bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Hermeneutical Question Approached through the Fathers
Authors: Louth Andrew 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
In this essay in Anglican theology, it is argued, first, that traditional (classical) Anglican theology took as its model patristic theology, conceived of as ecclesial, not the pursuit of an individual. Although foundational, the Scriptures are not thought of as premisses from which theology is deduced. Modern theology, in contrast, uses the so-called historical critical method, to elicit the original intention of the scriptural writers and from this to derive a sure foundation for theology. The Fathers are consequently seen as irrelevant because they read the Scriptures from within the Church, and interpreted it by recourse to allegory. This essay seeks to justify the patristic approach to Scripture, characterizing it as ‘contemplative’, that is, seeking to behold and hear, not a message, but a person, namely Christ. Allegory is a way of seeking to be open to the mystery revealed by a prayerful reading of the Scriptures.
Eros and Mysticism
Authors: Louth Andrew 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
‘Eros and mysticism’ suggests a contrast with ‘logos and dogma’, but there is scarcely apparent in early Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs. Although apparently a nuptial epithalamion the Song of Songs is very rarely interpreted as such, but regarded as celebrating the love between Christ and the Church, or between Christ and the soul—is this paralleling the Jewish Rabbinic tradition. Two interpreters are discussed: Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. Origen places the Song in two contexts: as the third of the Wisdom books, and as the highest of Biblical songs—in either case the most intense form of human love for God. Both draw on Plato’s account of love in the Symposium, as a purifying ascent leading to ultimate Beauty. For Origen this is a process of growing illumination, while for Gregory the closer the soul comes to the ultimate, the deeper the darkness it experiences.
The Theology of the Philokalia
Authors: Louth Andrew 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
The Philokalia is a historic anthology (which is what philokalia means) of Byzantine ascetic and mystical texts from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries; it represents a culmination of a long process of selection and preservation of such texts. To talk of the ‘theology’ of the Philokalia is to use the term in the sense used in that ascetic tradition—not speculation, but participation in God attained through prayer involving assimilation to God, deification. The essay illustrates what it involved by discussing a brief text of fourteen chapters, ascribed to Patriarch Kallistos I. Western understanding of the terms used can be misleading: ‘practical’ is not opposed to ‘theoretical’ but its preparation; nor is the ‘heart’ opposed to the ‘intellect’ but where the intellect becomes itself. And, before all else, the Philokalia is concerned to help one on the way, rather than disclose the mystery to which the way leads.
Fiunt, Non Nascuntur Christiani
Authors: Louth Andrew 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
For Tertullian it was obvious: one became a Christian, not born a Christian. In his day, and throughout the age of persecution, Christians were baptized adult converts: they formed a voluntary association. Yet Christians were never satisfied with that: witness the idea of Christians as a ‘third race’. With the peace of the Church, the situation changed: people were eager to become Christians, and had their children baptized, perhaps initially as a precaution, given the high rate of infant mortality, then as a rite de passage. Nevertheless, despite the liturgical imagination of the fourth-century Church, baptism remained a rite for adults, for the bishops were anxious to preserve the pattern of the Church inherited from the age of persecution. Increasingly, however, Christians were baptized as infants, and the Church rapidly became a natural community. The ideals were preserved, partly among the ascetics, and partly in the cult of the martyrs.
Introduction
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractStrategy is an ancient pursuit with its roots in military strategy. Through the centuries, in the business environment, strategy has evolved through various eras from the “invisible hand,” through “management science,” to “strategic planning.” Today the concept of “strategy” is still evolving, shifting from an economic view to a value-creation view. Moreover, we have all heard the terms strategic planning, strategic management, and strategic thinking. However, depending upon whom you ask, these terms often mean different things to different people. Consequently, this chapter introduces the concepts, historical development, and definitions of strategy. Topics include the evolution of business strategy, the overlaps and differences between strategic planning, strategic management, and strategic thinking, deliberate and emergent strategy, traditional versus dynamic strategy, inductive versus deductive strategy, intuition as part of the strategy process, functional strategies, and key reasons organizations change strategy.
Building Strategically Valuable Resources
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractBoth internal and external factors matter to a company’s strategic decisions and subsequent performance. The resource-based view (RBV) proposes that management should look inside the firm to find sources of competitive advantage. According to RBV theory, internal resources are given the major role in helping companies achieve higher organizational performance. Thus, this chapter examines the approaches, tools, best practices, and potential pitfalls of the “internal analysis” element of the strategy process, including defining organizational resources, differentiating between resources and competencies, exploring transient versus sustainable competitive advantage, conducting value chain and VRIO (valuable, rare, inimitable, organizational) analyses, and identifying, developing, and managing strategically valuable resources.
Selecting High-Impact Strategies
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractIn any strategy process (whether dynamic or traditional), analytical data (both formal and intuitive) informs the potential strategies management identify and the strategic choices they make. While drawing upon external and internal analytical data, developing an array of potential strategies is also a creative exercise. Moving from external and internal analyses to making strategic choices combines data analysis, creativity, industry knowledge, and experience. Consequently, this chapter presents the approaches, tools, best practices, and potential pitfalls of identifying and choosing potential strategies, and how to apply a strategic priorities map to select high-impact strategies for the organization to pursue by identifying each potential strategy’s projected impact, level of effort and/or investment required, and potential risk.
The Best Strategy Is the One You Can Implement
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractAnalyzing and planning strategy is an important component of company success. However, any experienced executive understands, and has likely learned the hard way, that the full potential value of even the most well-designed strategy is only achieved through effective implementation. Thus, strategists must always remember that the best strategy is the one you can implement. No matter how brilliant or elegant a strategy is, it is worthless until effectively implemented. To minimize the likelihood of mismanagement, companies need a repeatable process that provides an integrated and actionable approach to effective strategy execution. Therefore, in this chapter a pragmatic five-step strategy implementation model is presented consisting of: establishing an “implementation infrastructure,” applying “agile implementation management,” developing detailed implementation action plans, aligning organizational culture with strategy, and building momentum and continually adjusting.
Managing Strategic Transformation
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThe discipline of “change management,” regarded as a set of activities that realigns organizations so they can effectively address the economic, technological, and other forces transforming their marketplaces, presents significant challenges to a firm’s leadership during the strategy execution process. Major strategic initiatives visibly and dramatically transform the configurations and environment of a company. “Big Change” is an apt term to describe what often happens during strategy execution. Indeed, technological, operational, and organizational changes introduced by implementing new strategies now come far more quickly and are more significant than those to which most organizations are accustomed. Therefore, management need to apply the proven concepts and tools of effective organizational transformation management presented in this chapter.
Nonmarket Strategy
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractNonmarket strategy is a term applied to the aspects of business strategy that address relationships that do not unfold within commercial markets but still affect the company’s ability to reach its strategic goals. A company’s nonmarket environment is composed of various entities including regulators, governments, citizens, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), activists, and the media. The nonmarket environment has grown in complexity and importance, including, for example, intellectual property, health and safety, emissions and fuel standards, trade policy, consumer protection, competition policy, and diversity and inclusion. Consequently, “regulatory risk” and “reputational risk” have been ranked as top strategic risks by executives. Hence, this chapter presents the best practices, key pitfalls, tools, and templates for developing and implementing a firm’s nonmarket strategy, including a nonmarket issues lifecycle and a three-step nonmarket strategy decision process.
How Corporate Parents Add Strategic Value
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThere is often confusion between “business strategy” and “corporate strategy.” The fundamental differences between business and corporate strategy are in the level of organizational focus and in the primary questions management must answer. Business strategy resides at the business unit level and requires business unit-level management to answer the question “How do we compete?” Meanwhile, corporate strategy resides at the multi-business unit level and answers two key questions. First, corporate-level management must decide “Which businesses should we be in?” Once the decision has been made to diversify, management must then determine “How will the corporate office manage the array of businesses?” Therefore, this chapter presents the best practices for analyzing and selecting markets and industries in which a firm should operate to fill the “growth gap,” and how a corporate office can best add value by choosing a focused “corporate parenting” approach to manage their portfolio businesses.
Pursuing Alliances, Joint Ventures, Mergers, and Acquisitions
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractMergers and acquisitions (M&As) are ubiquitous terms that include a spectrum of arrangements including non-equity alliances and partnerships, equity alliances, joint ventures, and M&As, each with increasing ownership. As ownership increases, control increases, but so does risk. If done well, M&As, in their various forms, can create value. However, ample evidence demonstrates that M&As create significant post-deal performance issues for acquiring, “buy-side” firms. While M&As are a multi-staged and cross-disciplinary process, too often corporate leaders approach them as a financial exercise to facilitate their growth strategy. This increases the likelihood that confounding implementation problems will arise in the subsequent post-transaction stages. Hence, this chapter presents an integrated and actionable deal flow model depicting an end-to-end view of the M&A process, including the steps management can take to build M&As as a core competency in their organization.
Shareholder Activism and Restructuring
Authors: Galpin Timothy 
Published: August 2023

AbstractWhen it comes to activists influencing the management agendas of companies, there are generally two types. “Social activists” are primarily concerned with influencing a firm’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) agenda, whereas “financial activists” principally focus on creating greater returns to a firm’s shareholders. This chapter addresses the approaches and impacts of financial activists and offers a process for management to effectively address shareholder activism should a financial activist take a stake in their company. Topics covered include the growth and impact of activism across the globe, pros and cons of activist investors, company factors that attract financial activists, activist investor aims and tactics, and a shareholder activism decision tree to assist public company leaders in developing an effective response to shareholder activism.
A Disabled Apostle
Authors: Soon Isaac T. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Speculation around the health of Paul the apostle has been present since soon after his death. Recently scholars have understood Paul to be disabled but have been wary of isolating precisely what his disabilities may have been or whether they are important for understanding his writings. This book is the first full-length study of Paul the apostle and disability. Using insights from contemporary disability studies, Isaac Soon analyses features of Paul’s body in his ancient Mediterranean context to understand the ways in which his body was disabled. Focusing on three such ancient disabilities—demonization, circumcision, and short stature—this book draws on a rich variety of ancient evidence, from textual sources and epigraphy to ancient visual culture, to analyse ancient bodily ideals and the negative cultural effects such ‘deviant’ persons generated. The book also examines Paul’s use of his own disabilities in his letters and shows how disability is not subsidiary to his thought but a central aspect of it. This book also provides scholars with a new method for uncovering previously unrecognized disabilities in the ancient world. Last of all, it critiques the latent ableism in much New Testament scholarship, which assumes that the figures of the early Jesus movement were able-bodied.
Circumcision as Disability
Authors: Soon Isaac T. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
This chapter analyses the way circumcision generated social stigma, exclusion, mockery, and violence in ancient Graeco-Roman and early Christian contexts, marking it as a disability. Ancient visual culture caricatures the bodies of those who bear circumcision to dehumanize and animalize. Jewish circumcision was mocked in social circles and equated with sexual deviance, so much so that Jews would use prosthetics to hide or remove the marks of their circumcision. In the few instances in the first century where Jews were sent out of cities, circumcision was one of the practices that contributed to their expulsion. Perhaps the greatest indicator of circumcision as a disability was the violence that it evoked, as demonstrated by the Seleucid persecution of Judaea in the second century where families and children were murdered for circumcising. Early Christians furthered hatred towards circumcision by imbuing it with theological significance, that it was a judgement of God or a mark of their sexual lasciviousness.
Short Stature as Disability
Authors: Soon Isaac T. 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
This chapter argues that short stature was a disability in the ancient world. Short stature, including dwarfism, did not fit the ancient ideal of moderate or average height. It was viewed by ancient medical writers and philosophers as a physical impairment, the result of underdevelopment or illness in utero. Short stature was often mocked, used as a means of dispelling the evil eye, associated with hypersexuality, and used as a feature of violent entertainment and gladiatorial spectacles. While short stature and dwarfism were not always viewed negatively, in ancient Egypt for example, by the Roman period, the pejorative use of dwarfism became prevalent in the Mediterranean world.
Decolonizing Posthuman Care
Authors: DeFalco Amelia 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Chapter 4 continues the discussion of kinship on the margins initiated in Chapter 3 but complicates the critiques of humanism offered in Ishiguro and Atwood, asking how one can advocate for a radical decentering of the human via a horizontalizing of the ontological plane without trivializing or undermining the ongoing work of scholars and activists struggling to affirm the moral significance of minoritized lives. The chapter explores the racialization of disposability and the speculative rejoinder offered by Jesmyn Ward’s novel of Black posthuman care, Salvage the Bones. In declining to represent generic, hegemonic “humans,” the novel offers a vision of horizontalism in which diverse, discarded matter relates and feels and affects. Though the reader is told these relating bodies are discards, the vibrancy and care within and between them challenges conventions of ethical insignificance. Ward’s vision of posthuman vitality and care offers a significant challenge to periphery/center, inhuman/human binaries that persist even within critical theories of the posthuman.
Natural Rights, Legal Rights, Human Rights
Authors: Coyle Sean 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Chapter VI begins with an analysis of right informed by Hohfeld’s schema, and briefly discusses the will and interest theories of right; it then criticizes Finnis for relying on human rights—i.e. positive law—rather than natural rights at a key part of his analysis; it then discusses natural right, human right, and legal right; and then relates discussion of right to the theory of core morality.
The Culmination of Natural Law
Authors: Coyle Sean 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
Chapter VII argues that although natural law theory stands on its own, it is logically completed by a theological theory of divine law and action; the majority of the chapter expounds a version of Aquinas’s ‘five ways’—proofs of God’s existence and suggests that the cosmological model of scientists stands in exactly as much need of faith as does a theological explanation
Unjust Law and Unjust Laws
Authors: Coyle Sean 
Published: August 2023

Abstract
In Chapter XI, the distinction between unjust law and unjust laws introduces a complex discussion of when a person is bound in conscience to break a legal rule, and when they are bound to obey it. Aquinas mentions the subject in a few places, but does not come up with a complete theory of the subject: ought one to obey an unjust law in a legal system that is otherwise just? Ought one never to obey a law that requires one to perform an immoral or unjust act? This chapter offers a systematic theory which seeks to decide these and related questions; it ends with a discussion of German law in the period 1933–1945.
A nuclear North Korea
Authors: Howell Edward 
Published: August 2023

AbstractChapter 4 concerns the ‘second nuclear crisis’ from January 2002 to November 2009. It analyses how, during this time, North Korea’s weaponized nuclear ambitions would intensify owing to the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the arrival of the George W. Bush administration in the United States, and a resultant US retrenchment from multilateralism. Whilst North Korea would oscillate between delinquent and compliant behaviour during this period, its ultimate unwillingness to concede on its nuclear ambitions would further its delinquent actions. This chapter examines how, during the so-called ‘second nuclear crisis’, North Korea strategically deployed delinquent behaviour to fulfil two somewhat contradictory objectives: first, the normalization of relations with the United States and, second, the development of nuclear weapons. It highlights how, after North Korea self-declared its withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 2003, it pursued nuclear development increasingly unabashedly, leading to its first nuclear test in October 2006. At the same time, the international community sought to induce North Korea into compliance with nuclear norms through offering concessions, most notably through the multilateral Six-Party Talks. Yet, these efforts failed, and North Korea would conduct its second nuclear test in May 2009.
Strategic patience meets strategic delinquency
Authors: Howell Edward 
Published: August 2023

AbstractChapter 5 focuses on North Korea’s nuclear behaviour during the Obama administration, between 2009 and 2016. This period offers a counter-case to the idea that delinquent behaviour with respect to the global nuclear order and international order will bring beneficial outcomes. This chapter underscores how, confronted with a conservative administration in South Korea, the Obama administration did not wish to be seen as rewarding North Korea’s delinquent behaviour, even if its own foreign policies diverged from the approach of the Bush administration. Yet, through the United States’ pursuit of an approach of ‘strategic patience’, North Korea’s delinquency, in fact, intensified, not least given how the rewards reaped by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) were minimal. As such, this chapter examines how North Korea’s heighted nuclear ambitions were a product of the transition of power to Kim Jong Un in 2011 and the DPRK’s disdain for the ‘strategic patience’ policy, coupled with a reaction by North Korea to the growing imposition of unilateral and multilateral sanctions. Despite the trade-offs between the costs and benefits of delinquent behaviour, North Korea was willing to accept the material costs and the lowering of its international status. It conducted four nuclear tests during the two terms of the Obama administration and, between 2012 and 2016, over seventy missile tests.
Conclusion
Authors: Howell Edward 
Published: August 2023

AbstractThe conclusion summarizes the main arguments and findings of this book. In so doing, it outlines how, since the end of the Cold War, North Korea has deployed a range of behaviour, defying and complying with the norms of the global nuclear order and wider post-war international order. It argues how, across the four time periods under investigation, the first nuclear crisis (1985–1994), the second nuclear crisis (2002–2009), the Obama administration (2009–2016), and the first three years of the Trump administration (2017–2019), North Korea’s actions have been part and parcel of a quest for greater international status embedded within a counter-hegemonic strategy against what it perceives to be a ‘hostile’ US-led international order. This concluding chapter highlights how, whilst North Korea has learnt from the costs and benefits obtained through its delinquent behaviour to inform its future actions, each temporal period represents a unique confluence of political and strategic conditions that contributed to the DPRK’s actions. This chapter then takes the book’s findings further, outlining areas for additional inquiry. It argues that North Korea’s strategic deployment of delinquency with respect to the global nuclear order can serve as a useful case study for the application of strategic delinquency framework to other ‘rogue’ nuclear states that oppose the global nuclear order’s normative and institutionalized strictures, such as, inter alia, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan.