bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Redox Equilibria and Kinetics
Authors: Brezonik Patrick L. , Arnold William A.
Published: November 2022

This chapter treats the last of the four major classes of reactions of interest regarding ionic equilibria in natural waters: the coupled processes of oxidation and reduction. Redox processes are important not only for inorganic ions but also play prominent roles in the biogeochemical cycles of important biogenic elements and in transformations of natural organic matter and synthetic organic contaminants. After defining important terms and redox processes, procedures for writing and balancing redox reactions and combining reduction potentials to determine reaction energetics are described, and pε is described as an alternative measure to EH (redox potential). The relationship between reduction potentials and Gibbs free energy of reaction is explained. Procedures for displaying redox equilibria in diagrams are developed. Measurement of redox potential in natural waters and sediments and the limitations of this measurement are presented. The importance of kinetics in describing redox conditions in natural systems is also emphasized.
Fundamentals of Photochemistry and Some Applications in Aquatic Systems
Authors: Brezonik Patrick L. , Arnold William A.
Published: November 2022

This chapter describes the basic physical and chemical processes involved in photochemistry, including both direct and indirect photochemical reactions in natural waters and engineered systems. The kinetic processes of both kinds of photochemical reactions are summarized along with the main factors affecting the quantity and spectral quality of light at the water surface and within water bodies. The chemistry of important reactive photo-intermediates is summarized, and some important photochemical reactions of dissolved inorganic substances in aquatic systems are briefly described. Finally, the basic model for semiconductor photochemical reactions is presented, along with potential applications of such reactions in water and wastewater treatment.
Under the Shadow of the Almighty
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: November 2022

For at least 2,400 years, Psalm 91 has been one of the most used scriptures, for both Jews and Christians. It has been cherished by some of the greatest thinkers in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is much used for purposes of spiritual protection and exorcism, and it is also believed to offer material protection against violence, famine, or disease. Beyond inspiring faith and confidence, Psalm 91 raises some of the key theological questions that have so often arisen in the Judeo-Christian tradition, but which are here encountered in acute and memorable form. Particularly troubling is the psalm’s assertion that the truly faithful will suffer no evil and will be protected from pestilence. As it has been employed throughout its history, the psalm forces us to think about the boundaries that separate legitimate prayer from superstition or magic, and about the distinctions between “high” and “low” religion. A “biography” of Psalm 91 is also a history of critical themes in Western religion.
A Thousand Shall Fall at Thy Side
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: November 2022

This chapter traces the controversial origins and history of Psalm 91. It is suggested that it began as a prayer or spell intended to seek protection during a time of plague and pestilence, and was subsequently incorporated into the Book of Psalms. In the Second Temple era, successive readings, commentaries, and translations of the text strongly emphasized the psalm’s role as a defense against demonic evil, and as a weapon in exorcism. It was much used for these purposes in the Qumran community, and in the liturgical practice of the temple itself. As it was translated into the Greek of the Septuagint, the psalm’s meaning changed in ways that would be highly influential for later Christian readers. That Greek rendering shaped the Latin Vulgate translation, and all understandings of the text in the medieval West.
Lest You Dash Your Foot Against a Stone
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: November 2022

This chapter traces the powerful influence of Psalm 91 in the New Testament and in the making of early Christian theology. In the gospels’ account of the temptations in the wilderness, Satan quotes Psalm 91 to Jesus. However, this reference is only a small part of a much larger role that the psalm plays in constructing the gospel narrative, most evidently in both Luke and Matthew. Early Christians used the psalm as a means of understanding Jesus’s messianic role as Christus Victor, linking the reference to the serpent to a Genesis passage concerning the Garden of Eden. Similar ideas occur in the Book of Revelation. That vision of defeating or trampling the serpent strongly influenced Patristic thought.
My Refuge and My Fortress
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: November 2022

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century led to a rediscovery of the original Hebrew text of Psalm 91, and a new appreciation of the work and its power. Martin Luther loved the work. Protestant readers also rediscovered the plague emphasis that had been lost in the Vulgate translation. Catholic readers continued to read older versions, referring to the text as Psalm 90 rather than 91. Both sides made extensive use of Psalm 91 during the religious wars of the period, each portraying their enemies as evil forces to be trampled and suppressed. Catholics created some spectacular visual depictions of the Psalm. Protestants meanwhile used it as the basis for major musical compositions. Catholics found the psalm very valuable in their global missions, to justify conquering and ruling pagan peoples overseas.
Postdoc
Authors: Schimel Joshua
Published: November 2022

For people aiming for an academic career, postdoctoral experience is routine, even in the humanities. Yet this remains a delicate transition, defined only by what you are not, and by being both a new senior person but also the “new kid.” Balancing these roles calls for tact, diplomacy, and communication. But, of course, a postdoc’s job is to find a permanent position. Getting hired involves recognizing that job searches are fitting processes; employers are guessing who will be the best person for them. But they are likely searching because they lack your expertise, so your seminar needs to educate interviewers about who, and what, you are.
Assistant Professor
Authors: Schimel Joshua
Published: November 2022

An assistant professor has one job: to make tenure and keep their job. This starts with negotiations over salary and start-up. But how to approach these to establish your position as a valued member of this new community? Having arrived, a new faculty member needs to develop a mentoring network that encompasses everything from emotional support to active sponsorship; this will likely involve people both on and off campus. Some service work is important, but too much can interfere in core activities of scholarship and teaching—so learn when to say “no.” Finally, if things are imperfect, know when to consider leaving for other opportunities.
Non-Tenure-Track Teaching Faculty
Authors: Schimel Joshua
Published: November 2022

Most university faculty are either adjunct or are at undergraduate institutions. Life for adjunct faculty can be particularly challenging: modest pay, lack of job security, and often a lack of respect. Institutions have limited resources and so always support their permanent, core, faculty to a higher level than they do adjunct faculty. Adjuncts can improve their standing by taking a larger role in departmental life, even if they don’t vote in departmental affairs. Another challenge for adjuncts is the overwhelming number of systems to figure out. Finally, remember that there may be issues that are negotiable—timing, sections, and so on.
Working with the Staff
Authors: Schimel Joshua
Published: November 2022

Great staff is part of what makes a great university; faculty rely on the staff to maintain administrative services, yet staff often report problems in dealing with faculty. Faculty often don’t understand the role and the lives of the staff. When facing a problem, the rule is to find the right person to ask and to build effective teamwork. Problems with staff may involve a weak staff member or it may be that the real problem is the faculty member’s unreasonable expectations or unwillingness to accept bad news. Working effectively with support staff calls for learning something about how they operate and building effective working relationships.
Mentoring 1
Authors: Schimel Joshua
Published: November 2022

A mentor’s job is to help people get to the place that is right for them. Yet, mentoring, done right, is a mutualistic relationship in which each participant benefits. There are many ways to achieve this, and the best approach will depend on three elements: mentor, mentee, and the specific relationship between them—succeeding may require adjusting approaches. This is particularly important when we mentor students who differ from us—how do we ensure they get what they need? Part of being a good mentor is being a role model, yet many highly successful mentors can be intimidating as role models.
Theoretical Contexts II
Authors: Rothstein William
Published: November 2022

Despite their temporal, cultural, and geographic distance from early nineteenth-century Italy, the ideas of Schenker and Riemann may be applied to the repertoire covered in this book. The relevance of Schenker’s theories owes much to his rediscovery of thoroughbass, an important ingredient of his analytical method and of Italian pedagogy. Schenker’s emphasis on melody, including his concept of melodic diminution, has much in common with Italian solfeggio practice. His belief in the primacy of absolute music, and his contempt for the mass audience, explains his rejection of opera as a genre. His belief in German superiority, which included a late flirtation with Nazism, intensified his rejection of Italian musical culture after 1900. The harmonic concepts of Riemann and neo-Riemannian theorists provide useful tools to describe harmonic relations in the chromatic environments often favored by Rossini and his successors.
Bellini and the New Diatonicism
Authors: Rothstein William
Published: November 2022

Bellini’s melodic and harmonic language, though mostly diatonic, weakens the pull of tonal centers as conventionally understood. Whereas Rossini often ends a minor-key piece in the parallel major, Bellini sometimes ends in the relative major, treating relative major and minor almost as a single key. The sonorità, or fixed melodic pitch, may act as an agent of coherence, even over long stretches of music. Unlike Rossini, who often had assistants compose his recitatives, Bellini’s recitatives are as carefully structured as his lyric movements. Bellini’s music often exhibits common-tone tonality, prefiguring pieces like the Verdi chorus analyzed in chapter 1. The lengthy finales to La straniera and Norma are analyzed.
Meyerbeer and the New Chromaticism
Authors: Rothstein William
Published: November 2022

Meyerbeer is an important link between Rossini and Verdi. A pupil of Vogler, Meyerbeer shared his teacher’s fascination with equal subdivisions of the octave. Progressions based on interval cycles—of semitones, whole tones, minor thirds, and major thirds—play a prominent role in the operas that Meyerbeer composed for Paris. Interval cycles are called upon to portray the demonic, evil, or uncanny, but also to underscore deep emotion. Meyerbeer anticipated Wagner and Verdi in his use of expressive tonality; his unconventional use of and chords influenced Verdi and others. By contrast, his deployment of keys in multi-movement numbers is relatively conservative. The two large numbers in act 4 of Les Huguenots are analyzed.
Afterword
Authors: Rothstein William
Published: November 2022

There is no skeleton key to the music of nineteenth-century Italian opera, but certain principles recur. One is the status of melody as partly independent of harmony. A consequence of this independence is the focal melodic pitch (sonorità), which often acts as an agent of melodic coherence. Another principle is freedom of travel around the universe of sharp, flat, and neutral keys, with no requirement to end where one began. This freedom encourages delimitation in the form of tonal fields, areas of the tonal universe that interact with each other, either by mutual contrast or by enharmonic connection. Both principles are related by the larger concept of common-tone tonality.
Viruses Shaping History and the Discovery of Viruses
Authors: Li Jie Jack
Published: November 2022

This chapter begins by reminiscing several fascinating stories where viruses shaped the trajectories of history. The Dutch tulip mania that took place in the 1630s was largely caused by variegation of the tulip flowers infected by the tulip mosaic virus. In the sixteenth century, the Spaniards conquered Mexico and Peru with the help of an invisible accomplice: the smallpox virus. Meanwhile, the successions of many thrones around the world were impacted partially by the infection of smallpox as well. The chapter then proceeds to recount how viruses were first discovered from tobacco leaves infected by the tobacco mosaic virus. Finally, the chapter closes by reviewing some of the many cancer-causing viruses, such as Epstein-Barr virus, HPV, and HTLV.
General Introduction: The Text and Its Author
Authors: Esler Dylan
Published: November 2022

The Introduction offers a detailed account of the life of the bSam-gtan mig-sgron’s author, gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas ye-shes, who played a pivotal role in codifying the tantric teachings that were to become the heritage of the rNying-ma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Particular attention is devoted to the problems surrounding gNubs-chen’s dates. The chapter also looks at the reception of the bSam-gtan mig-sgron in Tibet and gives an overview of prior scholarly research on this text. In the textual discussion that follows, the overall structure of the text is examined, as is the manner in which gNubs-chen extensively uses citations, from both authoritative scriptures and the works of named masters, as building blocks to frame and authenticate his arguments. Other topics addressed are the doxographical assumptions underlying gNubs-chen’s classificatory scheme and the nature of the glosses that intersperse the entire text, and what they might tell us regarding its early transmission.
Getting Ready
Authors: Esler Dylan
Published: November 2022

This chapter gives a brief overview of the lineages and means specific to each of the contemplative approaches that will constitute the principal chapters of the work. It then launches into a discussion of four reliances that the aspiring meditator will need for his practice. They concern the master who imparts personalized instruction, the consort with whom the tantric yogin engages in sexual yoga, the books compatible with the meditative system to be practiced, and a servant who is to look after the meditator’s daily necessities so that the latter do not become a cause of distraction. Due attention is also given to the necessity of looking after the body during retreat, a reminder that the Buddhist path of meditation steers clear of the extremes of indulgence and self-mortification. The chapter closes with reflections on the benefits of meditating and the defects of not doing so.
Gaining Perspective
Authors: Esler Dylan
Published: November 2022

This chapter broaches the interrelationship between correctly assimilating the doctrinal standpoint or view of a given contemplative approach and deepening and stabilizing this comprehension through meditation. It then provides a bird’s-eye view of the differences among the vehicles examined in the text. This is achieved by looking at their respective understanding of the key notion of non-discursiveness, or non-conceptuality. The chapter proceeds to identify and refute the deviations in the lower vehicles’ understanding from the perspective of Atiyoga or rDzogs-chen, the approach favored by the author, gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas ye-shes. This chapter thus provides a condensed version of the topics to be covered at length in the main chapters of the text.
Introduction
Authors: Shaw James R.
Published: November 2022

This chapter introduces the aims of the book: to provide a “bipartite” reading of the rule-following remarks in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations on which Wittgenstein engages in a “Justificatory Investigation” and a “Grammatical Investigation”; to use this distinction to illuminate Wittgenstein’s remarks on human agreement and his overall philosophical methodology; and finally to apply the resulting view to a form of meaning skepticism developed by Saul Kripke. The chapter previews how the bipartite reading is able to give us new insight into Wittgenstein’s views in the foundations of semantics that helps to situate him with respect to contemporary work on the subject, and also helps to deepen our understanding of key Wittgensteinean notions like that of a “form of life.”
The Justificatory Question (§185)
Authors: Shaw James R.
Published: November 2022

This chapter provides a close reading of §185 of the Philosophical Investigations, on which it raises a question distinctively about “reasons” or “justifications” for following rules in a sense that is expounded most clearly in Wittgenstein’s dictations in the Blue and Brown Books. In this book this is called the “Justificatory Question.” The chapter presents key evidence for this reading from Wittgenstein’s cursory treatment of dispositions in the Investigations. Lastly, this reading is situated with respect to the existing exegetical literature, and the significance of Wittgenstein’s Justificatory Question is situated with respect to the contemporary philosophical landscape.
Wittgenstein and Kripke
Authors: Shaw James R.
Published: November 2022

This chapter describes the aims of Part II of the book: to lay out the form of meaning skepticism developed by Saul Kripke in his celebrated reading of Wittgenstein’s rule-following remarks, and to show how although Wittgenstein never countenanced meaning skepticism, his work on the foundations of meaning contains novel and insightful resources for avoiding that skepticism. This chapter also previews several important steps on the way to appreciating this point about Wittgenstein’s relationship to Kripke. These include developing a contrast in how these two authors regard the role of constitutive grounds for meaning, and getting clearer on the roles that dispositions can and should play in Wittgenstein’s Grammatical Investigation.
For God and Liberty
Authors: Voekel Pamela
Published: November 2022

At the heart of the Age of Revolution in Spanish America was a transatlantic Catholic civil war. Each side of this religious divide operated from within a self-conscious intercontinental network of like-minded Catholics. The traditional narrative of the transitions from monarchy to independent republicanism as a process of secularization misses completely the warring factions in the Church who vied to define man’s relation to God and, therefore, the proper order of temporal authority. For its central protagonists, the era’s crisis of sovereignty provided a political stage for religious commitments, and everywhere local interests intersected with transnational currents. The New World’s sacred vision of liberty is revealed in the enormous archive of reformist theology, republican advocacy, and official reports of often bloody confrontations that marked this religious conflict.
Drawing the Religious Battle Lines
Authors: Voekel Pamela
Published: November 2022

An Empire-wide constitutional convention met from 1810 to 1814. Under the iron hand of the monarchy and the Inquisition, religious fault lines had been fiercely contained. The Cortes’ guarantees of free speech and a free press allowed them to surface. In Mérida, Yucatán, the Sanjuanistas, like reformist Catholics throughout the empire’s urban areas in this period, transformed the decidedly regalist and episcopalist Reform Catholicism of prior Bourbon state and church officials into a far more democratic doctrine, one that provided a justification to decenter not just the pope but the absolutism of the monarchy itself. Reformers championed new notions of political representation that paralleled their notions of church ecclesiology. These theological rebels squared off against ultramontanist Catholics who supported monarchical and papal absolutism and promoted religious cults like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A religious war with deep transatlantic connections transpired in the press and in the city’s streets.
The Rivals Muster
Authors: Voekel Pamela
Published: November 2022

In the early nineteenth century, reformist Catholics centered in San Salvador championed local political and ecclesiastical control against secular and religious hierarchies, as well as against economic elites clustered in Guatemala City engaged in large-scale merchant trade across the Atlantic. Enraged by the predatory loans of these big merchants, indigo growers in and around San Salvador developed an esprit de corps and formal advocacy organizations. The local political and ecclesiastical control necessitated by the Bourbon abdications in addition became a theater of experimentation in governing the municipalities as well as the churches. The crisis of sovereignty of 1808 introduced the men who would later be regarded as the founding fathers of El Salvador and Colombia—committed reformist ecclesiastics like José Matías Delgado and José Simeón Cañas, radical friar Juan de Dios Campos Diez, and Colombian parish priest Juan Nepomuceno Azuero Plata. Their reformist theology cannot be separated from their democratic politics.
The moral view of perpetrator disgust
Authors: Munch-Jurisic Ditte Marie
Published: November 2022

Chapter 1 presents the moral view of perpetrator disgust and aversive emotions. A range of dominant interpretations in genocide studies, philosophy, and psychology has argued that emotional responses like disgust and distress represent an embodied form of moral perception that can (and should) guide individual action. In genocide studies we find nativist interpretations that view perpetrator disgust as sign of an innate human instinct against killing and habituation interpretations that see disgust as shaped by the social and moral environment of the agent. Both accounts maintain that the disgust response contains moral potential, a seed for prosocial action.
The destructive view of perpetrator disgust
Authors: Munch-Jurisic Ditte Marie
Published: November 2022

Chapter 3 presents a destructive view on perpetrator disgust as an alternative to both moral and non-moral views of the phenomenon. To account for the full range of documented cases, which include instances of aesthetic disgust as well as distress that is accompanied by explicit expressions of guilt and recognition of wrongdoing, it is necessary to divorce questions on the nature of perpetrator disgust from consequential questions of its motivational force. When perpetrators feel disgust in situations of mass atrocity, even if they experience moral conflict, they are not inspired to moral action. On the contrary, because of their social, moral, and political context, they tend to understand their distress as an emotional obstacle to be overcome. Rather than an impediment to murder, the management of perpetrator disgust becomes a crucial element in shaping a genocidal mentality.
Concluding remarks
Authors: Munch-Jurisic Ditte Marie
Published: November 2022

Societies often make use of feelings of disgust, horror, and distress as a pedagogical tool to cultivate correct moral attitudes. The practice of having children attend public executions is one example how societies foster an environment where brutality and torture are not just morally justified and accepted, but also cheered and celebrated. Such examples show that gut feelings like disgust and discomfort are not calibrated by a natural, universal morality, but function as vessels that can be hitched to a range of ideologies, principles, value judgments, and more. Through an analysis of historical and contemporary cases, and an exploration of the use of revulsion in Anthony Burgess’ modern fable, A Clockwork Orange (1962), the concluding remarks pinpoint the importance of distinguishing between the visceral feeling itself and its moral import.
Strange Memory
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section introduces the main topics to be tackled through the book: a realist ontology of time and memory (the past as real, as surviving in memory) that can be articulated through both philosophy (Henri Bergson) and mystical practices (Mina Bergson’s occult performances of the past). Opening with the example of a personal memory of the author, the idea of memory as merely mental time travel is discussed and contrasted with a realist ontology of different, but covarying, levels or kinds of duration that exist in a mereological (part-whole) relation. An examination ensues of the place of spirit in contemporary materialist thought, as well as that of matter in late nineteenth-century (or “neo-materialist”) spiritualism. The plan of the book, with its peculiar structuring device modeled upon the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, is set out.
10° = 1° Ipsissimus Covariant (Neophyte)
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section provides an overview of modern psychological theories of memory and memory images, and their interpretation within contemporary philosophical psychology. Some historical aspects (Plato, Aristotle) are also touched on when relevant, which leads to a full discussion of trace theory, both from the perspective of its advocates and critics (the latter normally charging it with lacking any historicity). The importance of the image for the Golden Dawn (and Henri Bergson) is introduced, while also comparing that significance with the similar views of Alfred Sinnett and Rudolf Steiner. How an ultra-realism toward the past (and memory) could be theorized in the context of trace theory (and its implication of “presentism”) is also addressed. Patrick McNamara’s use of Bergson’s selectionist theory of memory (and levels of memory or duration) is then explored in respect to this question of pastism and presentism, naturalist and nonnaturalist theories of memory.
“O My Bergson, You Are a Magician”
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section examines Henri Bergson’s attitude to and writings about spiritualism, mysticism, and psychical research. The Kabbalistic idea that the adept retraces the path of Divine emanations (charted in the Tree of Life) is related to Bergson’s view of metaphysics, and metaphysical insight, as a reversal of the normal direction of thought, or a search for “experience at its source.” The relationship between religion, understood as an organized worship of God, and the kind of mysticism found in the Golden Dawn (namely, a heterodox set of practices aimed at self-actualization and self-knowledge) is also related to Henri Bergson’s own theory of the self and inwardness. The chapter continues by looking at Henri Bergson’s theory of magic and fabulation before closely examining his approach to psychical research, in particular by comparing his theory of pure perception and hyperaesthesia with clairvoyance and astral travel, especially as described in texts by Mina Bergson.
On the Meta-Spiritual
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section discusses the metatheoretical dimensions of spiritualism, materialism, and any conceptual antagonism between the two. A nontranscendent model of spirit is proposed, while the ensuing problems of inflation versus reduction are addressed before returning to the idea of supernormalization as a way of bypassing this never-ending dialectic. The popular cinematic portrayal of spirits (ghosts, phantoms) is analyzed for its own (informative) contradictions, especially as regard the physicalist portrayal of supposedly immaterial beings. The implicit sub-Cartesian dualism of substance in these representations of phantoms and the supernatural is shown to be shared by certain philosophies, and it is then critiqued from the vantage point of process theory and metaphilosophy. Finally, a part-whole approach to thinking about reality and representation (images, memories, ghosts) is forwarded, only one where the mereology is temporalized through covarying parts and heterogeneous continuities.
Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section focuses on Mina Bergson, her occult practice (beginning with the Rites of Isis), and the meaning of her “magic” name Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum, when translated as “Leave No Trace.” Using Peggy Phelan’s thesis of the power of the “unmarked,” the subtle differences between occult invocation and evocation, the use of the medium’s body, and the ephemerality of gesture and movement, questions are explored regarding traced and untraced movement. This leads back to memory studies (the engram as a trace of the past in the brain), and then back to Henri Bergson and an analysis of new, recently published lectures by him (from 1904) on the philosophy of memory, lectures that update Matter and Memory in significant ways, especially as regards the role of reverie in memory. The chapter ends by linking traceless movement to a new meaning for Bergsonism that incorporates the ideas of both Mina and Henri.
3° = 8° Practicus Covariant
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section continues the focus on performance, only now as mediated through the “performative” materialism of Karan Barad and the artist Lindsay Seers’s work, Nowhere Less Now, and its engagement with Mina Bergson. It begins by looking at certain spiritually inclined physicists from the late nineteenth century, before turning to Barad’s philosophical work and her engagement with quantum mechanics, and especially the ideas of Niels Bohr on entanglement between subatomic particles. Barad’s work has been compared to Henri Bergson before, but here the emphasis is shared with the performances and art installations of Seers, who also relates biographical memory, the past, and twinness, to quantum mechanics, while invoking both Henri and Mina Bergson’s names in her work. An exploration follows of the alternative, “ontological” reading of quantum mechanics offered by David Bohm, which allows for an interpretation of covariance and movement through the idea of nonlocalization (holism).
Veridical Hallucinations and Circumstantial Evidence
Authors: Ó Maoilearca John
Published: November 2022

This section asks whether such an alliance between philosophy and mysticism is plausible. It begins by looking at the philosophical tendency to demarcate what is knowledge and what is (mystical) nonsense as a peculiar form of “view from nowhere”—a self-imposed exile that makes philosophy ghostly, a part of the whole that wishes to think (of itself as) the whole, a de-parted part. This is what François Laruelle calls the “unitary illusion” of philosophy, and this allows us to connect Laruelle’s notion of “ordinary mysticism” (which has no such illusions of unity) with our own idea of the supernormal. Alongside a summary of this book’s ideas, this chapter considers the possibility that it may have overreached itself in combining the ideas of Mina and Henri Bergson, or that the theory of the supernormal is less an answer to a problem than a new name for a problem that helps to dissolve it.
Teaching Philosophy
Authors: Pawelski James O.
Published: November 2022

Questions of human flourishing have traditionally been at the core of philosophical inquiry. This is one reason why philosophy has historically had such an honored place in educational programs intended to help students live life well and engage wisely in civic life. Contemporary educational systems, however, present a number of obstacles to the teaching of philosophy as a way of cultivating flourishing. Faculty face professional pressures to focus more on knowledge than on wisdom, and students wrestle with academic and vocational expectations seemingly disconnected from well-being. Meanwhile, data indicates that students are facing a worsening mental health crisis of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Can teachers of philosophy help? This chapter discusses historical connections between the teaching of philosophy and the cultivation of human flourishing, explores present obstacles to this important educational goal, and suggests ways of rethinking the teaching of philosophy in the current context. Along the way, it examines the increasing prevalence of psychology courses aimed at supporting students’ well-being and presents experiences from the author’s more than thirty years of philosophy instruction to consider how the teaching of philosophy—and more broadly the restructuring of the entire curriculum—can create educational environments more conducive to the well-being of students and their teachers.
Human Flourishing, Philosophical Naturalism, and Aesthetic Value
Authors: Smith Murray
Published: November 2022

This chapter maps out a variety of historical and contemporary debates concerning the values embodied by film and other arts. I hold that a proper understanding of aesthetic value sees it as a core member of that family of values—epistemic, ethical, political, and aesthetic—collectively essential to human flourishing, rather than peripheral to it. In this sense, the aesthetic dimension is not only an essential aspect of film as an art, but a crucial aspect of life well-lived and fully realized. I also address a related methodological question: what is the relationship between the descriptive and explanatory nature of (positive) psychology, and the normative character of claims about human flourishing? I argue in favour of a broad, “co-operative naturalism” to defend the relevance of scientific psychology to value-laden domains. Throughout, I develop these arguments in relation to Remain in Light, the 1980 album by Talking Heads.
Putting Away Childish Things
Authors: May Isaac Barnes
Published: November 2022

The first chapter provides background for the rise of God-optional religion by addressing the progression of secularization in the United States in the early twentieth century. It focuses on the lives of clergy, and some laity, who felt their faith challenged by this process, often having to reimagine their beliefs to stay religious. This change was frequently analogized to maturing from childhood to adulthood. The chapter argues that this process of rejecting and reinterpreting faith was common across many religious groups and was understood to be part of the experience of going to seminary. The chapter also considers the difference between God-optional groups and other liberal religious communities when it came to dealing with these crises of faith.
Fruits Not Roots
Authors: May Isaac Barnes
Published: November 2022

This chapter argues that God-optional religious groups began to replace shared theological commitments with a focus on doing constructive work in the world. For Quakers and Unitarians, this meant humanitarian relief work, increasingly seen as core to their religious identities. Reconstructionist Jews defined their community through their intense commitment to Zionism. The chapter argues that these commitments served as God substitutes, allowing the communities to unite around a set of collective values and ideas. It suggests that these efforts to replace the role of God were only partially successful, as these substitutes did not always provide the same sense of cohesion as a shared theology.
War and Justice in the 21st Century
Authors: Ocampo Luis Moreno
Published: November 2022

This is the inside story of the International Criminal Court from the unique experience of its first Chief Prosecutor. Luis Moreno Ocampo describes his practice and alerts: there is no chaos, just complexity. Until 1998 states and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had exclusive authority to launch international justice. The Rome Statute transformed the model and created an international criminal justice system combining them with a permanent ICC. The Statute established a new field of practice respecting political actors’ roles but also conferring unprecedented power to the ICC prosecutor and judges. Judicial actors could trigger international justice in sovereign countries. The War on Terror, launched in 2001, contradicts the justice efforts proposing to kill those considered enemy combatants without trial. It redefined jus ad Bellum, does not respect sovereign borders, and is still ongoing. Criminals or enemies? Legal designs are literally a matter of life or death. Moreno Ocampo took office in 2003 while the US invaded Iraq and attacked the ICC, creating serious doubts about the court’s viability. He summarizes his nine years of practice examining seventeen conflicts to decide on the ICC intervention. By 2012, the ICC was part of the global landscape, its existence no longer at risk. What was and is still up for debate is the relevance of the law in international affairs and the acceptance of the war paradigm. The book aims to help new generations develop modern technologies to improve global governance.
Introduction
Authors: Ocampo Luis Moreno
Published: November 2022

This introduction describes how the Rome Statute and the War on Terror influenced each other. The statute created a new field of practice providing power to the ICC prosecutor. His office and other relevant actors made specific legal decisions to launch or prevent the international criminal justice’s intervention in sovereign states. The book labeled this new field as jus ad Curiam to facilitate a dialogue between legal and international relations experts. It builds on the well-known distinction between jus ad Bellum and jus in Bello. Jus ad Bellum establishes the conditions under which states may resort to war or the use of armed force in general. Jus in Bello governs the conduct of parties engaged in an armed conflict, regardless of whether the hostilities’ initiation was just. Following the same logic, jus ad Curiam comprises the political and legal decisions determining an international criminal justice intervention in specific situations. Jus in Curiae could be defined as the substantial and procedural body of law regulating the actors engaged in litigation to prove the defendant’s responsibility. The Office of the Prosecutor applied the jus ad Curiam norms consistently, and still, its contribution to the prevention of crimes varied. The range is the result of the activity of many other actors. More than a century ago, Leo Tolstoy explained in War and Peace: “The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events.”
The Office of the Prosecutor Policy on “Interest of Justice”
Authors: Ocampo Luis Moreno
Published: November 2022

This chapter presents the Office of the Prosecutor interpretation of Article 53 1(c) and 2(c), establishing its authority not to proceed with an investigation if the prosecution is not in the interests of justice. Ambiguity facilitated the Rome Statute’s adoption, but it also promoted demands to the prosecutor to adjust to political demands. In September 2007, the prosecutor presented the Policy on the “interest of justice” clarifying its meaning and distinguishing it from “the interest of peace.” The prosecutor reduced his discretion, respecting the political actors’ authority and their responsibility, including the UN Security Council on matters of international peace.
Jus ad Curiam and Jus ad Bellum Decisions in the Iraq Situation
Authors: Ocampo Luis Moreno
Published: November 2022

This chapter analyzes the jus ad Curiam and jus ad Bellum decisions adopted by the US Congress and the UN Security Council in Iraq, presenting some of the consequences of choosing war over justice. The US national institutions were able to control some jus in Bello decisions but there is no control about jus ad Bellum decisions. They were adopted in 2001 and 2002 by Congress without temporal limits and are valid two decades later. There are no institutions or enough citizen interest to protect aliens living in foreign countries victims of such jus ad Bellum decisions. There is no expert analysis of the consequences: removed Saddam Hussein officers became ISIS leaders.
Jus ad Curiam and Jus ad Bellum Decisions in Côte d’Ivoire
Authors: Ocampo Luis Moreno
Published: November 2022

This chapter reviews the 2010 post-election conflict in Côte d’Ivoire and explores how different authorities adopted jus ad Curiam and jus ad Bellum decisions and the implementations of such measures. The first jus ad Curiam decision was adopted under the Laurent Gbagbo presidency in October 2003, accepting the ICC jurisdiction. On December, 2010, elected President Alassane Ouattara confirmed the continued validity of the previous jus ad Curiam decision. On March 2011, acting under Chapter VII and at the request of ECOWAS’ heads of state, the UN Security Council adopted a jus ad Bellum decision noting the previous national jus ad Curiam decision, “the International Criminal Court may decide on its jurisdiction over the situation in Côte d’Ivoire.” On June 2011, the Office of the Prosecutor requested authorization from the pre-trial chamber to open an investigation. Pre-Trial Chamber III and the appeal chamber discussed different aspects, but finally, the Office of the Prosecution received the authorization requested. The office obtained three arrest warrants. Former President Gbagbo was surrendered to the court and challenged the jurisdiction of the ICC in his case. The appeal chamber ruled that the case was admissible. Côte d’Ivoire provides the best example of integration between national, regional, and international efforts to control massive violence. Unlike in Libya, the national government’s ability to prevent the civil war’s reappearance and the commission of crimes against humanity created years without massive crimes.
The Duty of Repair
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: November 2022

Considering the case of a burn patient, the chapter considers how to resolve a case where survival is unprecedented. Here I reflect on the duties that we take on when philosophers become a part of the process of bioethics consultation and discuss the nature of limits. I describe what an ethics committee is and how it is constituted. This is the first chapter of the book and I set out a method for clinical consultations. I reflect on the nature, goal and meaning of medicine as a task of repair, and consider the many ways that clinicians distance themselves from the work that they do.
Duty Bound
Authors: Zoloth Laurie
Published: November 2022

In this chapter I introduce the idea that Jewish ethics can be understood as a project on translation, which is a theme and reflect on the process of the consult and reflect on the work of Benjamin Freedman. Freedman was a scholar who wrote the first decades of American clinical ethics, focusing on the Jewish sources that emphasis duties and obligations over rights. In this chapter, we think about a case of a child with a severe disability and “two mothers,” a foster mother and his birth mother, both of whom love him desperately but who disagree about the best way to care for him. Here, we consider the role of duty in clinical ethics consultation. Here we consider the way that clinical consultation operates as a speech act, what Levinas calls “the saying.” I describe the difference between the “rights talk” in liberal theory and the speech about duty in Jewish ethics.
Introduction
Authors: Brier Bob
Published: November 2022

The Introduction explains the purpose and structure of the book. The first section will discuss the history of excavation in the Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter’s early work in Egypt as an artist, and finally Carter and Carnarvon’s discovery and excavation of the tomb. The second section reviews the past hundred years of Tutankhamun research and covers topics as diverse as Tutankhamun’s chariots, footwear, sarcophagus, and mummy. The third and last section discusses Tutankhamun’s legacy to the world. It explains how the excavation of the tomb set new standards in archaeology, altered the course of Egyptian politics, led to changes in laws governing the export of antiquities, and changed the museum world forever. At the very end of the Introduction, there is a brief discussion of how Tutankhamun wrote his name in hieroglyphs.
Lost but Not Found
Authors: Brier Bob
Published: November 2022

This chapter presents the history of excavation in the Valley of the Kings from ancient times through Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition and into the nineteenth century. It chronicles the explorations of an Italian adventurer named Giovanni Belzoni and the treasures he removed from tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It then describes the spectacular discovery at the end of the nineteenth century of two caches of royal mummies and discusses why Tutankhamun’s mummy was not among the mummies of the kings and queens discovered. It reveals that Tutankhamun was erased from history because his father was the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten.
Face-to-Face with Tutankhamun
Authors: Brier Bob
Published: November 2022

When Carter’s friends finally worked out an agreement with the Antiquities Service so Carter could return to work, he had a very difficult logistical task ahead of him: he had to raise and separate the three nested coffins still inside the sarcophagus. Gallons of sacred oils had been poured on them at the time of burial and now were congealed, so the coffins were firmly stuck together. As the team worked on separating the coffins, they couldn’t figure out why they were so heavy (as it turned out, the innermost coffin was solid gold and weighed nearly 250 pounds), which made things even more difficult. This chapter describes the ingenious method of pulleys, Primus lamps, and other means Carter used to successfully extract the coffins. Once the coffins were out of the sarcophagus, the lid of the innermost gold coffin was raised, revealing the mummy of Tutankhamun. The chapter ends with a detailed description of the mummy and Dr. Douglas Derry’s autopsy, during which he literally tore the mummy to pieces. However, much was still learned from this autopsy, including that Tutankhamun was a boy-king.
Translating Tutankhamun
Authors: Brier Bob
Published: November 2022

Howard Carter was disappointed that no papyri were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb. He never fully realized that the hieroglyphs on four shrines surrounding the sarcophagus took the place of papyri. This chapter presents the research of Alexandre Piankoff, who finally translated the shrines’ texts half a century after their discovery. The texts all involve the journey to the next world that the deceased Tutankhamun would have to undertake, and they take the place of a Book of the Dead, which was usually on papyrus. This chapter traces the history of such religious texts from the Pyramid Texts to the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead, and finally Tutankhamun’s shrines. It elaborates the myth of Isis and Osiris, which was central to the theme of resurrection in the next world. It also discusses the significance of the different shapes of the shrines, and how that indicates the order in which one is to read the texts.