bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Barbarism from Within—Discourses about Fascism amongst Iraqi and Iraqi-Jewish Communists, 1942-1955
Authors: Bashkin Orit
Published: February 2013

This article looks at the changing significations of the word “fascist” within communist discourses in Iraq and in Israel. I do so in order to illustrate how fascism, a concept signifying a political theory conceptualized and practiced in Italy, Germany, and Spain, became a boarder frame of reference to many leftist intellectuals in the Middle East. The articles shows that communist discourses formulated in Iraq during the years 1941-1945 evoked the word “fascist” not only in order to discredit Germany and Italy but also, and more importantly, as a way of critiquing Iraq’s radical pan-Arab nationalists and Iraq’s conservative elites who proclaimed their loyalty to pan-Arabism as well. In other words, the article studies the ways in which Iraqi communist intellectuals, most notably the leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, Fahd, shifted the antifascist global battle to the Iraqi field and used the prodemocratic agenda of the Allies to criticize the absence of social justice and human rights in Iraq, and the Iraqi leadership’s submissive posture toward Britain. As it became clear to Iraqi communists that World War II was nearing its end, and that Iraq would be an important part of the American-British front, criticism of the Iraqi Premier Nūrī al-Saʿīd and his policies grew sharper, and such policies were increasingly identified as “fascist”. Within this context, Fahd equated chauvinist rightwing Iraqi nationalism in its anti-Jewish and anti- Kurdish manifestations with fascism and Nazi racism. I then look at the ways in which Iraqi Jewish communists internalized the party’s localized antifascist agenda. I argue that Iraqi Jewish communists identified rightwing Iraqi nationalism (especially the agenda espoused by a radical pan-Arab Party called al-Istiqlāl) as symptomatic of a fascist ideology. Finally, I demonstrate how Iraqi Jewish communists who migrated to Israel in the years 1950-1951 continued using the word “fascist” in their campaigns against rightwing Jewish nationalism and how this antifascist discourse influenced prominent Palestinian intellectuals
Islam as a ‘Giant Progressive Leap’—Religious Critiques of Fascism and National Socialism,
Authors: Nordbruch Götz
Published: February 2013

The assumption of a historical collusion between Arab-Muslim public opinion and Fascism and Nazism is widespread. This paper questions this assumption by reconstructing various Arab-Muslim reactions in the Eastern Mediterranean that responded to the rise and establishment of Fascism and Nazism. Scrutinizing the discussions about key elements of Fascist and National Socialist ideologies, the diverse and often explicitly critical stances expressed in journals, books and pamphlets of the 1930s and 1940s will be worked out. Religious arguments were not limited to religious circles, however. Even in liberal and left-leaning circles Islam was invoked in attempts to challenge echoes of authoritarian and radical nationalist thought among Arab audiences. For these voices, Islamic traditions were seen as shielding local political culture against the influences of National Socialist and Fascist propaganda.
The Vitality of Scripture Within and Beyond the “Canon”
Authors: Najman Hindy
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Challenging divisions between canonical and marginal texts, this essay critically evaluates the borrowing of the term “canon” from an Athanasian context and offers alternatives for thinking about the formation of scriptural authority in ancient Judaism. This essay focuses on the vitality of scripture as a corrective to scholarship which emphasizes canon, library, and prophetic cessation. To understand the authority of scripture is to understand scripture’s vitality in Ancient Judaism and, if the term “canon” is used, it should be used in a way that reflects this vitality.
Classifications of the Collection of Dead Sea Scrolls and the Case of Apocryphon of Jeremiah C
Authors: Tigchelaar Eibert
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This paper discusses the different approaches of Devorah Dimant and Florentino García Martínez towards categorisation and classification of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and applies their views to Apocryphon of Jeremiah C, a text constructed and edited by Dimant which she found difficult to classify, and which she related to Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse, and the Damascus Document.
Fiction of Scandal1
Authors: El-Ariss Tarek
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This article examines the tribulations of the Arab author in the age of social media. Focusing on Youssef Rakha, Abdo Khal, Ahmad Alaidy, Rajaa Alsanea, and Khaled Alkhamissi, I tie in acts of hacking, manipulation, and marketing in and of their works to questions of ethical ambivalence and aesthetic fluctuation, translational politics and canon formation that arise from threatening and violent encounters occurring on the street, in writing workshops, and on Twitter. I argue that the author emerges in new writing as the faḍḍāḥ/ah [exposer, scandalizer] who exposes and hacks political models and literary tradition only to be hacked and exposed by his/her own hacking and faḍḥ. Engaging the political dimension of hacking and scandal, I examine how literature is recoded, reimagined, and reaffirmed through greed, exhibitionism, and confrontation. This study expands the field of Arabic literary studies by exploring new sites of meaning and signification, connections and associations—between browsing practices and reading; activism and writing—in a rapidly changing technological, literary, and political landscape.
“Un-grievable” Lives? Contesting Illegality in Suad Amiry’s “Border Diary” Nothing to Lose but Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad
Authors: Mehta Brinda J.
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Palestinian author Suad Amiry crafts a “border diary” in her recently published, English-language text Nothing to Lose but Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad. The diary discursively frames the lives of undocumented West Bank Palestinian laborers who are forced to cross the Green Line in search of work in Israel. As the economics of this geography emerge, these workers are shown to possess knowledge of an occupied land, a knowledge revealed by their tenuous negotiations of checkpoints, border patrols, and racial profiling. The diary charts the cartography of occupation in the West Bank by highlighting the modes of resistance used by subaltern West Bank workers to contest the “everydayness” of the occupation. It relies on humor as a disruptive strategy to make a political statement about occupation while providing a testimonial to its geography from the “other” side of the occupation, as articulated by the dispossessed. In so doing, Amiry provides a socially and politically committed narrative that humanizes the dehumanized, the underprivileged working-class and the poverty-stricken in their struggle for survival and dignity in the face of Israeli nationalism and Zionist expansionism in the West Bank.
Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahḍah: Epistemology, Ideology and Capital
Authors: Sheehi Stephen
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This articles is an initial theoretical foray into what has become a dynamic burgeoning field—“Nahḍah Studies”—by proposing that literary and intellectual production of the era should not be understood as generative or productive of cultural discourses, social practices or identities. Rather, al-Nahḍah al-ʿarabīyyah is the mark of a violent epistemological wrenching that was instigated by the introduction of capitalist means of production and surplus accumulation during the Ottoman Tanzimat. Using a handful of examples such as Ahmad Fāris al-Shidyāq, Buṭrus al-Bustānī, Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī and Ḥusayn Marṣafī, the article suggests that literary and intellectual production of al-Nahḍah, like the subjectivities they imagine, are an effect of these transformations, which is first imprinted on language that is charged to organize new systems of signification to make modernity legible and logical. Literary, intellectual and cultural productions, therefore, are an effect of the ideology of modernity that has naturalized the reform movement as a necessary project for social, cultural and political success. The cultural and thought production of al-Nahḍah was not productive of “new” concepts of identity, civil society, economic production and gender as much as it was reproductive of nascent, native capitalist ideology, serving to mediate and make sense of the tensions, contradictions and violence inherent to the reorganization of the society, culture and economy of the Ottoman Arab provinces.
The Pirate and the Warlord
Authors: Clulow Adam
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Starting in the second half of the sixteenth century, Japan, and especially Kyushu, experienced a surge in maritime exchange that was unprecedented in Japanese history. Alongside the boom in trade, there was a concurrent swell in maritime violence as pirates and privateers militarized East Asian waters. During this period, the port of Hirado on Kyushu emerged as one of the most important and consistently active pirate hubs, becoming a base for Chinese, Dutch, English, and Japanese mariners. This article explores Hirado’s long association with piracy and uses it to reflect on the changing nature of maritime violence in East Asia.
Christian Creations of New Spaces of Sexuality, Reproduction, and Relationships in Africa: Exploring Faith and Religious Heterotopia
Authors: Bochow Astrid , Bochow Astrid , van Dijk Rijk
Published: February 2013

Abstract

In many African societies today Christian churches, Pentecostals in particular, are an important source of information on sexuality, relationships, the body, and health, motivated in part by the HIV/AIDS pandemic but also related to globally circulating ideas and images that make people rethink gender relations and identities through the lens of ‘romantic love’. Contextualizing the contemporary situation in the history of Christian movements in Africa, and by applying Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, this introduction and the subsequent papers show that Christian doctrines and practices are creating social spaces of altering relational ethics, identities and gender roles that appeal especially to upwardly mobile women.
Singleness, Sexuality, and the Dream of Marriage
Authors: Frahm-Arp Maria
Published: February 2013

Abstract

In contemporary South Africa the nuclear family, made up of a husband and wife with two or three children living in a suburban area, is considered a social ideal and symbol of social and economic success. In Pentecostal Charismatic Churches the nuclear family is also held up as a symbol of success and as a sign of spiritual favour and blessing. Yet many young professional women who are members of Pentecostal Charismatic Churches struggle to find suitable husbands and marry. This paper examines why these women encounter these difficulties and how the Pentecostal Charismatic Churches in this study are opening up new social spaces in which singleness is an acceptable social state. In so doing the paper shows the complex relationship between weddings, sexuality, and economics in the life of young upwardly mobile Pentecostal Charismatic Christians.
Mating patterns of Rana kukunoris from three populations along an altitudinal gradient on the Tibetan Plateau
Authors: Yu Tong Lei , Li Hong Jing , Lu Xin
Published: February 2013

Large-male mating advantage and size-assortative mating are two different size-dependent mating patterns which deviate from random mating in frogs. These two pairing patterns may arise due to female choice, male-male competition, male choice, or a combination of these. Our study investigated the mating system of Rana kukunoris at three elevations on the Tibetan Plateau, southwestern China, throughout a breeding season. We compared body size between amplectant and non-amplectant males, and among amplectant pairs. For R. kukunoris, the results showed a large-male mating advantage at the two higher elevations and a size-assortative mating at the highest elevation. In addition to sexual selection, we found that the length of the breeding season, population density and operational sex ratio may influence mating patterns.
Experience of Contingency and Congruent Interpretation of Life Events in Clinical Psychiatric Settings: A Qualitative Pilot Study
Authors: Scherer-Rath Michael , van den Brand Jos , van Straten Corry , Modderkolk Linda , Terlouw Cisca , Hoencamp Erik
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This is a qualitative pilot study of congruence in narrative reconstruction of interpretations of life events by patients in a clinical psychiatric setting. It is based on the assumption that a coherent interpretive structure means that the interpretation of contingent life events by a person must be congruent with the conflict between these everyday events and the person’s embedded ultimate life goal. The pilot study confirms the assumption, provided the interpretation is based on ultimate life goals in order to integrate experience, severe mental disorder in these patients, with the person’s life story. If there is no clear embedded ultimate life goal, the person does not have a congruent angle on the contingent life event to assign it a position in her life story. As a result self-realisation, with or without a context of religious significance, becomes problematic. Whether patients with a severe mental disorder differ from persons without a disorder remains an open question and can not be answered by this study.
Churchmanship and Personality among Clergymen in the Church in Wales: Are Anglo-Catholic Priests More Feminine?
Authors: Francis Leslie J. , Littler Keith
Published: February 2013

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to develop and test a new measure of Anglo-Catholic orientation capable of assessing the extent of the continuing influence of the Anglican-Catholic movement among Anglican clergy and useful for testing theories regarding the association between Anglo-Catholic orientation and personality. Data provided by a sample of 232 clergymen serving in the Church in Wales support the internal consistency reliability of the 21-item Francis-Littler Anglo-Catholic Orientation Scale, and, in terms of the Eysenckian dimensional model of personality, demonstrate that Anglo-Catholic orientation is associated with higher levels of psychological femininity as assessed by the neuroticism scale, but not as assessed by the psychoticism scale.
Fisheries Data and the Law of the Sea Convention
Authors: Edeson W.R.
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This article outlines the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) concerning the collection and exchange of fisheries data. It also examines how the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement has substantially strengthened the provisions of the LOSC in this area. The paper considers briefly the specific problems raised by the attempt to attribute a nationality to catch data, and the related problem of determining where the responsibility lies for reporting data in chartering arrangements.
Military Activities in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Foreign Coastal States
Authors: Hayashi Moritaka
Published: February 2013

Abstract

One disturbing element in an overall stable order built on the Law of the Sea Convention is the disagreement between some States over the use of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of a coastal State by another State for military purposes. While it appears to be generally accepted that military activities in the EEZ of another State are part of “the freedoms . . . of navigation and overflight and other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to these freedoms . . .” under Article 58(1), some States, notably China, hold an opposing view. The disagreement has led to several incidents involving forceful disturbance of activities of United States military vessels and aircraft in and above the EEZ of China. There is an urgent need for the States concerned and the international community to find a common understanding on the issue or some kind of practical arrangement for avoiding further serious incidents.
Was it Worth the Effort?
Authors: Lowe Vaughan
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This article asks whether the effort involved in the nine years of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) negotiation was worthwhile. It finds various styles of treaty-making in the Law of the Sea Convention and examines some of the dynamics of the UNCLOS III negotiation process which provide possible reasons for this unusual mix of treaty-making models. It then assesses whether this monumental international treaty-making venture was indeed worth the effort.
Challenges to Protecting the Marine Environment beyond National Jurisdiction
Authors: Gjerde Kristina M.
Published: February 2013

Abstract

In the past thirty years since the signing of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC), the ocean has changed more than in all of human history before. It is now facing a multitude of interconnected threats that require comprehensive, precautionary and integrated management. This review of the environmental provisions in Part XII of the LOSC with respect to the high seas and the seabed area beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) reveals significant strengths as well as substantial weaknesses and gaps. Governments are now grappling with how to address problems related to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in ABNJ. This commentary concludes that Part XII will need strengthening, including through an implementing agreement, to enable the global community to cope with the escalating challenges of a changing ocean.
Precaution and the Protection of Marine Biodiversity in Areas beyond National Jurisdiction
Authors: Rayfuse Rosemary
Published: February 2013

Abstract

As a post-LOSC legal development, the precautionary principle is nowhere enunciated in the Law of the Sea Convention. Nevertheless, in the thirty years since the LOSC’s adoption, the significance of the precautionary principle for marine environmental protection in general and marine resource conservation in particular has been recognised. The language of precaution, the precautionary principle and the precautionary approach have entered the lexicon of the law of the sea, permeating the international community’s efforts to manage and conserve marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The challenge remains, however, of crafting and implementing management and governance regimes capable of achieving the objectives of precautionary management and turning the rhetoric of precaution into a reality.
Selling Happiness in a Meal: Serving the Best Interests of the Child at Breakfast, Lunch and Supper
Authors: Mills Lize
Published: February 2013

Following the global increase in childhood obesity, the World Health Organisation has renewed its calls upon governments to draft and implement clear policies regarding the marketing of energy-dense, micronutrient-poor foods and beverages to children. As part of such policies, two member states of the WHO, namely the United States of America and South Africa, recently increased their regulatory efforts in this regard. These measures elicited strong response from both parents and the fast food industry. The article seeks to discuss and evaluate these regulatory developments and the reaction thereto, while arguing that in an attempt to achieve a balance between the rights of all stakeholders, the best interests of the child must still at all times be considered to be paramount.
De paternis et maternis bonis, On CT 3.8.2, NT 14 and its adaptation by Justinian
Authors: Simon Dietrich V. , Backhaus Ralph
Published: February 2013

CT 3.8.2 (382 AD) and NT 14 (439 AD) protected the interests of the children in case one of their parents died and the other one married again. The constitution of 382 AD imposed an obligation on the remarried widow to preserve the assets she had received from her predeceased husband (so called bona paterna, especially: gifts before marriage) and to transfer these bona to the children mortis causa or inter vivos. Infringement of this obligation gave rise to an action in damages. The constitution NT 14 extended the obligation to a widower who had received bona materna from his predeceased wife (especially: dowry). In case of the remaining spouse's remarriage, the children were to have a so called 'dominium' in the bona paterna / materna, and dispositions of the remarried spouse in violation of its obligations towards the children were declared to be void. The way by which the constitution made the children owner of the bona paterna / materna was rather complicated. It required the children to accept the inheritance either of the predeceased or (later) of the surviving parent. The difficulties arising from this construct were overcome by the use of legal ctions, which are – at rst glance – hard to understand, but all in all consistent. Justinian returned to a more simple solution by a ording ownership to the children and only an usufruct to the surviving spouse.
Once more: debet or debetur in Gai 4,73?
Authors: Platschek Johannes
Published: February 2013

Contrary to the manuscript tradition, the active form debet in Gai. 4,73 is to be read as the passive debetur. Against the background of semantic and syntactic analysis, this passage makes sense only under the assumption of a corrupted abbreviation (as can frequently be found in the Veronese Codex). For only then is the passage coherent and in conformity with parallel juridical sources. Considerations as to a Roman double entry booking based on the active debet are faced with objections in the sources everywhere.
The Code of Dušan 1349–1354
Authors: Angelini Paolo
Published: February 2013

In 1349 Stefan Dušan enacted a code that was part of a tripartite codification with the Abridged syntagma and the so-called Law of Justinian. The Serbian emperor introduced in his empire a Byzantine legal system, even if elements of Slavic customary law were preserved. Physical mutilations and punishments, death penalty, public penal system, personal liability were unknown to the Slav populations and have to be connected to the Greek-Roman law influence. This influence is evident both in civil and criminal law and in this sense the dispositions of the Code of Dušan must be connected to the two other Byzantine compilations. Dušan's attempt failed just a few years after his death because of the fall of the Serbian empire due to the Ottoman advance.
The Identification of an Illustrated Haṭhayoga Manuscript and Its Significance for Traditions of 84 Āsanas in Yoga
Authors: Bühnemann Gudrun
Published: February 2013

This article identifies an illustrated Haṭhayoga manuscript
preserved in the British Library (London) and discusses the manuscript's
significance in the context of traditions of 84 postures
(āsana) in Yoga.
Ramadan Experience and Behavior: Relationships with Religious Orientation among Pakistani Muslims
Authors: Khan Ziasma Haneef , Watson P. J.
Published: February 2013

Within the Ideological Surround Model of the social sciences and religion, so-called “universal” perspectives within the psychology of religion can dialogically clarify and be clarified by the “particular” elements of Muslim (and other forms of religious) commitment. This study developed new scales for operationalizing the experience and behavior of Pakistani Muslims during Ramadan. In a sample of university students, one set of experiential factors apparently facilitated, whereas another interfered with the practices of Ramadan. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations correlated with greater and the Extrinsic Social motivation with lower levels of involvement in Ramadan. Relative to these religious orientation measures, Ramadan experience scales displayed incremental validity by explaining additional variance in Ramadan behavior. Women proved to be more religious than men. At the most general level, these data further supported the dialogic assumptions of the Ideological Surround Model of research in the psychology of religion.
The Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism: Development and Application among British Pagans
Authors: Williams Emyr , Francis Leslie J. , Billington Ursula
Published: February 2013

This article builds on the tradition of attitudinal measures of religiosity established by Leslie Francis and colleagues with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (and reflected in the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism) by introducing a new measure to assess the attitudinal disposition of Pagans. A battery of items was completed by 75 members of a Pagan Summer Camp. These items were reduced to produce a 21-item scale that measured aspects of Paganism concerned with: the God/Goddess, worshipping, prayer, and coven. The scale recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.93. Construct validity of the Williams Scale of Attitude toward Paganism was demonstrated by the clear association with measures of participation in private rituals.
Intratextual Fundamentalism and the Desire for Simple Cognitive Structure: The Moderating Effect of the Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure
Authors: Muluk Hamdi , Sumaktoyo Nathanael G.
Published: February 2013

Religious fundamentalism has been suspected as a product of simple cognitive structuring. On the other hand, recent publications have shown that cognitive structure formation is not as simple as was previously thought. The concept of the Ability to Achieve Cognitive Structure (AACS) revealed that not everyone was able to form simple cognitive structure. This study employed a total of 187 Indonesian university students as participants. By the mean of Structural Equation Modeling, this study treated the desire for simple cognitive structure as a “new” latent variable and examined its relation with intratextual fundamentalism using AACS as moderator. The desire for simple structure was reflected by the Need for Cognitive Structure (NCS), the Dogmatism, and the RWA. The fundamentalism was reflected by the Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale (IFS). The result showed that fundamentalism, among other things, was a product of desire for simple cognitive structure. This study also showed that AACS moderated the relation in which high AACS would lead to higher fundamentalism while low AACS would not. Implications of the findings for social psychology and cross-cultural understanding of religious fundamentalism were discussed.
Meaning Making and Death in a Secular Society: A Dutch Survey Study
Authors: Wojtkowiak Joanna , Rutjens Bastiaan T. , Venbrux Eric
Published: February 2013

This article focuses on the relation between death and religion in a secularized society. In the Netherlands, traditional religious membership has declined significantly together with traditional belief systems. This study investigates the relation between the experience of death and religious affiliation (unaffiliated, Catholic, and Protestant) in relation to meaning making. Parts of a nationwide survey study (n = 1212) are analyzed in order to investigate different forms of meaning making (Christian meaning, personal meaning, and denial of meaning). The results show that the experience of the death of a loved one is related to personal meaning giving only for Protestant participants. Moreover, religiously unaffiliated, Catholics and Protestants differ significantly in different ways of meaning making. In the discussions the authors focus on the different effects of different religious groups in the context of secular society.
A Sense of ‘Special Connection’, Self-transcendent Values and a Common Factor for Religious and Non-religious Spirituality
Authors: Hyland Michael E. , Wheeler Philippa , Kamble Shanmukh , Masters Kevin S.
Published: February 2013

We examined the hypothesis that a tendency to experience the world in terms of a sense of ‘special’ connection is responsible for the self-transcendent value dimension identified by multi-dimensional scaling and constitutes a common factor for different religious and non-religious interpretations of spirituality. Eight different groups were studied including: (a) six different types of faith leaders in India and the UK, (b) people who self-rated as spiritual but not religious, and (c) those self-rating as neither spiritual nor religious. They completed a questionnaire that assessed (a) the strength of their spirituality irrespective of type (self-perceived spirituality) and (b) the experience of special connection to the following categories: people, nature, places and the universe, with and without using the term spiritual. For all eight samples the different types of connection were highly inter-correlated, and self-perceived spirituality correlated with the sum of connection items irrespective of whether items included the term spiritual or not. Variation between groups in the size of the latter correlation was consistent with different interpretations of spirituality in those groups. Although the meaning of spirituality is socially constructed, variability within faith leader groups suggests that its interpretation is also affected by personality.
The Placebo Phenomenon and Well-Being: Notes on the Healing Process as an Evolutionary Adaptive Trait
Authors: Craffert Pieter F.
Published: February 2013

Abstract

As biopsychosocial beings, humans have developed numerous mechanisms that regulate and sustain life and well-being, one of which is self-healing. The term placebo response, to be understood as a meaning response and self-healing mechanism, refers to an evolutionary adaptive trait that developed as an integral part of human beings as biocultural and socially embodied beings in search of ways of overcoming assaults on wellness. As embodied beings humans function as biopsychosocial organisms where body, culture and society interact in order to bring about well-being. The placebo response is one such response by the organism and can have positive or negative effects on the organism. When the organismic response to assaults on well-being facilitates positive outcomes such as healing and well-being, it is called the placebo effect, and when it operates as a negative force as in producing or enhancing sickness and distress, it is referred to as the nocebo effect. An understanding of these organismic responses is essential for an appreciation of all health care systems and healing modalities, and consequently, for the evaluation of the efficacy and quality of potential health providers and promoters of well-being. It can also be used to evaluate the potential of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), including faith healing and distant healing. Ultimately, an appreciation of the organismic response to bring about either the placebo or nocebo effect provides insight into who and what we are as human beings.
Apocalypticism and Popular Culture in South Africa: An Overview and Update
Authors: Mollett Margaret
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Apocalypticism, in the form of premillennial dispensationalism, based on foundational texts in Daniel, 2 Thessalonians and the book of Revelation, took root in South Africa through missionaries from the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. At first associated with Pentecostal churches and splinter groups from traditional churches belief in an imminent rapture followed by the tribulation, the millennium and final white throne judgment characterise an ever-widening circle of so-called charismatic groups. This heightening of expectation can mainly be ascribed to the influence of Hal Lindsey during the 70s and 80s and Tim LaHaye during the first decade of the 21st century. Rapid growth in media technology and the popularity of religious fiction has resulted in a merging of apocalyptic expectation with popular culture. This article probes the nature of “popular culture” and its relation to religion in South African context, and indicates a route for further enquiry and research. It concludes with the question, “What obligation does this lay on the scholarly guild?”
The Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625) as a Disputation Cycle
Authors: Sinnema Donald , van den Belt Henk
Published: February 2013

The Synopsis Purioris Theologiae, a textbook in systematic theology, originated as a series of disputations held in Leiden University between 1620–1624. In presiding over a cycle of disputations, the Leiden professors Johannes Polyander, Andreas Rivetus, Antonius Walaeus, and Antonius Thysius continued a tradition from before the Synod of Dort. This article discusses the original academic setting of the disputations, shows that the cycle and its four repetitions replaced a similar cycle with repetitions that started in 1596 under Franciscus Junius Sr., and that the order of subjects was agreed on beforehand.The professors composed the theses and were responsible for the final text of the Synopsis.
The “Last Dogma” of Positivism: Historicist Naturalism and the Fact/Value Dichotomy
Authors: Zammito John H.
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Has the emergence of post-positivism in philosophy of science changed the terms of the “is/ought” dichotomy? If it has demonstrated convincingly that there are no “facts” apart from the theoretical frames and evaluative standards constructing them, can such a cordon sanitaire really be upheld between “facts” and values? The point I wish to stress is that philosophy of science has had a central role in constituting and imposing the fact/value dichotomy and a revolution in the philosophy of science should not leave the dichotomy unaffected. The connection between post-positivism and naturalism will be my guiding thread in considering this “last dogma of positivism.” First this essay will specify the sense of naturalism that it will take to be essential to the post-positivist philosophy of science: the deflation of the notion of the “purity” of scientific knowledge. Then it will turn to the question of the implications that follow for the “autonomy” of ethics, including the danger posed by a new form of scientistic reductionism.
Neurath’s Boat Will Take You Where You Want to Go: On Naturalized Epistemology and Historicism
Authors: Henderson David
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Naturalized epistemology is not a recent invention, nor is it a philosophical invention. Rather, it is a cognitive phenomena that is pervasive and desirable in the way of human epistemic engagement with their world. It is a matter of the way that one’s cognitive processes can be modulated by information gotten from those same or wider cognitive processes. Such modulational control enhances the reliability of one’s cognitive processes in many ways – and judgments about objective epistemic justification consistently evince a reasonable demand for it. However, with suitable modulational control in place within an agent or a community of agents, the fitting cognitive processes take time to generate information that then engenders changes in processes and norms. Further, as there are significant historical and biographical contingencies involving trajectories through one’s environment, there are contingencies in the information and modifications that will be engendered by suitable modulational control. As a result, what makes for objectively justified belief at a time will vary – as the fruits of suitable modulational control accrue over time. This is a moderate form of historicism about epistemic justification.
Virtues of Historiography
Authors: Froeyman Anton
Published: February 2013

Abstract

In this paper, I take up Herman Paul’s suggestion to analyze the process of writing history in terms of virtues. In contrast to Paul, however, I argue that the concept of virtue used here should not be based on virtue epistemology, but rather on virtue ethics. The reason is that virtue epistemology is discriminative towards non-cognitive virtues and incompatible with the Ankersmitian/Whitean view of historiography as a multivocal path from historical reality to historical representation. Virtue ethics on the other hand, more specifically those forms of virtue ethics which emphasize the uncodifiability thesis, is very capable of providing such an account. In order to make this somewhat more concrete, I distinguish four important traits of virtue ethics, and I try to make clear how these can be interpreted with respect to the writing of history.
The Ethical Literature: Religion and Political Authority as Brothers
Authors: Feldman Noah
Published: February 2013

Abstract

This essay discusses the contribution of the Muslim ethical literature of the middle ages to Islamic political thought. The ethical literature offers a perspective on the medieval Islamic constitution that differs markedly from the picture that derives from the juristic literature on the caliphate. Where the juristic literature largely portrays political authority as the servant of religion, the ethical literature presents religion and political authority as “brothers” arrayed in a relationship of mutual dependence. This view is decisively influenced by pre-Islamic Iranian thinking on the relationship between religion and politics, as contained in the “Letter of Tansar.”
Token Constitutionalism and Islamic Opposition in Tajikistan
Authors: Atkin Muriel
Published: February 2013

Abstract

Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim country where the concept of having a constitution is not controversial, but the content of that constitution is. Roughly seventy years of Soviet rule over the territory that became independent Tajikistan at the end of 1991 introduced constitutions as a norm, although the rights the constitutions appeared to accord did not jibe with political reality. The years of Soviet rule also created an environment hostile to Islam, as a result of which some of Tajikistan’s inhabitants ceased to be believers, while many who continued to practice their faith knew little about it other than the rituals of everyday life. In the last years of the Soviet era and the two decades after the breakup of the USSR, Islam was caught up in the political as well as religious controversies that developed in Tajikistan during this upheaval. There was an upsurge of attention to Islam, in a religious sense for some, a cultural and nationalist sense for others, and as a bogeyman for yet others. The Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the only legal Islamic political party in post-Soviet Central Asia, along with the head of the religious establishment in the republic, the qadi, joined with secular groups advocating reforms that would promote political and economic change. The power struggle between neo-Soviet ruling elites and the opposition led to a civil war (1992-97) in which the neo-Soviets prevailed. Tajikistan’s post-Soviet constitution reflects the emphatic secularism of the neo-Soviets, despite the objections of the IRPT. The post-civil-war government has also enacted legislation reestablishing Soviet-style constraints on Islamic institutions and personnel and has used its power to thwart genuinely pluralistic politics. The IRPT as well as secular opposition parties have felt the effects of the rigged elections and harassment by the regime.
Hobbes Against the Jurists: Sovereignty and Artificial Reason
Authors: May Larry
Published: February 2013

This paper discusses sovereignty and examines in detail Hobbes’s debates with the two leading legal theorists of his day, Coke and Hale, both Lord Chief Justices of the King’s Bench. I argue that Hobbes came to change his mind somewhat about the desirability of divided sovereignty by the time, near the end of his life, that he wrote the Dialogue. But I also argue that Hobbes should have developed more than a very thin conception of the rule of law. Hobbes should have been more open to the ideas that the jurists of his day were developing, especially the idea that the judiciary should have independent status.
Peace Operation Success: The Evaluation Framework
Authors: Diehl Paul F. , Druckman Daniel
Published: February 2013

This article outlines and summarizes the Diehl and Druckman evaluation framework that is used in the case studies that follow. An overview of the decision template is given and the three sets of goals (core, beyond traditional peacekeeping, and peacebuilding) are introduced. Two sample framework entries (violence abatement, and restoration, reconciliation and transformation respectively) are provided as illustrations. Application to peace operations in Bosnia is also used for illustrative purposes.
The Dangerous Liaisons of the Responsibility to Protect and the Protection of Civilians in Peacekeeping Operations
Authors: Tardy Thierry
Published: February 2013

The parallel conceptual development and shared normative basis of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) and civilian protection in peacekeeping operations have led to a rapprochement between the two emerging norms. In 2009, in his efforts to operationalize RtoP, the UN Secretary-General explicitly called for the mainstreaming of the goals relating to RtoP in the areas of peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

This article argues that the interdependence between RtoP and protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations should not be interpreted as being necessarily conducive to their parallel promotion or mutual strengthening. On the contrary, issue-linkage between them is likely to be counterproductive for three sets of reasons. First, RtoP is characterized by its exceptional nature and narrow agenda – in relation to the four threshold crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – while the civilian protection in peacekeeping agenda is broad-ranging. Second, there are differences in the degrees of coercion that the two concepts can produce that make them sufficiently distinct not to be amalgamated in the conflict management toolbox. Third, the contentious nature of the two concepts, and in particular the coercive dimension of pillar three of RtoP, is such that a two obvious issue-linkage would be counterproductive as it would exacerbate the norm localisation challenge of two already resisted emerging norms.
‘Monitoring the Frog’ in Africa: Conflict Early Warning with Structural Data
Authors: O’Bannon Brett R.
Published: February 2013

There is in both the theory and practice of early warning a clear preference for tracking and analysing proximate or immediate causes of conflict, sometimes referred to as ‘triggers’ or ‘accelerators’, over factors that might generate earlier warnings, such as shifts in deep-rooted, structural determinants of conflict. This preference reflects common assumptions made about the nature of structural factors (viz. that they are static and/or too indirectly linked to outcomes) and the relative ease with which less deeply rooted factors may be monitored. I suggest that structural factors are indeed variables, the value of which can be indirectly assessed with proxy indicators. Adopting a method from conservation biology, the monitoring of a ‘species’ of conflict (low intensity herder-farmer conflict), allows one to assess how well society is bearing political, economic, environmental and cultural stress. Normally considered too difficult to track in their own right for use as data in early warning systems, monitoring patterns in herder-farmer relations allows the observer to tap into otherwise inaccessible structural data that can be useful in anticipating the onset of wider-scale conflict.
On the Occasion of the Acquisition of the First Edition of De iure belli ac pacis by the Peace Palace Library
Authors: Nellen Henk
Published: February 2013

In November 2010, the Library of the Peace Palace in The Hague acquired a copy of Hugo Grotius’s seminal study on the law of war, De iure belli ac pacis (Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1625). The purchase represents the very rare first state (issue or printing) of the first edition, item no. 565-I in the well-known bibliography of Grotius’s works by Jacob Ter Meulen and P.J.J. Diermanse. This article is an adapted version of a speech held in the Peace Palace on 21 February 2011, when the copy of De iure belli ac pacis was presented to the public. After a short survey of the genesis, printing history and early reception, the article goes into the differences between the three states of the first edition and their significance for the interpretation of Grotius’s work. A provisional checklist of copies in public libraries is added in an appendix.
The Image of Christ in Grotius’s De Veritate Religionis Christianae: Some Thoughts on Grotius’s Socinianism
Authors: Palladini Fiammetta
Published: February 2013

An attempt is made to show, by means of an analysis of the way in which Grotius deals with the figure of Christ in De Veritate, and by a comparison of his account in that work with the ones in his earlier works Meletius and De Satisfactione Christi, that the accusations of Socinianism, raised against him by his adversaries, were by no means unjustified. In fact, the dogmas of the Trinity and of the dual nature of Christ play no role in De Veritate and the presentation of the figure of Christ is very similar to that of Socinus. At the end of the paper I also try to explain why Grotius felt increasingly strongly drawn towards Socinianism.
Revision of the New World Species of Peritropis Uhler (Heteroptera: Miridae: Cylapinae)
Authors: Wolski Andrzej , Henry Thomas J.
Published: February 2013

The New World species of the genus Peritropis are revised, and 17 new species are described: P. amazonica, P. amphicyrta, P. carpinteroi, P. carvalhoi, P. conspersa, P. cornata, P. gorczycai, P. guarani, P. izyai, P. marmorea, P. nicaraguensis. P. plaumanni, P. schaffneri, P. scutellata, P. stobieckii, P. turrialba and P. venezuelaensis. All previously known species from the New World (P. husseyi Knight, P. saldaeformis Uhler, and P. tuberculata McAtee and Malloch) are redescribed, except P. unicolor Carvalho and Rosas for which an English translation of the original description is provided. Illustrations of the male genitalia, a color photograph of the adult of each species, scanning electron micrographs of selected structures of Peritropis husseyi, P. saldaeformis and P. turrialba, and a key to species are provided.
A taxonomic revision of the genus Bocatella Villiers, 1948 with redescription and notes on the systematic position of Sphedanolestes nigripennis (Fairmaire, 1858) (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae)
Authors: Chłond Dominik
Published: February 2013

The African genus Bocatella Villiers, 1948 is revised. The type species of Bocatella by original designation is Harpactor nigripennis (non Fairmaire, 1858): Villiers, 1948 (misidentification). A lectotype is designated for H. nigripennis and the new combination Sphedanolestes nigripennis (Fairmaire, 1858), comb.n. is proposed. The taxonomic species Harpactor nigripennis (non Fairmaire, 1858): Villiers, 1948 is recognized as representing an undescribed species and is described as Bocatella nigra sp.n. Since the type species of Bocatella was misidentified, B. nigra sp.n. is fixed as the type species of Bocatella. An additional new species, B. femorata sp.n. is described, both species and S. nigripennis are illustrated, species of Bocatella are keyed. Sphedanolestes fenestriculatus Karsch, 1892, erroneously synonymized with H. nigripennis (non Fairmaire, 1858): Villiers, 1948 by Villiers (1948) is synonymized with H. nigripennis Fairmaire, 1858.