bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A radio of ‘Voces gitanas’: Issues of media identity and self-representation in Barcelona
Authors: Freire Juliana Luna
Published: March 2015

This article addresses the use of media for self-representation by the Roma community in Spain, and their process of negotiating a local, national, and transnational ethnic and political identity. I focus on Voces gitanas: Rromane glasura/Roma Voices, a radio programme created in the city of Barcelona in 2005, using as its frame of reference cultural studies and urban theory, including David Harvey and Manuell Castells. Based on radio shows transmitted online and through FM radio, I discuss how the programme constitutes a tool for promoting culture, conducting political activism and discussing issues important to local communities. Through constant performances that translate as definitions of culture, I argue, the Roma community is able to restore and participate in the dialogue on self-determination and minority rights in a different sphere of discourse, both locally and globally, at the same time that they also influence their own (and others’) understanding of their ethnic identity.
The violence in the spectacle of excessive signification: Shooting Dogs (1995) and the Rwandan genocide
Authors: Vambe Maurice Taonezvi , Khan Khatija Bibi
Published: March 2015

The Rwandan genocide (1994) was a catastrophic mass killing in which nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus perished at the hands of Hutu extremists. Several critical works have explored the Rwandan genocide in film but none reaches the multiple levels of conceptual analysis that reflects the many levels of discursive violence involved in depicting the tragedy through film. The aim of this article is to depict the levels of conceptualizing the Rwandan genocide through the tropological figure of the ‘dog’ in the film Shooting Dogs (1995). On a literal level, Shooting Dogs is viewed as representing, first, the actual failed attempt at shooting and killing the dogs (animals) that were feeding on the corpses of the dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Second, as a metaphor, Shooting Dogs (1995) uncannily reflects the debased and stereotypic reference to Tutsis and moderate Hutus as ‘dogs’ who ‘deserved’ to be gunned down as dogs because they are depicted as dastardly cowards. Third, Shooting Dogs is taken to mean the cinematographic action of ‘shooting’ images of dogs to represent the dogs who feasted on corpses during the genocide. Fourth, the film Shooting Dogs is viewed as a cultural mission to represent, through the camera’s ‘eye’, the insensitivity and cruelty of Hutu extremists and of the international community whose lack of respect for human life allowed the genocide to happen. It is argued that the symbolic violence manifested in Shooting Dogs constitutes a spectacle of excessive signification that attempts to inhibit imagining other, pro-life depictions, but fails dramatically because not all the Tutsis were killed in the genocide. The fact is that the Tutsis who survived the genocide are equally worthy of representation with their differentiated range of emotions and responses, and this could have been depicted in the film without minimizing the horror of the genocide. Such an argument forces us to realize that the ways in which art significantly translates known realities into telling stories can be a violent process that distorts human truths.
Filming violence in Kenya: From the everyday to the spectacular in Hillary Ng’weno’s documentaries
Authors: Okong’o Joseph Basil , Waliaula Solomon
Published: March 2015

Hillary Ng’weno’s documentary series The Making of a Nation is a reconstruction of significant events in the development of Kenya from colonialism to post-independence. The authorial vision underlines the role of violence in the formation of the colonial and postcolonial Kenyan State. This is cinematically presented through techniques that distance the viewer from the pathos of the images’ violence, such as political assassinations, mass demonstrations, incarcerations and attempted coups. The thesis of the article is that Ng’weno’s work is framed within the oral narrative tradition. This can be related to the observation of Tomaselli and Eke (1995: 115) that Third Cinema involves African themes and forms of oral story-telling. Significantly, the voice-over rendition in Ng’weno’s documentaries employs the oral narrative technique of mediating the horror of violence in an aesthetically and emotionally acceptable manner. As such, the visual images coupled with the omniscient voice of the narrator distance the viewer from the spectacle while also projecting the recurrent cycle of violence in the making of the nation. Drawing from Fanon’s (2004) concept of violence and Foucault’s (1980) analysis of power as both coercive and emancipative, we therefore argue that Ng’weno’s work presents the paradox of violence as both a means of dismantling and constructing the fabric of a nation.
Os desastres como indícios da vulnerabilidade do sistema nacional de defesa civil: o caso Brasileiro
Authors: Valencio Norma , Valencio Arthur
Published: March 2015

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar sociologicamente informações oficiais sobre os desastres mais frequentes no Brasil nos últimos sete anos (2003-2009). Pretende identificar, a partir de cinco diferentes variáveis, a vulnerabilidade institucional, isto é, a dimensão sociopolítica limitante do Sistema Nacional de Defesa Civil para lidar com os desastres. Os resultados apontam que, em termos políticos, as autoridades permanecem despreparadas devido a ausência de uma gestão estatal pautada numa ética de accountability.
Representação de áreas de riscos sócio-ambientais: geomorfologia e ensino
Authors: E Oliveira Souza Carla Juscélia , Regina de Oliveira Janete
Published: March 2015

O artigo discute a importância de se entender a dinâmica e os condicionantes dos movimentos de massa, a fi m de se trabalhar com comunidades de áreas de risco ou em projetos de prevenção, por meio da educação, utilizando o recurso maquete. O processo de conhecimento dos movimentos de massa ocorre durante oficinas de maquete realizadas como atividade prática da disciplina Geomorfologia, no Curso de Geografia, e como proposta de atividade de extensão universitária para professores de educação básica e/ou representantes comunitários.
Risco e gestão do risco. Questões filosóficas subjacentes ao modelo técnico conceptual
Authors: Betâmio de Almeida António
Published: March 2015

Apresenta-se uma reflexão pessoal sobre questões filosóficas associadas ao risco e à gestão do risco no contexto do significado e das aplicações práticas.
Percepção dos danos após inundação nos concelhos de Arcos de Valdevez e Ponte da Barca entre 1900 e 2007
Authors: Gonçalves Glória
Published: March 2015

Com este trabalho pretende-se dar um contributo no sentido de classificar e quantificar os danos ou efeitos adversos após a ocorrência de inundações ribeirinhas nos concelhos de Arcos de Valdevez e Ponte da Barca. A principal fonte de informação foi baseada num inventário existente, obtido dos periódicos regionais. Como objectivos pretende-se verificar a importância dos periódicos como fonte de informação sobre a percepção de danos causadas pelas inundações, para poder classificar e quantificar a evolução histórico-geográfica dos danos nas áreas territoriais de risco. A informação será apresentada em gráficos e esboços cartográficos para identificação e localização dos danos.
Gestão do risco nos vales a jusante de barragens
Authors: Viseu Teresa , Betâmio de Almeida António
Published: March 2015

Em Portugal existe um grande número de pessoas a residir em vales a jusante de barragens. Assim, o desenvolvimento de metodologias para apoio à gestão integrada do risco nestes vales é de grande interesse prático para a protecção da população. O presente artigo divide-se essencialmente em duas partes. A primeira parte é dedicada à avaliação do risco que surge na sequência das cheias induzidas por acidentes nas barragens. A segunda parte versa sobre a mitigação do risco, através de um planeamento de emergência: interno, a nível da barragem, e externo, a nível do vale a jusante.
Verificação da segurança de estruturas marítimas utilizando métodos probabilísticos de níveis II e III
Authors: Teresa Reis Maria , Santos João Alfredo
Published: March 2015

Este artigo ilustra o trabalho que o Núcleo de Portos e Estruturas Marítimas do LNEC tem vindo a desenvolver no âmbito da verificação da segurança à estabilidade e ao galgamento de estruturas marítimas utilizando métodos probabilísticos de níveis II e III. Apresentam-se dois casos de estudo: 1) verificação da segurança ao modo de falha por galgamento de uma estrutura de protecção costeira; e 2) verificação da segurança ao modo de falha por instabilidade hidráulica do manto protector de um quebra-mar de taludes.
Impactes ambientais em áreas mineiras activas - o caso da ribeira do Bodelhão, minas da Panasqueira, centro de Portugal
Authors: Gonçalves Anselmo Casimiro Ramos
Published: March 2015

Através deste trabalho pretende-se dar a conhecer o estado de contaminação das águas na envolvente das Minas da Panasqueira, no troço entre a Barroca Grande e a foz da Ribeira do Bodelhão, bem como os potenciais efeitos da dispersão dos contaminantes para áreas limítrofes, no caso o rio Zêzere, e as consequências associadas.
Estudo do risco sísmico e de tsunamis do Algarve (ERST)
Authors: Costa Elsa , Vicêncio Henrique , Pires Patrícia
Published: March 2015

O Estudo do Risco Sísmico e de Tsunamis do Algarve (ERSTA) teve como objectivo o conhecimento aprofundado do risco sísmico e de tsunamis na região e o desenvolvimento de um plano especial de emergência detalhado para estes riscos e, ainda, o desenvolvimento de políticas de prevenção e protecção adequadas para o Algarve. Com este Estudo pretendeu-se que todos os resultados técnico-científicos, que cobrem uma vasta gama de temas, desde a geração de sismos credíveis à estimativa dos danos dos elementos vulneráveis da sociedade, fossem implementados num simulador, que permitirá estimar e visualizar as previsões de danos, devidamente georreferenciadas.
We Must Overcome: Genealogy and Evolution of Female Slavery in West Africa
Authors: Robertson Claire
Published: March 2015

Women’s slavery continues in the contemporary world, especially in West Africa. This article seeks a history useful for abolishing contemporary slavery and reviews the evolution of scholarly perspectives on women and slavery in West Africa in order to determine the roots of contemporary slavery and put forms of contemporary slavery on the same analytical plane as historical ones. The literature on women and slavery in West Africa challenges much conventional wisdom about slavery by showing that lineage rather than chattel slavery was common; most slaves kept in West Africa were female (with local and temporal variations); the African demand for women slaves determined the skewed sex ratio in the Atlantic slave trade; women slaves were more highly valued than men because of their productive and reproductive functions; free and freed women were preeminent in owning and using women slaves; women slaves contributed to culture and identity formation in critical ways; for most women slaves, harems were more about domestic drudgery than sex; and the abolition of slavery failed for women slaves more than men for reasons relevant to the continuation of slavery for women and children in West Africa. Authoritarian family structures and colonialism subordinated West African women, and that subordination has been exacerbated by a world capitalist economy that continues the demand for slaves used in West Africa and elsewhere. If slave status historically has often been marked by race or ethnicity, contemporary slavery is gendered female in most societies.
The Marriages of Abina Mansah: Escaping the Boundaries of “Slavery” as a Category in Historical Analysis
Authors: Getz Trevor R. , Ehrisman Lindsay
Published: March 2015

This article (re)examines the testimony of Abina Mansah, a young Akan-speaking woman who brought charges and testified against her former master, Quamina Eddoo, for her illegal enslavement in 1876. Both inside the judicial Assessor’s Court in Cape Coast Castle and within subsequent scholarly interpretations of her testimony, the label “slave” functioned as the primary marker of Abina’s identity and the analytic lens through which we understand her experiences and motivations. In this rereading of her testimony, however, we explore the centrality of her status as a married woman to her identity, and argue that her decision to take Quamina Eddoo to court was actually a strategy that she pursued to ensure her spiritual and physical health and to safeguard her.
A Cost-Effective Electric Vehicle Charging Method Designed For Residential Homes with Renewable Energy
Authors: Lie T. T. , Liang Xiuli , Haque M. H.
Published: March 2015

Most of the electrical infrastructure in use around the world today is decades old, and may be illsuited to widespread proliferation of personal Electric Vehicles (EVs) whose charging requirements will place increasing strain on grid demand. In order to reduce the pressure on the grid and taking benefits of off peak charging, this paper presents a smart and cost effective EV charging methodology for residential homes equipped with renewable energy resources such as Photovoltaic (PV) panels and battery. The proposed method ensures slower battery degradation and prevents overcharging. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by conducting simulation studies utilizing running data of Nissan Altra. From the simulation study results, the algorithm is shown to be effective and feasible which minimizes not only the charging cost but also can shift the charging time from peak value to off-peak time.
Effect of daily drinking of Aloe vera gel extract on plasma total antioxidant capacity and oral pathogenic bacteria in healthy volunteer: a short-term study
Authors: Prueksrisakul Titipong , Chantarangsu Soranun , Thunyakitpisal Pasutha
Published: March 2015

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Aloe vera gel extract on plasma total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and oral pathogenic bacteria in healthy volunteer.

Methods: Fifty-three healthy volunteers were participated and interviewed for history of allergy, current systemic diseases and medications. Participants were received 250 mL of A. vera gel extract daily for 14 consecutive days. At days 0 and 15 of the experiment, blood samples were collected and analyzed for biochemical markers. The plasma TAC was evaluated by ferric reducing ability of plasma technique. The biochemical markers, including aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), total protein (TP), serum albumin (ALB), serum globulin (GLB), total bilirubin (TB), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine (Cr) and creatinine clearance (CrCl) were measured. The antibacterial effect of A. vera gel extract against Lactobacillus spp. and Streptococcus mutans was also investigated. Statistical analysis was performed using paired t-test to compare between baseline and 14 days post-intervention.

Results: Neither allergy nor side effects of A. vera gel extract was detected. After 14 days of A. vera gel extract consumption, plasma TAC was significantly greater than that of baseline (p=0.001). ALP, TB, TP and GLB were significantly increased (p<0.05) which were still within normal range. AST, ALT, ALB, BUN, Cr and CrCl were not significantly different. A. vera gel extract significantly reduced the number of Lactobacillus spp. (p<0.05), not S. mutans.

Conclusions: Our data revealed that A. vera gel extract significantly increased plasma TAC, and decreased the number of Lactobacillus spp. without any clinical side effects.
Thin Political Markets: The Soft Underbelly of Capitalism
Authors: Ramanna Karthik
Published: March 2015

“Thin political markets” are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist system are determined—e.g., our accounting-standards infrastructure. In thin political markets, corporate managers are largely unopposed—because of their own expertise and the general public's low awareness of the issues. This enables managers to structure the “rules of the game” in self-serving ways. The result is a structural f aw in the determination of critical institutions of our capitalist system, which, if ignored, can undermine the legitimacy of the system. This article provides some ideas on how to fix the problem.
The effect of H2 distribution in (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O3 capacitors with conductive oxide electrodes on the degradation of ferroelectric properties
Authors: Takada Yoko , Okamoto Naoki , Saito Takeyasu , Kondo Kazuo , Yoshimura Takeshi , Fujimura Norifumi , Higuchi Koji , Kitajima Akira , Iwai Hideo
Published: March 2015

We fabricated ferroelectric (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O3 (PLZT) capacitors with Sn:In2O3 (ITO) top electrodes using chemical solution deposition. Then, the effects of a thin conductive ITO buffer layer between the Pt bottom electrode and PLZT thin film were investigated in combination with top electrode (ITO/PLZT/ITO/Pt). The H2 degradation resistance of ITO/PLZT/ITO/Pt capacitors with a 3- and 28-nm-thick buffer layer was improved to 78 and 85%, respectively, from 60% without a buffer layer. The time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry profiles indicated the intensity of H ion increased after 45 min forming gas (3% H2/balance N2) annealing.
Electrical and Photo-Induced Effects in Graphene Channels When Interfaced with Quantum Dots
Authors: Miao Xin , Trivedi Samarth , Grebel Haim
Published: March 2015

Field effect transistors with graphene channels were interfaced with arrays of semiconductor quantum dots (QD). The electrical characteristics of the elements were assessed. The channel response to white light illumination was also assessed as a function of drain-source and gate-source biases.
The void fraction of melter feed during nuclear waste glass vitrification
Authors: Hilliard Zachary J. , Hrma Pavel R.
Published: March 2015

To efficiently vitrify Hanford waste, the melting process (i.e., melter feed turning into waste glass) must be modeled and optimized. The rate of heat transfer to the melter feed in a waste glass melter, and thus the rate of melting, is strongly affected by the melter feed porosity, especially in the final stages where the glass-forming melt produces foam that insulates the feed from the molten glass. The volume expansion test allows the determination of the melter feed porosity as a function of temperature. This test measures the profile area of the feed pellet as it turns into glass. This contribution presents the calculation of the void fraction (porosity) of the melter feed as a function of temperature, heating rate, and material parameters. The process of finding the void fraction is described as well as results from the application of this process.
Chasing Cosmic Tennis Balls
Authors: Ellis Thomas
Published: March 2015

This is a substance review and engagement with Taner Edis's Science and Non-belief
Cowards, Critics, and Catholics
Authors: Feltmate David
Published: March 2015

Throughout its history South Park has had a contentious relationship with Catholicism, frequently using Catholic doctrine, rituals, and popular practices as a foil for humor. This article examines the way that a Catholic parachurch organization, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has criticized South Park and its creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone as cowardly and not the satirical mavericks they are frequently portrayed as in popular media. Using the sociologies of religion, humor, and culture, this article demonstrates that this conflict reflects deeper conflicts over the limits of free speech, the place of Catholics in American culture, and the importance of humor in criticizing and controlling religious traditions in the United States.
Reflections on Jewish Studies
Authors: Imhoff Sarah
Published: March 2015

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Is Nessie a Naga?
Authors: Laycock Joseph , Mikles Natasha
Published: March 2015

In 2014 Lama Gelongma Zangmo of Scotland sparked curiosity when she suggested that the Loch Ness monster or “Nessie” is actually a naga––a fantastic creature from Buddhist mythology. Visitors to her Tibetan practice center on the shores of the Loch will be able to leave offerings to Nessie. Without exaggerating the significance of these offerings within the larger context of Zangmo’s practice, this article suggests that efforts to ritually incorporate Nessie into a Buddhist cosmology is an index of broader changes in Buddhism’s arrival to the West. First, Zangmo’s open discussion of cosmology, ritual, and supernatural beings is a marked distinction from “Protestantized” Western Buddhism, which has historically presented Buddhism as a rational and philosophical alternative to Christianity. This suggests that Buddhists in the West have become less concerned with conforming to Protestant notions of “proper” religion. Second, Zangmo’s praxis is significant to broader patterns of how Asian religions adapt to Western topography. Whereas Asian immigrants have sometimes re-imagined Asian sacred sites in Western countries, Zangmo was taken the opposite strategy of “Buddhicizing” a local monster. This suggests that similar transformative moves can be expected as a globalized world continues to transplant religious traditions from one continent to another.
Field Note Reporting from the 2014 NEH Summer Institute “Problems in the Study of Religion,” July 7th – July 25th, 2014
Authors: Mikles Natasha
Published: March 2015

A report from "Problems in the Study of Religion"--a 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities funded Summer Institute held at the University of Virginia July 7th - July 25th, 2014. This report reviews books read and topics covered over the course of three weeks, as well as closes with thoughts on the significance of the institute as a whole.
Mindfulness, Free Will and Buddhist Practice: Can Meditation Enhance Human Agency?
Authors: Hyland Terry
Published: March 2015

Recent philosophical and neuroscientific writings on the problem of free will have tended to consolidate the deterministic accounts with the upshot that free will is deemed to be illusory and contrary to the scientific facts (Blackmore 2011; Harris 2012). Buddhist commentaries on these issues have been concerned in the main with whether karma and dependent origination implies a causal determinism which constrains free human agency or — in more nuanced interpretations allied with Buddhist meditation — whether mindfulness practice allows for the development of at least some potentially free volitions and actions (Harvey 2007; Repetti 2012). After examining some of the key arguments in this debate, it is suggested that the present-moment attention and awareness central to mindfulness practice may offer a way out of the impasse presented by the alleged illusion of free will. The meditative spaciousness of non-judgmental, present-moment awareness can help to foster the capacity to transform those mental formations which constrain autonomous thought and action. This conclusion is informed by the general thesis that free will is not a given — an innate aspect of the human condition — but, like wisdom or rationality, a potential quality of mind which may be developed through training, education and skilful means.
Thematic Research on the Vimalak?rti Nirde?a S?tra: An Integrative Review
Authors: Cheng Fung Kei , Tse Samson
Published: March 2015

The current integrative review aims to do the following: first, examine the Chinese and English topical studies on the Vimalak?rti Nirde?a S?tra published from 1900 to 2011; second, analyze the characteristics of those works; third, investigate related study trends through a statistical analysis; and finally, identify research gaps. This review not only offers a comprehensive overview of the available literature on the S?tra retrieved from 25 English and Chinese electronic databases, but also categorizes the 256 selected publications (n=34 English; n=222 Chinese) into eight sub-themes: art (n=36; 14%), book reviews (n=11; 4%), philological studies (n=11; 4%), literature (n=24; 10%), philosophy (n=77; 30%), textual criticism (n=22; 9%), translation (n=56; 22%), and miscellaneous topics (n=19; 7%); thus illuminating different research foci and features between English and Chinese scholars, and also among Chinese researchers in various territories. This project illustrates how an integrative review can be employed in Buddhist studies; it reveals challenges and opportunities related to Buddhist studies, stemming from technology; it suggests collaborative research in Buddhism; and it proposes the application of the philosophy of the S?tra to practical disciplines.
In Search of the Origin of the Enumeration of Hell-kings in an Early Medieval Chinese Buddhist Scripture: Why did King Bimbis?ra become Yama after his Disastrous Defeat in Battle in the Wen diyu jing ???? (‘S?tra on Questions on Hells’)?
Authors: Chen Frederick Shih-Chung
Published: March 2015

The idea of a purgatorial journey to the Ten Kings of the Ten Hells is a distinctive feature of funerals and ancestral worship in Chinese Buddhism and Chinese popular religions. In Indian Buddhism ideas emerged of chief deities presiding over others in a few of many heavens and of various hells with different tortures governed by Yama and his messengers, yet the idea that each hell was governed by a ‘king’ is not found in early Indian Buddhist sources. This article examines what is probably the earliest enumeration of hell-kings, in the S?tra on Questions on Hells. This very early example derives from an extraordinary story about how King Bimbis?ra and his eighteen ministers became Yama and kings of eighteen hells after a disastrous defeat in battle. My analysis will illustrate how this account was probably consciously formulated by an author familiar with two sources: (i) the story of the Buddha’s concern about the fate of his followers in the Shenisha jing (????; Janavasabha Sutta), and (ii) the popular Chinese belief in sacrificial cults of ‘defeated armies and dead generals’.
Buddhist Studies Review 6.2 (1989)
Authors: Various -
Published: March 2015

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The “Deep Secret” and Dangers of Kar?mat: MiraculousActs, Revelation, and Secrecy in a South Indian Sufi Tradition
Authors: Flueckiger Joyce Burkhalter
Published: March 2015

In classical Islamic traditions, miraculous deeds are identified by two words: mujizat and kar?mat, words distinguishing the miraculous deeds of prophets and imams from those of the saints. Mujizat are public acts that confirm the identity of the prophets, whereas kar?mat are not intended to be public, for fear of witnesses misunderstanding the source and nature of the miracle. However,in contemporary Indian Sufi practice, kar?mat are often public acts through which the religious authority of the saint/p?r is identified. Nevertheless, the“deep secret” of how kar?mat “work” can be understood only by the spiritually adept. This article analyzes the ambivalent nature of the secrecy of kar?mat in the practice and narrative performance of a South Indian Sufi female healer, a pir?nim?, and her p?r husband.
Mind the Beard! Deference, Purity and Islamization of Everyday Life as Micro-factors in a Salafi Cultural Epidemiology
Authors: Svensson Jonas
Published: March 2015

Salafism has come to the fore of research on Islam, only recently. Some have even termed it a ‘new religious movement’. Faced with what appears to be a growing popularity of Salafism, researchers have made attempts at explaining the basic factors in this development. Most explanations have related to the popularity in particular social settings, and hence have mainly focused contextual factors of a political, social or economic character. From a theoretical perspective of a “cultural epidemiology”, the article suggests that complementary to factors on a macro- or meso-level, there are certain micro-factors related to general human psychological, cognitive and emotional dispositions that, at least hypothetically, are of interest to the main question: why is Salafism successful, and in so diverse contexts?
Exploring Teilhard’s ‘New Mysticism’
Authors: Skehan James W.
Published: March 2015

This paper is an approach to Teilhard de Chardin’s thought that links the spiritual with the material in a mysticism of ‘communion with God through Earth’. Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a French Jesuit priest, paleontologist-geologist and mystic. Major influences that shaped his personal, religious and academic life, his thought and spirituality include: Teilhard’s interactions with extended family and friends, his Jesuit colleagues, World War II soldiers and fellow scholars. His personal influence and writings played a significant role in discussions of science and religion in the twentieth century. The growing attractiveness and availability of his written works and commentaries suggest that his influence may become much greater in the twenty-first century as the lived implications for personal spirituality become better known and understood. Aspects of Teilhard’s thought have been reflected in documents of Vatican Council II and in favorable commentary on his thought by distinguished theologian, Henri Cardinal de Lubac. I believe that his lifelong practice of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits, himself a mystic, exerted a most powerful influence on Teilhard’s spirituality and thought. As yet Teilhard is underrated by comparison with his potential to influence Christianity as his ‘new mysticism’ becomes more widely understood as the powerful force which he claimed it could be in today’s culture. Additionally, his writings in English, available only since the mid- to late-1950s, require more than a casual reading.
R.J. Berry, God’s Book of Works: The Nature and Theology of Nature
Authors: Messer Neil
Published: March 2015

R.J. Berry, God’s Book of Works: The Nature and Theology of Nature (London: Continuum/T. & T. Clark, 2003), pp. xvi + 286. Paperback £17.99, ISBN 0-5670-8915-0. Hardback £45.00, ISBN 0-5670-8876-6.
Sigurd Bergmann, God in Context: A Survey of Contextual Theology
Authors: Pope Robert
Published: March 2015

Sigurd Bergmann, God in Context: A Survey of Contextual Theology (Aldershot and Burlinton, VT: Ashgate, 2003), pp. xvi + 155. Illustrated. £59.95, ISBN 0-7546-0615-5.
Maria Jansdotter, Ekofeminism i teologin—genusuppfattning, natursyn och gudsuppfattning hos Anne Primavesi, Catherine Keller och Carol Christ
Authors: Kronlid David
Published: March 2015

Maria Jansdotter, Ekofeminism i teologin—genusuppfattning, natursyn och gudsuppfattning hos Anne Primavesi, Catherine Keller och Carol Christ (Karlstad, Sweden: Universitet-stryckeriet, 2003), pp. 187. Paperback £20.00, ISBN 91850-1930-5.
The Sacred and Technology
Authors: Scott Peter Manley
Published: March 2015

Bronislaw Szerszynski’s Nature, Technology and the Sacred (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) offers a highly original argument that seeks to reorient our understanding of the emergence of the distinctive meanings of technology and nature in the West. More specifically, Szerszynski argues for the primacy of the sacred in the interpretation of nature and technology. Refusing the omnipresence of ‘desacralisation’ and ‘the secular’ in discourse on ecology and technological development, Szerszynski sees in the disenchantment of nature and the restlessness of technological innovation one more alteration in the theme of the sacred.
Although not offered as a theological argument, the primacy of the sacred in Szerszynski’s account suggests that his wide-ranging interrogation of nature and technology is amenable to theological analysis.
Shortly after the publication of Nature, Technology and the Sacred, Ecotheology Guest Editor, Peter Manley Scott, interviewed its author, Bronislaw Szerszynski, most especially to explore what ecotheologians interested in technology might learn from his thesis.
Earth-Healing in South Africa
Authors: Ackerman Denise
Published: March 2015

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Ecofeminism
Authors: Ruether Rosemary Radford
Published: March 2015

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Aboriginal Ceremonies and Teachings
Authors: Silman Janet
Published: March 2015

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Unfinished Creation
Authors: Linzey Andrew
Published: March 2015

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The World as the Body of God
Authors: Dietrich Gabriele
Published: March 2015

Introduction Is there anything specific to be said on ecology, social justice and biblical perspectives from an Asian, women’s perspective? I hesitate greatly to launch into generalizations of this kind. There are deep cleavages of caste, class, religious community and culture dividing Asian women among themselves. Some basic insights have been expressed by the Korean theologian Chung Hyung Kyung in her address to the WCC Assembly in Canberra. In the name of the spirit (Ruah) she has called for metanoia—a repentance and return towards life. She has talked there of interdependence, a return to the earth, an affirmation of a culture of life against the culture of death that has been perpetuated by patriarchal structures. And she has danced her invocation in order to show that this return happens not just in the head but in a matter of rhythm and touch with the whole of creation. Her presentation has created many worries among more orthodox Western theologians who feared syncretism and disorder.
Ecojustice Principles
Authors: Langmead Ross
Published: March 2015

It is clear to anyone who moves in Protestant evangelical circles that concern for the environment is infrequently expressed. I have never heard any sermons preached on the environment other than those I have preached myself. There is a flurry of books being written by evangelicals urging Christians to care for the environment, but with a couple of exceptions they are at the popular level and have a breath-less feel, as if they know they are late in jumping on the environmental bandwagon. There is an International Evangelical Environment Network, but its concerns are not widely discussed in the evangelical mainstream (see the websites at Evangelical Environment Network [UK] 1998; Evangelical Environment Network [USA] 1998). I know of no general evangelical text in missiology that mentions either the environment or ecojustices in its index.
The Heat is On
Authors: Keller Catherine
Published: March 2015

1998 was the warmest year since reliable records have been kept, according to studies by both NASA and the World Metereological Association. This marks the 20th consecutive year with an above normal global surface temperature. The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch men with fire; men were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God (Rev. 16.8). ‘Nothing is going to happen.’ ‘I know nothing’s going to happen, you know nothing’s going to happen. But at some level we ought to think about it anyway, just in case.’ I Somehow, amid the warm fuss and bustle of the everyday, I had mislaid the climate crisis. I’m not sure how I lost something so big. Talk about the weather had never quite regained the innocence it lost over a decade ago, when I read Bill McKibbin’s The End of Nature, warning in tones of prophetic urgency about the consequences of our denial of the climate change underway. But I had fallen back to safe small-talk kind of weather, its changes day by day, neighborly news: it’s the topic we all share, and share willingly, the topos (‘place’) of all topics. It is the only topic that ever works with the kindly, melancholic doorman. His heavily accented English drops toward sorrow-ing silence on any other subject. But on the vicissitudes of weather—whether we should wear our hats, get home before the storm, walk in the park—he brightens and risks a bit of interchange. Why would I want to burden this delicate zone of human co-creatureliness with warnings about warming?
Ecotheology and Eschatology
Authors: O'Loughlin Thomas
Published: March 2015

Contemporary Catholic theology has deliberately played shy of eschatological imagery, and when it has addressed it—usually in the poetry of the liturgy—has done so, for the most part, using banquet imagery for our final destination. One exception to this is in the Eucharistic Preface for the last Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the year when the End is the theme running through the liturgy: the celebration of Christ as King of the Universe. It runs: As king [Christ] claims dominion over all creation, that he may present to you, his almighty Father, an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace.
A New Naturalism
Authors: M'Gonigle Michael
Published: March 2015

More than a decade ago, the avant-garde American composer, Philip Glass, released a film that featured a lengthy barrage of dizzying, frenetic images—cars racing along congested freeways, buildings being constructed and demolished, assembly lines spewing out new products. An elegy to a society run amok, the film was entitled, Koyaanisquatsi, a Native American Hopi term meaning ‘life out of balance’. The theme of society both out of balance and out of control is omnipresent today. It is especially apt in describing our relations with the natural world which call for a fundamental shift in our values and institutions.
From Environmental Utopianism to Parochial Ecology
Authors: Northcott Michael S.
Published: March 2015

The image of the earth from space as the blue planet has become one of the dominant framings of nature in the late twentieth century. From space the earth looks at once beautiful and fragile. The quantity of water on the planet, relative to land, is striking. So too are the contrasts between the white polar caps and the light and dark browns of the continents of Africa, Asia and the Americas. The image has echoes of Stanley Kubrik’s film 2001, with its closing shot of a vulnerable foetus in a bubble floating around earth. It is reminiscent, too, of images from the Apollo moon landings, where astronauts were the first humans to experience ‘earth rise’ as they lived for two or three days on the moon, and to capture this event on film. For many of us, the nearest we come to experiencing this image of earth from space is at 37,000 feet in an aeroplane. Flying from Scotland to Van-couver recently I was struck by the awesome beauty of the icy coasts and inlets of Greenland, and of the north-eastern regions of Canada, recently politically reconstituted as the Province of Ninevet with its own parliament for its 35,000 human inhabitants.
Religious Responses to Fisheries Decline in Irish Coastal Communities with a Comparison to the Pacific Northwest Region, USA
Authors: Hinz Shawn , Bratton Susan Power
Published: March 2015

Worldwide, there is great concern for the depletion of commercial fish stocks (FAO 1997; Le Sann 1998). Much academic ethical analysis of fisheries has been based on Garrett Hardin’s ‘tragedy of the commons’—a simple model of human behavior that concludes: ‘individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring universal ruin’ (Hardin 1968; de Steiguer 1997; Baden and Noonan 1998). Fishing management has integrated Hardin’s presuppositions into policy design, thereby assuming all fishers are self-profit maximizers, who are inveterate free riders, unaware of conservation. Recently, anthropologists have drawn attention to the dynamics of small, traditional fishing communities, many of which have existed for centuries without collapsing the populations of harvested species, and all of which have some form of indigenous environmental regulation (McGoodwin 1990; Cordell 1989; Dyer and McGoodwin 1994; Pinkerton and Weinstein 1995). This work points to two important deficiencies in the religious environmental ethics literature—relatively little is known about: (1) how specific communities or trades develop an ‘environmental ethic’; and (2) how religious practice and belief respond to changing environmental concerns in industrialized cultures.
Poem
Authors: Herbert Mary K.
Published: March 2015

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On Being Public about Ecotheology
Authors: Pearson Clive
Published: March 2015

Environmental issues can be examined from an ecocentric or anthropocentric perspective. The latter approach places human, religious and financial values above the values of nature and the universe. Ecocentric perspectives stress the centrality of all ecosystems, their integration, and planetary processes above any individual or species. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased by 50 per cent, and are expected to double during the twenty-first century. These are expected to produce unprecedented environmental change that could threaten the integrity of planetary life and systems. Jewish religious tradition views the entire complexity of creation, and commands us not to destroy any part of God’s universe. Hence modern ecological sciences and Jewish theology give us both warnings and guidelines to value, sustain, recycle and restore the natural balance. This paper provides an ecocentric integration of the latest discoveries in climate science with 4000 years of Jewish beliefs.
Women and Ecology Wholeness Farm
Authors: College St Scholastica's
Published: March 2015

Six years ago the Institute of Women’s Studies decided to buy a farm to use as an extension seminar house. The objectives of this project were:

1. To develop a bio-diverse sustainable farm that will illustrate ecology friendly farming.

2. To offer courses about women and ecology so as to instil the importance of the care and preservation of the environment and to impart strategies of doing so.

This was originally planned in partnership with Amihan, a national women’s peasant organization, that was supposed to use the farm for its income-generating activity of diverse farming. This organization assigned a farmer family to live on the farm. After a year of partnership, Amihan felt it had other priorities and it allowed the farmer family to stay on at the farm as the employee of the Institute of Women’s Studies.
Exploring Liebniz's Kingdoms
Authors: Phemister Pauline
Published: March 2015

The paper identifies two natural kingdoms: one physical, ruled by the laws of efficient causation; the other non-physical, governed by laws of final causation. Living creatures combine both physical and mental characteristics and thereby belong to both natural kingdoms, ensuring that all events are explicable in terms of either set of laws. Distinguishing self-conscious minds from other souls, Leibniz also differentiates the kingdoms of Nature and Grace. Investigating the relations among the various kingdoms, it is found that the relation of mutual dependence between souls and their bodies in the two natural kingdoms mirrors a similar relation of mutual dependence at the level of Nature and Grace generally. Leibniz’s view also implies that the kingdom of Grace exists within the natural kingdom governed by final causation. Finally, it is suggested that we should reject Leibniz’s view that only some creatures are destined to enter the kingdom of Grace.

My aim is not to fill shops with futile books, written in the air, but where possible to provide something of use (Leibniz to Duke John Ferdinand of Hanover, Nov. 1671: GE I, 274. Cited in Jordan 1927: 38).
Animals in Christian Ethics
Authors: Palmer Clare
Published: March 2015

In comparison with the recent growth in writing in environmental theology and ethics, there has been relatively little published in current Christian ethics that specifically addresses human–animal relations. The writer usually cited in this context is Andrew Linzey, who makes a case for animal rights. In this paper, I discuss difficulties with key elements of Linzey’s rights position and with his representation of human–animal power relations. I argue that in developing approaches to animal ethics a wider range of relational and contextual factors should be taken into account, and I consider a number of these factors, including domestication. I suggest that a Christian relational ethic of care for animals may be one way forward in developing such an account.
'Gaia Told me to do it'
Authors: Letcher Andy
Published: March 2015

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Ted Peters and Gaymon Bennett (eds.), Bridging Science and Religion
Authors: Berry Sam
Published: March 2015

Ted Peters and Gaymon Bennett (eds.), Bridging Science and Religion (London: SCM Press/Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, 2002), pp. xii + 260. Paperback, ISBN 0-3340-2893-0, £16.95.
‘Nature’, Post/Modernity and the Migration of the Sublime
Authors: Roberts Richard H.
Published: March 2015

The transformation and attrition of nature under conditions of modernization has been represented as a conflict between ‘first’ and ‘second’ nature. Beyond, as it were, the antithesis of the pre-modern and the modern, a ‘third nature’ of seemingly infinite malleability is associated (e.g.) with cyborgs, virtual reality and genetic engineering under so-called postmodern conditions. It is possible to relate these processes of disembedding and progressive dissociation of ‘natures’ from a shared or received physical world with what Max Weber characterized as the ‘disenchantment’ (Entzauberung) of the natural world associated with modernization, and what Zygmunt Bauman regards as the ‘re-enchantment’ of the cosmos under postmodernizing conditions. Explicit re-sacralization of Nature as Gaia and Goddess in ecological spiritualities is an extreme manifestation of the latter tendency. In the contemporary recomposition of the religious field, the sublime has migrated from its traditional and eroded strongholds of trancendence and now occupies a wide and confusing range of interstitial footholds. Yet, without a powerful, comprehensive and widely shared ethical and religious reconfiguration of the claims of Nature, postmodern spiritual bricolage may remain open to the charge that it is an elite indulgence fraught with contradiction and grounded upon problematic assumptions. Large-scale and fundamental religious and theological revisionism is required within mainline religion (initially, above all in the Abrahamic faiths), that is if we are to re-learn realistic modes of encounter with nature within a human ecology that takes seriously into account the philosophical, theological and sociological construals of ‘nature’ and the migration of the sublime in the ‘postmodern condition’.
WITH CERTAINTY, COMPETENCE, AND CONFIDENCE
Authors: Vail Charles W.
Published: March 2015

Following Todorov’s reasoning this essay begins with a consideration of human nature. Continuing in the spirit of Todorov, to this “minimal anthropology” is added the values that comprise an ethical, a religious, and a civic humanism.
Asceticism in Modern Times
Authors: Palmisano Stefania
Published: March 2015

In this paper I examine how ascetic practices – consubstantial with monastic life of every kind and in every age – have been reinterpreted in the context of New Monasticism, a phenomenon which emerged at the end of the 1970s at the heart of contemporary Catholic monasticism. Starting from empirical research carried out in the most important Italian neo-monastic community, I aim to show how, in its efforts to respond to accusations of “being out of date” and “trivial” which have been levelled at contemporary monasticism, this community has become the interpreter of a process of “invention of monastic tradition” which restores a particular reinterpretation of the grammar of monastic asceticism. An analysis of these changes allows us to throw light on a transformed religious universe in which if, on one hand, traditional concepts of Catholic doctrine have been emptied of their original meanings, on the other they are taking on new ones, sometimes far from, or out of tune with, orthodox guidelines.