bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Evidence of Numismatics
Authors: Strothmann Jürgen
Published: October 2020

Numismatics in Merovingian Gaul offer a rather different image of the seventh century than we find in our most important source, the Histories of Gregory of Tours. Only the coins reveal that the moneyers, consisting of about 2,000 individuals between 585 and 670, were an important functional elite. Coinage, based on the gold standard following the Byzantine tradition, served as a fiscal instrument for levying taxes and other revenues. Moreover, there were no significant regional differences reflecting the practices of individual kings as coinage was part of a fiscal system that spanned over all of Gaul. Because the place names on these coins typically identify political units such as civitates (city-states) and pagi (rural political units), we can use them to understand political continuity in Gaul in the seventh century since these were the same city-states as in Roman times. Numismatics thus serve as a corrective to Gregory of Tours, who did not give significant attention to the civitates despite the fact that they did not lose their relevance for politics, finance, and society.
Writing the History of Merovingian Gaul
Authors: Graceffa Agnès
Published: October 2020

The Merovingian period has long been contested ground on which a variety of ideologies and approaches have been marshaled to debate the significance of the “end” of antiquity and the start of the Middle Ages. Particularly important to these discussions has been the role of this period in shaping national identity across western Europe; interpretations of the Merovingians have varied as political realities have changed in Europe, going back, in some cases, as far as the late medieval period. This chapter focuses mainly on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but offers examples as early as the seventeenth century as to how the Merovingian period has been harnessed for a large number of purposes and how these sometimes polemical interpretations have encouraged or stymied our understanding of this period.
The Fate of Late-Roman Villas in Southern Gaul Between the sixth and seventh centuries
Authors: Chavarría Arnau Alexandra
Published: October 2020

In order to understand why Roman villas were abandoned during the late Roman period in southern Gaul and in most of the Mediterranean area, this chapter takes a broader perspective. Rather than focusing exclusively on the architectural elements of villas, it seeks a more comprehensive assessment of how late-Roman rural territories and properties were organized and how different kinds of settlements, and the cities to which they were connected, evolved during the period under consideration. Another aspect of this approach will be to look at cemeteries, trying to understand from systematic data (which includes all kinds of cemeteries from a specific territory) if it is possible to see changes in settlement distribution patterns.
The Military and its Role in Merovingian Society
Authors: Sarti Laury
Published: October 2020

In Merovingian society, the military was important not only as a means for defense but also as a political tool to maintain and expand royal power. It was strongly integrated into society, as every man of a certain age and constitution was a potential fighter, while a main function of the highest social stratum was military leadership. This chapter discusses the origins, nature, and role of the Frankish military by taking a close look at the sources and current research on the subject. It deals with questions related to military professionalism, recruitment, organization, and command, and discusses the ongoing process of militarization that characterized not only the increasingly powerful Frankish elite but also the local population and society as a whole.
Pushing the Boundaries of the Merovingian World
Authors: Effros Bonnie , Moreira Isabel
Published: October 2020

Long overshadowed by historiographical traditions that dismissed these centuries as an era of decline, or transition, the Merovingian period has emerged as a field of study in its own right. At the intersection of many different fields of study including textual analysis, archaeology, environmental study, and insights drawn from new scientific techniques, we are able to see the inhabitants of Merovingian Gaul in new ways and in the context of a larger world of connections and influences—from Europe to Byzantium—and as a destination of trade routes from across the North Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. We see the contribution of new ideas from abroad, the diversity of peoples active in Merovingian Gaul, communication, administration, and the law. Archaeology allows us to discern the Merovingian-built environment, providing a better understanding of life in cities and in the countryside, and of connections to trade and supply. Excavations at religious sites provide context for the religious practices and spiritual environment enshrined in religious texts and devotional works, revealing the changing aesthetic environment. These perspectives enhance and refine traditional views about religious groups and the church, Christian practice, orthodoxy, spiritual life, death, and the afterlife. Far from viewing the period as one of decline or stagnation, new scholarly approaches are opening up the field of Merovingian studies to a new era of vitality.
The Fate of Small Towns, Hilltop Settlements, and Elite Residences in Merovingian-Period Gaul
Authors: Bourgeois Luc
Published: October 2020

The study of places of power in the Merovingian realm has long been focused on cities, monasteries, and royal palaces. Recent archaeological research has led to the emergence of other categories. Four of them are addressed in this chapter. These include the capitals of fallen cities, which continue to mark the landscape in one way or another. Similarly, the fate of small Roman towns during the early Middle Ages shows that most of them continued to host a variety of secular and ecclesiastical powers. In addition, from the fourth century onward, large hilltop fortified settlements multiplied anew. They complemented earlier networks of authority, whether elite residences, artisan communities, or real towns. Finally, from the seventh century onward, the great aristocratic villas of late antiquity were transformed into settlements organized around one or more courtyards and supplemented by funerary and religious structures. The evolution of political spaces and lifestyles explains both the ruptures in power networks that occurred during the Merovingian epoch and the many continuities that can be seen in the four kinds of places studied in this chapter that were marked by these developments.
Deuteronomy and Jeremiah
Authors: Leuchter Mark
Published: October 2020

Scholars have recognized the close relationship between the books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah since the outset of the twentieth century, though approaches to understanding that relationship have varied. Earlier generations tended to isolate the “Deuteronomistic” prose material and focus on the poetic passages as more authentic, but research increasingly recognized the significance of the prose discourses to the book’s function and form. More recent advances in the study of scribal culture and methodology demanded changes in the ways scholars evaluated this material, pointing to a far more complex relationship between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah than had previously been recognized. This chapter identifies new avenues of inquiry that shed light on this relationship and are suggestive of future trajectories of research.
Greco-Roman Religions and the Context of the Book of Revelation
Authors: Ascough Richard S.
Published: October 2020

This chapter describes the religious context of the book of Revelation by considering the primary deities present in the seven cities addressed in the messages embedded in the first three chapters. More broadly, it describes the social and religious activities of urban associations and the presence of the imperial cult in Asia Minor. Finally, it demonstrates how the writer of Revelation vilifies this rich cultural context through metaphors of feasting and fornication in order to urge Christ adherents to maintain strict separation and purity and thus gain entrance into a postmortem utopian city, despite the this-worldly conflicts that this will create.
Violence in the Apocalypse of John
Authors: Barr David L.
Published: October 2020

Violence is a pervasive theme of the Apocalypse, rooted in the very nature of the genre, which envisions a cosmic conflict between God and the forces of evil. John draws on two ancient symbols to tell this story: Holy War and the Exodus plagues. The violence he pictures pervades not only the plot but also the images and language used. This imagery is excessive; indeed, it seems beyond the bounds of civility, raising serious ethical issues. For some readers, these issues are so problematic that they would reject the work; others seek to explain (or explain away) the violence, either by showing that the violence is symbolic of some nonviolent alternative or by subsuming the violence under some overarching value such as justice. Neither approach is entirely satisfactory, and the reader is left to wrestle with the paradox of a story of justice told in actions and images that are inescapably unjust.
Narrative Features of the Book of Revelation
Authors: Resseguie James L.
Published: October 2020

Four narrative features of the book of Revelation are the focus of this article: masterplot, characters and characterization, architectural and topographical settings, and numerical symbolism. Masterplots are skeletal stories belonging to cultures and individuals that clarify questions of identity, values, or the understanding of life. The masterplot of Revelation is a quest story of the people of God in search of the new promised land, the new Jerusalem. Characters either aid or hinder the questers’ sojourn. Hybrid characters, which blend character traits from the world below with characteristics of this world, or combine the human with the inhuman, underscore the dangers the exodus-people, the followers of the Lamb, encounter on their trek. Other characters—such as the angel of Rev 10—advance their quest with a MacGuffin. Architectural and topographical settings—such as Babylon, the new Jerusalem, the desert, and the sea—amplify peril and solace on the journey. Symbolic numbers are road signs that warn the exodus-people of dangers or proffer divine succor and protection.
The Interpretation of the Book of Revelation in Early Christianity
Authors: Hill Charles E.
Published: October 2020

This chapter attempts an overview of the use and interpretation of the book of Revelation up to the end of the fourth century. Revelation’s first readers shared with its author a marginalized status in the Roman world and naturally tended to interpret its images, which spoke to them of both their current and future situations, in the light of present circumstances. Chiliast and non-chiliast approaches to Revelation’s eschatology emerged early, as interpreters sought to steer a path between Jewish messianic expectation on the one side, and anti-creational, dualizing heresy on the other. By the late second and early third century, writers were explicitly debating the hermeneutical methods appropriate to the exposition of Revelation and other prophetic Scriptures. Victorinus of Pettau (late third century) published the first known commentary on the book, but it is the ecclesiastically centered commentary of Tyconius that sets the stage for medieval exegesis.
The Interpretation of John’s Apocalypse in the Medieval Period
Authors: Eva Wannenmacher Julia
Published: October 2020

This chapter surveys the dominant modes of interpreting the Revelation in the Middle Ages. Attention is given to the influence of the older Latin commentaries by Victorinus and Tyconius on medieval exegesis, and to the ways in which the patristic perspectives were appropriated by early medieval commentators such as Primasius, Beatus, Bede, Alcuin, and Haimo. The tradition continued to be adapted through new interpretive methods in twelfth-century commentaries, such as the one ascribed to “Berengaudus” and that of Richard of St. Victor. The interpretation by Rupert of Deutz, followed by Anselm of Havelberg and, especially, Joachim of Fiore interpreted Revelation in terms of broader conceptions of history. Finally, attention is given to the continued development of historical perspectives by writers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including Alexander Minorita, Peter John Olivi, and Nicolas of Lyra.
The Book of Revelation in Music and Liturgy
Authors: Westermeyer Paul
Published: October 2020

This chapter discusses Revelation’s soundscape and meaning as a huge hymn festival around the marriage feast of the Lamb. It is about God’s goodness, mercy, and power over evil in a cosmic view, not a secret code for our calendars. Relationships between the book of Revelation and the church’s liturgy and music are explained, along with influences from the liturgy to Revelation and from Revelation to the liturgy. The Sanctus and Agnus Dei of the Ordinary, hymns, and other music for the worship of the church are included. Oratorios and Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time move to music, which, though outside the liturgy, also relate to Revelation and express its themes. Some implications about Revelation’s relevance for worship, music, and life together conclude the article. In Messiaen’s words, “It is all love.”
Rhetorical Features of the Book of Revelation
Authors: deSilva David A.
Published: October 2020

Despite its literary distance from Greco-Roman speeches, the book of Revelation exhibits rhetorical features and strategies that are comprehensible within Greco-Roman rhetorical practice. John weaves epideictic and deliberative elements together to move audiences in a variety of rhetorical situations in the direction John would promote for the sake of maintaining the distinctiveness of Christian identity and witness in the Roman imperial setting. He gives careful attention to the construction of authority (ethos) throughout the work, often employing strategies that are distinctive to revelatory (as opposed to discursive) literature. He relies on the strategic arousal of emotions in regard to particular landmarks within his hearers’ landscapes or particular consequences of courses of action as a part of his strategy for guiding their responses. John also incorporates appeals to reason to a surprising degree, both through explicit deductive reasoning and through strategies that are once again distinctive to apocalyptic literature (e.g., narrating future consequences).
Relationships among Christ-Believers and Jewish Communities in First-Century Asia Minor
Authors: Tellbe Mikael
Published: October 2020

Ancient texts referring to interactions between Christ-believers and the well-established Jewish communities in Asia Minor in the first century ce regularly speak of tensions and conflicts. Reasons for Jewish opposition to early Christ-believers in Asia Minor included a complex mix of theological, sociopolitical, and financial factors. In the book of Revelation these conflicts are evident in the saying “those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan,” which appears in messages to the churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia (Rev 2:9; cf. 3:9). This expression likely refers to ethnic Jews who oppose Christ-believing Jews and/or gentiles. In this context, the author of the book of Revelation is engaged in an ongoing process of identity formation, defining and redefining the true people of God.
Swedish Hip hop Youth Association “The Movement” Goes Online
Authors: Söderman Alexandra , Söderman Johan
Published: October 2020

This chapter highlights social media activities of the Swedish hip hop youth association The Movement, an association whose overall objectives include increasing democratic awareness among young people with immigrant backgrounds. The political dimension of hip hop has enabled youths in marginalized areas in Sweden to experience affinity with the global hip hop nation, which emerged from New York in the 1970s. Hip hop has also accompanied the development and early use of digital technologies for music making as well as early international collaborations facilitated by the internet. For The Movement, social media is a central arena, one that is connected to informal music education activities. The overall purpose of this chapter is to explore and discuss the function of social media within this hip hop youth association. Results are presented as three themes—branding, member recruitment, and accountability to funders—through which an inter-aesthetic approach connected to the elements of hip hop is apparent. Also, clear connections with the local municipality are seen as contributing to a wider audience for youths participating in the association.
The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice
Authors: Hein Ethan
Published: October 2020

The reproduction and evolution of knowledge happens most effectively within communities of practice, structured groups that give learners a sense of membership, or at least aspiration to membership. The group should include expert practitioners to whom learners have access, and the community should create space for legitimate participation by the least expert, most peripheral members. Members of a community of practice need not be in close physical proximity, as long as they can communicate. The internet supports communities of practice by linking experts with learners, supporting platforms for storing and disseminating resources and tools, and enabling discussion. The Disquiet Junto is an exemplary online community of practice where members can complete a compositional challenge every week. Junto projects frequently have members remixing one another’s music, and sometimes remixing each other’s remixes. It turns the sometimes lonely art of composition into a lively ongoing musical conversation spanning the entire world. Furthermore, the organizer asks participants to document their technical and creative processes, which makes the Junto an invaluable peer-to-peer learning resource.
Reports From the Field: Building a New Social Contract for Community Engagement Through Musical Virtual Hangouts
Authors: Schmidt Patrick
Published: October 2020

This field report provides insight into the nature and reach of a community engagement program called Virtual Hangouts developed by the community office of the New World Symphony (NWS), in Miami, Florida (USA). Functioning under the umbrella of a larger, digitally oriented program called “Connect,” the case presented here is productive and instructive, not simply because it provides insight into some forms of participatory culture within a traditionally highly autocratic environment—the symphony orchestra—but, more complicatedly, because of what it tells us about what can be accomplished regarding institutional adaptation and what forms of resistance are created along the way. This brief account explores virtually oriented community engagement from a social capital formation lens and how institutions such as the NWS establish policy frameworks to orient projects such as these in areas that are not usually explored by traditional organizations.
Learning by Lip-Synching
Authors: Lange Patricia G.
Published: October 2020

Lip-synching is a popular yet maligned musical practice. Female teens in particular are seen as being self-victimized by reducing themselves to dancing “Lolitas” who bring eyeballs to YouTube in lip-synch videos. However, these criticisms ignore the great variety of lip-synching videos and how they may help creators learn how to make videos, express sociality, and participate in embodied forms of musical enjoyment. This chapter discusses how lip-synch videos may conceptually encourage viewers to try their hand at engaging in video production as well as in participating in a larger category of “musicking” that includes dancing and movement as a key part of musical experience. It focuses on how teens learn to make videos for their own pleasure and sociality by watching their own work and interactively evaluating commenters’ suggestions for improvement. It analyzes two case studies in which female teens’ performances exhibit a “ludic self-immersion” that is a vital part of musical experience. The chapter asserts that the way in which these teens engage in lip-synching videos invites more widespread musical participation and provides alternative models of lip-synching activity that emphasize embodied sociality and personal pleasure over audience consumption.
Social and Informational Affordances of Social Media in Music Learning and Teaching
Authors: Quan-Haase Anabel
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the role of social media in music learning and teaching with the aim of discerning the affordances created by specific features and functions. While much scholarship has outlined the many merits and possibilities of including social media in formal and informal music education, not much is known about what aspects of social media lead to positive outcomes. Music education is defined broadly here and includes both learning about music and learning with the purpose of achieving classroom goals. The majority of research either tends to focus on single platforms or discusses social media more generally. The present chapter starts with a close look at the affordance concept, tracing its historical roots and problematizing its definition. The chapter then discusses how various affordances can contribute to different aspects of music education. Much of the literature on social media has examined the social affordances of social media and neglected to consider the informational affordances. The chapter argues that both social and informational affordances are important in investigations of social media for music education. Finally, conclusions are discussed for 21st-century learners, and the advantages of employing the affordances framework in studies of music education and social media are outlined. Future research based on the affordances framework that could examine what features and functions of social media are beneficial for music learning and teaching are examined, including discussion of a series of constraints placed on learners and teachers by the technology.
Educating Musical Prosumers for the Economic Conditions of the 21st Century
Authors: Väkevä Lauri
Published: October 2020

Social media has introduced complex learning ecologies that have raised interest among music education scholars in recent years. However, the economic conditions of these new learning ecologies remain largely unexplored in music education research. To understand such conditions, we need to examine how music learners seek, find, produce, share, and exchange musical meanings in digitally mediated value networks. Using Jacques Attali’s political economy of music, literature on musical prosumption, and YouTube as a concrete example, this chapter explores the implications of the commodification of music-related practices and identities in social media, highlighting the need for music educators to understand the complexity of cultural consumption and production in such environments. In this way, the author suggests, music educators can best answer the needs of learners who need to be able to navigate the 21st-century musical-economic landscape.
Afterword
Authors: Waldron Janice L. , Horsley Stephanie , Veblen Kari K.
Published: October 2020

We all feel the implications of the force of social media—for good and for ill—in our lives and in our professional world. At the time of this writing, Facebook continues with its struggle to “clean up its act” as more revelations surrounding breaches of trust and hacked user data surface in the news and various countries attempt to hold Facebook to account. Despite this, social media use continues to grow exponentially, and the potential for responsible, ethical, and transparent social media to transform the ways in which we interact with and learn from each other increase with it. As we wait to see what the future holds for social media in society, we are reminded once again that it is the careful selection of pedagogical tools such as social media, as well the guided awareness of the challenges and benefits of those tools, that remains constant, even as tools may change, disappear, or fall out of fashion.
Introduction
Authors: Waldron Janice L. , Horsley Stephanie , Veblen Kari K.
Published: October 2020

The rapid development of social media reflects both technologies and a field of scholarship that are constantly in flux. However, as boyd (2014) explains, although “the spaces may change, the organizing principles aren’t different” (p. 4). The chapters in this book explore theory, research, and practice in social media, along with the resulting implications for both how people think about social media and the practical applications for music learning and teaching. This includes informing and lowering boundaries between formal and informal music education practices in a digitally networked society. Social media and social networking in the 21st century have quickly changed the landscape of music learning and will continue to do so.
Diaspora, Transnational Networks, and Socially Mediated Musical Belonging
Authors: O’Flynn John
Published: October 2020

This chapter considers the evolving ways in which migrant groups and ethnic minorities engage collectively with music as diasporas, transnational networks, genres, and practices in ways that are increasingly imagined and supported through social media. It further contemplates the potential for musical belonging and learning between and among diasporic/transnational groups and the implications of this in broader global contexts. A review of literature leads to fluid conceptions of diaspora and transnational networks that also embrace socially mediated affinity groups in domestic and international music spheres. The chapter presents two “field-sites” of popular music “prosumption”: the first of these examines activities of Polish residents in Dublin, where on- and offline musical-social networks converge to negotiate migrant and transnational identities; the second reports on how socially mediated networks among young South Asians in North America, Britain, and beyond afford alternative configurations of diasporic and musical belonging in addition to facilitating new popular music genres. Findings that emerge from both field-sites lead to a discussion on the educative and broader societal implications of socially mediated music “prosumption” by diasporic and transnational groups.
Online Collaboration in Supporting Music Teaching and Learning
Authors: Cremata Radio , Powell Bryan
Published: October 2020

Drawing from Jordan’s (2008) notion of deterritorialization, this chapter explores ways in which music teachers collaborate and exchange ideas in digitally mediated spaces. One such way is through Facebook. With over 1.1 billion unique monthly visitors, Facebook has changed the spaces for sharing music teachers’ pedagogical approaches and techniques, making it a potentially powerful tool for music teaching and learning. This chapter will examine the use of two private Facebook groups: Music Teachers (32,000+ members) and Little Kids Rock Teachers (1600+ members). Utilizing guidelines of content analysis outlined by Bauer and Moehle (2008), we examined over 800 written posts from these Facebook groups to better understand the ways teachers use Facebook to build community, share resources, and collaborate. We surveyed participants who are the most active posters on these two social media sites to develop an understanding of how these tools function as a vehicle for music teaching and learning. Building off Salavuo’s (2008) notion of social networks as a medium for sharing and providing information for music learning, this chapter examines the content of teachers’ engagement. An examination of emergent themes found in the content of Facebook posts reveals insights into the sorts of collaborations music teachers have in social media.
The Book of Isaiah: Its Final Structure
Authors: Stromberg Jacob
Published: October 2020

This chapter examines the structure of the book of Isaiah. It argues that the parts of the book have been organized into a meaningful whole for the ancient reader. In part, this has been accomplished by means of a narrative structure that runs through the first half of the book (Isa 1–39). This structure recounts the past days of the prophet and culminates with the account of Hezekiah. On the principle that the past portends the future, this account of the past has been made the key to understanding that future as foreseen in the second half of the book (Isa 40–66).
Isaiah and the Neo-Babylonian Background
Authors: Blenkinsopp Joseph
Published: October 2020

This chapter opens with some remarks on prophecy and international politics inspired by a reading of Max Weber’s Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft; this is apropos of the abundance of polemic against foreign powers, in the first place Babylonia, in Isaiah and other prophetic texts. Babylon is the major figure in the sequence of ten oracles in Isa 1–23. Looking back over these oracles we would want to ask questions: by whom and for whom were they written, and how were they circulated? Then the account in chapters 36–37 of the visit of envoys sent by Merodach Baladan (Marduk-apla-idinna) to Hezekiah, now convalescentis discussed. Finally, the fall of Babylon and the dismantling of the Babylonian Empire lead to a discussion of theological politics involving Judaean, Babylonian, and Zoroastrian deities, with a focus on their respective roles as creation deities.
Wisdom in Isaiah
Authors: Abernethy Andrew T.
Published: October 2020

The history of research on wisdom in Isaiah reveals the story of what scholars initially understood to be two separate domains—wisdom and prophecy—becoming intertwined. As the prophetic book most infiltrated by the wisdom tradition, the book of Isaiah has been the primary resource for probing the nature of the relationship between prophecy and wisdom. For the most part, studies on wisdom in Isaiah focus narrowly on the prophet’s social location in relationship to wisdom or on wisdom in one section of the book (Isa 1–39 or 40–55). In conjunction with the concern within scholarship on Isaiah to understand the book as a unity, this chapter offers an overview of wisdom across the major sections of the book, with an eye toward similarities and differences between sections and diachronic questions that emerge from a synchronic reading.
Monotheism in Isaiah
Authors: Albani Matthias
Published: October 2020

The monotheistic confession in Isa 40–48 is best understood against the historical context of Israel’s political and religious crisis situation in the final years of Neo-Babylonian rule. According to Deutero-Isaiah, Yhwh is unique and incomparable because he alone truly predicts the “future” (Isa 41:22–29)—currently the triumph of Cyrus—which will lead to Israel’s liberation from Babylonian captivity (Isa 45). This prediction is directed against the Babylonian deities’ claim to possess the power of destiny and the future, predominantly against Bel-Marduk, to whom both Nabonidus and his opponents appeal in their various political assertions regarding Cyrus. According to the Babylonian conviction, Bel-Marduk has the universal divine power, who, on the one hand, directs the course of the stars and thus determines the astral omens and, on the other hand, directs the course of history (cf. Cyrus Cylinder). As an antithesis, however, Deutero-Isaiah proclaims Yhwh as the sovereign divine creator and leader of the courses of the stars in heaven as well as the course of history on earth (Isa 45:12–13). Moreover, the conflict between Nabonidus and the Marduk priesthood over the question of the highest divine power (Sîn versus Marduk) may have had a kind of “catalytic” function in Deutero-Isaiah’s formulation of the monotheistic confession.
Feminist/Womanist Readings of Isaiah
Authors: Moughtin-Mumby Sharon
Published: October 2020

Feminist and womanist approaches to the book of Isaiah have made substantial contributions to our understanding of this intricately woven prophetic book. This chapter explores six main threads from the discussions, which are best viewed as intertwined strands rather than separate areas: (a) Isaiah’s female personification of cities; (b) Isaiah’s use of women as a synecdoche for the (guilty) nation; (c) Isaiah’s nonsymbolic depictions of women; (d) Female voices and authorship in Isaiah; (e) Isaiah’s use of female language to describe God; (f) Distinct womanist contributions, which expose new areas of interest in the rich book of Isaiah.
The Neo-Assyrian Context of First Isaiah
Authors: Crouch C. L. , Hays Christopher B.
Published: October 2020

The Neo-Assyrian Empire expanded rapidly across the ancient Near East between the ninth and seventh centuries bce and constituted the domineering historical and political backdrop to the prophetic activities of Isaiah ben Amoz. Assyria’s military power, its extraction of vassal states’ economic resources, and its theological interpretation of these activities as the will of the Assyrian gods deeply impacted the theology of the eighth-century prophet, as well as the subsequent bearers of his traditions. The Assyrian Empire serves numerous functions in this material, ranging from Judah’s savior from the Syro-Ephraimite coalition to the epitome of terror and the earthly manifestation of Yhwh’s divine wrath. In defiance of Assyrian claims to the contrary, however, Isaiah declares that Yhwh alone is the king and ruler of world history.
Racial and Ethnic Equity in American Public Schools
Authors: Bowman Kristine L. , Green Preston , Hossain Shajuti , Olivas Michael A. , Warkentien Siri
Published: October 2020

Five scholars of racial and ethnic equity in public schools bring together insights from various disciplines to speculate about the path of racial and ethnic equity in American public schools over the next decade. They begin by describing the current state of racial and ethnic educational equity across various dimensions and also identifying turning points over the past several decades that led educational equity to where it is today. They then identify potential turning points over the next decade. The chapter thinks broadly about race and ethnicity and about ways in which the law impacts—and could impact—racial and ethnic educational equity.
Raciolinguistic Exceptionalism
Authors: Alim H. Samy , Smitherman Geneva
Published: October 2020

This chapter analyzes the discursive practices that enable Donald Trump and his affiliates to (re)produce immigrant illegality: the idea that violations of immigration law are iconic of an “illegal,” dangerous personal character that makes undocumented migrants unimaginable as members of the United States. In its migration discourse, the Trump administration takes up a US policy regime that conflates the legal category “illegal alien” and the cultural image of “the south-of-the border” migrant as a criminal outsider. As immigrant illegality disproportionately impacts certain groups, especially migrants from Mexico and Central America, it is racializing. Although Trumpian migration discourse builds on enduring racial projects, it is remarkable in making racialization overt: something that has been taboo in public speech since the Civil Rights movement. The chapter argues that the administration is able to normalize overt racialization by constructing it as commonsense, a form of truth posited as inherent and obvious without critical analysis.
Iberian Punk, Cultural Metamorphoses, and Artistic Differences in the Post-Salazar and Post-Franco Eras
Authors: Guerra Paula
Published: October 2020

This chapter presents, analyzes and understands the importance of punk in southern Europe, specifically in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), in consolidating cultural, artistic, and musical changes after the long European dictatorships of Salazar (known as Estado Novo) in Portugal, and Franco (known as Franquismo) in Spain. Demonstrating the similarities and differences between the two countries, it seeks to elucidate the singularities of this sociohistorical context in each country. The approach has three focal points: (1) the importance of punk manifestations in the development of youth (sub)cultures, including forms of production and consumption of music, fashion, aesthetics, leisure, the night, and cosmopolitism; (2) the singularity of punk manifestations in Portugal and Spain, and related resistance practices in terms of their correlation with social, political, and economic development in a country outside the Anglo-American context; and (3) the embedding of a DIY ethos and the associated claim to authenticity in the professions and careers in which Iberian punks engage today.
Consequences
Authors: Dorsey Dale
Published: October 2020

The consequences of our actions seem to matter. But what is the nature of the consequence relation that a particular act bears to, well, its consequences? This essay considers a number of traditional approaches to understanding the consequence relation. While many traditional approaches treat the consequence relation as built upon a causal relation, I hold that there are good reasons to doubt that the consequence relation should be understood in terms of causal relations, even if supplemented with the identity relation. Instead, I argue for a contrastive approach that, while not entirely free of problems, does a better job than standard accounts at capturing the relationship between an act and its consequences.
Global Consequentialism
Authors: Greaves Hilary
Published: October 2020

Many types of things are arguably appropriate objects of deontic moral assessment: not only acts but also decision procedures, character traits, motives, public moral codes, and so on. Global consequentialism recommends, for every type that is an appropriate object of deontic assessment at all, that we assess items of that type in terms of their consequences. This (and not simple act consequentialism alone) seems to be roughly the kind of consequentialist thesis that real-life consequentialists, both past and present, have generally been sympathetic to. In this chapter, I articulate a thesis along these lines and defend the thesis in question against the most common objection it faces (“the inconsistency objection”). I discuss the extent to which “going global” deals satisfactorily with three standard objections to act consequentialism: the incorrect verdicts objection, the self-defeatingness objection, and the silence objection. I conclude that global consequentialism has adequate responses to all of these objections, but that it is unclear whether global consequentialism is superior to an account that simply stresses the importance of global axiological assessment.
Supererogation and Consequentialism
Authors: Archer Alfred
Published: October 2020

The thought that acts of supererogation exist presents a challenge to all normative ethical theories. This chapter will provide an overview of the consequentialist responses to this challenge. I will begin by explaining the problem that supererogation presents for consequentialism. I will then explore consequentialist attempts to deny the existence of acts of supererogation. Next, I will examine a range of act consequentialist attempts to accommodate supererogation, including satisficing consequentialism, dual-ranking act consequentialism, and an anti-rationalist form of consequentialism. Finally, I will explore how indirect consequentialists have responded to this problem. Throughout the chapter, I will argue that in responding to the challenge of supererogation, consequentialists must choose between a more theoretically satisfying version of consequentialism and a form of consequentialism that is better able to accommodate our everyday moral intuitions and concepts.
What Should a Consequentialist Promote?
Authors: de Lazari-Radek Katarzyna
Published: October 2020

Whether we choose to be act or rule consequentialists, to maximize value or be satisfied with a less demanding requirement, and even whether we require impartiality in our values, we need to decide what set of values we should commit ourselves to. In this chapter I will ask what intrinsic good or goods a consequentialist should value. I will start with a general point: what reasons are there for being a value monist rather than a value pluralist? Then, I will ask whether consequentialists should be concerned with what is good for someone or rather with what is good “for the world.” To answer this, I will discuss how best to understand the notion of welfare. Finally, I will consider different welfarist theories and suggest a possible candidate for the most promising one.
Consequentialism and Indeterminacy
Authors: Hare Caspar
Published: October 2020

Many actions have indeterminate consequences. There is no fact of the matter about precisely what would have happened if they had not been taken. How should act consequentialists think about their objective moral status? This paper suggests a way for act consequentialists to think, and it draws attention to three remaining problems for act consequentialists to solve.
Preparing a Workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Authors: McDonnell Joseph W.
Published: October 2020

This chapter explores the education required for the fourth Industrial Revolution to prepare the workforce for an economy increasingly disrupted by globalization and technological innovations such as artificial intelligence. It suggests that integrating career-oriented and liberal education, an education of both hard and soft skills, will best prepare students for an economy that will create jobs not yet imagined. The rapidly changing economy will require postsecondary educational institutions to provide lifelong-learning programs to assist students of varying ages to acquire new skills. The chapter looks back at history to see how the country responded to workforce disruptions from past industrial revolutions to gain insights into ways to create educational programs to respond to today’s challenges. The chapter also suggests a much closer relationship between postsecondary educators and employers to bridge the skills gap.
Biological Bases for Learning and Development Across the Life Span
Authors: Keeling Richard P. , Stevens Dickson Jennifer , Avery Trey
Published: October 2020

Learning at any age is neurobiological: a process occurring through alterations in the microscopic structure and functioning of the brain. The inputs, processes, and outputs of learning are brain functions. Learning can be visualized, located, and measured through brain imaging techniques that depend methodologically on the biological nature of perception, memory, and learning. The stages of cognitive development, which represent the cumulative neurobiological effects of many interactions between persons and the world around them, are generated by multitudes of changes in cells, circuits, and networks of the brain. There is no mind without brain; the experiences of consciousness, thinking, learning, and memory are physical expressions of the work of the brain. The state of mind/brain is a major determinant of a learner’s readiness to learn; recognizing the oneness of mind and brain—and therefore of mind and body—should cause reassessment of many structures, policies, and practices in education.
Global Legal Pluralism and Commercial Law
Authors: Linarelli John
Published: October 2020

Multiple, overlapping, and systemically interactive normative orders regulate commerce, trade, and finance. A diverse set of state and nonstate actors produce this plurality of rules governing markets. How these rules operate, what they are, whether some of them deserve recognition as what societies usually conceptualize as law, and their historical lineage are the subject of significant disagreement and confusion. This chapter offers a taxonomy and classification of the sources of norms and ground clearing on the different kinds of norms at work in the global economy. It surveys the literature on the history of the law merchant, with a focus on whether a medieval law merchant or lex mercatoria existed and if so in what form and content. It explains that while some legal scholars and jurists have offered visions of an “a-national” law merchant going back into at least the Middle Ages, historians are far more skeptical in their findings. The chapter also deals with the pluralism of legal orders governing commercial law in the nineteenth century, with the rise of the modern European nation-state. The chapter explores contemporary debates about the existence of a contemporary law merchant and a transnational commercial law. It goes on to examine the various schools of thought about pluralism in commercial law. The chapter covers how soft law dominates the regulation of global finance and banking. The chapter concludes by offering predictions of future domains for plural normative orders governing commerce and finance, in particular with the rise of digital technologies.
Sex Policing in the Arab World
Authors: Hamoudi Haider Ala
Published: October 2020

There are three legal regimes that play a role in the policing of sex in the modern Arab world. These are state law, Islamic law, and customary law. For the most part, the regimes are cooperative rather than in perpetual conflict, largely because citizens are aware of which regime controls in which circumstance. Most notably, the customary law and its harsh penalties for actual or perceived violations of sex norms tend to dominate the social field. Islamic law plays a decidedly secondary role. The function of state law is largely limited to supporting the application of customary norms, in many cases through withdrawal from the field in a manner that will permit the customary authorities to carry out their own modalities of enforcement. This chapter describes the interplay among the three regimes. It further makes the point that in the absence of a change of preferences among citizens for this general division of jurisdiction, reforms of state law, or issuances of fatwas relating to sex policing, will on their own be of little moment, given the predominance of customary law and customary norms in the field.
Fighting Fundamentalism with Pluralism
Authors: Sunder Madhavi
Published: October 2020

What role can social media play in helping to bring forth social revolutions, inciting change not in government or laws but in social attitudes and real world behaviors? Social change relates not only to regime change but to change in people’s way of thinking. In this chapter, I argue that social media during the Arab Spring was used as more than a mere coordination tool promoting efficient street demonstrations. Bloggers and Facebook users employed these technologies in many of the same ways that the printing press was employed during the Enlightenment period—to upend traditional authorities, to engender popular participation in debates over governance and values, and to foster care and empathy for fellow citizens. Contrary to popular perception, the Arab Spring demonstrates how today’s technological tools can go the next mile and transform not just politics but societies themselves. In the particular context of religious democracies, through examples, the chapter explores how nonstate actors are helping to influence constitutionalism and other lawmaking in Muslim majority states by using technologies to elaborate plural normative and legal options, thus undermining fundamentalist stranglehold on social and legal authority.