bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Berdyaev and Christian Existentialism
Authors: Pattison George
Published: September 2020

The chapter examines Berdyaev’s relationship to existentialism as having provided a framework that helped him both to make his thought relevant to a Western readership and also to focus his critical view of the development of modern Western thought. His self-identification as a kind of existentialist is plausible in the context of sharing extensive common sources (Boehme, Schelling, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche) with other existentialist thinkers, although the actual encounter with Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Sartre came after he had already developed the main lines of his own philosophy. Unlike atheist existentialism, Berdyaev insists on the possibility of spiritual experience and of freedom as a creative and not just an annihilating power. Personality is a positive power. In this connection, Berdyaev’s embrace of eschatological thought is also used to do justice both to the tragic dimension of history but also to point to a dimension of insuperable hope within history. While Berdyaev largely sees Heidegger and Sartre as representing an essentially nihilistic view of human life, he acknowledges that Kierkegaard testifies to genuine spiritual experience, although he dislikes what he sees as Kierkegaard’s emphasis on sin. The chapter concludes with a brief comparison with Paul Tillich, an existentialist theologian who admired Berdyaev’s thought and, like him, drew on Boehme and Schelling. Through this comparison we also see lines pointing from Berdyaev and other Russian religious philosophers towards the postmodern critique of philosophies and theologies in which ‘being’ is perceived as the defining value.
Sergius Bulgakov in Exile
Authors: Slesinski Robert F.
Published: September 2020

In the course of two theological trilogies, Bulgakov expounds his sophiological worldview governed by one central theological intuition concerning the necessary correlativity of the divine and human worlds, Divine Sophia (Wisdom) superabounding in creatural Sophia essentially orientated to the glorification of the Creator. Undergirding all his thought is an acute intuition of the self-presence of the Absolute, Transcendent to all creatural being, the very fact of a ‘trans’ a ‘beyond’ necessarily entailing relation, ultimately rendering the Absolute a Being-for-us, love and the Godhead being at one. With the kenosis of the Divinity in the Incarnation one grasps how the apotheosis of humanity becomes possible, human being bearing the ‘cryptogram of Divinity’. Humanity’s full realization is at one with the Church, nothing human being alien to the Church at her core, the essential goodness of creation bespeaking the final transformation of all in the loving embrace of an All-Provident Creator.
The Orthodox Church and Religion in Revolutionary Russia, 1894–1924
Authors: Shevzov Vera
Published: September 2020

This chapter examines the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church—as an institution and community—during Russia’s years of revolution, from the reign of Nicholas II through the 1917 February Revolution and subsequent Bolshevik coup. It argues that Orthodoxy’s legal status as a ‘primary and predominant’ faith, and the state ascription of the ‘Russian people’ to Orthodoxy from birth under imperial rule, were in large part responsible for Orthodoxy’s institutional turmoil during these years. Further, the chapter challenges the use of the term ‘secularization’ with respect to the Bolshevik regime’s anti-religious policies. In the span of weeks, the Bolshevik regime not only homogenized Orthodoxy into the mix of ‘traditional faiths’—all pinpointed for eradication—but also relegated Orthodoxy to the position of least desired and most hazardous within that mix. Accordingly, this work argues that, from any observant believer’s perspective, Bolshevik efforts to cultivate the New Soviet Person—which included initiatives targeting the disestablishment, denigration of ‘liquidation’ of religious leaders, and the nationalization, destruction, and museumification of sacred objects, as well as widespread ‘re-education’ in ‘scientific materialism’—are better understood as a form of ‘internal’, spiritual colonization, and a qualitatively new chapter of Russia’s history.
Lev Karsavin
Authors: Beisswenger Martin
Published: September 2020

A historian of Western Medieval history by training and a religious philosopher by vocation, Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1951) explored the interconnectedness of history and religion throughout his life. He developed his ideas focusing on the notions of theophany and theosis, where the divine revealed itself in history and history moved towards divinization. Karsavin’s writings reflected influences of such diverse thinkers as Nicolas of Cusa, Bonaventure and Angela of Foligno, or Vladimir Soloviev and Oswald Spengler. Building upon their ideas, Karsavin created an original philosophy of personalism, which was based on the concept of ‘all-unity’. Central to it was the idea of the ‘person’ both as an individual and a collective entity. This chapter examines Karsavin’s life and thought, first in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, through the experiences during the Russian Revolution, during his exile in Berlin, Paris, and Kaunas, and finally to his incarceration in Stalin’s Gulag camp where he was sent after the end of the Second World War and where he perished. It pays close attention to a number of crucial points of Karsavin’s intellectual odyssey including the impact of the revolution on Karsavin’s thought, the development of his concept of ‘all-unity’, his historiosophy, his engagement with ecumenism as well as his involvement with Eurasianism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the rediscovery of Karsavin’s philosophical legacy in post-Soviet Russia.
Religious Thought and Experience in the Prison Camps
Authors: Gullotta Andrea
Published: September 2020

The development of religious thought has often been marked by discord and conflicts between religions (and/or individual religious thinkers) and the State, which at times led to the repression of individuals and or groups of people united by the same confession. The Russian case is fully in line with this unfortunate tradition: from Nikon’s schism to the repression against all religions under the Soviet regime, Russian religious thought has often developed in repressive conditions. However, the Russian case has one distinguishing feature, that is, the extensive use of prison camps by Russian and Soviet authorities from the nineteenth century onwards, which has had a direct effect on some religious thinkers. The social and historical-cultural peculiarities of both Tsarist camps and the Gulag have shaped some of those thinkers’ views (for instance, Dostoevsky’s intellectual path was deeply influenced by his experience in the camp). Drawing upon both primary and secondary sources, this chapter aims at showing how the experience of detention in a Russian/Soviet prison camp has influenced some Russian religious thinkers such as Dostoevsky, Florensky, and Karsavin. It will also point readers’ attention to some lesser-known contributions to religious thought by philosophers, poets, and writers.
The Influence of Russian Religious Thought on Western Theology in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Valliere Paul
Published: September 2020

This chapter canvasses the impact of Russian religious thought on major thinkers and movements in twentieth-century Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Noting the unique role played by the Russian emigration that emerged in the West following the Russian Civil War (1918–1920), the chapter assesses the influence of Russian Orthodox thinkers on six streams of modern Western theology: Karl Barth and Evangelical theology, liberal Protestantism, Anglicanism, Yves Congar and early Roman Catholic ecumenism, nouvelle théologie and ressourcement, and liberation theology. The chapter argues that the most important venues of Russian influence on Western theology were the Ecumenical Movement and the Second Vatican Council. The most eminent English-speaking theologians to engage deeply with Russian Orthodox thought in the twentieth century were Jaroslav Pelikan and Rowan Williams. The chapter concludes by noting the passion for East/West unity that inspired the Russians and their Western Christian partners in the twentieth-century dialogue.
Russian Religious Life in the Soviet Era
Authors: Knox Zoe
Published: September 2020

This chapter provides an overview of the history of Russian religious life from the October 1917 Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks seized power and imposed their radical secularist agenda, to 1991, when Soviet rule ended and, with it, the atheist campaign. It charts the major political developments that religious institutions, individual believers, and faith communities were forced to respond to and which underlay theological debates both in the Soviet Union and in the Russian diaspora. Recent scholarship has overturned the widely held view that in the communist period Russian Orthodoxy was out-dated, irrelevant, and marginal as a facet of identity, and in its place a scholarship has emerged which recognizes the variety of experiences within the Orthodox tradition and beyond it, of churches functioning openly and operating underground. Religious communities were forced to react to policy and practice emanating from the communist party, making a survey of Soviet religious policy critical for understanding Russian religious thought since 1917. The chapter also outlines key developments affecting believers in the years immediately after the collapse of the USSR and highlights the profound influence of the Soviet era on religious life and thought and on church–state relations in post-Soviet Russia.
The Theological-Aesthetic Vision of Metropolitan Filaret
Authors: Bychkov Oleg V.
Published: September 2020

Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) belongs to the synodal period in Russian Orthodox theology, which offered unique opportunities. His theology is shaped partly by the pre-Petrine tradition of tight integration between church and state life based on the model of ‘sanctification’. Historical reality itself, including political structures and one’s social station, is sanctified and serves as a way to salvation. Traditionally, aesthetic elements, such as liturgical and temple aesthetics, as well as the aesthetics of ritual, play an important part in this model. Filaret’s theology is also shaped by the post-Petrine tradition of school theology, with its Western influences that favour the primacy of Scripture in theology. However, Filaret’s method of reading and interpreting Scripture is premodern in its nature. Filaret does not logically process or analyse the text but quasi-aesthetically ‘sees’ various structures and forms emerge from the text. What he ‘sees’ in Scriptures is the form of Christ’s personality whose striking traits affect the reader. Ultimately, this form leads to a revelation of the ‘circumvolution’ of divine glory in the world, which has its aesthetic aspect: at its initial stage, it radiates through the world as ‘beauty’. To the end, however, glory retains its similarity to aesthetic beauty in its ability to shine forth. Although divine glory is invisible, it does reveal itself in the temple in an almost visible and palpable way.
Dignity in Psychotherapy
Authors: Andorno Roberto
Published: September 2020

The notion of human dignity conveys the idea that every human being has inherent worth and, therefore, ought to be accorded the highest respect and consideration. In healthcare, dignity provides an overarching moral framework to guide the physician–patient relationship in a great variety of issues, and especially in the promotion of the patient’s well-being and self-determination. Dignity plays also an important role in psychotherapy as the patient–therapist relationship involves confidences of an intimate nature and about very personal decisions and attitudes, and may lead to a patient’s overdependence on the therapist. Taken seriously, the patient’s dignity imposes on the therapist some specific moral duties, such as respecting and promoting patients’ self-determination, as well as patients’ values, beliefs, and life plans. Another direct consequence of the principle of respect for dignity is the requirement to avoid exploitative interactions with patients, in particular, any form of sexual harassment and abuse.
Free Will, Responsibility, and Blame in Psychotherapy
Authors: Zürcher Tobias
Published: September 2020

Freedom of the will is not only an issue in the attribution of moral and legal responsibility—it also fundamentally shapes how we look at ourselves and how we interact with others. This is essential in everyday life but even more so in psychotherapy. In the debate on freedom of will, the main controversy is concerned with the relationship between determinism and free will. In this chapter, different positions are presented and discussed. The compatibilist viewpoint, which claims determinism and freedom of will to be compatible, is defended against competing theories and applied to psychotherapeutic work. Mental disorders affect free will in many ways, as is demonstrated by the examples. Nevertheless, a compatibilist approach to free will can be used as a resource to increase the patient’s autonomy. As a result, it is justified and sometimes appropriate within the therapeutic context to ascribe responsibility and, within certain limits, to express blame.
Evidence, Science, and Ethics in Talk-Based Healing Practices
Authors: Phillips James , Sadler John Z.
Published: September 2020

This chapter considers the role of knowledge and evidence in comparing and contrasting the ethics of non-clinical counseling (NCC) and mainstream mental health care as practiced by psychiatry, clinical psychology, and social work. As helping traditions which mostly eschew diagnostic categorization and approach mental distress from different values, practices, and metaphysical standpoints, the three NCC traditions considered here are found to be prone to errors of omission, e.g., not knowing what one does not know. While mainstream mental health is also subject to these errors, the mainstream’s allegiance to evidence-based practices leaves it prone to neglecting the crucial role of the clinician in dialogue with the patient. The authors conclude by arguing for wider appreciation of the contributions of clinical interpretation from the philosophy of psychiatry.
Conducting Psychotherapy through a Foreign Language Interpreter: Ethical Dilemmas
Authors: Searight H. Russell
Published: September 2020

Current demographic and migration trends in many developing countries are increasing the demand for foreign language interpreters in mental health settings. Most mental health professionals have not been formally trained in providing psychotherapy through an interpreter. The addition of this third party to the therapist–patient dyad raises a number of ethical issues. While psychotherapists assume that interpreters are fluent in at least two languages, this fluency may not extend to the unique demands of mental health settings. While ethical guidelines indicate that the therapist bears responsibility for the interpreter’s competence, most interpreters will not have received formal training in facilitating psychotherapy. Since many patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) have sustained psychological trauma related to migration and war in their home counties, interpreters are at-risk for secondary traumatization during psychotherapy. Ethically, psychotherapists must consider the relative risks and benefits of interpreter-mediated psychotherapy and work towards reducing barriers to optimal treatment.
Psychotherapy with Children and Adolescents
Authors: Castro Ashley S. , Koocher Gerald P. , Peist Eric
Published: September 2020

Psychotherapy with children and adolescents presents its own set of unique ethical challenges and considerations. Unlike psychotherapy with adults, children are often referred to therapy by adults (e.g., parents or teachers), meaning that the circumstances and context for which they present to therapists or clinicians differ from the circumstances of most adults. This chapter provides an overview of ethical considerations specific to children and adolescents including issues of competence, confidentiality, boundaries, use of specific therapeutic techniques, and attention to diversity. The authors advocate for moving away from a traditional bioethical or risk management approach with clients, towards a relational approach to child and adolescent psychotherapy ethics, in which therapists and clinicians pay special attention to context, family dynamics, and culture. It is essential that mental health professionals involved in psychotherapy with children and adolescents engage in continuous reflection on ethical issues and work to best understand their clients in context so they can provide optimal services.
Virtue Ethics and the Multicultural Clinic
Authors: Radden Jennifer , Kroll Jerry L.
Published: September 2020

This chapter expands on recent research applying a character-focused, virtue ethics framework to psychotherapeutic practice by introducing some distinctive demands made on the character of those who undertake psychotherapy with immigrant populations. These demands are illustrated using case examples taken from the clinic of one of the authors (JK), where Southeast Asian and East African patients are seen in an inner-city clinic in Minneapolis. The authors first discuss the definition of “psychotherapy” before moving on to introduce five brief case vignettes. The authors then examine virtue ethics, and the role of virtues in psychiatric practice. They use the case studies to illustrate when and how character virtues, both those that are familiar and some that are not, play a part in effective psychotherapeutic treatment in this setting, and explore the virtues likely to avert or diminish the effects of practitioner burnout that is a particular hazard of working in these settings.
Toward an Evidence-based Standard of Professional Competence
Authors: Miller Scott D. , Madsen Joshua W. , Hubble Mark A.
Published: September 2020

Psychotherapists are ethically bound to provide services within the boundaries of their competence traditionally delimited by their education, training, and supervised experience. Throughout this chapter, two historical examples illustrate the shortcomings of the current standard as well as the promise of an alternative. The guidelines now in place are critiqued in light of the empirical evidence. The authors propose that effectiveness become the foundation of any formulation and assessment of competence. Developments over the last two decades make it possible for clinicians to measure their results and compare them to international norms—a process known as routine outcome monitoring. However, mere measurement and comparison to benchmarks are insufficient. To be ethical, to protect public welfare, practitioners must also act on the data provided by routine outcome monitoring. Using feedback informed treatment and deliberate practice therapists can both enhance their responsiveness to individual clients and continuously improve their outcomes. Challenges of implementation are discussed. A case study of an agency that successfully adopted routine outcome monitoring coupled with deliberate practice using best practices gleaned from the implementation science literature is offered.
Legitimate and Illegitimate Imposition of Therapists’ Values on Patients
Authors: Lampley Susana Fehr , Sadler John Z.
Published: September 2020

The understanding that psychotherapists should not impose their values on their patients is a shared belief in the field. However, little has been written about how not to impose one’s values on patients. This chapter diagrams an approach to evaluate justified and unjustified impositions of values in therapy with various examples. These examples are not intended to be comprehensive, but to provide an introductory overview. The case discussions will function to: (a) provide rough guidance about how to analyze one’s own unique cases, (b) illustrate areas of consensus within the broad psychotherapy field, (c) highlight the large areas of ambiguity and lack of consensus about what constitutes the legitimate and illegitimate imposition of values on patients, and (d) provide sample references from the literature illustrating particular values-imposition discussions and policies. The chapter’s conclusions emphasize the limitations of this exploratory work, and point to areas where additional analysis would be of benefit for clarifying ambiguities of practice.
Children’s Appreciation of Art
Authors: Goldstein Thalia R.
Published: September 2020

Children engage with art, music, dance, and theater as early as they can move, make noise, and play. Yet theories of aesthetic responses are missing a developmental perspective. Large questions remain about the development of aesthetic response and reasoning, including whether there is a qualitative difference between children’s aesthetic reasoning and appreciation and adults’ reasoning and appreciation, how childhood artistic activities are linked to adult artistic activities, and how aesthetic responses are tied to other developmental processes in social, emotional, and cognitive development. Significant work in other areas such as intention processing, understanding of representation, emotion understanding, and attention points to developmental trajectories in aesthetics, but this work has only rarely been applied within or across art forms. Open questions across art forms, types of responses, and ages of development mean fertile ground for researchers interested in appreciation, understanding, and reactions to art, dance, music, and theater.
Aesthetic Experience in Everyday Environments
Authors: Silvia Paul J. , Cotter Katherine N.
Published: September 2020

Most aesthetic experiences happen in everyday environments, far from majestic concert halls and museums. This chapter surveys the major lines of research that explore aesthetic experience in mundane “real-world” spaces. We review research on people’s aesthetic experience of (a) other people, especially facial beauty, adornment, and body modification; (b) natural scenes, such as green and blue spaces; (c) the built environment, such as buildings, interior spaces, and urban street art; (d) the near environment of touchable surfaces and objects; (e) music; and (f) the inner world of imagined sounds, images, and stories. The growing study of everyday aesthetics is not a distinct domain of research but rather a perspective on aesthetics that is more intrigued by common, mundane experiences than those that are culturally marked as artistic.
The Impact of the Social Context on Aesthetic Experience
Authors: Mastandrea Stefano
Published: September 2020

Not only cognitive and affective processes determine an aesthetic experience; another important issue to consider has to do with the social context while experiencing the arts. Several studies have shown that the aesthetic impact of a work of art depends on, to an important extent, the different socio-demographic factors including age, class, social status, health, wealth, and so on. The concepts of cultural and social capital by Pierre Bourdieu and the production and consumption of artworks by Howard Becker are discussed. Another important aspect of the impact of the social context on aesthetic experience deals with early art experience in childhood within the family—considered as the first social group to which a person belongs.
Religion, Policy, and Politics
Authors: Rosie Michael
Published: September 2020

Religion has made a core contribution to the shaping of the Scottish nation, and continues to influence its politics and policy—albeit in the context of relatively recent and dramatically rapid secularization. This chapter briefly outlines the development of some key, and varied, religious traditions in Scotland, and illuminates the impacts that migration and secularization have made upon these. It examines religion’s role in party politics and on the constitutional question. The focus is upon the role of religious identity, and religious engagement, and their relationship to broader social and political attitudes. It considers the extent to which the recent policy interests of the Parliamentary Offices of Scotland’s main churches fit—or not—with broader religious, and irreligious, attitudes.
The ‘Scottish Approach’ to Policymaking
Authors: Cairney Paul
Published: September 2020

The Scottish Government’s former Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Housden (2013) labelled the ‘Scottish Approach to Policymaking’ (SATP) as an alternative to the UK model of government. Central to this self-described approach is the distinctive way in which it uses evidence to inform policy and policymaking. Yet, scholarship on Scotland focuses increasingly on broader comparative dimensions, in which the UK is one of many reference points. Scottish policymaking takes place in the context of a far wider, international, and unresolved debate about what counts as good evidence and good governance. Consequently, as in many other systems, the Scottish Government supports three models of evidence-informed governance, and they co-exist with a centralist model, associated with Westminster-style democratic accountability, that must endure despite a Scottish Government commitment to its replacement. Like all executives, it describes how it would prefer to make policy, but this preference is one part of the story of complex government.
Local Government
Authors: McGarvey Neil
Published: September 2020

Despite the obvious importance of the local council in Scottish public life, their study by social scientists has become somewhat of a niche subject. Indeed, there is often a tendency to think that the workings of the Scottish Government and Parliament are somewhat ‘bigger’ subjects. This chapter seeks to outline the role played by local councils in Scotland and draw attention to many of the budgetary and political pressures that they face. By comparing local government in Scotland pre- and post-devolution, the chapter also assesses the status of councils within Scotland’s democratic culture, their role as part of the welfare state, and their position within the Scottish polity today.
Scotland International
Authors: Lynch Peter
Published: September 2020

Scotland has a long history of international connections shaped by conflict, migration, trade, and empire as well as by the continued existence of Scottish organizations and networks after 1707 and before and after devolution. Since devolution was established in 1999, the Scottish Government has engaged in extensive paradiplomacy, a term referring to the international actions of sub-state governments. There has been a series of strategies to engage with European states, the USA, and China, through a strong, strategic role in linking economic development to the global economy. Scotland has also taken modest steps to develop its own international development policy.
The Independence Question
Authors: Brown Swan Coree
Published: September 2020

In 2014, voters were asked ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ Over the campaign it emerged that the meaning of independence was complex and contested. The proposals focused the SNP-led Scottish Government’s white paper Scotland’s Future on what might be retained of the British state, including the currency union, open borders, and co-operation at the European level. These proposals were derided by critics as ‘independence-lite’. The ensuing debate provided an opportunity to reflect on meanings of independence, statehood, and sovereignty. This chapter explores the meaning of independence in the 2014 debate. The nature and framing of independence are assessed with reference to the changing nature of the British state and the international, and particularly European context, in which these goals are articulated. The chapter will also reflect on the ways that the meaning of independence may have changed in light of the 2014 vote.
Twin Tracks
Authors: Hames Scott
Published: September 2020

Though easily conflated, the cultural and political nationalism of modern Scotland are not the same. This chapter surveys parallel developments in cultural production and constitutional change from 1967 to 2018, and the role of the Scottish intelligentsia in re-instituting national-political space. Drawing on the key journals and magazines of the pro-devolution left, we explore the role of Scottish cultural ‘voice’ in affirming, mobilizing and institutionalizing the national-political frame. Scottish devolution had an important but highly mediated cultural dimension, with claims to national representation deeply entangled in electoral triangulation, and the emergence of ‘neo-popular’ Scottish identity cementing the image of anti-Thatcherite cultural consensus. But the idea of Holyrood arriving on a wave of artistic Renaissance and rising national ‘confidence’ is too simplistic, and obscures important disparities between the ‘twin tracks’ of cultural and political nationalism.
Understanding the Union
Authors: McLean Iain
Published: September 2020

Varieties of unionism in Scotland may be found in the debates in the last Scottish Parliament in 1705–1707 and persisted for three centuries. In modern politics, they may be roughly mapped to social unionism, trade and security unionism, and nationalist unionism. The three strands map poorly on to contemporary party labels but are conceptually coherent. A social union entails uniform welfare standards and a uniform safety net throughout the UK. The trade and security union is about the economies of scale generated by free trade within the UK. It used also to be about the military and the British Empire, to which Scots contributed massively, but has been reborn as a primordial concern for the Union in and of itself, but with added Faslane. Nationalist unionism insists on the integrity of Scots constitutional law and on the sovereignty of the Scottish people. It remains a live strand of unionism, although the least-understood one.
Challenging the Patronage Paradigm
Authors: McGrady Deborah
Published: September 2020

This chapter revisits the portrayal of poet-prince relations in late-medieval francophone literature to expose writers’ use of these accounts to critique nobility’s role in literary production. A consideration of select texts from Guillaume de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps and Jean Froissart will show that literary portrayals of the poet-prince relationship frequently served to challenge patrons’ authority over literary production, criticize the failure of nobility to recognize the power of poetry, and acknowledge the increasing presence of a dynamic literary network that stretched beyond the prince’s reach. Far from serving as mouthpieces to the prince, these writers used the patronage paradigm to assert, often at the prince’s expense, the inestimable value of poetry and the wisdom of writers.
‘Gaufred, deere maister soverain’
Authors: Simpson James
Published: September 2020

This chapter briefly surveys and characterizes the rhetorical culture inherited by Chaucer. It then surveys and critiques twentieth-century scholarship on Chaucer and rhetoric. The body of the chapter argues that Chaucer’s understanding of rhetoric is directly derived from late twelfth-century Neoplatonic sources. Examples demonstrate Chaucer’s flexible familiarity with each branch of twelfth-century Neoplatonic rhetoric and poetics. Chaucer also modified the Neoplatonic rhetoric he received. The late twelfth-, early thirteenth-century rhetorician Geoffrey of Vinsauf might be Chaucer’s ‘dere mayster soverayn’, but among the many skills taught by rhetoric is that of only ostensibly following one’s master: Chaucer himself is the ‘maister soverain’ of a poetic-rhetoric.
The Poetics of Trespass and Duress
Authors: Johnson Eleanor
Published: September 2020

This chapter explores how the legal training institutions of the Common Law, the Inns of Court, might have impacted on the evolution and staging of legal problematics in late Middle English, and especially Chaucerian, poetics. Specifically, the chapter sets out and analyses the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century changes to trespass law and the contemporaneous rise of the courts of equity, in order to open up a new way of reading Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde as, in effect, an academic thought experiment on these legal changes. Chaucer’s decision to create his poem as, in part, a meditation on the theoretical nature and practical feasibility of these new legal systems likely originated during his education at the Inns of Court.
Logic and Mathematics
Authors: Sylla Edith Dudley
Published: September 2020

Chaucer is known as a philosophical poet. He translated Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy from Latin to English. Do his works reveal familiarity with what went on in philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge universities in the fourteenth century? The chapter summarizes typical features of the work of the so-called ‘Oxford Calculators’ (also known as the ‘Merton School’) and contemporary philosophers at the University of Paris (who, together, may be called the fourteenth-century ‘moderni’) and contrasts these features with the work of John Wyclif, which became influential later in the fourteenth century. Among the features considered are disputations on sophismata, use of the logica moderna and technical measure languages, demonstrative reasoning, and optimism about the capabilities of scientific disciplines. Resonating more with Wycliffites are negative images of clerics.
At Home and in the ‘Countour-Hous’
Authors: Hsy Jonathan
Published: September 2020

This chapter juxtaposes The House of Fame and the Shipman’s Tale to explore two London locations closely associated with Chaucer’s life: his residence above Aldgate, and the customs house on the wool quay. In The House of Fame, Chaucer synthesizes a quotidian portrayal of ‘Geffrey’ at home with imaginative representations of urban life and sounds. The poem not only engages with Latinate poetic traditions, but it also absorbs mixed-vernacular varieties of civic writing. In the Shipman’s Tale, a French merchant’s activities in his ‘contour-hous’ recall Chaucer’s vocation as a customs official for the Port of London, and the tale’s cross-linguistic wordplay suggests the multilingual capacities of Chaucer’s urban readers. In these works, the poet inhabits the polyglot settings of northern French ports and London’s waterfront. Chaucer’s portrayal of accounting practices reflect aspects of everyday medieval life, but more profoundly the poet illustrates the porous boundaries between languages within urban environments.
Books and Booklessness in Chaucer’s England
Authors: Gillespie Alexandra
Published: September 2020

Most of Chaucer’s contemporaries never owned a book. How do we reconcile this fact with the everyday bookishness of Chaucer’s writings? This chapter describes the intersection, in Chaucer’s time, of the traditional oral and written dissemination of ideas, and new book technologies such as paper and cursive scripts. It identifies Chaucer with an emerging class of secular household and urban clerks who made their living by reading and writing. Together with the medieval religious, these men formed a small but significant network in medieval England for the production and circulation of a large number of texts, in all kinds of book and non-book formats. The chapter covers Chaucer’s own dealings with books at key moments in Chaucer’s career, from the literacy he must have acquired as a child in a merchant-class household in London to the transmission of his literary works within his coterie, and then, via professional book producers, to a wider group of readers, including modern ones.
Law, Legitimacy, and Religion in the GreekPoleis
Authors: Naiden F. S.
Published: September 2020

This chapter examines the role played by religion in the courts, assemblies, and governmental administration of Greek poleis. Religion provided legitimacy to the legal system as a whole, religious rituals affected legal and legislative business, and polis regulations governed many aspects of rituals. The law against impiety safeguarded rituals, as opposed to enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy. No less important than polis laws and regulations were the by-laws and rules issued by smaller, less powerful bodies such as religious associations, demes, phratries, and donors establishing foundations. Rather than have two legal systems, one religious and one secular, as in modern Israel or medieval England, the Greek poleis had a twofold, integrated system in which religious and secular concerns were fused, and in which religion provided both a moral foundation and a supportive set of rituals.
Law, Speech-Writers, and Rhetorical Context
Authors: Carey Christopher
Published: September 2020

This chapter discusses the role of speechwriters and the nature of argument in the Athenian courts. Starting with the means of persuasion recognized in ancient rhetorical writing and the nature of the task faced by the litigant in Athenian courts, it proceeds to examine in detail the structure of speeches delivered before the courts, the role of the individual components of the speech, and the manner of presentation. Finally, it addresses the rise of the paid speech-writer (logographer, logographos) and his role in the individual legal action and (more briefly) the possible means of training or preparation available to an aspiring speech-writer.
The Quiet Scientific Revolution: Problem-Solving and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of “Newtonian” Mechanics
Authors: Hepburn Brian
Published: September 2020

A narrative is proposed for eighteenth-century origins of “Newtonian” mechanics, according to which there are two relevant streams of development. One was the popularization of Newtonian natural philosophy, particularly in France in connection with the philosophe movement and the Enlightenment. This movement was inspired primarily by the example of Newton’s Opticks and embraced induction from observation and experiment. Newton’s Principia (1687), on the other hand, and its mathematical treatment of forces and motion, was exceedingly difficult. Solving novel problems in mechanics not addressed in the Principia required the kind of training possessed by a select group of mathematicians, most of whom were already engaged in a program of mathematical mechanics and did not identify as Newtonians nor took Principia as their starting point. The loudly celebrated, popular Newtonianism was lacking a program in mechanics until the end of the eighteenth century, when it subsumed, ironically, the mechanics of the non-Newtonians.
Feasibility of Auricular Field Stimulation in Fibromyalgia: Evaluation by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Randomized Trial
Authors: Woodbury Anna , Krishnamurthy Venkatagiri , Gebre Melat , Napadow Vitaly , Bicknese Corinne , Liu Mofei , Lukemire Joshua , Kalangara Jerry , Cui Xiangqin , Guo Ying , Sniecinski Roman , Crosson Bruce
Published: September 2020

Objective

To evaluate the feasibility of recruitment, preliminary efficacy, and acceptability of auricular percutaneous electrical nerve field stimulation (PENFS) for the treatment of fibromyalgia in veterans, using neuroimaging as an outcome measure and a biomarker of treatment response.

Design

Randomized, controlled, single-blind.

Setting

Government hospital.

Subjects

Twenty-one veterans with fibromyalgia were randomized to standard therapy (ST) control or ST with auricular PENFS treatment.

Methods

Participants received weekly visits with a pain practitioner over 4 weeks. The PENFS group received reapplication of PENFS at each weekly visit. Resting-state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fcMRI) data were collected within 2 weeks prior to initiating treatment and 2 weeks following the final treatment. Analysis of rs-fcMRI used a right posterior insula seed. Pain and function were assessed at baseline and at 2, 6, and 12 weeks post-treatment.

Results

At 12 weeks post-treatment, there was a nonsignificant trend toward improved pain scores and significant improvements in pain interference with sleep among the PENFS treatment group as compared with the ST controls. Neuroimaging data displayed increased connectivity to areas of the cerebellum and executive control networks in the PENFS group as compared with the ST control group following treatment.

Conclusions

There was a trend toward improved pain and function among veterans with fibromyalgia in the ST + PENFS group as compared with the ST control group. Pain and functional outcomes correlated with altered rs-fcMRI network connectivity. Neuroimaging results differed between groups, suggesting an alternative underlying mechanism for PENFS analgesia.
Task-Induced Functional Connectivity of the Syntax-Related Networks for Patients with a Cortical Glioma
Authors: Tanaka Kyohei , Kinno Ryuta , Muragaki Yoshihiro , Maruyama Takashi , Sakai Kuniyoshi L
Published: September 2020

Analysis of the functional connectivity has enabled understanding of the cortical networks. In the present study, we used a picture-sentence matching task to introduce syntactically harder conditions, and clarified 3 major points. First, patients with a glioma in the lateral premotor cortex/inferior frontal gyrus or in other cortical regions showed much weaker activations than controls, especially in the left inferior frontal gyrus. Moreover, the error rates under the harder conditions were much higher for these patients. Secondly, syntactic loads induced selective connectivity with enhancement and suppression, consistently for both patients and controls. More specifically, the local connectivity was enhanced among the 3 syntax-related networks within the left frontal cortex, while the global connectivity of both dorsal and ventral pathways was suppressed. In addition, the exact reproducibility of r-values across the control and patient groups was remarkable, since under easier conditions alone, connectivity patterns for the patients were completely unmatched with those for the controls. Thirdly, we found an additional syntax-related network, further confirming the intergroup similarity of task-induced functional connectivity. These results indicate that functional connectivity of agrammatic patients is mostly preserved regardless of a glioma, and that the connectivity can change dynamically and systematically according to syntactic loads.
The interplay between irrigation and fruiting on branch growth and mortality, gas exchange and water relations of coffee trees
Authors: Almeida Wellington L , Ávila Rodrigo T , Pérez-Molina Junior P , Barbosa Marcela L , Marçal Dinorah M S , de Souza Raylla P B , Martino Pedro B , Cardoso Amanda A , Martins Samuel C V , DaMatta Fábio M
Published: September 2020

The overall coordination between gas exchanges and plant hydraulics may be affected by soil water availability and source-to-sink relationships. Here we evaluated how branch growth and mortality, leaf gas exchange and metabolism are affected in coffee (Coffea arabica L.) trees by drought and fruiting. Field-grown plants were irrigated or not, and maintained with full or no fruit load. Under mild water deficit, irrigation per se did not significantly impact growth but markedly reduced branch mortality in fruiting trees, despite similar leaf assimilate pools and water status. Fruiting increased net photosynthetic rate in parallel with an enhanced stomatal conductance, particularly in irrigated plants. Mesophyll conductance and maximum RuBisCO carboxylation rate remained unchanged across treatments. The increased stomatal conductance in fruiting trees over nonfruiting ones was unrelated to internal CO2 concentration, foliar abscisic acid (ABA) levels or differential ABA sensitivity. However, stomatal conductance was associated with higher stomatal density, lower stomatal sensitivity to vapor pressure deficit, and higher leaf hydraulic conductance and capacitance. Increased leaf transpiration rate in fruiting trees was supported by coordinated alterations in plant hydraulics, which explained the maintenance of plant water status. Finally, by preventing branch mortality, irrigation can mitigate biennial production fluctuations and improve the sustainability of coffee plantations.
Mentoring Black Men in Medicine
Authors: Oliver Kelvin B. , Nadamuni Mridula V. , Ahn Christina , Nivet Marc , Cryer Byron , Okorodudu Dale O.
Published: September 2020

In recent years, there have been multiple publications about the dearth of Black men in medicine. Appreciating the fact that underrepresented minority physicians disproportionately care for America’s underserved communities, the lack of diversity in health care is particularly disturbing. Of imminent concern is the critical shortage of Black men doctors. In this Perspective, the authors contend that while mentoring is often considered among the most important strategies to increase the number of Black men in medicine, unique challenges in this demographic can diminish its effectiveness. Among these challenges are below average primary school educational experiences and a general mistrust of society on the part of Black men, as well as difficulties overcoming stereotypes and social biases that others hold against them. Furthermore, acknowledging that mentorship is paramount in achieving success in the medical field, the authors provide a framework to assist mentors in recognizing and addressing situations and obstacles that may disrupt the mentoring relationship and hinder its potential to best serve Black men pursuing advancement in medicine. This framework is represented by the acronym RACE: Reluctance to discuss race, Access to mentors, Cultural mistrust and racial concordance, and Empathy.
A Narrative Study of Equity in Clinical Assessment Through the Antideficit Lens
Authors: Teherani Arianne , Perez Sandra , Muller-Juge Virginie , Lupton Katherine , Hauer Karen E.
Published: September 2020

Purpose

Efforts to address inequities in medical education are centered on a dialogue of deficits that highlight negative underrepresented in medicine (UIM) learner experiences and lower performance outcomes. An alternative narrative explores perspectives on achievement and equity in assessment. This study sought to understand UIM learner perceptions of successes and equitable assessment practices.

Method

Using narrative research, investigators selected a purposeful sample of self-identified UIM fourth-year medical students and senior-level residents and conducted semistructured interviews. Questions elicited personal stories of achievement during clinical training, clinical assessment practices that captured achievement, and equity in clinical assessment. Using re-storying and thematic analysis, investigators coded transcripts and synthesized data into themes and representative stories.

Results

Twenty UIM learners (6 medical students and 14 residents) were interviewed. Learners often thought about equity during clinical training and provided personal definitions of equity in assessment. Learners shared stories that reflected their achievements in patient care, favorable assessment outcomes, and growth throughout clinical training. Sound assessments that captured achievements included frequent observations with real-time feedback on predefined expectations by supportive, longitudinal clinical supervisors. Finally, equitable assessment systems were characterized as sound assessment systems that also avoided comparison to peers, used narrative assessment, assessed patient care and growth, trained supervisors to avoid bias, and acknowledged learner identity.

Conclusions

UIM learners characterized equitable and sound assessment systems that captured achievements during clinical training. These findings guide future efforts to create an inclusive, fair, and equitable clinical assessment experience.