bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Magister Elephantorum : A Reappraisal of Hannibal's Use of Elephants
Authors: Charles Michael B , Rhodan Peter
Published: September 2007

This article, which examines all the available evidence for Hannibal's use of elephants in the Second Punic War, refutes the contention that Hannibal was especially innovative in his tactical use of the beasts. In addition, greater reliance on elephants in Italy, particularly after his success at the Trebia, would have hindered Hannibal in his lengthy campaign against Rome. The article also contends that Hannibal's use of massed elephants at Zama highlights the degree to which he was accustomed to take chances in the field, especially given his demonstrable familiarity with the fickle nature of elephants when used for military purposes.
Not Great Man History: Reconceptualizing a Course on Alexander the Great
Authors: Flower Michael A
Published: September 2007

A course dedicated to the figure of Alexander is the most traditional type of history. But must such a course necessarily be "great man history"—that is, the kind of old-fashioned history that focuses on the thoughts, feelings, motives, and intentions of a single individual who "makes" history? This paper will suggest ways in which one can teach a course on Alexander that also looks at broader issues, such as ethnicity, ideology, the economic, political, and social impact of the conquest on the peoples of Greece and Asia, and the literary analysis (as opposed to source criticism) of our extant authorities.
Eteocles' Moral Awareness in Aeschylus' Seven
Authors: Lawrence Stuart E
Published: September 2007

Eteocles displays outstanding moral awareness for a tragic hero. He enters the Seven innocent of wrongdoing against father or brother. His religious understanding is extraordinary in the shield scene, and he rightly accepts the inevitable fratricide, choosing the ethic of the warrior and city-defender. He concedes that he is inspired by a Fury-driven battle lust, which is more amor fati than fraternal hatred. Though "free will" is strictly an anachronism, he and the chorus assume throughout that he possesses sufficient autonomy to decide and act, even if this restricts him to accepting stoically the inevitable.
Arrian and the Greek Alexander Romance
Authors: McInerney Jeremy
Published: September 2007

This paper examines the Greek Alexander Romance from the point of view of narratology, looking at the motifs, patterns of storytelling, and ways that the Romance created the figure of Alexander. The same approach is applied to the work of Arrian, the most widely read and most reliable of the Alexander historians. What this analysis shows is that the boundaries between romance and history are less fixed than we usually suppose and that to read the history of Alexander critically means seeing how, in all genres, Alexander is a composite who grows out of the audience's desire to see in him the hero and the great man undone by his own character.
Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of Romanità
Authors: Nelis Jan
Published: September 2007

The idea of a heritage from ancient Rome, or romanità, was central to Italian Fascism. This article analyzes Il Duce Mussolini's discourse on romanità in the forty-four volumes of his Opera Omnia, focusing on key themes such as empire, historical characters, and the grandeur of archaeological remains. It links Mussolini's discourse of romanità to his discourse on the future and to the idea of Fascism as a political religion. It shows that Mussolini's historical knowledge was largely overstated and that it was mainly the omnipresence of romanità, rather than its specific features, which can be defined as central to this notion.
Horace Carm. 4.7 and the Epic Tradition
Authors: Putnam Michael C. J
Published: September 2007

The paper examines closely the last four lines (25–28) of Horace Carm. 4.7. Initial discussion centers on the connection between Horace's stanza and the simile at Aeneid 11.492–497 as well as on the latter's sources in Ennius and Homer. The paper turns to the irony in Horace's nomenclature—we find, for instance a Hippolytus who is confined rather than serving as a releaser—and then to the differences between Horace's treatment of Aeneas, Theseus, and Hippolytus and that of Vergil. Finally it looks at meter as metaphor, and asks why Horace used the second Archilochian, which combines epic and elegiac elements, only here.
From Babylon to Baghdad: Teaching Alexander after 9/11
Authors: Romm James S
Published: September 2007

In light of America's post-9/11 involvement in the Middle East, teachers of ancient history can give new relevance to the Alexander era, another period in which a Western superpower projected military force into Mesopotamia and Central Asia. While the parallels between the two ventures are far from exact, the questions raised in connection with Alexander's campaigns, both by the ancient historians who recorded it and by modern scholars, will inevitably bring to students' minds similar questions about the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such resonances, if acknowledged and explored in the classroom, can enliven and energize the study of ancient history, as well as better prepare young citizens for the choices they face.
Can the African Virtual University Transform Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Authors: Hicks Esther K
Published: September 2007

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the funding of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) steadily declined as investment emphasis shifted from higher education to basic education. By the second half of the 1990s, a more balanced view had developed of the relationship among primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. Unfortunately, there has been no way to quickly fix the deteriorated higher education infrastructure. Alternative systems of providing higher education have had to be explored. In 1998, the World Bank, CIDA (Canada), DfID (UK), and AusAID (Australia) collaborated to sponsor the introduction of a new form of distance education to SSA: the e-learning-based African Virtual University (AVU). Since then, the AVU has struggled to leapfrog over the debilitating problems of higher education institutions in the region and transform itself from an international agency/donor project into a full-fledged "virtual university." This essay outlines the circumstances and conditions that led to the development of the AVU, and examines its credibility as an alternative higher education strategy for SSA. It explores the effect that poor or nonexistent national information communication technology (ICT) infrastructures have had on the evolution of the AVU, and addresses whether, and how, such a top-down, externally imposed innovation can have a future in the region.
Innovation and Development: India as an Example
Authors: Melnick Vijaya L , Melnick Daniel
Published: September 2007

Innovation is the key to transforming people's lives. Scientific research and novel technologies deliver real benefits only when innovators appropriately apply them to improve the lives of ordinary people. Innovative approaches anchored in the local context assume a truly transformative power. This essay discusses the role of innovation in development and uses examples from India that illustrate how that country has facilitated innovation to transform how people live, work, and overcome problems by drawing upon critical resources. Changed values and decisions—highly personal and specific factors—emerge as key. These innovations critically involve the diffusion of new ideas and their acceptance by new users. Innovation and technology transfer are vital elements in this story. Examining how innovations are implemented reveals the tension between national advances and delivering the benefits of change to all parts of Indian society. Making technology accessible to a wider Indian public involves the diffusion of new approaches, the internalization of new ideas, and transfer of these approaches from the technological cadre that is a product of India's elite scientific and technical institutions to the broader public. The essay describes a number of efforts to disseminate advances to disadvantaged groups and to involve them in the development process. The questions that remain are: Will this effort be sufficient to retain the support of Indians for advances that demand change and a renewed commitment to excellent efforts? What is the appropriate balance between growth and social justice? Clearly, these are issues that the current Indian government has at the top of its agenda. [End Page 202]
Innovation Cultures in Developing Countries: The Case of Health Biotechnology
Authors: Thorsteinsdóttir Halla , Singer Peter A. , Daar A. S
Published: September 2007

Innovation culture is synonymous in many people's minds with industrially advanced countries. Several developing countries have, however, singled out health biotechnology and attempted to promote indigenous innovation in the field. This essay will discuss case studies on health-biotechnology innovation in seven developing countries: Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, South Africa, and South Korea. All have scientific and technological capacity in the health-biotechnology field; they represent different parts of the world and present significant differences in income levels and population size. We will start by briefly reviewing the literature on the transfer of technology for promoting development to provide a general context for examining health-biotechnology development in these countries. We will then discuss in detail the comparative case studies on health-biotechnology innovation in these seven developing countries and explore their successes, discuss the main characteristics of the innovation in these countries, and delineate lessons on how they have been able to foster such innovation. [End Page 178]
Dialogical Differences: (De-)Judaizing Jesus' Circumcision
Authors: Jacobs Andrew S.
Published: September 2007

This essay seeks to rethink the inscription of difference in early Christianity by focusing on the role of the circumcision of Jesus—a paradigmatically Jewish mark on the Christian savior's body—in early Christian "dialogue"-texts (both external dialogues, such as Justin's Dialogue with Trypho, as well as erotapokriseis-texts, here framed as internal dialogues). When we examine how difference is both inscribed and deferred in these texts, as it is on Christ's body, we can realize how difference is never really "other" but always retained within the chorus of Christian cultural identity, a productive heteroglossia that recalls the dominant strategies of Roman imperial power.
The Original Sequence of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1: Another Suggestion
Authors: Kalvesmaki Joel
Published: September 2007

David Tripp argues that the present sequence of Irenaeus's Against Heresies, book one, does not follow the original order. A close analysis of his argument finds it mostly deficient. But Tripp has identified a genuine discrepancy between books one and two. I suggest two possible ways of resolving it. Either Irenaeus did not accurately recapitulate the contents of book one in his preface to book two or he wrote book one in two drafts: he first refuted only the Valentinians, but then turned the material into a global heresiology. I suggest the second solution should be taken more seriously since it explains a number of other peculiar features of Against Heresies.
The Ancient Church Order Literature: Genre or Tradition?
Authors: Mueller Joseph G
Published: September 2007

The ancient Christian texts frequently called "church orders" do not fit this label well, and attempts to define a single literary genre for these texts have proven problematic. One can consider them as witnesses to a tradition of ecclesiological Old Testament exegesis that conceives itself as apostolic. This becomes clear by an extension to all these texts of insights from recent studies on the Didascalia apostolorum and the Apostolic Constitutions. This move makes it possible to group these texts with many others that witness to this same tradition, which maintains a dynamic contact with ancient Jewish exegesis.
''Under the Benign Sun of Toleration'': Mathew Carey, the Douai Bible, and Catholic Print Culture, 1789–1791
Authors: Carter Michael S
Published: September 2007

Mathew Carey's Douai Bible of 1790 was the first Catholic and only the second English Bible published in the Americas. It was also part of the first group of Catholic devotional and instructional works printed in early America, all produced by Carey, and marks the emergence of a Catholic presence in late-eighteenth century American print culture. During the period, Enlightenment attitudes about toleration for religious minorities came into conflict with the Enlightenment's critique of Catholicism's perceived role in history and stereotypes about Catholics as hostile to Bible reading. The appearance of Carey's Bible and other Catholic publications coincided with creation of the first American diocese and appointment of its first bishop, John Carroll, in 1789. During this brief period after limited toleration was first granted to Catholics at the federal level, lay Catholics such as Carey co-opted Enlightenment critiques of European Catholic intolerance to argue for increased toleration of their own faith in the new republic. By positioning themselves as supporters of republicanism and religious plurality, and by contributing to and representing themselves in print and in civic organizations, Catholics announced their support for democratic values, literacy, and the tolerance they sought for their own faith.
The Root of the Evil: Free Produce and Radical Antislavery, 1820–1860
Authors: Faulkner Carol
Published: September 2007

Though seldom studied, advocates of "free produce," or abstinence from the products of slave labor, were the radical conscience of American abolitionism, leading the call for immediate emancipation, embracing interracial organizing, and promoting moral suasion through exemplary behavior. Following successful eighteenth-century boycotts, British Quaker Elizabeth Heyrick argued in 1824 that a movement advancing free produce could quickly end slavery. Linking the sins of the consumer with the sins of the slaveholder, American advocates of free produce urged fellow abolitionists to renounce all contact with human bondage. Often portrayed as ineffectual purists committed to individual salvation, supporters in fact promoted free labor through practical measures like stores and associations. While William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists rejected the boycott in the 1840s, women like Lucretia Mott and African Americans like Henry Highland Garnet continued to urge the use of free produce until the Civil War. Activist women emphasized free produce as a matter of ideological consistency and moral responsibility. For black abolitionists, experiments in free cotton and sugar production contributed to their growing interest in emigration in the 1850s. While the movement never gained enough adherents to destroy slavery, its continuing popularity among the most radical and diverse group of abolitionists suggests that anti-slavery, like many other liberation movements, depended upon such symbolic sacrifices.
The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Hamilton, Madison, and U.S.–British Relations, 1783–89
Authors: Schwarz Michael
Published: September 2007

The "Great Divergence" between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison remains one of the most puzzling phenomena in the history of the Early Republic. As members of the Confederation Congress, delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and principal authors of The Federalist Papers, Hamilton and Madison worked together throughout the 1780s to strengthen the impotent national government. Yet by the early 1790s Madison appeared to have renounced his earlier nationalism, embraced a more limited construction of federal power, and joined with Thomas Jefferson in opposition to Hamilton and his Federalist supporters. The question of why Madison suddenly changed course has for two centuries produced a variety of answers, the overwhelming majority of which have focused almost exclusively on Madison's words and deeds. But Madison maintained to the end of his life that it was not he who had abandoned Hamilton but rather Hamilton who had abandoned him. Though few scholars have taken Madison seriously, there is evidence to suggest that from a certain point of view his contention qualifies as highly plausible. If we focus on the important issue of U.S.-British relations, and if we subject Hamilton's words and deeds to the same kind of scrutiny once reserved for Madison, we find that on matters relevant to Anglo-American affairs Madison had good reason for believing that Hamilton had abandoned him.
Writers in the Old Southwest and the Commercialization of American Letters
Authors: Shields Johanna Nicol
Published: September 2007

This essay analyzes the publishing experiences of six Southwestern writers: Caroline Hentz and Augusta Evans, writers of popular sentimental fiction; Johnson Hooper and Joseph Baldwin, best known for their humorous stories; and William Russell Smith and Alexander Meek, who wrote in many genres. Scholars have explored the impact of capitalism on Northern writers by examining their texts and, to a lesser extent, their direct engagement with the market, but they have discussed antebellum Southern writers as if they were excluded from the domain of capitalism, and they have done so without investigating writers' economic behavior. This essay argues that the involvement of southwestern writers with the market affected them in ways that complicate our understanding of the relationship between capitalism and authorship. Regardless of how much money they earned from writing, Southwestern authors constantly pursued readers. They first sought to mobilize readers behind the idea of a purely Southern literature, and then, like writers in the North, they sought national readerships through Northern publishing firms. In the process, Southwestern writers accommodated to the market and internalized its values, but they discovered tension between their conduct as authors and their character as Southerners. And, despite their attempt to address people across the country, their work reflected the sectional conflict that took place in the market for printed materials. Ultimately, the commercialization of letters affected the way they thought of themselves both as writers and as Southerners.
From Whence the Phrase ''Timebound, Positive Commandments''?
Authors: Alexander Elizabeth Shanks
Published: September 2007

This article examines the mishnaic rule that women are exempt from all timebound, positive commandments. It argues that the rule does not offer clear evidence concerning rabbinic views of women. The common reading of the rule regards it a statement of normative law that accommodates how women typically use their time. By way of contrast, this article proposes that the key terms of the rule ("timebound, positive commandments from which women are exempt") were formulated as a summary of exegetical exercises concerning tefillin. Only later in the transmissional history of the rule did it come to be regarded as normative law. The article reconstructs the long-forgotten exegetical roots of the rule. A second task of this article is to set the observations about the exegetical roots of the rule in the context of recent scholarly discussions about the schools of R. Ishmael and R. Akiba. It has been proposed that the school of R. Ishmael presents halakhah in a way that makes it roots in scripture clear. By way of contrast, the school of R. Akiba presents halakhah as a teaching received from earlier generations of authoritative teachers. This article argues that one reason the exegetical roots of the rule have gone un-noticed for so long is that the rule reaches us primarily in the form of the mishnaic formulation from the school of R. Akiba, which de-emphasizes halakhah's scriptural roots. The article examines the rich evidence of sources from the school of R. Ishmael to fill in the gaps.
On the Cusp of Christianity: Virgin Sacrifice in Pseudo-Philo and Amos Oz
Authors: Feldman Yael S.
Published: September 2007

This article suggests that the Apocryphal "rewritten" Bible known as "Pseudo-Philo" had a significant impact – heretofore unacknowledged - on Amos Oz's early story, Ish Pere [Wild Man, 1966]. I argue that four decades ago the young Oz fortuitously stumbled on a Hebrew rendition of a small fragment of "Pseudo-Philo," which had been published without any attribution. Oz was obviously unaware of the problematically marginal source of this text. Yet it was precisely its marginality, or perhaps liminality, that offered him a different vantage point, an "extraneous" perspective, from which he could re-envision the two troubling sacrificial narratives of the Hebraic [and Zionist] canon: The Binding of Isaac, and the Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter. The particular sacrificial amalgam created by Oz was greatly facilitated by one of Pseudo-Philo's celebrated narrative extravagancies: his magnification of the role of Jephthah's daughter, whom he named for the first time ever, and whom he daringly made identify - self consciously and enthusiastically - with Isaac as a willing sacrifice. This move was to be later embraced by Christianity but severely criticized by Rabbinic Judaism. It was this proto-Christian blending, I suggest, that inspired Oz's unobtrusive anticipation of both the feminist critique of the daughter's sacrifice and the Israeli psycho-political assault on the son's binding-qua-sacrifice, commonly traced to the impact of the 1967-1973 Wars.
An Ex-Sabbatean's Remorse? Sambari's Polemics against Islam
Authors: Jacobs Martin
Published: September 2007

The present study discusses the Hebrew chronicle Divre Yosef by the seventeenth-century Egyptian Jewish author Joseph Sambari. This chronicle, a history of the Jews in the Islamic world, is prefaced by a lengthy introduction to the origins of Islam in which Sambari employs biblical allusions and midrashim that result in a subversive subtext designed to be decoded solely by a Jewish audience trained in that tradition. Sambari makes polemical use of biblical exegesis, which serves as a mode of constructing a Jewish religious identity vis-à-vis a competing tradition—Islam. As part of his project, Sambari satirizes Islamic legends about the life of Muhammad. Jacobs's thesis is that Sambari not only concealed an anti-Islamic polemic within the complex textual allusions of his work but that he also adhered to an anti-Sabbatean agenda. He argues that Sambari's jibes against Islam can be understood as a response to the failure of the messianic movement around Sabbatai Sevi after the messianic candidate and some of his followers had converted to Islam. This religious crisis had blurred the boundaries between Judaism and Islam; and a desire to redraw these lines of difference motivated Sambari—in all likelihood an ex-Sabbatean himself—to compose his chronicle. In addition, the article argues that Sambari's work echoes a puritanical tendency in seventeenth-century Ottoman Islam that was inspired by the preachers of the Kadizadeli movement and which—while originally directed against certain Islamic Sufi orders—may have conditioned the Ottoman response to the Jewish messianic movement.
Effects of Body Mass Index and Age on N-Terminal Pro–Brain Natriuretic Peptide Are Associated with Glomerular Filtration Rate in Chronic Heart Failure Patients
Authors: Schou Morten , Gustafsson Finn , Kistorp Caroline N , Corell Pernille , Kjaer Andreas , Hildebrandt Per R
Published: September 2007

Background: Obesity is a state characterized by glomerular hyperfiltration and age-related decreases in glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Body mass index (BMI), age, and GFR are associated with plasma concentrations of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients. We hypothesized that the effects of BMI and age on plasma concentrations of NT-proBNP are associated with GFR.

Methods: We obtained clinical data and laboratory test results from 345 CHF patients at the baseline visit in our heart failure clinic and examined the hypothesis using multiple linear regression models.

Results: Age (P = 0.0184), BMI (P = 0.0098), hemoglobin (P = 0.0043), heart rhythm (P <0.0001), and left ventricular ejection fraction (P <0.0001) were associated with log(NT-proBNP). After adjustment for GFR estimated by the Cockcroft and Gault equation, the parameter estimates for BMI (P = 0.3807) and age (P = 0.7238) changed markedly and became insignificant. In another model, after adjustment for GFR estimated by the 4-component Modification of Diet in Renal Disease formula (eGFRMDRD), the parameter estimates for age (P = 0.0674) changed markedly and became insignificant, but BMI (P = 0.0067) remained significant and unchanged. The eGFRMDRD is adjusted for body surface area, which may explain the difference.

Conclusions: In CHF patients, the effect of age on NT-proBNP is associated with estimates for GFR derived from serum creatinine, and the significance of the effects of BMI on NT-proBNP depends on the method by which GFR is estimated.
Observed Differences in Diagnostic Test Accuracy between Patient Subgroups: Is It Real or Due to Reference Standard Misclassification?
Authors: Biesheuvel Corné , Irwig Les , Bossuyt Patrick
Published: September 2007

Before a new test is introduced in clinical practice, its accuracy should be assessed. In the past decade, researchers have put an increased emphasis on exploring differences in test sensitivity and specificity between patient subgroups. If the reference standard is imperfect and the prevalence of the target condition differs among subgroups, apparent differences in test sensitivity and specificity between subgroups may be caused by reference standard misclassification. We provide guidance on how to determine whether observed differences may be explained by reference standard misclassification. Such misclassification may be ascertained by examining how the apparent sensitivity and specificity change with the prevalence of the target condition in the subgroups.
Impact of Hemoglobin on Plasma Pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide Concentrations in the General Population
Authors: Nybo Mads , Benn Marianne , Mogelvang Rasmus , Jensen Jan Skov , Schnohr Peter , Rehfeld Jens F , Goetze Jens Peter
Published: September 2007

Background: Age, sex, and renal function contribute to variations in plasma concentrations of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and its molecular precursor (proBNP). Recent studies indicate that anemia may also affect proBNP concentrations in patients with heart failure or stroke. However, the impact of hemoglobin status on proBNP concentrations has not been established in the general population.

Methods: In the 4th examination in the Copenhagen City Heart Study, we performed a nested case-control study of 6238 individuals from a Danish general population. Of these, 3497 randomly selected participants also underwent an echocardiographic examination. The population was stratified into groups depending on health and hemoglobin status. Correlations between hemoglobin and proBNP concentrations were examined by simple and multiple regression analyses, adjusted for variables known to influence the proBNP plasma concentration.

Results: The mean proBNP concentration was increased 1.7-fold in the group with anemia vs the nonanemic group [mean (SD) 42 (45) pmol/L vs 25 (29) pmol/L, P <0.0001, n = 5892]. Multiple regression analysis confirmed an independent effect of hemoglobin on proBNP concentrations. In a selected subgroup without signs or symptoms of heart disease (n = 2855), lower hemoglobin concentrations, defined as <120 g/L in women and <130 g/L in men, were associated with increased circulating proBNP concentrations, but the contribution to the overall variation in proBNP concentrations was modest.

Conclusions: Because moderate anemia is associated with a 1.7-fold increase in proBNP concentrations, hemoglobin concentrations should be taken into consideration in patients with nonspecific symptoms of heart disease and increased proBNP concentrations.
N-Terminal Fatty Acylation of Transducin Profoundly Influences Its Localization and the Kinetics of Photoresponse in Rods
Authors: Kerov Vasily , Rubin William W. , Natochin Michael , Melling Nathan A. , Burns Marie E. , Artemyev Nikolai O.
Published: September 2007

N-terminal acylation of the α-subunits of heterotrimeric G-proteins is believed to play a major role in regulating the cellular localization and signaling of G-proteins, but physiological evidence has been lacking. To examine the functional significance of N-acylation of a well understood G-protein α-subunit, transducin (Gαt), we generated transgenic mice that expressed a mutant Gαtlacking N-terminal acylation sequence (GαtG2A). Rods expressing GαtG2A showed a severe defect in transducin cellular localization. In contrast to native Gαt, which resides in the outer segments of dark-adapted rods, GαtG2A was found predominantly in the inner compartments of the photoreceptor cells. Remarkably, transgenic rods with the outer segments containing GαtG2A at 5–6% of the Gαtlevels in wild-type rods showed only a sixfold reduction in sensitivity and a threefold decrease in the amplification constant. The much smaller than predicted reduction may reflect an increase in the lateral diffusion of transducin and an increased activation rate by photoexcited rhodopsin or more efficient activation of cGMP phosphodiesterase 6 by GαtG2A; alternatively, nonlinear relationships between concentration and the activation rate of transducin also potentially contribute to the mismatch between the amplification constant and quantitative expression analysis of GαtG2A rods. Furthermore, the G2A mutation reduced the GTPase activity of transducin and resulted in two to three times slower than normal recovery of flash responses of transgenic rods, indicating the role of Gαtmembrane tethering for its efficient inactivation by the regulator of G-protein signaling 9 GTPase-activating protein complex. Thus, N-acylation is critical for correct compartmentalization of transducin and controls the rate of its deactivation.
Ekottarika-agama Parallel to the Saccavibhanga-sutta and the Four (Noble) Truths
Authors: Anālayo Ven.
Published: September 2007

The present article offers a translation of the Ekottarika-agama parallel to the Saccavibhanga-sutta, followed by a discussion of a significant difference to be found between the Pali and the Ekottarika-agama versions of this discourse. This difference supports the suggestion that at an earlier time references to the four noble truths in this and other discourses may have been without the qualification 'noble'.
List-based Formulae in the Avadanasataka
Authors: Collett Alice
Published: September 2007

This article is a study of formulaic passages in the Sanskrit Avadanasataka. Alongside a preliminary discussion of work on oral studies within Buddhism, and some recourse to wider oral studies on Indian texts, the focus of this article is a two-part study of formulae and constituents of formulae. The first part of the article details formulaic sections from the Avadanasataka, from short formulae about wealthy merchants to lengthy counterparts that detail the consequences of a Buddha's smile. The second part looks in detail at constituents of the formulaic passages. The passages are constructed around semantic lists, which either constitute the whole formulaic phrase or passages, or (sometimes along with verses) can be identified as the building blocks for the passages. To my knowledge (such as it is) this is the first study of semantic list-based formulae in a Sanskrit text.
Story of the Horse-King and the Merchant Simhala in Buddhist Texts
Authors: Appleton Naomi
Published: September 2007

The Asvaraja story relates the adventures of a caravan of merchants shipwrecked on an island of demonesses and rescued by a flying horse, the asvaraja, ‘king of horses’. The Simhala story continues this narrative to include the chief merchant, Simhala, being followed home by a demoness, who tries to get him back before seducing and eating the king. Simhala is crowned king and invades the island. Each story has many versions, both Mahayana and non-Mahayana. This paper examines five key versions: birth story with ‘ocean of samsara’ metaphor; political and quasi-historical narrative of the invasion of Sri Lanka by the Sinhalese; warning that ‘all women are demonesses’; glorifi cation of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara; and Newar warning of the dangers of travelling to Tibet. Each version reveals some of the issues that its community is preoccupied with.
Soteriology, Asceticism and the Female Body in Two Indian Buddhist Narratives
Authors: Osto Douglas
Published: September 2007

This paper makes a number of observations on soteriology, asceticism and the female body in two Indian Buddhist narrative. The first story examined is about the enlightenment of the Buddhist saint Yasas from a collection of verses know as the Anavatapta-gatha, or Songs of Lake Anavatapta. This narrative graphically describes a rotting female corpse and associates this physical corruption with the female body in general. The second story is about a mythical girl from the ancient past found in the Mahayana scripture, the Gandavyuha-sutra. The female protagonist is described as exceedingly beautiful and her beauty functions as a sign of her spiritual superiority and as a means to aid beings. After a summary of these two tales, their soteriological presuppositions are discussed. Next,the effect of Buddhist soteriology upon the construction of gendered bodies in Indian Buddhism is considered. The author argues that the first story represents an ascetic soteriology that sees the female body as corrupt, while the second story displays an alternative devotional soteriology that extols female beauty as linked to virtue and as efficacious for religious development. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the narratives employing the image of the corrupt female body were meant for a male monastic audience; while the Gandavyuha with its devotional soteriology may have been composed with a royal female audience in mind. Thus target audience should be considered when studying Indian Buddhist narratives.
Anagarika Munindra and the Historical Context of the Vipassana Movement
Authors: Pryor C. Robert
Published: September 2007

Anagarika Munindra (1915-2003) played an important role in the movement to teach vipassana meditation, and to spread this method widely in South Asia and the West. His life is examined with respect to its historical context and the spread of the vipassana movement from Burma to India and then to North America, Europe, and Australia. His family background as a Barua caste member, involvement with the Mahabodhi Society and the Buddha Jayanti celebration of 1956 are examined in order to clarify the origins and historical significance of vipassana meditation as it spread in popularity during the second half of the twentieth century. The importance of his role as an essential link between the Burmese vipassana masters with whom he studied and his western students who have now become important meditation teachers is explained in order to shed light on the origins and signifi cance of the vipassana movement in contemporary Buddhism.
Death and Rebirth of Buddhism in Contemporary Japan
Authors: Tanabe George
Published: September 2007

This paper examines the theme of the death and rebirth of Buddhism in contemporary Japan as treated in several works written by Buddhist priests, scholars, and writers for the general public. Though Buddhist rituals and customs are still widespread, most people and even many priests do not understand their meanings. This empty formalism is perceived as the death of Buddhism. There are many calls for reviving Buddhism, and they comprise two types. The first seeks the rebirth of Buddhism through socially and culturally engaged activities that have little or no connection with Buddhist teachings. The second suggestion calls for the revival of traditional doctrines. What is missing is the medieval pattern of truly new interpretations, which by definition must deviate from old understandings significantly enough to be heresies.
Kambala's Alokamala and the Perils of Philology
Authors: Scherer Burkhard
Published: September 2007

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Index to the Majjhima-nikaya, by M. Yamazaki & Y. Ousaka (eds)
Authors: Norman Roy
Published: September 2007

Index to the Majjhima-nikaya, by M. Yamazaki & Y. Ousaka (eds) (Lancaster: Pali Text Society, 2006), pp. xi + 473, £35.50. ISBN 0 86013 421 0 (EAN 978 086013 421)
The Notion of Ditthi in Theravada Buddhism: The Point of View, Paul Fuller
Authors: Burton David
Published: September 2007

The Notion of Ditthi in Theravada Buddhism: The Point of View, Paul Fuller (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), pp. xiv + 257, £65.00 (Cloth). ISBN 0 415-34293-7
Mipham’s Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness: To Be, Not to Be or Neither, Karma Phuntsho
Authors: Mayer Robert
Published: September 2007

Mipham’s Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness: To Be, Not to Be or Neither, Karma Phuntsho (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 304 pp. £65.00 (Hb). ISBN 0415352525
Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan, James C. Dobbins
Authors: Amstutz Galen
Published: September 2007

Letters of the Nun Eshinni: Images of Pure Land Buddhism in Medieval Japan, James C. Dobbins (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), 259 pp. $25.00 (Pb). ISBN 0824826671 (Hb); 0824828704 (Pb)
Land Crisis in Zimbabwe
Authors: Cox James
Published: September 2007

Earlier this year, I received a small grant from the Edinburgh University Development Trust Fund to determine the feasibility of formulating a major research project exploring the religious dimensions within the recent land resettlement programme in Zimbabwe. Since spirit mediums had played such an important role in the first Shona uprising in 1896–97 against colonial occu¬pation (the so-called First Chimurenga) (Parsons, 1985: 50-51) and again in the war of liberation between 1972 and 1979 (the Second Chimurenga) (Lan, 1985), I suspected that these central points of contact between the spirit world and the living communities would be affecting the sometimes militant invasions of white commercial farms that began sporadically in 1998, but became systematic after the constitutional referendum of February 2000. Under the terms of the grant, I went with my colleague, Tabona Shoko of the University of Zimbabwe, in July and August 2004, to two regions of Zimbabwe: Mount Darwin in the northeast, where recent activities by war veterans and spirit mediums had been reported, and to the Mberengwa District, where land resettlement programmes have been widespread. This article reports on my preliminary findings in Mount Darwin, where I sought to determine if evidence could be found to link the role of Traditional Religion, particularly through spirit mediums, to the current land redistribution programme, and, if so, whether increasing levels of political intolerance within Zimbabwean society could be blamed, in part at least, on these customary beliefs and practices
Alpha Programme
Authors: Hunt Stephen
Published: September 2007

The Alpha course is possibly the most widespread and best known evangelizing initiative of recent times. Billing itself as an introduction into ‘basic Christianity’, Alpha is an innovating course that has been adopted world-wide by tens of thousands of churches. This paper overviews the research methods of a national survey in the UK which were utilized in order to investigate and analyse various aspects of Alpha including its use in different contexts, who joins the programme and why, and its anticipated levels of success. These aspects of Alpha were explored through a variety of research methods; questionnaires; semi-structured interviews; participant observation; and a literature review.
Psychological Types of Male and Female Lay Church Leaders in England, Compared with United Kingdom Population Norms
Authors: Francis Leslie
Published: September 2007

A sample of 322 evangelical lay church leaders completed Form G (Anglicized) of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Among the female church leaders extraversion and introversion were equally represented. There were preferences for sensing over intuition, for feeling over thinking, and for judging over perceiving. Among the male church leaders there were preferences for introversion over extraversion, intuition over sensing, for thinking over feeling, and for judging over perceiving. The type preferences of the current samples were statistically analysed in comparison with the United Kingdom population norms (Kendall, 1998). It was found that evangelical lay church leaders differ from the United Kingdom population in a number of significant ways; most notably, intuitive types are significantly over-represented among both male and female evangelical lay church leaders compared to the United Kingdom population norms.
Closed Worlds
Authors: Gilliat-Ray Sophie
Published: September 2007

This article reports upon the unsuccessful efforts made to negotiate research access to four Deobandi dar ul-uloom (Islamic ‘seminaries’) in the UK. I describe the attempts that I (and others) have made to conduct research in these institutions, and consider various ways that refusal might be interpreted. I explain why access has been problematic, principally on account of the history of the institutions, the nature of the setting, the current socio-political climate, and the ‘anathema’ of fieldwork and ethnographic research to the institutions themselves. But even when researchers are denied access, I argue that this nevertheless counts as ‘data’, and that there are ways of redressing the apparent imbalance of power. Locating my experiences within current debates and literature in sociology, anthropology and ethnography I reflect upon the strategies that researchers might employ to overcome access difficulties, especially when their research might be considered ‘sensitive’ on account of the setting or the topic.
Editorial
Authors: Greaves Ron
Published: September 2007

Survey of the material appearing in issue 1.2.
From Fieldwork to Research Theory on an Indian Pilgrimage
Authors: Delage Rémy
Published: September 2007

Using as the example of the pilgrimage to Sabarimala (Kerala, South India), I propose here to explore the links existing between sources, research hypothesis and research theory in social sciences. The choice of research materials in the process of investigation, sources of knowledge about the studied object, is not mere random sampling; it is processed in accordance with the questions of the researcher. It inevitably assumes a selective dimension. After a critical reading of the sources used by Indian studies, I will highlight on the connections between the sources and the methodological tools on the one hand, and the major research hypothesis about pilgrimage on the other. The links between the data taken from the field and the legitimacy of scientific discourse on India will be examined at the end before providing some keys for the interpretation of Sabarimala phenomenon in South India during the contemporary period.
Surrendering to the Earth
Authors: M. Ferrari Fabrizio
Published: September 2007

The essential traits of the Dharma cult are grounded in the folklore of the agricultural people of Rarh (West Bengal). The annual worship of Dharma, the gajan, is here examined on a gender basis. By considering fertility as the leitmotif of the cult and Dharma worship the masculinization of an ancestral female cult, I shall focus on the presence of blood as the discriminator in ritual acts. I argue that while female devotees foster and care for the deity by virtue of their own body, men are in a position of 'guiltiness' and they must ritually become women. Thus the two intruding acts par excellence (ploughing the soil and sexual intercourse) are ritually replaced by piercing men's flesh. Self-tortures and immolation will be discussed in order to examine the gajan as the dramatic representation of the hierogamy among Bengali agricultural people in contrast with the rules imposed by the Brahmanic culture.
Asceticism, Fieldwork and Technologies of the Self in Latin American Catholic Monasticism
Authors: A. Ludueña Gustavo
Published: September 2007

This article analyses and proposes a methodological strategy—namely, adaptation-participation—for approaching ethnographically religious settings. This procedure is based on the adoption of native technologies of the self for reaching the numinous, which supposes a process of accommodation and re-socialization of the ethnographer to the field. By focusing on ascetic technologies carried out in Benedictine monastic communities of Latin America—i.e., silence and lectio divina–this study demonstrates how their use for social research grants ethnographic entrance into the cultural milieu of monasteries. In this sense, this investigation also reveals closeness between asceticism and fieldwork defined by the Socratic principle of care of oneself, which is constituted by technologies that subjects carry on over themselves. To summarize, this work argues that the adoption of vernacular technologies of the self through adaptation-participation bridges ontologies between fieldworker and Other’s culture by producing intimacy with subjects’ experience. This strategy of adaptation-participation might also be applied in non-monastic contexts or, rather, not necessarily religious contexts.
Autobiographies of Three Surviving Branch Davidians
Authors: Wessinger Catherine
Published: September 2007

This article provides an initial report on oral histories being collected from three surviving Branch Davidians: Bonnie Haldeman, the mother of David Koresh, Clive Doyle, and Sheila Martin. Their accounts are being made into autobiographies. Interviews with a fourth survivor, Catherine Matteson, are being prepared for deposit in an archive and inform the material gathered from Bonnie Haldeman, Clive Doyle, and Sheila Martin. Oral histories provided by these survivors humanize the Branch Davidians, who were dehumanized and erased in 1993 by the application of the pejorative ‘cult’ stereotype by the media and American law enforcement agents. These Branch Davidian accounts provide alternate narratives of what happened in 1993 at Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas, to those provided by American federal agents, and flesh out the human dimensions of the community and the tragedy. Branch Davidians are differentiated from many other people primarily by their strong commitment to doing God's will as they understand it from the Bible. Otherwise they are ordinary, intelligent people with the same emotions, loves, and foibles as others.
Editor's Introduction
Authors: Walliss John
Published: September 2007

Introduction to this special issue of the journal devoted to the sociology of religion.
Grasping the Revolution
Authors: Lang Graeme , Ragvald Lars
Published: September 2007

Field research on religion in China cannot easily test sociological theories because of the constraints on investigation and the sensitivity of some topics. But the rapid resurgence of religions in China over the past 20 years provides many settings for fieldwork, and theoretical revolutions in the discipline in recent decades create analytical challenges. We have been most impressed by the usefulness of the religious economy model. We have found good empirical and theoretical reasons to use it in the study of the resurgence of religious activity in China over the past 20 years. But fieldwork in China also brings surprises, and it is difficult to study some phenomena without also influencing them in unexpected ways. We illustrate the relation between fieldwork, theory, and surprises, with example.