second Vatican Council and the historic embrace of Paul VI and the Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras I in January 1964, the pope and the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches have, after centuries of mutual separation, embraced each other once again as sister churches. On many occasions the pope and the hierarchs of the respective churches have drawn attention to the loving veneration of, and special devotion to, Mary, the Mother of God, (...) which both churches hold in common and which unite them as sister churches. In his apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus on devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Paul VI affirms that 'in venerating with particular love the glorious Theotokos and in acclaiming her as the "Hope of Christians", Catholics unite themselves with their brethren of the Orthodox Churches, in which devotion to the Blessed Virgin finds its expression in a beautiful lyricism and in solid doctrine'. Similarly, in a shared homily with Pope John Paul II, delivered during Vespers in the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome on 5 December 1987, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Dimitrios I said: Of all the entire Christian world our two sister Churches have maintained throughout the centuries unextinguished the flame of devotion to the most venerated person of the all holy Mother of God, dedicating to her the finest and most inspired artistic works of song, architecture and painting, turning to her sweetest figure the hearts' desires and the hopes of the devout people of every epoch. (shrink)

The Asatir is a collection of Samaritan midrashim on parts of the Torah, which reached its final form in the tenth or eleventh century. It embellishes the pericope of the Tower of Babel with a number of surprising details: The Tower of Babel was built on a mountain and had a beacon attached to its top; the mount with the tower and the valley of Shinar are compared to Mt. Gerizim and the valley of Shechem. It is argued that these (...) embellishments were introduced in order to read the story of the Tower as a blueprint for historical events surrounding the Church of Mary Theotokos, which was built by the Emperor Zenon on Mt. Gerizim and partly destroyed by the Samaritans in their revolts against Byzantium in the sixth century. The exegetical technique of reading contemporaneous history into the biblical text is discussed from a broader comparative perspective. (shrink)

Many believe that at the end of her life Mary was assumed bodily ‘into heaven’ where she remains exalted by her divine son. This claim, magisterially entitled The Doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, strikes some as absurd. Even many traditional Christians are opposed to, or have doubts about this aspect of Catholic doctrine of the Theotokos[the one who ‘gave birth to’ God]).Typically critics regard the doctrine as being at best a sentimental piety and (...) at worst a neo–Pagan accretion entirely lacking in support from any appropriate quarter. Others go further, however; suggesting that it is not simply without biblical or other evidential warrant but is in some way incoherent. Here I explore some of the sources of difficulties that confront any attempt to present and defend the doctrine.Ancient and mediaeval accounts often relate narratives of Mary’s final days. Significantly, however, they also reason that given Mary’s unique status the Assumption must have happened because it should have done. I consider this style of deductive theology before examining certain historical presentations, in which I argue that there may be material evidence of the tradition as far back as the end of the persecution of Diocletian around the time of the Edict of Milan.Thereafter I take up the philosophical problems, exploring various possibilities and suggesting that acknowledging Aquinas’s insistence on the impoverished nature of disembodied human souls, and their need of resurrected embodiment is consistent with Mary’s unique role that the mode of her present existence is of a different order to that of other separated subjects. (shrink)

Here is Lukcs among his friends, lovers, and peers in those important years before 1918, when he converted to Communism and Marxism at the age of thirty-nine.

KJORVEN M, RUSH K and HOLE R. Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18: 325–335 A discursive exploration of the practices that shape and discipline nurses’ responses to postoperative deliriumAlthough delirium is classified as a medical emergency, it is often not treated as such by health care providers. The aim of this study was to critically examine, through a poststructural, Foucauldian concept of discourse, the language practices and discourses that shape and discipline nurses' care of older adults with postoperative delirium (POD) with a (...) purpose to question accepted nursing practice. The study was based on data collected from face‐to‐face, in‐depth, personal interviews with six nurses who work on an acute postoperative patient care unit. Five analytic readings of the data identified two prominent discourses at work in nursing practice which influenced the care of patients with POD. These were identified as discourses of legitimacy/illegitimacy and discourses of nursing work. Through the process of poststructural analysis it became evident that one overriding discourse – the biomedical/scientific discourse – served to direct, legitimize and govern all other discourses. The findings of this study have implications for nursing knowledge and practice, length of hospital stay and improved patient outcomes. This study builds on previous work and is the first study to conduct a discourse analysis illuminating nurses’ responses to POD through comparison with other acute medical emergencies from a poststructural perspective. (shrink)

Two aspects of mothering—using drugs during pregnancy and giving up the rearing of one's children—are the focus of this analysis of 58 addicted Chicana mothers who spent their adolescent years in barrio gangs. From a traditional stance, such women were doubly deviant, since they violated gender-role prescriptions by joining a barrio gang and by becoming involved in heroin and street life. Half of these women added to this deviance by using heroin during pregnancy, and 40 percent relinquished at least one (...) of their children. This article explores what distinguishes these classically “bad mothers” from addicts who maintain some degree of conventionality in their mothering. We found that Mexican gender-role traditionalism is not the only influence on these women. Many came from cholo or underclass families with a tradition of street involvement. In addition, their involvement in gang and heroin worlds may influence their behavior as mothers. We found that women who used drugs during pregnancy were more likely than abstainers to be cholas and to reject traditional gender-role values. However, those who gave up their children were more likely than those who kept their children to be from traditional families. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on deviance and the underclass among Hispanic women. (shrink)

Several decision rules, including the minimax regret rule, have been posited to suggest optimizing strategies for an individual when neither objective nor subjective probabilities can be associated to the various states of the world. These all share the shortcoming of focusing only on extreme outcomes. This paper suggests an alternative approach of ‘tempered regrets’ which may more closely replicate the decision process of individuals in those situations in which avoiding the worst outcome tempers the loss from not achieving the best (...) outcome. The assumption of total ignorance of the probabilities associated with the various states is maintained. Applications and illustrations from standard neoclassical theory are discussed. (shrink)

ExcerptWhen the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights issued its report1 on August 26, 2020, one of the questions most frequently asked by journalists was: “What do you expect to become of it?” Or, as one put it more bluntly, “What will prevent this report from just accumulating dust on some forgotten library shelf?”.

Pope Francis's has described his vision for a synodal Church, not simply as a once off programme of renewal, but as God's desire for the Church of the third millennium. As such, it aims to concretise the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, making the Church today more manifestly one of communion, participation, and mission. It differs from previous synods and Councils in history in that it more directly invites and involves all the baptised in a direct process of listening (...) and discernment to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This paper aims to understand from a theological perspective how listening will work in a synodal Church, by exploring firstly what we mean by the ecclesiology of communion from the Council. Such an ecclesiology, manifesting the equal dignity of the faithful in Christ, will ground listening at the level of participation in God as well as acknowledging the gift of infallibility given to the whole Church. It means calling on the Holy Spirit to help discern how and where, the apostolic deposit of faith has been received by members of the body. It also explores what we mean by listening to the sensus fidei of the whole body and how the authority of laity and hierarchy operate both in united but distinct ways within a synodal process grounded in communion ecclesiology. Overall, such listening is to be done carefully for the sake of the Church's mission as the sacrament of salvation to the world. (shrink)

For much of the 20th century, dance writers and critics regularly bemoaned a shortage of male dancers. As one writer put it, the average American father would rather see his son dead than performing on stage in tights. This article looks at commentary about male dancing as a means of understanding popular conceptions of effeminacy. It addresses the way discourses about sport, physical prowess and hard bodies have been appropriated in attempts to validate the manliness of male dancers. Drawing on (...) works by dance educators, critics and dancers, such as Gene Kelly and American modern dancer Ted Shawn, the article looks at gendered notions of the body and movement and the way these have been shaped by the late 19th-century conflation of effeminacy and homosexuality. The athleticism and muscularity of male dancers were to have brought them mainstream respect; that they have yet to do so at all but elite levels reminds us that even the hardest bodies must be read through the limitations of the discursive contexts in which they move. (shrink)

'...a fascinating analysis of the status of the obscene and its representation in pornography in modern culture.... Caputi's thesis is masterfully argued....'-James Glass, University of Maryland.

How contemporary Chinese art is creating “a philosophy of life, a philosophy of politics, and a natural philosophy,” as artist Qiu Zhijie says it must, is explored in this collection of essays by philosophers and art historians from America and China.

A thorough account of the philosophy of mathematics. In a cogent account the author argues against the view that mathematics is solely logic.

Aristotle’s notoriously difficult Metaphysics Ζ, which investigates substance, has been the subject of intense debate in the past twenty years. Myles Burnyeat’s Map of Metaphysics Zeta is a ground-breaking intervention in that discussion. Burnyeat examines the overall shape of Ζ, particularly the signposts that structure the argument and link it to the larger project of First Philosophy in Metaphysics, as well as to the Organon. On his approach, to understand what Ζ says, we must first attend to how the issues (...) are addressed and why they are addressed in that way. The result is a book that challenges cherished assumptions and forces the rethinking of Ζ from several new perspectives. (shrink)

An exploration of the limitations of the language of "mental health" in the light of suicide epidemics at universities, and a sketch of the existentialist understanding of death as alternative.

This paper analyzes the struggle for women’s suffrage in Kuwait to determine how and why it was successful. The research highlights two paradoxical findings: first, democratic progress occurred despite the pacifying and hindering effects of modernization; second, it was supported more strongly and effectively by Kuwait's autocratic executive than the democratically elected Kuwaiti parliament. We delineate two psychological factors that were connected to the climax of the struggle as they were experienced and acted upon by a relatively small number of (...) Kuwaiti middle- and upper-class women: transformative events and the tying of struggle goals to self-esteem. We examine these factors in the context of interaction between chaotic political circumstances and the new strategy and tactics that suffragists employed in the last phase of their struggle. The analytic approach involves process tracing, field research, interviews, and longitudinal analysis of primary and secondary sources. (shrink)