bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Global and Regional Security Multilateralism in Japan’s Foreign Policy
Authors: Midford Paul
Published: October 2020

This chapter analyzes Japan’s experience with, and motivations for participating in, security multilateralism. It considers the historical legacies of a lack of multilateral interaction when international relations in East Asia were governed by the Sinocentric tributary system, the security multilateralism of the Washington system of the 1920s, Japan’s failed multilateral Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere during the Pacific War, as well as Tokyo’s security isolationism during the Cold War, before turning to Japan’s pivot from 1991 toward embracing regional security multilateralism. It argues that Japan’s promotion of security multilateralism since 1991 is part of a broader shift away from security isolationism and toward global and regional security engagement on bilateral and multilateral levels. Japan’s 1992 decision to begin participating in UN peacekeeping and its promotion of the ASEAN Regional Forum’s creation through the 1991 Nakayama proposal are examples of Japan’s post–Cold War security multilateralism. The chapter argues that Japan’s embrace of security multilateralism after the Cold War, like its embrace of security isolationism during the Cold War, has been driven by its reassurance strategy of convincing other East Asian nations that Japan can be trusted as a military power that will not repeat its pre-1945 expansionism. Moderating its alliance security dilemma vis-à-vis the US is another motivation for Japan’s promotion of security multilateralism. Since 2000 Japan has promoted the creation of other regional security multilateral forums, including the counter-piracy ReCAAP organization, the East Asian Summit, the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus Dialogue Partners, and the Expanded ASEAN Maritime Forum.
Democratization Theories and Turkey
Authors: Karakoç Ekrem
Published: October 2020

This chapter investigates whether the major approaches in democratization literature offer satisfactory explanations for Turkey’s recent transition to unstable authoritarianism. It argues that modernization theory has a limited explanation for the rise of authoritarianism in recent years. The causation between democratization and development flows from the former to the latter in the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi era. Business and major unions have been, mostly if not all the time, state-dependent/state-led actors, and their impact on democratization does not have a strong independent effect. While (medium) leverage and (high) linkage with Europe and the West were crucial in the startling pro-democratic reforms (2000–2005), later on they did not save Turkey from being an authoritarian country. Studies on Turkish political culture suggest that support for democracy among elite and public opinion is highly contextual. Among subfields of democratization literature, Turkish studies have notably contributed to the debate on secularism. Future studies could focus on a kind of political Islam enmeshed within nationalism, especially in the form of Turkish-Islam ideology, as well as differences in religious communities and their alliance with political actors. Overall, Turkish studies offers a fertile ground to contribute to the democratization literature that investigates the uneasy relationship between nationalism, national identity, and democracy.
Digitalization and Omnichannel Retailing
Authors: Li Xi , Zhao Huazhong
Published: October 2020

The technology trend is rapidly reshaping the retail industry. With digitalization, some traditional business rules have been altered, removing many physical barriers while at the same time adding more challenges. This chapter first discusses the fundamental changes brought by the digital trend. To begin, it investigates traditional business wisdom and the underlying mechanisms of traditional business operations. The chapter examines the barriers to retailers in the traditional business world. Then, it focuses on how the digitalization trend can transform the realization of those mechanisms in order to remove the barriers and how retailers can best adjust to the changes. The implications of digitalization apply to both current and future marketing operations. When facing the new opportunities and challenges created by the digitalization trend, retailers cannot rely only on the traditional offline channel; they also need to seek omnichannel retailing. However, merging into omnichannel retailing from a traditional offline mode is not easy. The second part of the chapter thus discusses several specific risks that omnichannel retailers must tackle.
Reverse Logistics
Authors: Chen Haozhe , Cotter Lisa
Published: October 2020

As more companies are engaging in reverse logistics activities, it is imperative to develop a better understanding of this important concept. This chapter covers fundamental issues related to reverse logistics. After introducing a definition of reverse logistics, a discussion is provided on its importance and contrasts with forward logistics. Returns reduction, closed-loop supply chain, and circular economy are identified as important topics related to reverse logistics. Examples are then used to explain the economic value recovery as well as the strategic and operational value of reverse logistics. After delineating the key processes in reverse logistics, this chapter identifies reverse logistics challenges and best practices. Last, the status of reverse logistics research is discussed along with a list of future research topics.
Nuclear Weapons and Peaceful Change
Authors: Smetana Michal
Published: October 2020

This chapter aims to identify key aspects of the nuclear revolution that are pertinent to the problem of power transition and peaceful change in international affairs. To this end, it elaborates on five primary institutions of global nuclear order: nuclear deterrence, nuclear arms control, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear nonuse, and nuclear disarmament. The chapter then unpacks the conceptual logic of these five institutions in the context of peaceful and violent change in world politics and explores their mutual linkages and conflicts. It highlights both the limits of these institutions and their inherent incompatibilities, mindful of the extraordinary violence nuclear war can cause and the underlying fear that prevents nuclear powers from engaging in reckless behavior.
Status Quest and Peaceful Change
Authors: Pu Xiaoyu
Published: October 2020

This chapter discusses various mechanisms and approaches regarding how states could promote peaceful change while seeking status on the world stage. While status competition is often viewed as a source of international conflict, the quest for status can also promote peaceful change. Even if status politics is often competitive, it is not always a zero-sum game. As status is ultimately social and cultural, states could seek it through social creativity, which will help them avoid confrontation with other states. The quest for status could also encourage states to pursue prosocial behaviors. In particular, states could seek higher status through the provision of international public goods. However, to promote a maximalist peaceful change, leading powers must reconstruct norms and criteria for status symbols and implement a more moral foreign policy.
China’s Peaceful Rise
Authors: He Kai , Liu Feng
Published: October 2020

China proposed its “peaceful rise” strategy in 2003 as a signal to the world of its peaceful intentions during its rising process. The strategy is not only a discursive response to the “China threat” theory of the 1990s but also a rational policy choice based on both domestic economic needs and international conditions. In practice, China’s “peaceful rise” strategy highlights four priorities in its foreign policy: major powers, neighboring states, developing countries, and international institutions. Although this strategy is rooted in Deng Xiaoping’s “keeping-a-low-profile” policy principle, it has also experienced necessary adjustments along with China’s increasing power capabilities, as evidenced by China’s assertive turn in diplomacy after 2008. China’s “peaceful rise” strategy will face two challenges in the future. Domestically, the country’s economic growth model and political and social uncertainties might change the direction of its foreign policy. Internationally, the outside world can shape China’s rise as much as China can shape the world.
Liberalism and Peaceful Change
Authors: Gheciu Alexandra
Published: October 2020

This chapter opens with a historical exploration that examines the emergence of ideas of peaceful change in the writings of classical liberal philosophers—particularly Immanuel Kant—and analyzes the ways in which liberal strategies for change entail both domestic and international transformations. It proceeds with brief historical illustrations of how liberal ideas began to influence policy prescriptions for peaceful change, then moves on to explore the ambitious policies aimed at creating a multilateral liberal order in the post-1945 period. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the contemporary challenges to the multilateral liberal order, long regarded as key to long-lasting peace and prosperity.
Use of Digital Technology and Mobile Applications to Treat Anxiety Disorders
Authors: McDaniel Dawn Delfin , Zanov Marat V. , Ameringen Michael Van , Turna Jasmine , Rothbaum Barbara Olasov
Published: October 2020

The societal burden of anxiety disorders is enormous in the United States and in many other countries. A quarter of the US population will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. Although cognitive-behavioral therapy is effective at treating anxiety disorders, most individuals with anxiety disorders will go untreated as a consequence of several barriers to accessing treatment. Technology may serve as a means of addressing such barriers. This chapter reviews the application of technology for psychoeducation, training, screening, tracking, treatment, homework, and aftercare in anxiety disorders. More research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of these applications in controlled trials, but preliminary evidence is promising.
Future Directions
Authors: Potenza Marc N. , Faust Kyle A. , Faust David
Published: October 2020

As digital technology development continues to expand, both its positive and negative applications have also grown. As such, it is essential to continue gathering data on the many types of digital technologies, their overall effects, and their impact on public health. The World Health Organization’s inclusion of Gaming Disorder in the eleventh edition of the International Classification of Disease (ICD-11) indicates that some of the problematic effects of gaming are similar to those of substance-use disorders and gambling. Certain behaviors easily engaged in via the internet may also lead to compulsive levels of use in certain users, such as shopping or pornography use. In contrast, digital technologies can also lead to improvements in and wider accessibility to mental health treatments. Furthermore, various types of digital technologies can also lead to benefits such as increased productivity or social functioning. By more effectively understanding the impacts of all types of digital technologies, we can aim to maximize their benefits while minimizing or preventing their negative impacts.
General Population-Based Studies of Problematic Internet Use
Authors: Rumpf Hans-Jürgen
Published: October 2020

In Europe, 16 studies based on general population samples show a wide range of prevalence estimations ranging from 0.2% to 11.8% for Internet addiction and from 2.8% to 25.1% for at-risk use. Differences are due to assessment instruments, age groups, regions under study, and whether surveys focus on Internet gaming alone or on broader use of different Internet applications. The disorders are associated with male gender, younger age, mental health problems, and unfavorable social conditions. Prevalence estimations in most of the European studies show that relevant proportions of the population suffer from problematic Internet use, particularly in young age groups. Effective prevention and early intervention and treatment are necessary to face this new disorder. Future studies would benefit from generally accepted criteria and assessment tools for problematic Internet use.
Conceptualization of Internet Addiction Based on the Public Health Perspective
Authors: Lee Hae Kook , Chung Sulki
Published: October 2020

With rapidly growing Internet and smartphone use in daily life, Internet use disorder (IUD) is gaining increased recognition, along with an associated rise in scientific evidence and public health concerns about its adverse cognitive, developmental, psychosocial, and physical consequences. Problematic use of the Internet and other technologies is directly related to social, cultural, and economic environments; examining the social and environmental factors within the public health framework is important in understanding IUD and developing intervention strategies. The authors present a conceptual model of IUD based on the public health model and the continuum model of addictive disorders and positing that health problems result from interactions among the agent mediating the disorder, those experiencing the disorder, and the social and environmental context in which the disorder occurs. Addictive online media components and predisposing biological, cognitive, psychological, and environmental factors increase risk for developing IUD, so prevention and intervention should not only target individual vulnerabilities, but also media-related risk and the environment to better address the complex phenomena of IUD. Intervention approaches to IUD must be tailored along a continuum of severity ranging from social to problematic use, and across a spectrum of intervention strategies ranging from primary to tertiary approaches. Multidisciplinary efforts are needed that combine various areas of expertise including prevention, treatment, education, and consumer protection to develop effective strategies for reducing harmful Internet use and promoting healthy digital media and device use.
History of Religion
Authors: Grabbe Lester L.
Published: October 2020

This chapter discusses (1) the general discipline of the History of Religions; then, in line with the focus of the volume as a whole, (2) it moves to developments in the study of the History of Ancient Israel; finally, (3) it gives a short overview of the History of Ancient Israelite Religion. The History of Religions movement is traced through the 19th and 20th centuries, especially as it influenced study on the History of Ancient Israelite Religion. The changing methods and results of the History of Israelite Religion in different periods of study are noted, culminating in the general approach of the present generation. Some of the main writers, works, and influences are mentioned and their contributions (whether positive or negative) are briefly summarized. The contribution of the social sciences is brought in.
The Greeks and Their Rituals
Authors: Kowalzig Barbara
Published: October 2020

For the ancient Greeks, ritual was communication with the gods, aimed at achieving a communality between gods and humans, principally in the service of a community’s welfare, cohesion, and stability, and at the very least, configuring social relations between individuals. This chapter provides a brief methodological survey of how society, predominantly the ancient Greek city-state (polis), has been the main reference for the study of Greek ritual. Rituals derived their authority from tradition but were flexible actions in constant dialogue with the past, endowed with agency in all areas of Greek life: society, politics, economics, culture, and religion itself. After explaining the relationship of myth to ritual, the chapter examines how the Greeks developed strategies working up towards a ritual moment of temporary intimacy with the divine in sacrificial ritual, choral performance, festivals, processions, and dedications. The essay concludes with a section on how the individual relates to the community through ritual.
Narratives of Earliest Hindu–Muslim Encounters
Authors: Ahmed Asif Manan
Published: October 2020

This chapter makes two broad claims. The first is to incorporate a longer history of statecraft in north India into our examination of Mughal regime. The second is to take medieval Indian Ocean texts as critical source material for understanding forms of state-making, negotiation of difference, and encounters between social actors. Toward these claims, the chapter reads a set of ninth- and tenth-century narratives linking Sindh and Gujarat to Aden and Cairo. Within these texts are representations of various forms of encounters between those understood as Arabs and Muslims and those labeled Hindi or Sindhi. The chapter explicates accounts of embeddedness of Islam in India, of crime and punishment as modes of statecraft, of everyday gendered lives, and of networks of exchange in order to provide a longer history of understanding pivotal concerns of the Mughal regime in the sixteenth century.
The Merovingian Polity
Authors: Hen Yitzhak
Published: October 2020

The royal court was the major center of political power in Merovingian Gaul. Following the late Roman model, it became an administrative center, from whence the kingdom was ruled and to which aristocrats flocked in order to serve the king, or in hope for honors and promotion. As such, the Merovingian court encompassed both the ruler’s military retinue and the kingdom’s highest bureaucrats. It also housed the meetings of the king’s royal council, which also functioned as the highest court where political and judicial conflicts were managed and resolved. As the center of political power and the stage for the administration of justice and the settlement of disputes, the Merovingian court generated a sense of authority and consensus politics that served as a symbolic unifier in an otherwise factional reality.
Amulets and Identity in the Merovingian World
Authors: Kornbluth Genevra
Published: October 2020

Amulets, worn in almost all societies, were common in the Merovingian world. While bears’ teeth and cowrie shells needed little modification to be worn protectively, and coins had only to be pierced and occasionally inscribed, more elaborate amulets were specially crafted in complex forms. Bound pendants held spheroid materials, most often stone, in metalwork cages. Among those materials, rock crystal was the most popular, probably because it was thought to have apotropaic and healing properties. The next most frequent choice, iron ore, was credited with power against wounds, bleeding, and animal bites. The pendants were buried with grave assemblages gendered feminine, and most often accompanied women of childbearing age (rarely children or elders), suggesting that they were instrumental in constructing and manifesting those important aspects of social identity. Wealth and social status—of incumbents, their families, and/or their communities—is reflected in both the precious materials of the pendants and the richly ostentatious burials in which they have been found. Both metalwork setting types and the stones they hold vary from one region to another, and so they must have marked regional identity, and perhaps links between regions.
“Alors Commença La France”
Authors: Mathisen Ralph W.
Published: October 2020

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The expansion achieved by the Frankish king Clovis I inevitably brought him into conflict with the Visigothic king Alaric II. During the 490s, the Franks made several unsuccessful forays into Brittany and south of the Loire. Subsequently, both sides did their best to consolidate their resources. Attempts by the Ostrogothic king Theoderic to avoid direct conflict failed, and war began in earnest in 507, when Clovis made a massive attack on the Visigothic kingdom. The decisive Frankish victory at Vouillé determined the map of sixth-century western Europe: the Franks gained control of most of Gaul, and the Visigoths consolidated their holdings in Spain.
Merovingian Hagiography
Authors: Kreiner Jamie
Published: October 2020

Hagiography is a literary genre that tells stories about saints, and already by the start of the Merovingian period it was more than 300 years old. Writers mostly saw the maturity of hagiography as an asset and further refined its rhetorical and aesthetic features. They played on their society’s familiarity with the form not only to make new kinds of heroes but also to offer new ways of seeing society as a whole. Although different hagiographers had different ideas about how their kingdom should be structured, and offered different interpretations of Christianity itself, they all agreed that the genre was a powerful part of the work of transforming the politics and ethics of Gaul.
Visions and the Afterlife
Authors: Moreira Isabel
Published: October 2020

Merovingian writings provide rich evidence for the importance of visionary claims and vision texts in early medieval religious and political culture. Visions (including dream-visions) provided a means for political commentary in religious and secular arenas. Saints were often depicted as visionaries in hagiography. They appeared in dreams to their suppliants at major pilgrimage sites, as witnessed by shrine records. In an era with great curiosity about the afterlife, the Vision of Paul and Gregory the Great’s Dialogues were important influences on Merovingian ideas about the otherworld, as evidenced in the Vision of Barontus, a Merovingian account of a near-death experience which described the immediate judgment of the soul at death. Visions of the otherworld aided a developing theology of the afterlife and contributed to later medieval afterlife accounts. Yet sources reveal caution about visionary claims and new ideas about the afterlife. The near silence of Merovingian writers about postmortem purgation (purgatory), an idea known to them and gaining currency among their neighbors, may indicate a calculated concern for orthodoxy.
Merovingian Legal Cultures
Authors: Rio Alice
Published: October 2020

Different sources give us profoundly contradictory impressions about the nature of Merovingian legal processes, state, and society on such fundamental matters as whether feuds existed, whether legal documents mattered, and whether peacekeeping was chiefly community-driven or state-driven. This means that we should probably stop looking for one dominant legal system, which can only be done at the cost of dismissing much contradictory evidence. Instead, contemporaries, under certain circumstances, could avail themselves of a multitude of different legal reference points in order to justify their intended or past course of action. Law in the Merovingian period did not restrict or narrow people’s choices; instead, it expanded their scope for legitimate social action, offering them different possible approaches and solutions. Within this framework, what looks like profound and irreducible contradictions in the source material should be seen instead as a cultural repertoire that was all the stronger for being richer, even at the cost of consistency.
Merovingian Meditations on Jesus
Authors: Coon Lynda
Published: October 2020

The final chapter of this volume explores the conversation on Jesus held between material and textual sources, where monumental works of sculpture extend salvific themes found in the lives of saints and the verses of poets. Merovingian meditations on Jesus are multivocal, reflecting the cross-cultural rhythms of a world open to and receptive of external influences, whether originating in classical or biblical texts or hailing from Mediterranean or Northern lands. In order to prove this hypothesis on the Merovingian body and the embodied savior, three works of sculpture produced during the early Middle Ages serve as sounding boards for Jesus’ earthly ministry as enacted by human players: the crucified savior featured on the seventh-century Moselkern Stele; the eighth-century Hypogée des Dunes’s sculpted relief of the two thieves crucified along with Jesus; and the so-called Niederdollendorf “Christ,” carved most likely in the seventh century. Saintly actors, such as Radegund of Poitiers (d. 587), animate three themes expressed in the sculpted sources respectively: (1) absence, (2) torture, and (3) light. The three subjects—light, torture, and absence—all point to strategies of integrating the realm of humanity within the celestial spheres, and each motif tracks different styles of meditating on Merovingian Jesus.
The Life of Penance
Authors: Uhalde Kevin
Published: October 2020

This chapter explores the relationship between memory, narrative, and penance in Merovingian literature. Penitential memory was a key component of the philosophical understanding of repentance that persisted throughout late-antique and early medieval Christianity. Remembering the emotions associated with past errors was critically important to the penitential process, as a brief survey of the literature from the second through the sixth centuries demonstrates. This tradition provides a context for identifying and understanding the function of penitential memory in Merovingian texts. By way of example, this chapter interprets particular moments from Gregory of Tours’s Histories, Passion of Praeiectus, Life of Columbanus, and Life of Eligius. At the same time, there were social, ecclesiastical, and even political consequences to memorializing repentance and the failures that made repenting necessary. While attention to the philosophical understanding of penance enriches our understanding of saints’ lives and other sources, therefore, the literary act of commemoration also affected the representation of penance.
Merovingian Monasticism
Authors: Diem Albrecht
Published: October 2020

This chapter critically discusses the emergence of Western monasticism by identifying a number of silent turning points and instances of conflict that do not as yet play much of a role in a monastic narrative that is largely centered on individuals, institutions, and the impact of specific texts. I provide six case studies: the foundation of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and the Jura monasteries; the transfer of the Rule of Caesarius to Queen Radegund’s foundation in Poitiers; the destruction of the column of the Frankish stylite Vulfilaic; the dramatic conflict between Brunhild and Columbanus; and Eligius of Noyon’s refusal to be buried in a monastery following his death. All of these case studies shed light on the silent, crucial, and often contested transformations that shaped medieval monasticism. They demonstrate how barbarian rulers and aristocrats appropriated options for living an ideal Christian life that were deeply rooted in Roman culture. They describe, too, the impact of monastic ideals on lay ethics, the process by which ascetic struggle was transformed into regularized monastic life and how monasteries became sacred spaces. None of these developments happened organically and without conflicts. These conflicts provide unique access to the “Transformation of the Roman World,” far beyond the scope of monastic studies.
Deuteronomy and the Reigns of Kings Hezekiah and Josiah of Judah
Authors: Sweeney Marvin A.
Published: October 2020

This chapter critically examines the modern debate concerning the sociohistorical setting of the composition of the book of Deuteronomy. It begins with discussion of the initial work of W. M. L. de Wette, who argued that Deuteronomy would have been the Book of Torah that was discovered in the Jerusalem Temple during the reign of King Josiah (640–609 bce). It then turns to the work of scholars such as Adam Welch, Albrecht Alt, Gerhard von Rad, and Ernst W. Nicholson, who argued that Deuteronomy was written in northern Israel, ostensibly by Levitical authors dissatisfied with northern practice, and brought south during the reign of King Hezekiah (715–687/6 bce). It builds upon the work of R. E. Clements, who observed that Deuteronomy’s call for a single sanctuary best fit the concerns of southern Judah, to offer additional reasons why the composition of Deuteronomy is best set during the reign of Josiah.
Priests, Levites, and the NasiNew Roles in Ezekiel’s Future Temple
Authors: Ganzel Tova
Published: October 2020

In evaluating the roles of the temple personnel in Ezekiel’s vision of the future temple (Ezekiel 40–48), three spheres of concern are taken into account: the broader biblical context, the more restricted context of the book of Ezekiel, and the Babylonian backdrop of his prophecies. This chapter demonstrates that the temple functionaries differ from their biblical precedents, on the one hand, and from what was known of their Babylonian environment on the other. What determines the roles of the priests, the Levites, and the nasi in Ezekiel’s temple vision is the driving theological force of preserving the temples’ sanctity. Thus, for example, the uniquely positioned nasi integrates the roles of two Babylonian temple officials; unlike the Babylonian functionaries, however, the nasi is not second to a human king, but answers only to God.
The Genre of the Book of Revelation
Authors: Reddish Mitchell G.
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the three major candidates for the literary genre of the book of Revelation—an apocalypse, a letter, or a prophecy. The form, content, and function of the work are compared to these elements of typical apocalyptic, epistolary, and prophetic writings. Even though the opening and closing of the book follow the form of ancient letters and the work uses several literary forms that are found in the books of the Hebrew prophets, the work coheres well with the standard definition of an apocalypse. Recognizing the contributions of each of these genres to the book of Revelation, the chapter concludes that Revelation is the product of a Christian prophet whose writing best matches the literary genre of an apocalypse that is encased in an epistolary framework.
Reception History and the Interpretation of Revelation
Authors: Boxall Ian
Published: October 2020

The chapter describes the discipline of reception history as the study of the ongoing use, interpretation, and impact of a biblical text. If the history of interpretation has often focused on the ways biblical texts are understood in commentaries and theological writings, reception history also considers how a book was received in spirituality and worship, in music, drama, literature, visual art, and textual criticism. Criteria for selecting and organizing materials useful for reception history are discussed, and there is a review of recent attempts to provide broad overviews of Revelation’s reception history, along with specific examples of the value of the discipline for interpreting Revelation.
Imagery in the Book of Revelation
Authors: Huber Konrad
Published: October 2020

The chapter first surveys different types of figurative speech in Revelation, including simile, metaphor, symbol, and narrative image. Second, it considers the way images are interrelated in the narrative world of the book. Third, it notes how the images draw associations from various backgrounds, including biblical and later Jewish sources, Greco-Roman myths, and the imperial cult, and how this enriches the understanding of the text. Fourth, the chapter looks at the rhetorical impact of the imagery on readers and stresses in particular its evocative, persuasive, and parenetic function together with its emotional effect. And fifth, it looks briefly at the way reception history shows how the imagery has engaged readers over time. Thus, illustrated by numerous examples, it becomes clear how essentially the imagery of the book of Revelation constitutes and determines its theological message.
Revelation’s Use of the Greek Language
Authors: Mathewson David L.
Published: October 2020

The chapter summarizes what many consider grammatical irregularities in Revelation’s Greek. These are often thought to show a Semitic influence on the author’s language, and to perhaps suggest that he knew Greek only as a second language. Some propose that the writer used a distinctive type of Jewish Greek, that the irregularities show a reliance on the Old Testament, or that they perhaps indicate that he was intentionally flouting the established patterns of Greek usage. Recent studies, however, show that it is more likely that the writer was simply using a form of Greek that was common in his social context.
Revelation and Roman Rule in First-Century Asia Minor
Authors: Carter Warren
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the interactions between Revelation and Roman rule in first-century Asia Minor. While much of the discussion has posited that Roman persecution of Christians for not participating in the imperial cult was the fundamental dynamic for Revelation’s interaction with Roman rule, the chapter argues that claims of persecution are historically unfounded and that reconstructions of mandatory imperial cult observance are false. By contrast, it then argues that more sustainable scenarios of Revelation’s interaction with Roman power recognize Revelation’s perspectival rhetoric of opposing significant levels of societal participation in various aspects of Roman culture and economy. Revelation’s author opposes such accommodation and condemns imperial structures by imitating and deploying Roman gender constructs and reinscribing the empire’s destructive impact on the environment.
Reports From the Field: Confessions of a Facebook Punk, or How Not to Do Social Media
Authors: Dylan Smith Gareth
Published: October 2020

The author is rarely certain of his purpose in life—a condition that is heightened by a busy yet reluctant level of engagement with social media. The author utilizes Facebook and Twitter to promote activity around popular music education and sociology of music education. There is considerable overlap in the author’s life between professional and personal domains, which seems amplified by social media. Facebook and Twitter provide less formal, more direct means to engage with the world than traditional modes of peer-reviewed communication among academic colleagues. Social media provide a platform for working through ideas and for addressing problems with urgency and immediacy. As such, and despite some messiness and increased levels of vulnerability and risk, the author encourages peers to engage with social media’s immediate and powerful, punk pedagogical potential.
Reports From the Field: Learning to Play the Guitar With the Novaxe Online Learning Platform
Authors: Burns Anne-Marie , Traube Caroline
Published: October 2020

Recent advances in internet technologies are changing the way we approach instrumental music education. The diversity of online music resources has increased through the availability of experts and user-generated digital scores, video tutorials, and music applications. This report from the field explores how technological innovations are transforming musical instrument teaching and learning with new paradigms of cohesive, integrated, and blended learning experiences. It presents the emerging Novaxe online learning platform (OLP), which is designed as an online space where guitar teachers and learners of different expertise levels—particularly teenagers and adults learning to play pop guitar technique and repertoire—can interact and share learning resources. The OLP includes interactive and collaborative tools supporting teacher-to-learner blended learning and self-taught learning. This field report presents the conceptual ideas behind this Novaxe OLP and explores the potential usage of collective and artificial intelligence as pedagogical tools in the context of instrumental music education.
Reports From the Field: Connect: Resound as a Support for Music Making in Rural England
Authors: King Andrew , Prior Helen M. , Waddington-Jones Caroline
Published: October 2020

Connect: Resound is an ongoing project supporting music for schools in England with limited access to teachers and instruments. This field report focuses on the ways in which online technology in Connect: Resound is used to facilitate lessons. It is based on a study split into two phases: an initial pilot study with one music hub, followed by a further study in collaboration with four Music Education Hubs in England. The initial pilot was done in collaboration with North Yorkshire Music Education Hub, situated in the largest county in England, and delivered in two separate cohorts. Seven teachers and 73 pupils (key stage 2,1 aged 8–11 years) participated in the pilot. The project was a collaboration between the North Yorkshire Music Action Zone (NYMAZ), UCan Play, and researchers at the University of Hull. This partnership was facilitated by a large grant from the Nesta Digital Research and Design Fund, which ran from 2014 to 2016.
Reports From the Field: “Vini Ansanm” Come Together for Inclusive Community Music Development in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Authors: DeVito Donald , Bien-Aime Gertrude , Ehrli Hannah , Schumacher Jamie
Published: October 2020

Haiti has experienced a series of catastrophic natural disasters in recent decades, resulting in significant loss of life and long-term damage to infrastructure. One critical outcome of these disasters is that there are approximately 400,000 orphans in the small population of just over 10 million. Throughout Haiti, children with disabilities are often considered cursed, and thus are rejected by the community in which they live. Haitian children with disabilities need creative and educational activities that will help them grow, develop, enjoy their lives, and become accepted members of the community. This chapter on the Haitian Center for Inclusive Education presents a case study of social media engagement and music learning, with an emphasis on social justice that has contributed to sustainable efforts.
Can The Disabled Musician Sing?
Authors: Bell Adam Patrick , Rathgeber Jesse
Published: October 2020

This chapter investigates uses of social media by disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities (DM/MwD). It first frames social media as assistive technology, examining how the platforms SingSnap, Bandhub, and Facebook are used by disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities to connect with others and create content. The discussion proceeds with an examination of how this content is perceived and may be (mis)represented and (mis)appropriated by nondisabled audiences. Using a viral video of Julia Maritza Ceja Medina as a critical case study, the analysis applies disability studies literature by examining how content generated by disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities can become inspiration pornography. The authors conclude by noting both the positive and problematic potentials of social media in the music learning and music making of disabled musicians/musicians with disabilities.
Applications of Affinity Space Characteristics in Music Education
Authors: O’Leary Jared
Published: October 2020

Affinity spaces are the physical, virtual, or combination of locations where people come together around a shared affinity (interest) (Duncan & Hayes, 2012). Online affinity spaces can act as a participatory hub for music making and learning through social networking and sharing. Although music affinity spaces exist in myriad informal spaces, little scholarship explores potential applications of affinity space characteristics within formalized learning spaces. This chapter introduces characteristics of an affinity space and questions the role of the framework in relation to another framework commonly used in online music learning communities: communities of practice. This chapter concludes with a discussion on practical and theoretical applications of affinity space characteristics within formalized educational contexts.
Reflections From the Field of New Media and Sociology
Authors: Ganchoudhuri Somrita , Wellman Barry
Published: October 2020

The traditional, formal approach to music learning has been via music schools and private tutoring. The newer, more informal way uses digital media—such as email, Facebook, Skype, and YouTube—as an adjunct to teacher-student interactions. In such an approach, digital media supplements in-person contact while preserving the master-student relationship. In both of these situations, there is in-person contact and the master-student hierarchy is preserved. This response considers these and other key points from Jonathan Savage’s chapter from a social science and digital media perspective.
Twenty-First-Century Implications for Media Literacy and Music Education
Authors: Walzer Daniel A.
Published: October 2020

Digital media’s convergence continually influences teaching and learning in the arts and interdisciplinary fields through freely accessible technology. Similarly, the rise of democratized participatory communities of new media composers on the internet affords new collaborative opportunities for all levels of creation. This chapter examines media literacy’s relationship with participatory culture and digital technology in music education. Establishing a baseline theoretical understanding of media literacy and its possible implications for teaching and learning sheds light on how these tools advance collaborative praxis, creative expression, and thoughtful teacher-facilitators in the traditional and virtual music classroom. Key questions include: How can educators and students unpack challenging concepts by producing collaborative new media content with digital technology? In what ways do music and media educators advance critical thinking, reflective learning, and new modes of networked creativity through “making” philosophy and curriculum?
God’s Character in Isaiah
Authors: Tull Patricia K.
Published: October 2020

The several prophets who contributed to the book of Isaiah characterized God as a divine person cherishing particular desires for humans, and especially for the residents of Judah and Jerusalem. These desires concerned both the nation’s justice toward the vulnerable among them and their responsiveness to God. God is portrayed by means of names, metaphors, and portrayed speech and actions as a deity who speaks plainly via prophets and acts powerfully through both punishment and restoration to promote the realization of divine desires for Jerusalem, humanity, and the created world. The Book of Isaiah presents a microcosm of the Bible’s complex portrayal of divine character.
Isaiah in the Qumran Scrolls
Authors: Brooke George J.
Published: October 2020

This chapter considers the presence of Isaiah among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The introduction sets the scene for the manuscript finds in the caves at and near Qumran. The first part of the chapter describes the copies of Isaiah from the Qumran caves. Attention is given to (a) the manuscripts, their contents, and the bisection of Isaiah; (b) the text of Isaiah, especially in 1QIsaiaha and in some Cave 4 manuscripts, whether there are any so-called sectarian variants, and the value for textual criticism of the quotations of Isaiah in the pesharim; (c) what can be learned about the ancient understanding of the form of Isaiah, which might be of use especially to delimitation criticism. The second part consider the use of Isaiah in the nonbiblical scrolls. There is discussion of the use of Isaiah in legal, narrative, poetic, and prophetic compositions (in both running and thematic commentaries), as well as in the developing self-understanding of the movement that collected the scrolls together.
Isaiah in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Traditions
Authors: Laato Antti
Published: October 2020

The book of Isaiah has been the most important prophetic text in Jewish reception history since the Second Temple period. There is evidence from Sirach 48 that already then, the book was thought to have two different parts, Isa 1–39, containing Isaiah’s “biography” and message for his own time, and Isa 40–66, referring to the prophet’s eschatological message concerning Jerusalem. Later, Abraham ibn Ezra’s medieval commentary shows that this understanding of a bipartite book was regarded as valid. Jewish midrashim, which were developed from the first part of the book, depict important encounters between the prophet and the kings of Judah, for example, the identification of Hezekiah with Immanuel and the royal figure in Isa 9:5–6, and the martyrdom of Isaiah during the reign of Manasseh. The comforting message to Jerusalem in the latter part of the book was a topic that fascinated Jewish interpreters after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce. Many Haftarot texts of Isaiah in the sabbatical cycle of the Jewish liturgy illustrate this Jerusalem-centered focus. Some topics in the reception history of Isaiah have been developed in encounters and confrontations with Christian exegesis, such as the reception of Isa 53.
Isaiah in Art and Music
Authors: Sawyer John F. A.
Published: October 2020

The extraordinary role of Isaiah in Christian art and music, from the ox and the ass on ancient catacombs to Handel’s Messiah, is well known, but there are also significant portrayals of him and his prophecies in Jewish art and music, as well as a few striking illustrations of episodes in his life in Islamic art. This chapter looks first at examples of how the call of the prophet, Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, his martyrdom, and other scenes from his life have been depicted in the art of all three religious traditions, and then Christian portrayals of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Fall of idols in Egypt, the Passion, and the Winepress with texts from Isaiah, as well as world peace and the peaceable kingdom. Musical settings of texts from Isaiah range from Veni Immanuel, the Rorate, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Brahms German Requiem, to modern Jewish celebrations of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and popular Hebrew songs like “Mayim be-sason” (12:3) and “Yerushalayim shel zahab.”
The Oracles against the Nations
Authors: Kim Hyun Chul Paul
Published: October 2020

Diachronically, the Oracles against/about the Nations in Isa 13–23 demonstrate multiple compositional processes that display significant adaptations and reconceptualizations of the inherited themes and traditions in each changing generation. Synchronically, this section in its final shape claims an essential place and function. It portrays key messages that are similar to other prophetic books, yet also unique in Isaiah’s own theology. This section is not an unappealing anomaly; underscoring the voices of the powerless and visions for the dawn of a just and peaceful world, it forms an indispensable companion to chapters 1–12 and the remainder of the book. It signifies important interpretive implications for the contemporary international world vis-à-vis exile, empire, colonialism, war, trauma, theodicy, justice, peace, ecology, economy, and more.
The Poetic Vision of Isaiah
Authors: Landy Francis
Published: October 2020

This chapter is an attempt to meet Robert Carroll’s challenge to account for and imaginatively interpret the visionary quality of Isaiah’s poetry. It begins with a discussion of biblical poetry and eschews formalistic definitions, showing how parallelism, like other formal devices, is a technique for generating meaning. It then considers the visionary quality of the poetry, as a divine message, and the trajectory from the vision to the book. The book can be read and reread in many different ways, and it tells several intertwining stories, all centering on the aporia of the exile and the hope of restoration. The chapter focuses on one of these stories, that of the family romance, which concerns especially issues of gender, including the gender of God.