Democracy has been a flawed hegemony since the fall of communism. Its flexibility, its commitment to equality of representation, and its recognition of the legitimacy of opposition politics are all positive features for political institutions. But democracy has many deficiencies: it is all too easily held hostage by powerful interests; it often fails to advance social justice; and it does not cope well with a number of features of the political landscape, such as political identities, boundary disputes, and environmental crises. (...) Although democracy is valuable it fits uneasily with other political values and is in many respects less than equal to the demands it confronts. In this volume prominent political theorists and social scientists present original discussions of such central issues. Democracy's Values deals with the nature and value of democracy, particularly the tensions between it and such goods as justice, equality, efficiency, and freedom. (shrink)

In this paper, we are interested in the effects of institutional context on public attitudes towards climate policies, where institutions are defined as the conventions, norms and formally sanctioned rules of any given society. Building on a 2014 survey experiment, we conducted thirty qualitative interviews with car-owners in Oslo, Norway, to investigate the ways in which institutional context and political-value orientation affect public attitudes towards emissions policies. One context (presented as a text treatment) highlighted individual rationality, emphasising the ways in (...) which local pollution impacts the individual citizen; the other highlighted social rationality, emphasising the wider significance of carbon emissions and global responsibility for climate change. We analysed the effects of these contexts on attitudes, finding that institutional context influenced individuals' perspectives as well as their attitudes towards climate policies. Groups with different value orientations differed in terms of their evaluations but not their interpretations of these contexts. (shrink)

Social and regional inequality remained of secondary importance in the 2017 House of Representatives election, especially in comparison to national security and constitutional reform. Still, the election victory of the coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō was also due to its ability to shape the debate concerning Japan’s political-economic model of growth and inequality. Abenomics and regional revitalization were the dominating policies, which opposition parties criticized without having a real counter-model. A more detailed analysis shows, however, that (...) Abenomics has not yet fulfilled its promise of shared growth, and that the governing coalition’s discursive control over the political-economic agenda has significantly weakened. This creates opportunities for opposition parties in the future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aesthetics of Asian Art:The Study of Montien Boonma in the Undergraduate Education ClassroomMary Ann Maslak (bio)John Dewey, in his Experience and Nature, expounds on the developmental nature of human experience premised on the concept of qualitative propinquity—the integration and harmonization with the environment exemplifies the essence of experience. This principal line of reasoning shapes his fundamental argument in Art as Experience, one of Dewey's most significant educational (...) works used today.1 In it he argues that the roots of experience lie in the commonplace occurrences in the course of human life. The integration of the meaning and value drawn from previous and present circumstances results in an "experience," which, in turn, constitutes a foundation of learning for the individual. Dewey's ideas are not only appropriate but also useful in the field of education. In what ways may future teachers experience art? How does the experiential process of examining art contribute to future teachers' pedagogical tools that can be used to incorporate art into the elementary school classroom?This article demonstrates how an experiential study of a work of art in an undergraduate education course—part of the St. John's University/Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education (LCIAE) Higher Education Collaborative program in New York City—contributes to the pedagogical repertoire of process-based learning for teachers and their future students. The article begins by providing a theoretical background for the work, followed by the definitions of three concepts that are pertinent to this piece: aesthetic education, the experiential approach to learning, and process-based instruction.2 The article then focuses on the specific aims of the university's arts course, the LCIAE Partnership Program, and data and analyses from the process-based aesthetic learning for the students enrolled in the course. It ends with conclusions about aesthetic education. [End Page 67]Theoretical BackgroundAssuming the sociocultural nature of learning suggested by Dewey demands consideration of the layers of experience, it is necessary to discern the learners' emerging thoughts in light of various experiences. As a teacher, I subscribe to this belief and wanted to note how I could employ scaffolding practices to the aesthetic education learning experience for my undergraduate students. I aimed to accomplish this goal by scaffolding aesthetic experiences for students from their personal points of understanding, the university's classroom setting, and the context of museum exhibitions.Scaffolding instruction has a lengthy and persuasive history that provided the underpinning for my approach to the course.3 The intent of scaffolding is to help a learner undertake a task or goal that is beyond the learner's present level.4 Effective scaffolding encompasses a number of key features within cognitive and emotional domains.5 Cognitive elements include (1) selecting challenging activities for students; (2) monitoring their efforts; (3) using guiding questions to develop self-regulation; and (4) using indirect questioning strategies to extend and enhance the learning experience. Emotional support includes (1) structuring experiences to discourage frustration and encourage confidence; and (2) creating an atmosphere of comfort. While not all these features are applicable to scaffolding activities in an art education course of a university's teacher education program, I was mindful of their importance in structuring this course.Given that this course was my undergraduate students' initial exposure to aesthetic education, scaffolding served as an appropriate systematic pedagogical approach. In the words of Maxine Greene, aesthetic education is an intentional experience "designed to nurture appreciative, reflective, cultural, participatory engagements with the arts" by enabling the student to observe, analyze, and interpret meaning.6 In other words, it is the interactive study of the nature and expression of beauty. It seeks to enhance perception and affect, cognitive development, and personal growth by assuming that works of art provide an inexhaustible resource for exploration and reflection by the learner and an understanding based on the cultural context in which the artwork was created. Greene's philosophy, developed from the work of Dewey, posits that understanding a work of art is based on the active connection to and association with the piece. Therefore, the approach to its study is of the utmost importance.The experiential approach to learning is a... (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully launching a (...) new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

The present chapter sketches the adoption of logic in late nineteenth and early twentieth century China. Addressing both conceptual and institutional aspects of this process, it contextualizes the raising interest in the discipline among Qing scholars and Republican intellectuals. Arranged largely chronologically, it delineates the successive periods in the reception of major works of and intellectual trends in the field. It introduces the most influential scholars promoting a public discourse on logic in the final years of the empire, but also (...) the ever more professional agents who participated in the ensuing establishment of a modern institutional framework for studies in logic like universities, departments of logic, academic societies, journals etc. While at the beginning, these people were mostly no trained logicians, progress in the establishment of academic logic in the 1930s provided the conditions for the formation of the first Chinese specialists in the field who were often internationally trained and soon to engage in cutting-edge research. In some contrast, academic discourse on logic well into the 1930s was dominated by exaggerated social and political expectations, not least due to the successive influence on intellectuals of inductionist scientism in the first decades of the twentieth century, of an inflated pragmatist notion of logic in the 1920s, and of an overly simplistic “antiformalist” notion of logic propagated by (vulgar-)Marxist historical dialecticians in the 1930s. The arrival of scientific logic also went in tandem with a renewed interest in studies in the traditional Buddhist “science of reasons” (yinming, hetuvidyā, “Buddhist logic”) and spurred the search for contributions to the field of logic in the record of inherited Chinese literature, a development which soon led to the common acceptance of the existence of genuinely Chinese traditions of logic. It is eventually a peculiarity of the Chinese reception of logic that since around 1920, less than two decades after the first modern translations of textbooks on traditional syllogistics, the visit of Bertrand Russell – one of the fathers of mathematical logic – fueled the spread of this new approach to logic which has eventually changed its face for good. Designed as a historical survey, this chapter is a general account on the major contributions to the field by Chinese scholars of the time and has to forego detailed discussions. (shrink)

Pragmatism is ever more popular amongst those who study international relations. Its emphasis on practice is generally acknowledged as a defining characteristic. There is, however, a general tension within pragmatist thought concerning practice, for pragmatism may emphasize the theorizing of practice. It is, then, distinguished from other theories in International Relations (IR) such as neo-realism or constructivism as a contender in their midst. We delineate a pragmatist theory of IR in the first part of this article, but insist on going (...) beyond merely establishing the next paradigm, for pragmatism may also emphasize the practice of theorizing. Theories are, then, considered different tools useful for dealing with the social world. This will be corroborated in the second part by a close reading of William James. Finally, we submit that instead of a paradigm war, a metaphor such as that of the Papini hotel is needed in IR — a metaphor that accounts for theory competition without neglecting the limitations set by the practice of theorizing itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Path of No Path: Contemporary Studies in Pure Land Buddhism Honoring Roger CorlessJeff WilsonPath of No Path: Contemporary Studies in Pure Land Buddhism Honoring Roger Corless. Edited by Richard K. Payne. Berkeley, CA: Institute of Buddhist Studies and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2009. 290 pp.Roger Corless (1938–2007)—Catholic devotee, Tibetan Buddhist meditator, Pure Land interpreter, and renowned professor of religious studies—was (...) a frequent contributor to the dialogue between Christians and Buddhists in the West, including through the auspices of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Although he passed away in 2007, his spirit continues to enrich this historic encounter, including through several major posthumous works. Path of No Path is the first of three such works planned for release by the Institute of Buddhist Studies, a seminary and graduate studies institution associated with Jōdo Shinshū, the largest form of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan. Originally intended as a festschrift, the book unfortunately had to become a memorial volume. In addition to some laudatory material reflecting on Corless’s life, it contains articles by ten scholars focusing on the Pure Land tradition of Buddhism, broken into three categories of practice, transmission, and interpretation. Many contributors, such as Ruben Habito and Al Bloom, will be familiar to readers of Buddhist-Christian Studies.Edited anthologies are always a mixed bag, but happily Path of No Path holds together well and offers many interesting essays for scholars interested in this field, although at times the connection to Corless’s own work seems a bit forced. Alternately, we might view those essays with relatively tenuous connections to Corless’s work as representing the sort of playfulness that Corless famously displayed in his writings and speaking appearances. A good example of this is the first essay, by Harvey [End Page 225] Aronson, on Vajrasattva meditation. Vajrasattva, a major figure in Vajrayāna Buddhism, is not traditionally associated with the Pure Land tradition. Yet Aronson begins by putting a Jōdo Shinshū framework around his subsequent article, which deals with meditative visualizations as healing techniques. Like Corless frequently did, Aronson looks for connections between seemingly disparate cultures and religions. In the process, he offers some insightful comments on how Asian and Western practitioners approach healing within a Buddhist context. For example, he finds that the Westerners are far more heavily psychological in their orientation, and tend to react negatively to situations of obligation and responsibility to others that are comfortable to Asian participants.The second essay’s relationship to Corless is much more organic, as it deals with Chinese Pure Land Buddhism, a subject that he published important works on. This essay, by Charles Orzech, analyzes the Rites for Contemplation of and Offerings to Amitāyus Tathāgata (Wuliangshou rulai guanxing gongyang yigui), an esoteric text based in part on the famous Scripture on Contemplation of the Buddha of Limitless Life (Fo shuo guan wuliangshoufo ling). Orzech skillfully demonstrates how the Rites reframed the Scripture on Contemplation in a tantric context, contributing to the ongoing esotericization of Chinese Buddhism in the Tang period (618–907).James Sanford’s contribution also relates to both tantric and Pure Land forms of Buddhism. Sanford offers a translation of and commentary on the Guide to the Eighty Thousand Dharma Principles (Hōri hachiman chō). This is a short apocryphal text purporting to reveal secret teachings passed on from Jōdo Shinshū founder Shinran (1173–1263) to his grandson Nyoshin. These secret Jōdo Shinshū lineages are an important historical phenomenon that have not been given nearly enough attention, in part because they are actively disapproved of by the orthodox, nonesoteric schools of Jōdo Shinshū (and indeed orthodox Shinshū has at times persecuted these minority traditions). Sanford’s introduction, translation, and commentary therefore provide a major service to scholars of Japanese religion.Gordon Bermant’s entry is short but nonetheless contains some pithy observations on the role of “practice” in American Jōdo Shinshū, a subject that Corless himself wrote about numerous times. Traditionally Jōdo Shinshū is often understood not to include any sort of formal practice—religious practices, in fact, are seen as evidence of egoism or lack... (shrink)

It is believed in many studies that the servitization of manufactures is driven by internal economy, but the situation in China may be somewhat different. In this study, we consider the influence of external institutional environment on manufacturers’ servitization and the final performance, and discuss the moderating effect of organizational identity orientation on firms’ response to external institutional pressures. We conduct a survey where we collect responses from 312 manufacturers in China. Regression analyses are performed to test whether institutional (...) pressures coming from the external institutional environment have a positive effect on the level of manufacturing servitization or not. Moreover, we study if this positive effect is moderated by the individualistic identity orientation and the relational identity orientation. We also examine the impact of servitization strategy on manufacture’s market performance and financial performances. Furthermore, we separate out the influences comes from institutional pressures by using a new estimated method and try to explain the cause of “servitization paradox.” Our study is innovative in that it bridges the servitization and institutional theory, and provides practical guidance for the adoption of manufacturing servitization strategy. (shrink)

This book contains programmatic essays that focus on broad-ranging proposals for re-envisioning a discipline of comparative philosophy of religions. It also contains a number of case studies focussing on the interpretation of particular religio-historical data from comparatively oriented philosophical perspectives.

From early on, comparative philosophy has had on offer a high variety of goals, approaches and methodologies. Such high variety is still today a trademark of the discipline, and it is not uncommon of representatives of one camp in comparative philosophy to think of those in other camps as not really being about ‘comparative philosophy’. Much of the disagreement arguably has to do with methodological problems related to the concept of comparison and with the widely prevailing but unwarranted assumption that (...) comparative philosophy should be about comparing ‘culturally different philosophies’. This paper seeks to problematize this assumption by clarifying conceptually the notions of ‘comparative philosophy’ and of ‘comparison’, by showing the prevalence of the assumption in recent second-order discussions of methodology in comparative philosophy and its restraining implications in a randomly selected contribution of ‘Chinese philosophy’. At the end, a rallying call for a (self-)critical comparative philosophy is issued. (shrink)

It is not unusual to think of Rorty’s work as a success in rhetoric and a failure in political philosophy. In this article we re-evaluate this assessment by analyzing a typical feature of Rorty’s writing: his frequent use of “we so-and-so.” Taking stock of the existing literature on the subject we discuss how Rorty’s use of the “we” was received by peers and how he himself made sense of it. We then analyze Rorty’s oeuvre in order to show that a (...) better understanding of his rhetorical “we” could make his politico-philosophical “we” more appealing. We suggest that Rorty’s pragmatist take on “ethnos” is preferable to other notions that are currently championed in political theory and philosophy. (shrink)

The expression ‘a university without research is a dignified high school’ is becoming a both local and global concern in the academia. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which collaborative research methodologies can enhance integration of faculties of arts and humanities in the universities in Malawi for knowledge development and transfer. It has been argued over and over that universities are spotlighted by their outstanding work in research, developing and sharing ideas, new inventions and creativity (...) within the spectrum of partnership development. While striving for partnership through collaborative research approaches, research activities still remain an area of concern in institutions that offer diverse tertiary education in Malawi. The question of how can these institutions or faculties engage each other in collaborative research methodologies in the quest of knowledge development and transfer remains crucial and relevant The study analyzed strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the existing research methods in Arts and Humanities and how the two disciplines can create a space for amalgamation so that research findings can benefit both disciplines. The study reveals that collaboration in various disciplines is a challenge owing to variations of conceptual analyses and the deficiency of technical no-how of both teaching staff and students as well as tools for data collection and analysis as may be emphasized in each of the areas of study; Arts and Humanities. Furthermore, while other institutions of higher learning have research ethics committees for checks and balances as a collaborative tool, some institutions do not know that this committee plays a crucial role in the field of research. Within this backdrop, there is need to develop research collaborations within an institution or with other institutions of higher learning that have a well-defined research profile for mutual benefits as far as collaborative research methodologies are concerned. (shrink)

This study employs a holistic and indigenous theoretical model called Whare Tapa Rima to examine the project-based learning experiences of Asian students in a private training establishment, the W institution, at the tertiary level in New Zealand. The analysis shows that Asian students face challenges in their PBL journey in physical, cultural, interconnected emotional and intellectual, social, and spiritual dimensions. Implications from the research analysis may be considered about how to provide better support and international services to (...) class='Hi'>Asian students involved in PBL programs worldwide by adopting the responsive, theory-informed framework of the Whare Tapa Rima Model. (shrink)

Most donated organs in the United States come from brain dead donors, while a small percentage come from patients who die in “controlled,” or expected, circumstances, typically after the family or surrogate makes a decision to withdraw life support. The number of organs available for transplant could be substantially if donations were permitted in “uncontrolled” circumstances–that is, from people who die unexpectedly, often outside the hospital. According to projections from the Institute of Medicine, establishing programs permitting “uncontrolled donation after (...) circulatory determination of death,” or uDCDD, throughout the United States has the potential to provide 22,000 more donation opportunities annually. In contrast, U.S. controlled donation after circulatory determination of death, or cDCDD, cases have increased progressively over the past decade from 87 to 848 donors, but currently account for only 10.6 percent of all deceased donors. Following the IOM recommendations, several projects exploring the feasibility of uDCDD were funded by the federal government, including a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration that supported a pilot project in New York City in which the authors of this article participated.A key feature of our protocol, and indeed of many uDCDD protocols, is the initiation of preservation methods such as chest compressions and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation shortly after death in order to perfuse and preserve the donor's organs. Critics of uDCDD argue that the means of determining death deviates from generally ascribed principles. They assert that reinstituting circulation in order to preserve organs has the effect of “undoing” the prior determination of death. The result is that cDCDD is widely accepted and practiced routinely even though it only marginally increases the number of organs available for transplantation, and uDCDD is widely considered unacceptable despite being ethically embraced and proven to significantly increase organ donation opportunities in other countries. This article explores the evolution of this counterintuitive state of affairs and calls for a policy that, in line with the IOM report, allows for both cDCDD and uDCDD protocols. (shrink)

With the growing importance of China and other Asian economies in international business, both executives and academic researchers are eager to understand the unique aspects of Asian business practices. Extant literature suggests that market orientation has a positive effect on firm performance in China. However, the moral and social norms in China are very different from those in Western societies; a business orientation developed based on Confucius ethics, a core Chinese philosophy that affects China and many Asian (...) economies, should provide an alternative, or even better, explanation of Chinese companies’ business practices and successes than market orientation, which is developed in the West. On the basis of content analysis of ancient Chinese literature and case studies of recent events in Asian, this paper aims to propose Jun-zi orientation as a more cultural-specific organizational orientation alternative to market orientation for use in East Asian business context. Specifically, this paper provides extensive literature review on Jun-zi concept, a major concept in Confucianism and its five virtues. The effects of Jun-zi orientation and its five virtues on different aspects of business performance are also discussed. (shrink)

This study examines the direct impact of three dimensions of the institutional environment on managerial attitudes toward the natural environment and the direct influence of the latter on the environmental sustainability orientation (ESO) of small firms. We contend that when the institutional environment is perceived by owner–managers as supportive of sound natural environment management practices, they are more likely to develop a positive attitude toward natural environment issues and concerns. Such owner–manager attitudes are likely to lead to a positive and (...) proactive orientation of their firms toward environmental sustainability. The study uses survey data from 166 small manufacturing firms located in three Philippine cities. First, the study develops and tests the measurement models to examine the validity of the constructs representing the firm’s institutional environment, managerial attitudes toward the natural environment and the ESO of firms. Second, the study develops and tests the structural models examining the institutional environment–managerial attitudes–ESO linkages. Multi-sample invariance structural model analysis shows the mediating role of managerial attitudes in the institutional environment–ESO nexus. The findings show that ESO is a construct comprising three dimensions: knowledge of environmental issues, sustainable practices and commitment toward environmental sustainability. The cognitive, regulatory and normative elements of the institutional environment are strongly linked to positive managerial attitudes toward environmental sustainability, which in turn, positively influences the firm’s overall ESO. Managerial attitudes play a mediating role in the institutional environment–ESO linkages. The managerial, practical, research and policy implications of the research findings are discussed. (shrink)

The East/West divide seems to be as old as history itself, the roots of Orientalism and anti-Semitism lying far beyond the origins of modern Western imperialism. The very project of Western classical republicanism had its darker side: to purloin the legacy of the Greeks, distancing them from Eastern systems deemed 'despotic' and 'other'. Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince is a thoroughly revisionist book, challenging not only the comfortable view the West has of its own political evolution, but the (...) negative stereotypes of non-Western systems. Not only did these images serve to legitimate early modern European nation states struggling for an identity, but they also served to justify slavery and other forms of domination over subject peoples. Drawing upon archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Springborg discusses the Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian contribution of political forms and cultic institutions to classical Graeco-Roman civilization, an Eastern legacy to the West long obscured for political reasons. A different reading of the foundation myths of Athens and Rome, certain texts of Plato, Aristotle, and the writings of Herodotus, Isocrates, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus, permits us to restore possible lines of filtration. Renaissance thought, long believed to have ushered in the Western classical republican tradition, demonstrates a curious ambivalence towards powerful Eastern system, objects of fascination as much as fear. We do not yet find sedimented the divide between Western Democracy and oriental despotism, in which post-Reformation thought as been set in stone. This major new study will be of interest to students of political history, political theory, comparative politics and political archaeology. (shrink)

The present study highlights the significance of gender role orientation as one of the most important individual factors on WIF and FIW. Furthermore, this paper also examines the effects of some of the essential personal backgrounds such as age, job experience and duration of marriage on WIF and FIW. This study consists of 198 married female nurses in Shiraz-Iran. The findings revealed that married female nurses who adopt more egalitarian gender role attitude are associated with higher WIF. Unlike previous (...) class='Hi'>studies, the finding also indicates that respondents who adopt a more egalitarian gender role attitude experienced higher FIW, which may be explained by the specific cultural context in Iran. This study also established that female nurses with older age, more years of job experience, and longer duration of marriage, perceived lower level of WIF and FIW. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made regarding future researches in this area. (shrink)

Informal communication and interaction are integral components of the practice of science, including the doctoral process. This article argues that women are disadvantaged in the informal milieu of the higher education in science, and that this milieu is not uniform everywhere. It posits that to understand the position of women in science in South Asian countries like India, the inquiry has to be conceptualized in the specific social, historical, and institutional context. Through a questionnaire survey comparing male and female (...) perceptions, and qualitative interviews with women, an attempt has been made to understand the nature of Indian women's problems in the informal doctoral science environment. The findings indicate that though the nature of problems appears to be similar to those faced by the women in science in the West, the specific form of biases varies, and that the cultural context molds the specific forms of discrimination. This has implications for future research and policies. (shrink)

This study looks at how the corporate governance of family-owned business groups, the most dominant form of private sector organising in Asia, deals with different forms of corruption during the course of common business transactions. As a part of an ethnographic study conducted in 2007 to look at the impact of corporate governance reforms in the Philippines, one of the emergent themes from the study was the presence of significant corruption in the business environment of the country. A total of (...) 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with board members from business groups and senior public sector officials supplemented by document analysis of media articles and other text and participant observation. Using Rose-Ackerman’s typology of petty and grand corruption, results show the dilemmas faced when trying to operate within the precepts of corporate governance whilst dealing with the practical reality of corruption in public sector institutions. The results of the study provide empirical evidence into corruption’s impact on Asian business groups and contribute to knowledge on the links between strong institutions and the efficacy of corporate governance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bible and Yoga:Toward an Esoteric Reading of Biblical LiteratureSusanne ScholzThe ProblemWe live in a post-biblical world—a world that sentimentalizes the Bible, ignores it, or is indifferent about the sacred text of the Christian and Jewish religions. Our daily lives are not shaped by biblical rhetoric, imagery, or practice, but by our everyday efforts of making a living, staying healthy, and raising a family. By "we" I mean those of (...) us who are part of North America or Western Europe and belong to the culturally and politically dominant group of white, middle-class, educated people. We live in societies that are largely secularized, perhaps even "anti-religiously" oriented, increasingly digitalized, and economically organized by a capitalist system that eradicates equal and just distribution of wealth nationally and internationally. In our world the Bible plays, at best, a privatized, individualized, and societally marginalized role. Sometimes, especially in the United States, Christian fundamentalists organize politically to foster change, trying to reinstate the Bible's political centrality. The effort to place stone sculptures of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse,1 or—related primarily to middle and high school education—the insistence on the validity of creationism are prominent examples for the Christian fundamentalist involvement in the secularizing developments of Western countries. Mostly, however, such reactionary struggles confront an indifferent majority that favors the Western scientific worldview over biblical primacy. And even among many American fundamentalists, the Bible is mainly a privatized source of religious piety.My comments come from and speak to the particularities of the Western secular context. I do not want to be understood as making general statements about locations different from the Western one since they face different priorities. For instance, in Asian countries biblical traditions have never enjoyed a majority position as they did in Europe or North America. Historical, cultural, and religious differences do not, however, imply that other locations have nothing to contribute to the understanding of the Bible in post-biblical societies—on the contrary. But here my comments focus on the situation of the Bible and biblical studies in the West. [End Page 133]The Situation: Biblical Studies TodayThe familiarity with biblical literature is dramatically lower among people younger than forty-five than among those older than forty-five. The so-called Generation X (those born after 1960) and the generation afterward (those born after 1984) know little of the Bible and have little use for it, except if they affiliate with a Christian or Jewish organization. This fact raises important questions: If the younger generations in post-biblical societies do not read the Bible, what is the future of this sacred text in the West? Will it simply turn into a relic of the past? And what does this trend indicate for the academic field of Bible research?Biblical scholarship—until the 1980s a largely Western endeavor—is still indifferent about these generational developments in our societies. To many biblical scholars, the fact that we are living in a post-biblical world is a nonissue and does not affect their daily work with biblical literature. Accordingly, many, if not most, publications in biblical studies continue operating within a nineteenth-century mindset that regards "the Church" as the powerful opposition to the historical and literary study of the Bible, although by now mainstream religion has little cultural, political, and religious authority and power. Furthermore, much of biblical scholarship is not read by laypeople, who remain mostly ignorant of the issues discussed in the field. And even when some scholars recognize independence from religious institutions, they seldom reflect on the limited relevance of their work to larger society.Perhaps oblivious of the changed circumstances or unable to relate to post-biblical discourse in Western societies, many researchers do what they know best: they apply historical and literary methods to biblical literature, as if nothing else is needed in our era. Accordingly, many Bible scholars hardly notice that they talk only with, and among, themselves. They seem undisturbed that their work rarely, if ever, has an impact on cultural, religious, or political discourse. In fact, many of them would not even agree that the Bible and biblical studies... (shrink)

Doctoral programs at U.S. universities play a critical role in the development of human resources both in the United States and abroad. This volume reports the results of an extensive study of U.S. research-doctorate programs in five broad fields: physical sciences and mathematics, engineering, social and behavioral sciences, biological sciences, and the humanities. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States documents changes that have taken place in the size, structure, and quality of doctoral education since the widely used 1982 editions. This (...) update provides selected information on nearly 4,000 doctoral programs in 41 subdisciplines at 274 doctorate-granting institutions. This volume also reports the results of the National Survey of Graduate Faculty, which polled a sample of faculty for their views on the scholarly quality of program faculty and the effectiveness of doctoral programs in preparing research scholars/scientists. This much-anticipated update of such an essential reference will be useful to education administrators, university faculty, and students seeking authoritative information on doctoral programs. (shrink)

Research-oriented universities are known for prolific research activity that is often supported by students in faculty-guided research. To maintain ethical standards, universities require on-going training of both faculty and students to ensure Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). However, previous research has indicated RCR-based training is insufficient to address the ethical dilemmas that are prevalent within academic settings: navigating issues of authorship, modeling relationships between faculty and students, minimization of risk, and adequate informed consent. U.S. universities must explore ways to identify (...) and improve RCR concerns for current (faculty) and future researchers (students). This article reports the findings of a self-study (_N_ = 50) of research stakeholders (students and faculty) at a top tier research institution. First, we report on their perceived importance of applying RCR principles. Second, we explore relationships between stakeholder backgrounds (e.g., prior training, field, and position) and how they ranked the degree of ethical concerns in fictitious vignettes that presented different unethical issues university students could encounter when conducting research. Vignette rankings suggested concerns of inappropriate relationships, predatory authorship and IRB violations which were judged as most unethical, which was dissimilar to what sampled researchers reported in practice as the most important RCR elements to understand and adhere to for successful research. Regression models indicated there was no significant relationship between individuals’ vignette ethics scores and backgrounds, affirming previous literature suggesting that training can be ineffectual in shifting researcher judgments of ethical dilemmas. Recommendations for training are discussed. (shrink)

The entrepreneurial institutional environment is the external factor that entrepreneurial enterprises rely on for survival. Our interest is in how entrepreneurs cultivate entrepreneurial orientation in response to the highly uncertain entrepreneurial situation. Based on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, we analyzed the impact of the entrepreneurial institutional environment on entrepreneurial orientation through entrepreneurial passion. This study applied stepwise regression analyses to test the hypotheses on a sample of 197 entrepreneurs from the co-creation space in China. The output of the (...) study showed that the entrepreneurial institutional environment had a positive effect on entrepreneurial orientation and that entrepreneurial passion played a mediating role between the entrepreneurial institutional environment and entrepreneurial orientation. (shrink)

Publication date: 2 May 2019 Source: Author: Tetiana Tverdokhlib The article focuses on the pedagogical component in the content of Pastoral Theology in the Ukrainian educational institutions of the Orthodox Church, which were included in the system of religious education of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century – at the end of the 1860's. Basing on the studied works “On Positions of Parish Presbyters” by the bishop of the Smolensk Parfenii and the Archbishop of Mogilev, Georgii, (...) “Letters on Positions of Sacred Rank” by Olexandr Sturdza, “Pastoral Theology” by Archimandrite Anthonii, as well as programs, lecture notes and lecture reviews of lecturers of theological seminaries and the Kiev Theological Academy it has been established that much attention at classes on Pastoral Theology was paid to the preparation of future priests for the religious and moral upbringing of parishioners. The main forms and methods of teaching Pastoral Theology have been presented on the basis of the analysis of archival materials, historical, pedagogical literature. Attention is drawn to the widespread dissemination in the seminaries of rote learning and text dictating, despite the prohibition of such methods by the 1814 Statute. The quality of teaching and staffing of this subject in the secondary and higher Ukrainian educational institutions of the Orthodox Church in the period under research. It has been proved that Pastoral Theology in seminaries was on an equal footing with other branches of theology: teachers understood its great importance for future presbyters and paid much attention to the subject as distinct from the Kiev Theological Academy. (shrink)

Exploring the construct of social-responsibility orientation across three Asian and two Western societies, we show evidence that top-level executives in these societies hold fundamentally different beliefs about their responsibilities toward different stakeholders, with concomitant implications for their understanding and enactment of responsible leadership. We further find that these variations are more closely aligned with institutional factors than with cultural variables, suggesting a need to clarify the connection between culture and institutions on the one hand and culture and social-responsibility orientations (...) on the other. (shrink)

Two modern achievements, the modern figure of the intellectual and the modern institution of the university, have been undergoing a radical crisis of identity. The decline of the philosophical project of modernity is turning out to be a painful process for modern culture: once again it has to reformulate the aims of its social institutions (the university) and the tasks of its cultural heroes (the intellectual). The traditional modern figure of the intellectual seems untenable in our increasingly postmodern cultural surrounding. (...) The modern institution of the university may face a similar fate in our increasingly globalized surrounding: either it is going to accept the rules of bureaucratic consumer-oriented corporations, or it will have to try once again to find a new regulative idea. Thus, the history of the university and the history of the intellectual in the 20<SUP>th century being parallel, the present volume consists of essays in the philosophy of culture (devoted to the intellectual) and in the philosophy of education (devoted to the modern university) and attempts to link the two modern themes together. (shrink)