bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Helping Children of Rural, Methamphetamine-Involved Families
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

In the late 20th and early 21st century United States, the production and misuse of methamphetamine was a growing and urgent public health, criminal justice, and child welfare problem affecting whole families and communities, particularly in rural areas. Yet, child welfare professionals, social workers, educators, and others working within rural areas had little systematic, descriptive data on which to build effective interventions for the growing numbers of children affected by methamphetamine misuse. This book describes a program of mixed methods research combining strategies from developmental and child clinical psychology, psychiatry, and ethnography to examine the psychological functioning of rural children from methamphetamine-involved families. Participants were twenty-nine children in foster care because of parental methamphetamine misuse, four mothers recovering from methamphetamine addiction, seven foster parents of children from methamphetamine-involved families, and twenty-eight knowledgeable rural professionals (child welfare and law enforcement professionals, substance abuse and mental health providers and educators). Children whose parents abuse methamphetamine are often exposed to toxic chemicals, violence, criminal behavior, and neglect as well as physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Many school-aged children in foster care because of parental methamphetamine misuse have high levels of trauma symptoms and behavior problems. Descriptive information on the contexts in which children are reared, participant observation, psychological testing, and in-depth interviews with children, in conjunction with existing research were used to develop and pilot test an intervention — Life Story Intervention — for rural children in foster care because of parent substance misuse.
Introduction
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

This chapter introduces the problem of methamphetamine misuse focusing on rural children, and the psychological as well as physical hazards posed to children due to parental impairment and exposure to adult criminality. The research presented in this book is undergirded by a sociocultural model of human development. Understanding the contexts in which children are reared, as well as participants' (children's, parents', professionals') experiences and perceptions of those contexts, provides models for the design of culturally and developmentally sensitive mental health interventions for children exposed to trauma.
History and Epidemiology
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

This chapter provides an introductory discussion of the history and epidemiology of methamphetamine. Despite intense publicity in the popular press in the 1990s and early 2000s, methamphetamine is not a new drug, nor are problems with its misuse. Crises of methamphetamine misuse have occurred in diverse cultural and historical contexts from post World War II urban Japan to turn-of-the-century, rural Midwest. The social impact of these crises has been related to the quality of the drug, its means of distribution, population of users, methods of administration, and legal sanctions, all of which have varied widely across time and place.
The Research Program
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

This chapter provides an overview of the mixed methods research strategy. The site of the research is predominantly white, working-class, rural Illinois in the early 21st century. Participants were twenty-nine children in foster care because of parent methamphetamine misuse, four mothers recovering from methamphetamine addiction, seven foster parents of children from methamphetamine-involved families, and twenty-eight knowledgeable rural professionals (child welfare and law enforcement professionals, substance abuse and mental health providers and educators). Methods included extensive participant observation primarily shadowing child welfare investigators; in-depth, audiotaped individual interviews with adults and children; and standardized psychological testing of children.
Narrative of a Rural Child Welfare Professional
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

This chapter provides a portrait of the impact of parental methamphetamine misuse, as seen through the eyes of a child welfare professional with over twenty-five years experience working with children and families in rural Illinois. Her account of the strain on rural communities and the devastation of individuals and families make concrete the human experiences of methamphetamine misuse: the endangered child welfare professionals, devastated parents and traumatized children, and also their resilience and resourcefulness.
Children’s Responses to Life Story Intervention
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

Evaluation of Life Story Intervention using a quasi-experimental, longitudinal design is ongoing. This chapter describes the intervention's pilot tests, and presents several contrasting case studies of children's responses. The children depicted are similar in age, length of time in foster care, past experiences, and history of involvement with parental methamphetamine misuse. They illustrate a variety of child responses to Life Story Intervention, their struggles, and attempts to help. Life Story Intervention provided a bridge, bringing needed intervention to children at a critical time in their lives characterized by impermanence and flux, prior to engagement in a longer-term mental health intervention.
Narrative of a Community Clinician
Authors: Haight Wendy , Ostler Teresa , Black James , Kingery Linda
Published: January 2009

The design and implementation of Life Story Intervention involved close collaborations with rural adults who worked in a professional capacity with children. This chapter presents the account of a community professional's experiences in conducting Life Story Intervention with two young adolescent boys in foster care because of their parents' methamphetamine misuse.
Sense of the Faithful
Authors: Baggett Jerome P.
Published: January 2009

The image of the “cafeteria Catholic”—one who blithely picks and chooses those doctrines that suit him—is a staple of American culture. But are American Catholics really so nonchalant about how they integrate the ancient devotional practices of Catholicism with the everyday struggles of the modern world? For this book 300 intensive interviews were conducted with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of this question. The book acts as an act of listening that allows ordinary Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives. Many American Catholics, the book shows, do indeed have an uneasy relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But the book finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings.
Context
Authors: Baggett Jerome P.
Published: January 2009

This chapter begins with a discussion of the dramatic changes in American Catholicism that have occurred within the past century. Topics covered include the theological tumult caused by the 1899 encyclical Testem benevolentiae (A Testament of Esteem), which Pope Leo XIII addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons; Catholicism in the 1950s, and the ideological impact of Vatican II reforms. The chapter then details the rationale and research methods used in this book.
Civil Society
Authors: Baggett Jerome P.
Published: January 2009

This chapter shows that parishioners are unaware of the ways their parish cultures often delimit the role the church's social justice teachings might otherwise play in influencing Catholics' sense of obligation and contributions to civil society.
The Presuppositions of Constitutional Interpretation
Authors: Barber Sotirios A. , Fleming James E.
Published: January 2009

Many books on and courses in constitutional law are about what the United States Supreme Court has said about the Constitution, not about what the Constitution itself means. But the enterprise of constitutional interpretation presupposes that the Constitution in and of itself can mean something, and that conscientious, responsible interpreters are seeking the true meaning or best interpretation of the Constitution. This chapter explores the questions raised by these presuppositions. It also raises the basic questions of constitutional interpretation: What is the Constitution?, Who may authoritatively interpret it?, and How should it be interpreted?
The Principal Questions of Constitutional Interpretation
Authors: Barber Sotirios A. , Fleming James E.
Published: January 2009

This chapter takes up the principal questions of constitutional interpretation and the assumptions underlying the enterprise of constitutional interpretation by considering William Rehnquist's classic criticism of the notion of a “living constitution” and defense of a narrow originalism. It argues that fidelity to the Constitution as written — understood as a scheme of abstract moral principles or concepts like fairness rather than as a code of concrete historical conceptions of those concepts — requires what Ronald Dworkin has called a “fusion” of constitutional law and moral philosophy. Such a philosophic approach would require “judicial activism”, not “judicial deference”. It also would, as Dworkin argues, presuppose a moral objectivity of principle, not, as Rehnquist assumes, moral skepticism.
The Philosophic Approach
Authors: Barber Sotirios A. , Fleming James E.
Published: January 2009

This chapter defends the philosophic approach to constitutional interpretation. This thinking for oneself must be conducted with an attitude of self-criticism, seeing constitutional interpretation as a self-critical quest for the best understanding of the Constitution. The chapter emphasizes that the philosophic approach does not involve judges or other interpreters doing moral and political philosophy without regard to the commitments of our constitutional order. But it does involve judges making philosophic choices in elaborating the meanings of our constitutional commitments. Some jurists and scholars have objected that judges simply are not capable of discharging this responsibility. In fact, the chapter shows that all the philosophic approach requires is that judges take responsibility for the kinds of philosophic choices that they have been making all along. It also defends the philosophic approach against charges that it is undemocratic, un-American, and dangerous. It shows how it does not exclude considerations of constitutional meaning associated with other approaches but in fact represents a fusion of several approaches.
The Mutual Relevance of Reputation and Personality
Authors: Craik Kenneth H.
Published: January 2009

Chapter 7 explores the mutual relevance of reputation and personality, two important constructs that appear to address the same question: What kind of person is this individual? A primary claim of the network interpretation is that the reputation of a person resides within the social system. At the same time, constructs such as the self-concept, social selves, and tactics of reputation management can be formulated as reputation-relevant elements of the personality system. At the theoretical level, this chapter demonstrates that a generic model of reputational concepts can be accommodated within a variety of contemporary personality theories. This argument is illustrated by a review of the socioanalytic personality theory and the five-factor personality theory.
The Risks of Discourse About Other Persons
Authors: Craik Kenneth H.
Published: January 2009

Chapter 8 mobilizes the network interpretation to analyze in detail a classic venue for taking action in defense of one’s reputation—the libel courts. A network interpretation is implicit in key elements of the rationale and structure of common-law actions for defamation. Anywhere throughout the members and linkages of one’s reputational network, an assertion potentially damaging to reputation can enter and circulate narrowly or broadly and in ways difficult to predict or track. Psychological research indicates that attributions of disreputable acts appear to be much more difficult to disconfirm than attributions of virtuous and socially desirable acts, thereby presenting a challenge for rehabilitating the reputation of vindicated plaintiffs. This chapter reviews the changing and expanding concepts of reputation within the common-law tradition of libel from the fifteenth century to the contemporary era of Internet defamation.
Posthumous Reputational Networks
Authors: Craik Kenneth H.
Published: January 2009

The theoretical framework advanced in this book generates not just one but three reputational networks for each person: the lifetime, transitional, and posthumous reputational networks. Following the death of a notable person, a transition period occurs during which a chorus of survivors and keepers of the flame within the person’s lifetime reputational network coexist with an emerging network of writers and scholars who may never have met the biographical figure but begin to investigate, write about, and discuss the person’s lifelong conduct. Over several decades, the lifetime reputational network fades away, bowing out to a sometimes large and lively posthumous reputational network. In the case of major cultural figures, such as George Washington, the posthumous reputational network is even more extensive, encompassing most citizens of a nation and extending into posterity.
Conclusion
Authors: Craik Kenneth H.
Published: January 2009

This chapter summarizes the array of major conceptual distinctions generated by a network interpretation of reputation. They include small village versus small world, reputational information flow versus storage, discursive versus distributive facets of reputation, reputational parameters versus content claims, reputational accuracy versus validity, reputational networks within personality versus social systems, and lifetime versus transitional versus posthumous reputational networks. Three areas of unfinished business are identified: character and reputation, rumor and reputation, and corporate reputation. The network interpretation provides a comprehensive model for linking the most disparate issues raised by the phenomenon of reputation and demonstrates the potential for a productive and wide-ranging program of interdisciplinary research.
Becoming Hebrew
Authors: Saposnik Arieh B.
Published: January 2009

Becoming Hebrew is a study of the ways in which a Zionist national culture was generated in the Jewish Yishuv (prestate community) of Palestine between 1900 and 1914. The book addresses three principal lacunae in the study of Zionist culture to date. The first of these is chronological. Much of the literature to date has assumed that a distinctive Zionist national culture began to appear in Palestine during the interwar period, whereas Becoming Hebrew argues that its formative period in fact predates the war. Out of this chronological claim emerge the two additional, more conceptually and theoretically substantive, correctives. In the first instance, the book shows that the relationship between the Zionist cultural undertaking and traditional Jewish culture is far more complicated and nuanced than has often been recognized. Joining a new and important historiographical trend, the book suggests further that the Zionist case sheds important light on nationalism generally, which itself emerges in a more complex and dialectical relationship with the religious cultures and traditional societies out of which it grows than has often been acknowledged in much of the now classical literature. Finally, in its conceptualization of “culture” as created in Zionist Palestine, the book synthesizes a literary‐like study of imageries and discourses and a more anthropological examination of observable cultural practices and tangible, public social processes to produce a history of culture as a broad interweaving of many aspects of human life.
“The Jew Has Died and the Hebrew Has Been Born”
Authors: Saposnik Arieh Bruce
Published: January 2009

As the Yishuv grew demographically, the distinctive national culture that emerged necessitated a renegotiation of national centers and peripheries. Zionism's geographical rearrangement of Jewish life entailed a demand for cultural realignment and a renegotiation of the relationship between the new Zionist culture and the traditions associated with Jewish centers of the Diaspora. This process was punctuated by polemical outbursts, as in the “Brenner affair” and the storms surrounding the Herzlia Gymnasium, in particular its incorporation of biblical criticism in its teaching. In 1910* a speaker at a national celebration in Jerusalem declared that “the Jew has died, the Hebrew has been born,” while a writer abroad proclaimed the emergence of a “new Israel” in Palestine. A “literary mania,” as Menahem Ussishkin called it, and the crystallization of a celebratory style and educational agendas were among the key manifestations of that new national entity.
5 The School of Maqâsid: The Higher Objectives of Law
Authors: Ramadan Tariq
Published: January 2009

This chapter focuses on the school of higher objectives of law (madrasat al-maqâsid) established by Abû Ishâq ash-Shâtibî. It is shown that ash-Shâtibî's methodology reconciles scholars with the original confidence shared by the Prophet's Companions, the people of Medina, and Mâlik himself, because they moved more freely between the meaning of texts and their own excellent and intimate knowledge of their human context. More broadly, and more essentially, it sheds renewed (mujaddid) light on the Prophetic tradition (hadîth) that states: “God has set some limits, so one must not transgress them; He has commanded some commands, so one must not ignore them; He has made some things unlawful, so one must not commit them. He has also kept silent (sakata) about some matters as a mercy, not because He has forgotten them, so one should not ask about them”.
6 A Synthesis
Authors: Ramadan Tariq
Published: January 2009

This chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It reviews the various classical schools of the fundamentals of usûl al-fiqh. It then proposes a new geography of the sources of Islamic law and jurisprudence.
9 The Growing Complexity of the Real
Authors: Ramadan Tariq
Published: January 2009

This chapter explores the evolution of the sciences to understand better what this is going to entail as far as dealing with texts and establishing an Islamic ethics is concerned. It argues that we have reached limits that prevent contemporary Islamic thought from moving forward and thus in facing the challenges of our time as it should. It proposes new geography of the sources of law that entails shifting the center of gravity of religious and legal authority in contemporary Muslim societies and communities.
16 Ethics and Universals
Authors: Ramadan Tariq
Published: January 2009

The reform presented in the course of this book must begin with reconciliation with the texts, their meaning, and their higher goals considered in history and in various human societies. There is a need to reconcile with an Islamic universality whose essence is pluralistic. Confirming its universality means engaging a twofold movement that consists in determined self-assertion allied to confident opening up to all civilizations and religions, but also to the different subjects of thought that were long considered dangerous precisely because of fears about dilution or transgressions against the text. This chapter discusses these in terms of areas such as philosophy, mysticism, and interfaith dialogue.
Supersizing the Mind
Authors: Clark Andy
Published: January 2009

Studies of mind, thought, and reason have tended to marginalize the role of bodily form, real-world action, and environmental backdrop. In recent years, both in philosophy and cognitive science, this tendency has been identified and, increasingly, resisted. The result is a plethora of work on what has become known as embodied, situated, distributed, and even ‘extended’ cognition. Work in this new, loosely-knit field depicts thought and reason as in some way inextricably tied to the details of our gross bodily form, our habits of action and intervention, and the enabling web of social, cultural, and technological scaffolding in which we live, move, learn, and think. But exactly what kind of link is at issue? And what difference might such a link or links make to our best philosophical, psychological, and computational models of thought and reason? These are among the large unsolved problems in this increasingly popular field. This book offers both a tour of the emerging landscape, and an argument in favour of one approach to the key issues. That approach combines the use of representational, computational, and information-theoretic tools with an appreciation of the importance of context, timing, biomechanics, and dynamics. More controversially, it depicts some coalitions of biological and non-biological resources as the extended cognitive circuitry of individual minds.
1 The Active Body
Authors: Clark Andy
Published: January 2009

This chapter focuses on some of the most fundamental ways in which appeals to the body, to the environment, and to embodied action may inform our vision and understanding of mind. The benefits enabled by the coevolution of morphology, materials, and control are considered. Related strategies of ‘ecological assembly’ in which embodied agents exploit the opportunities provided by dynamic loops, active sensing, and iterated bouts of environmental exploitation and intervention are discussed.
2 The Negotiable Body
Authors: Clark Andy
Published: January 2009

This chapter argues that human minds and bodies are essentially open to episodes of deep and transformative restructuring in which new equipment (both physical and ‘mental’) can become quite literally incorporated into the thinking and acting systems that we identify as our minds and bodies. This theme is pursued with special attention to the negotiability of our own embodiment. Three grades of embodiment are discussed: mere embodiment, basic embodiment, and profound embodiment.
3 Material Symbols
Authors: Clark Andy
Published: January 2009

Language can be viewed as a form of mind-transforming cognitive scaffolding: a persisting, though never stationary, symbolic edifice whose critical role in promoting thought and reason remains surprisingly ill-understood. This chapter examines three distinct but interlocking benefits of the linguistic scaffold. First, the simple act of labeling the world opens up a variety of new computational opportunities and supports the discovery of increasingly abstract patterns in nature. Second, encountering or recalling structured sentences supports the development of otherwise unattainable kinds of expertise. Third, linguistic structures contribute to some of the most important yet conceptually complex of all human capacities: our ability to reflect on our own thoughts and characters and our limited but genuine capacity to control and guide the shape and contents of our own thinking.
Mechanisms of Democracy
Authors: Vermeule Adrian
Published: January 2009

What institutional arrangements should a well-functioning constitutional democracy have? Most of the relevant literatures in law, political science, political theory, and economics address this question by discussing institutional design writ large. This book moves beyond these debates, changing the focus to institutional design writ small. In established constitutional polities, the book argues that law can and should — and to some extent already does — provide mechanisms of democracy: a repertoire of small-scale institutional devices and innovations that can have surprisingly large effects, promoting democratic values of impartial, accountable and deliberative government. Examples include legal rules that promote impartiality by depriving officials of the information they need to act in self-interested ways; voting rules that create the right kind and amount of accountability for political officials and judges; and legislative rules that structure deliberation, in part by adjusting the conditions under which deliberation occurs transparently or instead secretly. Drawing upon a range of social science tools from economics, political science, and other disciplines, the book carefully describes the mechanisms of democracy and indicates the conditions under which they can succeed.
Absolute Majority Rules: Optimizing Accountability
Authors: Vermeule Adrian
Published: January 2009

This chapter introduces another voting mechanism — the absolute majority rule. Absolute majority voting rules, which require a majority of all eligible members or voters to take institutional action, can promote accountability by insuring legislative and democratic majorities against strategic behavior by minorities. Moreover, such rules simultaneously promote the accountability of legislators and other officials to broad electorates and minimize the accountability of officials to narrow interest groups and other democratically suspect third parties. These two effects are complementary — the first promotes accountability where it is desirable, the second dilutes it where it is undesirable. Absolute majority rules, which can be used in conjunction with submajority rules, thus provide a tool for optimizing accountability.
Delegation, Accountability and Judging
Authors: Vermeule Adrian
Published: January 2009

This chapter addresses the question: In a democratic polity, how (if at all) can judges promote accountability and allied democratic virtues? It suggests a supermajority voting rule that weights law in favor of the exercise of delegated lawmaking authority by government officials. Legal doctrine already requires this, but does not enforce the requirement with a voting rule. The suggestion here is that a small-scale institutional mechanism can better enforce the current law, promoting the democratic accountability of administrative law and policy at lower cost than the current regime. The chapter thus connects delegation with voting rules geared to promoting accountability, the theme of Chapters 3 and 4.
Teaching Death and Dying in the Context of Religious Studies
Authors: Sasson Vanessa R.
Published: January 2009

This chapter describes a religious studies survey course on world religions that the author of this chapter has been teaching for a number of years in two different academic institutions. The course introduces students to some of the major world religions and investigates in particular how each of these deals with death and dying. The result has been twofold: not only are students given a good basis upon which to compare religious traditions seriously, but they are also provided with an opportunity to reflect upon and discuss their mortality together. The chapter explores these results theoretically and anecdotally.
Love Letters to the Dead: Immortal Gifts for the Lifelong Learner
Authors: Lander Dorothy , Graham‐Pole John
Published: January 2009

This chapter explores the “reflective practice” of letter-writing to the deceased. It reviews the literature of this unique form of epistolary communication, as a prelude to writing letters to the chapter's authors' beloved dead. In subsequent dialogue, the chapter reviews the potential of this autoethnographic and holistic methodology for death education, as well as for research and care work, in both formal and informal palliative care settings. It is argued that death and mourning are hard to teach through didactics and need to be interwoven with arts-based personal story, self-expression, and dialogue. The chapter proposes that such direct, non-mediated, communications can offer a vital, although largely unexplored, form of lifelong pedagogy as well as serving as a source of direct healing for bereaved people, whether personal or professional caregivers.
Life After Death: An Overview of Contemporary Beliefs for Teachers
Authors: Badham Paul
Published: January 2009

This chapter was originally written as a guide for teachers in Britain responsible for teaching Philosophy of Religion to Advanced Level Students. The “A” Level examination is taken at age 18 in Britain and this chapter was first published in the journal Dialogue in November 2003. The chapter explores the wide range of beliefs held in contemporary society giving both the case for extinction on naturalistic grounds as well as spelling out the importance for world religion of belief in life after death. It explores the case for dualism in the writings of leading British philosophers. It looks at Resurrection in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as the importance of the law of Karma in the religions of the East. It outlines the philosophical arguments for life after death in Christian philosophy, and examines the empirical evidence for reincarnation with special to the Tibetan and Pure-land traditions of Buddhism. The chapter ends with an examination of Near-death experiences and their possible significance.
Teaching Religion and Film
Authors: Watkins Gregory J.
Published: January 2009

In a culture increasingly focused on visual media, the use of movies in religious studies and theology classrooms has far outpaced both the scholarship on religion and film and the study of pedagogical practices in the field. This volume makes great strides on both fronts. The seventeen contributors to this volume, many of them leaders in this area, provide an overview of the main approaches to religion and film studies, argue for advancements in theoretical approaches, and consider the practical realities of teaching religion and film. Part I presents general categories for thinking about the intersection between religion and film, as well as an argument for an emerging line of theoretical inquiry. The chapters in Part II examine the use of film in teaching religious traditions, whether movies are seen from the critical perspective of particular religious traditions or are used to teach the traditions themselves. Part III focuses on the use of film in the religious studies classroom, where religion or theories of religion are more generally addressed. Part IV considers the promise and challenge of using films to teach critical perspectives on fundamental human values, whether films are seen as vehicles for bringing stories into the classroom or as powerful indicators of a culture's core values.
Introduction
Authors: Watkins Gregory J.
Published: January 2009

After discussing the need for a volume of this kind, this chapter introduces the collection of articles in this book by explaining the organization of the volume into its four parts: basic approaches to religion and film; religious traditions and film; the religious studies approach; and cultural values and film. It also presents a brief introduction to all seventeen chapters and to the contributors of those chapters.
What Are We Teaching When We Teach “Religion and Film”?
Authors: Blizek William L. , Desmarais Michele
Published: January 2009

This chapter is a discussion of four basic methods in teaching religion and film: 1) using religion to offer new interpretations of movies; 2) using movies to critique religions or religious ideas; 3) using movies to promote religion; and 4) using movies to promote cultural values. Attention to these differences is helpful both for planning a course on religion and film and for helping students negotiate the terrain between religion and film.
Teaching Biblical Tourism
Authors: Bach Alice
Published: January 2009

With a wealth of material already published on the general project of matching films with biblical texts (especially within the “sword‐and‐sandal” genre), this chapter proposes a new method that uses documentaries about Palestinians and Israelis in order to approach critical theory and religion. Instead of engaging students in film criticism by comparing text to film representation, documentaries involve the students in the social criticism those very same texts present. This chapter includes appendices with extensive bibliographies on Bible and film, as well as religion and film material.
Buddhism, Film, and Religious Knowing
Authors: Cho Francisca
Published: January 2009

This chapter is about using film to teach a different way of understanding and knowing. Western academic knowledge is discursive and analytical by definition. This is most often our approach to film as well—what could be called a literary approach, in which film is read like a text. The study of Buddhism, too, is expected to address the content of its philosophical doctrines and the historical context of its making and evolution. One of the primary aims of Buddhist teaching is to look at our conventional experience of reality in a very different way, similar to what art often tries to do. Film has particular advantages because of its ability to mimic and even foster real‐time experience. The larger theoretical question raised by this investigation is whether academic learning can incorporate more than discursive content and critical analysis to include aesthetic, or sense‐based, learning.
Film and the Introduction to Islam Course
Authors: Hussain Amir
Published: January 2009

This chapter will be useful to those who want to incorporate film into their introductory course on Islam. It discusses the representations of Islam and of Muslim lives in contemporary Western films and the way in which these relate to the particular challenges of using movies to teach Islam. The chapter describes various motion pictures to give a sense of the range of Islamic issues that movies can productively portray, including fundamentalism and assimilation. There is also a discussion of films from the Muslim world (most notably Iran) that depict Muslim life in a way that is not usually seen in Western films. Tips on the use of documentary films about Islam are also provided.
Seeing Is Believing, but Touching's the Truth
Authors: Carp Richard M.
Published: January 2009

The emerging field of the anthropology of the senses critiques not only the academy's verbocentrism but also its (scopotropism (hypervisuality)) at the same time that it argues for a reintegration of all other senses into the practice of ethnography. This does not mean we should not use films in our religious studies classes, but it does mean that both students and (especially) teachers should have some sophistication in thinking about the medium. As an example, the films of Jean Rouch have been held up as the filmic equivalent of Artaud's “theatre of cruelty,” including films on religious phenomena such as African spirit possession. This chapter articulates a particular theoretical perspective on film and religion (anthropology of the senses) and presents a discussion of teaching this approach in the classroom.
There Is No Spoon?
Authors: Grieve Gregory J.
Published: January 2009

After presenting a cogent survey of the many interpretations of the movie The Matrix, this chapter offers its own compelling analysis by weaving together many distinctive theoretical and methodological approaches, including postmodernism, perennial philosophy, Marxism, Buddhism, and gnosticism. The chapter argues in the end for an understanding of a distinctively contemporary form of modern Western religiosity called “postperennialism.” The Matrix serves as a vehicle for both understanding and critiquing postperennialism. The analysis contained in the chapter serves as model for sustained investigation of this particular movie in a classroom setting.
TeachingFilm as Religion
Authors: Lyden John C.
Published: January 2009

This chapter begins by describing the mythological approach to film and religion by arguing that movies provide the collective myths that help a culture deal with its anxieties and hopes, usually by way of the cathartic drama of rewarded heroes and punished villains. Having established this theoretical groundwork, the chapter addresses specific pedagogical issues that relate to helping students not only to recognize the myths and values implicit within a film but also to understand how people appropriate them.
Filmmaking and World Making
Authors: Plate S. Brent
Published: January 2009

This chapter discusses the similar structures of religious worlds and films. It thus offers an introduction to theories and terms of religious studies through the popular medium of film. Drawing on film theory, the chapter indicates some of the ways film re‐creates the world through cinematography, mise‐en‐scène, editing, and other production elements. By drawing on theorists of religion such as Peter Berger, William Paden, and Nelson Goodman, the chapter goes on to show how religions achieve similar world‐making strategies by setting apart particular objects and periods of time through the telling of stories and the gathering together of people focused on one thing. By paying attention to the manner in which films are constructed, we can shed light on the ways religious myths and rituals are developed and vice versa.
Making Saints
Authors: Duffin Jacalyn
Published: January 2009

This chapter presents the history and role of miracles in the canonization process since reforms of the Council of Trent to the late twentieth century. The existing literature on this topic and on medical miracles in general is reviewed. A brief description of the sources and methods for the book appears here and a longer presentation is found in appendix A. Special attention is devoted to the writings of physician Paolo Zacchia and of Pope Benedict XIV (Prospero Lambertini).
The Doctors
Authors: Duffin Jacalyn
Published: January 2009

The canonization process always sought the input of doctors wielding the most up-to-date diagnostic and therapeutic methods. Over time, the average number of physicians involved steadily increased. Consultants sometimes argued over the diagnosis or management. Local experts were invoked to ascertain the physical condition of the supposedly cured patient, or to comment on the extraordinary nature of the events. The average number of medical experts also increased through time.

The investigation annoyed some doctors; others were defensive, especially when the testimony was elicited many years after the cure. Originally a question about the religious practices of witnesses was a key part of their testimony. Eventually, medical witnesses were not required to be practicing Catholics; some were Protestants or Jews. In all cases, the doctors’ testimony was sought for its scientific content and clinical expertise. Miracles take place when the doctor is surprised by the outcome of desperate situations.
Conclusion
Authors: Duffin Jacalyn
Published: January 2009

Until recently, modern physicians rarely were able to dignify the role of spirituality in health care by making it part of scientific study. Pastoral care may have always been welcome and respected, but it lay outside the realm of what was considered scientific. With the advent of randomized controlled trials, some investigators have brought the claims of spiritualists to the scrutiny of science. This rapprochement of medicine and religion reminds us that the two realms may depart from radically different premises, but they have many similarities in focus, conception, and practice. Both medicine and religion are ancient semiotic endeavors. They seek to detect (diagnose?) the “reality” of metaphysical entities behind individual suffering: disease, sin, health, redemption, miracle, and holiness. The objects of this medical and religious identification are not immutable, three-dimensional things, waiting to be unearthed like potsherds in an archeological dig. They are ideas formulated through science and/or theology to explain suffering and to console misery. As a result, diseases, sins, health, redemption, healing, and miracles are contingent on time and place. They change more than do human suffering and the responses to it. The illness experiences of individuals are co-opted by the epistemic frameworks of medicine and religion to bolster and advance their projects. But sickness, healing behaviors, and death are part of a longue durée of cultural pluralism. In our time, the greatest impetus for the continued work of the medical saints is the positivistic posture of medicine itself.
From Tocqueville to the War on Terror
Authors: Hicks Douglas A
Published: January 2009

This chapter examines the role of religion in American civic life from the time Alexis de Tocqueville visited the early United States until September 11, 2001. It focuses on an array of historical images for how Americans in their diversity can—and should—come together in public life. Tocqueville called religion the first of America’s political institutions, due to the religious nature of many voluntary associations, but he was limited in assuming Christianity was the common denominator. Israel Zangwill and Horace Kallen offered opposing images — the melting pot and cultural pluralism, respectively — but they each also spoke of an American symphony. Will Herberg introduced the “triple melting pot” of Protestant, Catholic, and Jew, and Lyndon Johnson gave the most vivid picture of America as the home of immigrants from every corner of the world. None of these images can fix the current challenges, but they do help show some imaginative, alternative visions.
Homer's Cosmic Fabrication
Authors: Heiden Bruce
Published: January 2009

Although scholars routinely state that the Iliad is an “oral poem,” it has circulated as a text stabilized in writing since near the time of its composition. Thus, the Iliad undoubtedly has features that render it satisfactory to readers and reading. But the question of what these features might be has been difficult for Homeric scholarship to address within the research paradigm of “oral poetics.” This book delineates a new approach aimed at evaluating what the Iliad furnishes to readers. Its program conceptualizes the act of reading as a repertoire of cognitive functions a reader might deploy in collaboration with the poem's signs. By positing certain functions hypothetically and applying them to the poem, its experiments uncover the kind and degree of suitable “reading material” the poem provides. These analyses reveal that the trajectory of events in the Iliad manifests the central agency of one character, Zeus, and that the transmitted articulation of the epic into “books” conforms to distinct narrative subtrajectories. The analyses also show that the sequence of “books” functions as a design that cues attention to the major crises in the story, as well as to themes that develop its significance. The transmitted arrangement therefore furnishes an implicit cognitive map that both eases comprehension of the storyline and indicates pathways of interpretation.
2 Event Trajectoriesin the “Books” of theIliad
Authors: Heiden Bruce
Published: January 2009

This chapter turns to the question of a reader's orientation within horizons shorter than the epic as a whole. Examining the transmitted articulation of the epic into “books” and analyzing their event trajectories, the study finds that each book narrates a trajectory consisting of a Problem/Decision stage, an Action stage, and a low-consequence Aftermath stage, varied by internal elaborations and repetitions but always following the three stages in the same order. Since these important narrative subtrajectories are congruent with the transmitted articulation, the articulation furnishes readers with valuable cognitive orientation. The phrasing of transitions that coincide with some transmitted articulations also suggests that the articulations were known to the composer and coeval with the rest of the composition. Scholarly claims that the articulation was a late intrusion are critiqued through examination of the alleged ancient testimony and indirect evidence.
5 Replacements and Representatives
Authors: Heiden Bruce
Published: January 2009

This chapter begins with a theoretical synopsis of the previous chapters that emphasizes the underdetermination of themes and its relationship to the choices of the agents in the story. It continues investigation of analogous themes in segments of analogous position in the three-cycle design, focusing especially upon the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in book 1 and the embassy in book 9. Analysis shows that while Agamemnon offers Achilles quantities of tangible goods, Achilles conceives of the wrong done him as a violation of trust rather than material loss. For Achilles, the value of a thing is the symbolism it acquires through choice. This disagreement elaborates alternative conceptions of honor, as either gift symbolic of friendly regard (Achilles) or payment demanded by a superior (Agamemnon).
6 Zeus's Changing Plans
Authors: Heiden Bruce
Published: January 2009

This chapter turns the investigation of thematic trajectories to books 8 and 15, the last segments of the first and second cycles respectively. These are the books that narrate Zeus's critical choices in steering events, and whose position cues attention to Zeus's consequential agency. In these books the Olympians face off in conflict, as the heroes do in other books. But analysis of the thematic trajectories shows that the Olympians prove wiser than the heroes at transforming their differences into symbolic terms that facilitate compromise.
The Development Agenda at WIPO
Authors: Moraes Henrique Choer , Brandelli Otávio
Published: January 2009

The Development Agenda is premised on the concerns disseminated worldwide about the adverse effects that might stem from upwardly harmonized, “one size fits all” intellectual property rules. The “Agenda” is a serious attempt to bring these concerns into the purview of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in a cross-cutting and permanent manner, a process that has already taken place in other international organizations. The chapter examines the theoretical and factual underpinnings that led to the proposal for the “WIPO Development Agenda” put forward in 2004 and its subsequent adoption in 2007.
TRIPS 3.0
Authors: Gervais Daniel J.
Published: January 2009

The TRIPS Agreement is entering its third phase. Phase I began with a well-documented push by the United States government to link intellectual property and trade rules in the World Trade Organization as part of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, which ended in April 1994. It was informed from the demanders' perspective by addition narratives. Phase II began just before the new millennium and was characterized initially by highly critical analyses of the TRIPS negotiation process, which was said to have been based on coercion of and/or ignorance by and/or a very bad “bargain” for the developing world. This Phase was informed by subtraction narratives: the lesser the impact of TRIPS, the better the situation of developing countries would be. Phase III is informed by calibration narratives. These include recognition that developing countries are very different and will need different TRIPS implementations, and evidence-based policy making.
History Lessons for the WIPO Development Agenda
Authors: Okediji Ruth L.
Published: January 2009

This chapter explores the technology-related focus of the IP-development linkage and outlines WIPO's role in the initial development paradigm, which prevailed from 1964 to 2004 when a proposal for a WIPO Development Agenda was first submitted. It then examines the WIPO Development Agenda in light of this history and identifies possible paradigm shifts discernible both in the structure of the Agenda and in preliminary considerations regarding its implementation. Finally, the chapter suggests a number of ways to interpret the WIPO Development Agenda and reflects briefly on how these different “faces” of the Agenda might inform WIPO's institutional role in responding to a spectrum of development interests in an era of rapid technological transformation.