The paper aims to analyse the state of inter-ethnic relations in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs, with special focus on the period after unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo in 2008. Inter-ethnic conflict in Kosovo has exclusively been over its territory since both Serbs and Albanians have made claims about history and ethno-demography to justify their alleged exclusive right to this ethnically mixed region. Consequently, inter-ethnic relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo have (...) been rather problematic throughout the most of the 20th century. During this period Albanians in Kosovo have been subjected to discrimination, intimidation and even mass expulsion by Yugoslav/Serb authorities. In late 1990s, these relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo have progressively worsened and finally escalated in an armed warfare in 1999. Immediately after the war, Serbs in Kosovo were occasionally exposed to acts of inter-ethnic and retaliatory violence. Inter-ethnic relations between the two major ethnicities continued to be tense and fragile after independence of Kosovo in 2008. Dramatic changes of ethnic composition structure, atrocities and huge number of refugees due to the war, have left a legacy of deep mistrust and animosities between Albanians and Serbs in the newly created state. Consequently, Serbs in Kosovo have from the beginning refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence and have rigorously refused any governance by Kosovo authorities. Serbian community, especially in the North, claims stronger territorial autonomy, even separatism and unification with Serbia. The paper claims that in Kosovo inter-ethnic and interstate relations are basically the components of the same equation. Therefore, paper concludes that only overall improvement of relations between Kosovo and Serbia could contribute to overall relaxation of inter-ethnic relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. Unfortunately, the latest incidents between Kosovo and Serbia have increased the tensions between the two sides to alarming levels. (shrink)

This study provides insights on sector-specific characteristics, challenges and issues that affect corporate responsibility in relation to ethnicity and gender on arts boards. Using stakeholder theory, the study explores how arts board composition sets the scene for dynamics that affect CR. Data analysis is based on interviews with 92 board members and stakeholders sitting on 66 arts boards in Australia. Results suggest that the dynamism of gender and ethnic diversity on arts boards makes them responsive to CR; however, (...) their presence does not always lead to CR. For diverse boards to lead to CR, our findings indicate the significance of board member attributes of passion, skill and capability of developing networks, irrespective of gender and ethnicity. The article advances understanding of the implications and relevance of ethnic and gender diversity on non-profit boards and contributes to an important yet under-researched body of literature. (shrink)

Recent developments in biology have made it possible to acquire more and more precise information concerning our genetic makeup. There are four groups of people who may want to know about our genes. First, we ourselves can have an interest in being aware of own health status. Second, there are people who are genetically linked with us, and who can have an interest in the knowledge. Third, individuals with whom we have contracts and economic arrangements may have an interest in (...) knowing about our genetic makeup. Fourth, society as a whole can have an interest in the composition of our genes. As regards the question of motivation, the term 'should' can be interpreted in three ways. Prudentially speaking, to say that individuals should act in a certain manner is to say that the actions in question promote the long-term self-interest of these individuals. From the viewpoint of morality, we should do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. When it comes to legal thinking, it is held in most liberal societies that grave other-regarding harm should be the primary justification for the use of coercion and constraint. In the paper, all these aspects are examined in more detail. (shrink)

In multiethnic and multi-religious democracies, the chronic danger is that candidates will engage in “identity politics,” appealing to one locally preponderant ethnic group against other groups. The usual formulas for composing multiethnic democracies—ethnic federalism and/or proportional representation—often exacerbate the problem, ethnicizing political campaigns and carving up the national legislature into ethnic blocs, each beholden only to its own group. An alternative approach—what I call “dispersed constituency democracy”—is to match each legislative seat with a constituency that reflects the (...) overall ethnic composition of the society in question, so as to encourage candidates to reach across ethnic divisions rather than play to locally preponderant ones. I propose a simple way to do this, and explore the likely consequences for national electoral campaigns and legislative dynamics over a range of demographic circumstances. I also consider supplemental devices for protecting minority rights that would be made possible by the proposed constituency system. (shrink)

Comparative modeling is necessary for semiotic inquiry. To better theorize such pursuits, a reflexive turn is in order: comparative modeling needs comparative modeling. In search of experientially grounded analogies better suited for understanding, validating, scrutinizing, and accounting for the situation of the semiotic inquirer, this paper applies insights from Peircean process semiotics and Göran Sonesson’s extended theory of cultural semiotics toward two ends: one theoretical, the other applied. First, I undertake a critical review of recent scholarly and creative works that (...) attempt to adapt concepts of “parallax” as a source domain for comparative modeling activities. I do this in order to continue laying groundwork for a more complex, systematic theory of reflexive semiotic modeling in human inquiry, building on my earlier work. Second, I explore a specific case study of comparative intercultural modeling: namely, nationalist ethnic classification strategies in China and Vietnam. While many researchers have considered the onomastic and geopolitical dimensions of state-sanctioned ethnic categorization programs in these two countries, little has been done to unpack the powerful visual and narratological strategies employed by both; and little has been done to compare the intercultural categories these strategies serve to legitimize. The Vietnamese classification program is clearly modeled on its Chinese counterpart historically, but important categorical mismatches emerge between the two that indicate the presence of hidden diversity. Comparing the two systems also leads to a number of discoveries with implications for further developing the theory of cultural semiotics. Ultimately, the function or purpose of parallax modeling is shown to both comprehend and point beyond nascent intercultural and intracultural models toward more complex blends, by holding all such relations in a comparative frame, not as irreconcilable positions but as a more developed composite sign indicating the presence of yet more deeply buried dynamic objects to be searched out through further collateral experience. (shrink)

The essence of Marxist philosophy is a philosophical criticism of society, and its development is driven by its philosophical criticism of social phenomena. Examining and criticizing music from a philosophical perspective can provide us with a brand new theoretical framework for music philosophy, exploring and applying new philosophical theories to analyze the fusion of ethnic elements in modern music composition, thereby expanding the philosophical field of music. This paper first introduces the concept and development of Marx's philosophy and (...) philosophical view of music, then analyzes the characteristics and current situation of the fusion of ethnic elements in modern music composition and discusses the criticality and practicality of the fusion of ethnic elements in modern music composition under the perspective of Marx's philosophical view. Finally, it is pointed out that the fusion of ethnic elements in modern music composition has the philosophical basis of combining formal analysis with meaning interpretation, technical rationality with musical aesthetics, and intersubjectivity. From the perspective of Marxist philosophy, exploring the philosophical foundation of the combination of modern music composition and ethnic factors helps to deeply analyze the philosophical connotations of modern music composition and ethnic elements, seek dialogue and understanding between modern music and ethnic elements, and reshape human sensory understanding. (shrink)

This article will first of all present a brief literature review on media use and identity construction and integration. This overview will be given in light of two phenomena: The concepts of ‘social quality’ and ‘cultural participation’ and the role played by the media in this on the one hand, and the multicultural composition of Dutch society on the other. The present contribution looks at the four largest ethnic minority groups in the Netherlands: Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean (...) youngsters, and adults. The key issue is ‘integration’ with its six dimensions, among which the extent to which ethnic minorities endorse norms and values of Dutch society, and the minorities’ motivation with respect to integration. We also focus on related features, such as religious outlook and linguistic fluency. The measure of participation or integration in Dutch society is related to the use of four kinds of media: Radio, television, print media, and the Internet. The present contribution addresses the following question: To what extent are, on the one hand, bonding or, on the other, bridging predictors of media use among ethnic minorities? We will address the relative importance of these four media in terms of media time and their twofold ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ capacities; for each of these media we check the extent to which ethnic minorities favor media from their native country and use applications which focus on their country of origin or their own group. (shrink)

The volume, stemming from the long-term cooperation of scholars working on East Central European intellectual history, discusses the patterns of patriotic and national identification in the light of the multiplicity of levels of ethnic, cultural and political allegiances characterizing this region in the early modern period.

The publication ‘Governance arrangements for NHS Research Ethics Committees’ is clear in its recommendations about the composition of National Health Service research ethics committees in the United Kingdom. It highlights the need for a sufficiently broad range of experience and expertise, balanced age and gender distribution and every effort to be made to recruit members from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as people with disabilities. It was considered that this composition would make it possible for (...) the scientific, clinical and methodological aspects of a research proposal to be reconciled with the welfare of research participants, and with broader ethical implications. Black and other ethnic minorities constitute 7.9 per cent of the UK population. Ideally, in any research ethics committee with a maximum of 18 members, at least one would be a member of the black or other ethnic minority groups. However, this does not appear to be the case; some committees having more than one, while most do not have any. This paper looks at the present position and suggests ways of improving recruitment and retention of members of these groups. (shrink)

When a central government deals with local demands, it may strengthen political accountability of the local governments by political decentralization or offer benefits through economic assistance. An authoritarian regime uses economic assistance policy because political decentralization may contradict regime survival. Although economic benefits can be used to buy political support, the distribution of these benefits is seldom equal. We argue that the unequal distribution is more salient in regions where ethnic minorities reside because the unusual demographic composition of (...) those areas make it difficult for the national government to evaluate the performance of the local government who is responsible for the distribution of the economic benefits. As a result, economic assistance may backfire in ethnic regions and intensify their existing conflicts. We develop a simple formal model to illustrate our arguments and explore the cases of Xinjiang and Hong Kong for empirical analysis. (shrink)

With the further growth of the world population and the further intensification of the processes of interaction between countries and increasing movements of the masses of people, the role of Political Demography becomes more and more important. Issues of global ageing, migration, low fertility in developed countries (or very high fertility in some African countries), high mortality in many developing states (including deaths from AIDS); rapid change in the ethnic composition in Europe and in several other regions and (...) many other pressing issues are in the focus of this discipline. Some of these problems are analyzed in this yearbook. However, among those issues, the issue of global ageing becomes more and more pressing every year. It is sufficient to take into account the point that within two forthcoming decades a rapid global increase in the number of retirement-age persons will lead to its doubling within this fairly small historical period. The concerns about population ageing apply to both developed and many developing countries and it has turned into a global issue. In the next decades the population ageing is likely to become one of the most important processes determining the future society characteristics and directions of technological development. (shrink)

How did revolutions facilitate empires’ transition to nation-states? This article compares the Bolshevik and the Chinese Communist Revolutions. It conceptualizes this Soviet–Sino comparison through three dimensions of nation-building: separating from a universal community, building a national cultural core and overcoming internal ethnopolitics. Both socialist regimes accommodated the nation-state model by fusing centralized control with limited autonomy for ethnic minorities. Yet, whereas the Soviet Union claimed to be a universal union of nation-states, which was supposed to keep accepting new members (...) until it covered the entire globe, the People’s Republic of China resembled a typical nation-state that preserved multiethnicity and enclosed borders under the title of the ‘Chinese Nation’. In analyzing the influence of revolutions, this article probes three relations: inter-revolution, revolution–society and revolution–counterrevolution. Arising after the Bolsheviks as a follower-revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was confined to a national component of the USSR’s global communism project. This shaped the CCP’s enclosed geographical activity space, Han-dominated ethnic composition and the consciousness of national liberation. The CCP’s mobilization covered far wider social strata than the Bolsheviks’ had, which engendered stronger manpower and motivation to transform the traditional culture into a national culture. Being weak at its borderlands, the CCP was cautious about the doctrine of ‘national self-determination’, not daring to make it a geopolitical weapon for revolution export as the Bolsheviks had done in founding the Soviet Union. Owing to each of these differences in revolutionary trajectories, the CCP was more receptive to ‘China’ than the Bolsheviks were to ‘Russia’, and this led to two distinctive ways of reorganizing empires into nation-states. (shrink)

Immigration changed the ethnic composition of Western European societies. The new populations brought a series of culturally determined practices that challenged the liberal framework of values of the receiving states. Despite the existence of important variations between the official discourses and the actual policies finally implemented, the responses to those challenges varied with the models of integration defined by each country to deal with ethnic diversity. In this article, we study the policies designed and implemented by the (...) United Kingdom and France against “female genital mutilation” practices, analyzing how both British and French policies affected these types of practices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics in Azerbaijan:History and Development of Bioethics in AzerbaijanAdelia Avaz gizi Namazova (bio) and Tarana Qadir gizi Taghi-Zada (bio)HistoryAzerbaijan is a unique country with a centuries-old culture and history; it is a country located at the junction of Europe and Western Asia, uniting economic and cultural relationships between two continents and harmoniously combining the elements of various civilisations and cultures. Peculiarities of the historical development of Azerbaijan and its (...) geographical location, as well as the ethnic composition of the population created an opportunity for the flourishing of various religions. Idolatry, fire worship, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religions were spread in the country during different periods. The multinational and confessional state (also known as a multicultural state), with its unique cultural inheritance, provided the opportunity not only to adhere to traditions and customs of previous generations, but also to develop spiritual-moral values that created respect and tolerance towards other religions. As a result of this cultural synthesis throughout the centuries, universal ethical values such as respecting the dignity of all persons, veneration of elderly people by youth, and principals of mercy, care and love to those in need and in the closing stages of life evolved. Numerous sources of ancient manuscripts bear witness that poetry, philosophy and the ethics of medical practice have always been part of the searching and thinking in medicine.One of the ancient religions, Zoroastrianism, begins from fire worship and was revealed to the religious teacher and prophet Zoroaster (seventh century BC, Holy Book Zend-Avesta). According to the basic understandings of Zoroastrianism, there are two principles which are always contradictory—Kindness and Evil. [End Page 433] Zoroaster called upon people to be fair and pure, to fight any kind of unfairness and disgracefulness.The name of the healer Logman is covered with legends and is well known among different nations of the East. Across generations in Azerbaijan the name Logman has been used, inspiring the sharing of medical secrets and advice, cure of different illnesses and their prevention.1 This is witnessed by the Logman Covenants. The first covenant warns of excessive consumption of alcohol and food, educating people in hygienic practices and developing that culture. Another covenant is dedicated to the high mission of the medic: “Every kindness on this planet created people. The kind beginning is there where you have a doctor.”The basic principles of humanitarian behaviour of the doctor have also been described in an ancient manuscript of Azerbaijani literature, the national epic “Kitabi-Dede Qorqud” (seventh century), which provides advice on how to maintain one’s health in good condition, and the importance of spiritual purity, health and morals.Outstanding philosophers, poets and scientists of the ancient land of Azerbaijan, such as Bakhmaniyar ibn Marzaban (eleventh century), Omar Osmanoglu (eleventh century), Khatib Tabrizi (1030–1109), Khagani (1120–99), Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), Nakchivani (thirteenth century), Makhmud Shabustari (1287–1320), Seid YakhyaBakuvi (1410–62), Fizuli (1498–1556), Vagif (1717–97) and many others, described in their doctrines the difficult, selfless activities of doctors and the positive results and outcomes.6Back in the eleventh2 century, when madrasas or spiritual schools, where theology and medicine were taught and, ecclesiastics and tabibs (medics) were prepared and educated, a medical school was established in Azerbaijan’s old capital Shamakha. Here, under the guidance of the most famous doctor and pharmacologist in all the East, Omar Osman oglu, training and education of medical workers took place. Having been widely educated, Omar Osman oglu was an adherent of the moral principles declared by Logman and taught his students that the main goal of any doctor’s activities should be based on love towards the other person. His understanding of a medic’s behaviour was contrary to major customs of that time, saying: “Don’t deny your enemy. Heal him.” Omar Osman oglu inspired his students to undertake spiritual pureness, patriotism and service to the nation. “Bring benefit to the nation, even if it is contrary with your personal benefit”, “do not be egotistical”, “do not try to find your way to heaven and do not be afraid of hell” were his slogans.The famous poet Khagani (1120... (shrink)

This study offers an overview of ‘the nationalities question’ in the Habsburg Empire, with special focus on its treatment by the Austrian social democrat, Otto Bauer, and the Hungarian ‘radical’ or ‘liberal socialist’, Oszkár Jászi. Analysing and comparing the writings of these intellectuals published between 1907 and 1918, this article shows how the contrasting legal and political contexts in Austria (Cisleithenia) and in Hungary (Transleithenia) led these authors to create contrasting alternative solutions to the problems posed by the multi-ethnic (...) composition of the Habsburg Empire. It is argued that these thinkers’ positions were fundamentally defined by Austria’s status as a ‘nationalities state’, Hungary’s identity as a nation-state, and the authors’ own affiliations with the dominant nationalities within their respective states. The article underscores the important temporal component at work in their respective pre-1918 assessments of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary and its effect on their stances on the reign of the Habsburgs. Whereas Bauer saw the Hungarian king and Austrian emperor Franz Joseph as a possible strong ally for the implementation of his ideas, Jászi viewed the acts of the Habsburg dynasty as alien to Hungarian interests and therefore as a source of potential danger. (shrink)

Attribution theory is used as a conceptual framework for examining how causal beliefs about peer harassment influence how victims think and feel about themselves. Evidence is presented that victims who make characterological self-blaming attributions are particularly at risk of negative self-views. Also examined is the influence of social context, particularly the ethnic composition of schools and classrooms. It was found that students who were both victims of harassment and members of the majority ethnic group were more vulnerable (...) to self-blaming attributions. In contrast, greater ethnic diversity, that is, classrooms where no one group was in the majority, tended to ward off self-blaming tendencies. Studies of peer harassment are a good context for examining one of the main themes of the special issue, which is how the social context influences the way individuals think and feel about themselves. (shrink)

Attribution theory is used as a conceptual framework for examining how causal beliefs about peer harassment influence how victims think and feel about themselves. Evidence is presented that victims who make characterological self-blaming attributions are particularly at risk of negative self-views. Also examined is the influence of social context, particularly the ethnic composition of schools and classrooms. It was found that students who were both victims of harassment and members of the majority ethnic group were more vulnerable (...) to self-blaming attributions. In contrast, greater ethnic diversity, that is, classrooms where no one group was in the majority, tended to ward off self-blaming tendencies. Studies of peer harassment are a good context for examining one of the main themes of the special issue, which is how the social context influences the way individuals think and feel about themselves. (shrink)

After the public announcement of the invention of the camera in 1839, photography spread swiftly round the world, and by the early 1850s the medium had become well-established in the Indian subcontinent. In a land characterised by the variety and splendour of its architecture and landscapes, and the diversity of its peoples and customs, India offered the photographic artist an unsurpassed range of subject matter. In addition to the artistic achievements of international masters of photography like Dr John Murray and (...) Samuel Bourne, official encouragement of the medium as a documentary tool came from the East India Company. By the mid-1850s a remarkable visual 'archive' had been created, which charted the architectural heritage and ethnic composition of the subcontinent. This book, which accompanied a major exhibition of 19th century images from India, traces the development of photography from 1850 to 1900, when the ascendency of the large format camera and print began to crumble in the face of the simplified amateur camera. Drawn from the collections of the British Library, and Howard and Jane Ricketts, the book is illustrated with some of the finest photographs produced in India during the latter half of the nineteenth century, many never previously reproduced. (shrink)

The Hispanic masculinity style may be “machismo” or “caballeros”, but is unknown among Hispanic clergy. Using a U.S. on-line survey database, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Catholic deacons self-reported religiosity and personality traits. Hispanic and non-Hispanic deacons reported similar depth on religious beliefs, but non-Hispanic, compared to Hispanic, deacons claimed higher interpersonal religious commitment and a spiritual transcendence of connectedness to others. On the HEXACO-60, Hispanic, compared to non-Hispanic, deacons reported significantly higher emotional traits and lower extraversion traits. Furthermore, Hispanic deacons reported (...) higher fearfulness and sociability and lower boldness facets, compared to non-Hispanic deacons. These results were independent of the ethnic composition of the parish community. Results suggest that Hispanic deacons may reflect “caballeros” masculinity-caring for others and sensitive to their emotional needs while socially outgoing. (shrink)

What explains the continuing hardship of so many black Americans? A distinguished group of scholars analyzes the long, complex structural and environmental causes of discrimination and their effects on African-Americans. The authors examine the impact of poverty, poor health, poor schools, poor housing, poor neighborhoods, and few job opportunities—and demonstrate how multiple causes reinforce each other and condemn African-Americans to positions of inferiority and poverty. Some of the contributors examine policies designed to correct problems, while others look at the changing (...) racial and ethnic composition in America and its implications for African-Americans, as other minorities surpass them in numbers and claim political, economic, and social attention. The late James Tobin has contributed a foreword to this important collection. (shrink)

One of the great mysteries of the history of southern Italy, if studied from a purely literary point of view, is the ethnic composition of the Greek cities in the era of the Oscan and Roman conquests. Ancient authors paint a most gloomy picture of those cities which were conquered by the Oscan peoples at the end of the 5th century B.C. or later, saying in some cases that the entire Greek population was slaughtered , in others that (...) the entire elite was slaughtered , and in yet others that the remainder of the Greek population was kept in a state of dire subjection . While not wishing to minimize the horrors of war, these lurid tales must be an over-simplification of the actual situation. It is not readily plausible that entire Greek populations disappeared so abruptly. (shrink)

This article is a preliminary attempt to map EU research policy from a feminist perspective hitherto absent. The framing and management of national and international research policy have reflected the priorities of an entrenched masculinist scientific elite. Despite the critical role of quantified data in policy analysis and formation, international research labour force statistics remain ungendered. Feminist approaches have been integral to the third wave of epistemological criticism of science this century, claiming that systematic knowledge of the natural, as well (...) as the social world, is socially shaped and thus could be reshaped in ways friendlier to the diversity of women. Such criticism has generated opposition on the part of the scientific elite. The state funding of research is shrinking, while industrial research expands. Women's place within this restructuring research labour market may even be deteriorating, yet feminism still addresses its demands to a retreating science/state relation. Sustained pressure from women's studies researchers and women natural scientists and engineers for a fairer share of the research pie has, in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty, led to Europe introducing gender into research policy. The policy dimension of 'Quality of Life' to enhance 'trust', offers possibilities for feminist intervention. Changing the gender and ethnic composition of the research labour force so that it more adequately reflects the diversity of Europeans enhances Quality of Life. Trust requires that we build on the diverse experiences of European countries in strengthening democratic participation in socially shaping science and technology. (shrink)

У статті розглядається кількісний склад репресованих на території Донецької та Луганської областей; висвітлюються особливості основних періодів репресій протягом 1941-1982 рр.; називаються тенденції у вироках; виокремлюються національності, які найбільше зазнали репресій. Вивчається національний склад репресованих у Донбасі в 1941-1982 рр.

Study of the social and political project by José Antonio Saco, based on an economic proposal where the organization of the Cuban agriculture was central. Far beyond from the sacarocratic dominant position of the sacarocracia, this maintained a antislavery position and favoured the introduction of a white country population and the agricultural diversification involving orange, añil and rice, among other cultivars. This reformist project supposed a number of changes related to the increase of ethnic composition of the peasant. (...) In the long run, these changes brought about the ethnic and cultural features of the Cuban identi% mainly from political, demographic, economic, and cultural determinants. Reports on 1862, which were presented lnformation Board, demonstrate that, with the exception of the sugar-bowl industry, the remaining agricultural branches were principally a white colonist, indigenous and immigrant's property. Slowly, those had settled over the lands, as since 57% of whites were agriculturalists. (shrink)

As the composition of university campuses becomes more diverse, campus journalists must become better at making decisions that avoid needlessly offending members of various ethnic and cultural groups. This examination explores the role of the campus media and includes incidents that illustrate campus journalists' problems with decision making when confronted with material regarding their diverse audiences. It explores the political correctness movement on campuses, notes the advantage of ethical reasoning, offers a philosophical foundation for decision making based on (...) respect, and proposes a Model of Respect. This model should enable novice journalists to better self-regulate content, precluding the need for campus administrators and judicial bodies to establish regulations and laws that "force" sensitivity into campus speech and newspapers. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the role of stained glass in the visual semiosis of religious buildings in Crimea. The object of the study is the stained glass decor of the sacred architecture of the Crimea. The research uses the methods of cultural (hermeneutic and semiotic) and artistic (idiographic and structural) analysis of stained glass art in the sacred space of Crimean architecture, the method of analysis of previous studies, the method of synthesis in conclusions regarding the development of (...) stained glass in the Crimean cult architecture. In the study, the authors considered the following areas of the topic: the development of stained glass art of the Crimea in sacred architecture; the meaning of color and subject symbols in stained glass compositions of religious buildings of the Crimea. The main conclusions of the study are: 1. Stained glass art, more precisely, its subject component, is not authentic for the Crimea, it appears in the decor of residential and public buildings during the late XIX century, the beginning of the eclecticism of Art Nouveau and imitation of Gothic and Byzantine models. Colored glass in earlier periods decorated the windows of well-to-do houses of representatives of various Crimean ethnic groups, however, stained glass as a phenomenon was not characteristic of sacred structures. 2. Due to its geographical location, Crimea is a multicultural and multi-confessional territory, where various religious trends developed: ancient pantheism, Byzantine Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism with the colonization of Catherine's time, Islam, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism. Stained glass windows in religious buildings of various faiths, in addition to decorative function, play a symbolic role, conveying through color, symbolism of abstract and object forms one or another sacred meaning. 3. A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is the cataloging, art history and cultural description of examples of stained glass art in the sacred architecture of the Crimea. The scientific novelty of the study is that the authors for the first time carry out an ontological analysis of stained glass art in the sacred visual semiosis of the Crimea and analyze its semiotic aspects. (shrink)

In the U.S. there has been considerable interest in connecting low-income households to alternative food networks like Community Supported Agriculture. To learn more about this possibility we conducted a statewide survey of CSA members in California. A total of 1149 members from 41 CSAs responded. Here we answer the research question: How do CSA members’ socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds, household conditions potentially interfering with membership, and CSA membership experiences vary between lower-income households and higher-income households? We divided members into LIHHs (...) and HIHHs. We present comparisons of LIHHs’ and HIHHs’ employment, race/ethnicity, household composition and education, use of food support, and enjoyment of food-related activities; conditions interfering with membership and major life events; and sources of information influencing decision to join, reasons for joining, ratings of importance of and satisfaction with various CSA attributes, gaps between importance of and satisfaction with various CSA attributes, valuing of the share and willingness to pay more, and impacts of membership. We find that LIHHs are committed CSA members, often more so than HIHHs, and that CSA members in California are disproportionately white, but that racial disproportionality decreases as incomes increase. We conclude by considering: the economic risks that LIHHs face in CSA membership, the intersection of economic risks with race/ethnicity and cultural coding in CSA; and the possibilities of increasing participation of LIHH in CSA. (shrink)

In popular imagery, the littorals of Sulu and Zamboanga conjure visions of pirates, terrorists, and bandits marauding its rough seas, open shores, and rugged mountains. These bleak accounts render the region nothing but a violent and peripheral southern Philippine backdoor inconspicuous to the sophisticated constituencies of the world’s metropolitan centres. Obscured from these imageries are the lasting cosmopolitan traits of openness, flexibility, and reception of local folk to trans-local cultural streams that marked Sulu and Zamboanga as a globalised space across (...) the ages and oceans. The distinctive features of these cosmopolitan sensibilities are strikingly discernible in inter-generationally shared narratives, artefacts, and performances that were continually renewed from the days when Sulu and Zamboanga served as a borderless trading and cultural enclave nestled at the crossroads of the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. These enduring cosmopolitan sensibilities are embodied in the blending, among others, of the time-honoured dance of pangalay and the pop-musical dance genre celebrated on actual, analogue, and digitally-mediated spaces of the contemporary world. Furthermore, these embodied sensibilities are evident in song compositions that proclaim the humanistic themes of hope, peace, and prosperity to their place and the world in ways that exemplify the local people’s broader sense of connections beyond the narrow association of family, community, ethnicity, religion, and identity. This mixed bag of age-old and recent imaginaries and cultural traffic evoke a sociality that link the social spaces of the troubled but once and current globalised region to continuing acts of transcendence in history, memory, and visions of the future. In these marginalized places, we can see an unyielding tradition of cultural re-adaptation and creativity made up of myriad everyday acts that are down-to-earth, pragmatic, interstitial, and practical cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This chapter looks at the history of US citizenship and immigration law and argues that denying admission or citizenship status to certain groups of people is closely correlated to a denial of whiteness. On this account whiteness is not a fixed or natural concept, but instead is a social construction whose composition changes throughout time and place. Understanding whiteness in this way allows one to see how white supremacy is not limited merely to instances of racism or ethnocentrism, but (...) can also include instances of xenophobia. On this account, whiteness is more analogous to a braid of three interwoven strands: the racial strand (e.g., science, biology, or phenotypes), the ethnic strand (e.g., culture, customs, or heritage), and the national strand (e.g., territory, sovereignty, and citizenship). In emphasizing one or a combination of these strands, whiteness can be granted to social groups that previously were denied full white status, while at the same time it can be rescinded from groups that at different times and different places might have been considered (if only provisionally) white. Understanding whiteness in this way is important for dealing with issues of immigration and citizenship because it lets us see how nationality and xenophobia play a role in the construction of whiteness and thereby how terms like illegal help to reify the status of certain persons, including natural born citizens, as perpetual foreigners (i.e., non-whites). (shrink)

From its inception to the 4th century CE, Christianity experienced a formative process composite of three catalytic phases characterised by distinctive events (i.e. Jewish-Christian Schism, Hellenism and imperial intervention). From the aforementioned era emerged an orthodoxy fostered by an imperial-ecclesiastical link. There appears to have been a parallel story with regard to certain elements of African Christianity, in particular, Ethiopian Christianity. What can be made of the gap regarding Jewish Christianity combined with the absence of African Christianity from Bauer’s modular (...) theory on heresy and orthodoxy in the development of early Christianity? Despite the dominant story of the development of an imperial religious establishment at the turn of the 4th century, could there be an alternative narrative to Christianity in the African region derivate from Ethiopia? Reviewing the emergence of a religious political Christianity in this era as modular against Ethiopian Christianity in tangent with its links with Christianity in Roman Africa, establishment of the nature and development of Ethiopian Christianity was performed. This was performed through documentary analysis. Bauer’s (1971) theory of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity did not exhaustively account for Jewish Christianity and North African distinct intransigent tradition characteristic of Carthage. By extension to African Egyptian, Alexandria is Ethiopian Christianity that was characterised by Judaic tradition in contrast to anti-Judaism. This established a parallel history of Christianity in Africa inclusive of Ethiopia. A review of this perspective contains contemporary momentum in view of the focus on Ethiopian Jews, for example, as religious praxis was as important as ethnicity in determining the Jewishness of whole tribes. (shrink)

During the German-Soviet War and in the decades that followed, the Volyn Orthodox clergy functioned under a cohesive social ghetto, which was to ensure the gradual assimilation of the social group in accordance with the needs of the totalitarian regime. In this situation, the national self-awareness of a part of the sacred priests did not fit into the coordinates of the Nazi religious and ethnic politics and, later, into the process of creation of the Soviet people. The question of (...) national identity remains relevant, and now, when it is the basis of the newest Ukrainian state-making, it has caused division in the Orthodox field. The national consciousness of the Volyn clergy in the years of war and in the era of Soviet totalitarianism never became a topic of separate study. To date, scientists have only partially addressed the problem. Although in 1960, the head of the ROC Council, V. Kuroedov, said that the remnants of religious remnants contributed to preserving the bourgeois nationalist sentiment. The compilers of the first volume of documents and materials “Martyrology of the Ukrainian Churches” Osip Zinkevich and Alexander Voronin, analyzing the national composition of the bishopric of the Russian Church in Ukraine as of 1986, hoped that in case of revival of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, the origin of some of them role. (shrink)

I develop a connection between racial identity and Heidegger’s early phenomenological perspective from Being and Time. This effort offsets the critique that Heidegger is too abstract in his use of Dasein to have any practical application to racial identity. I examine how the underlying issue of racial identity is rooted in the composition of an “existentiell,” where one grows up in a variety of ways to be, compelling one to choose and neglect them. I then examine Mariana Ortega’s critique (...) of Heidegger’s idea and how she describes it as a limiting concept that is too abstract to deal with everyday issues of race. By recovering the concept of Dasein from the “abstraction critique” via re-imagining an existentiell, I show how everyday discourses about racial identity are part of the phenomenological world Dasein grows up in, necessitating analyses about how to be in the world through racial, ethnic, and cultural dimensions. (shrink)

The problem of the construction of memory that faces the Afro-Brazilian population presents itself as more than a simple need for an identity connected to an original past, but in addition as essential, because for historical reasons their social reality has not yet reached the end of its struggle. The African composition of Brazilian culture is based on several sources of many origins peculiar to different African peoples. The memory people have of Africa is vague, generic, indefinite. Though the (...) lost ancestral past is multi-ethnic, multicultural Africa, the retrievable past is the one Brazil has succeeded in integrating into the construction of a new civilization: a past that can only be re-invented, a re-created memory. (shrink)

Recent military coups in West Africa have put the continent’s democratisation itself into question. In some places, for the moment, these coups appear to have popular backing. Nigeria, where radicalism is firmly rooted in democratic values and a human-rights framework, the radical grassroots opposition to the Buhari government’s creeping authoritarianism lies drenched in blood. The roots of this development go back to the history of Nigeria’s radicalism in the twentieth century. Much has appeared on the global 1968 recently, including that (...) of Africa. 1970s/1980s-style radicalism is reappearing today with Omoyele Sowore’s 2018 presidential candidacy, with the African Action Congress party, the #EndSARS protests and the tragic Lekki Toll Gate massacre (2020) in Nigeria. The shift towards radicalism is palpable with protest music such as Falz’s This is Nigeria, and Burna Boy’s Monsters you Made, both explicitly targeting neocolonialism and police brutality. Contrary to Achille Mbembe’s sweeping dismissal of African radicalism, the movement with very deep roots under study is meaningful once again, and is gathering momentum in West Africa’s giant polity. This article applies Walter Benjamin’s and also Nigerian radical thinkers’ conceptualisation of political, social and artistic radicalism, while it frames the Nigerian version via the movement’s history, in which marxisant theory and praxis, feminism, human rights and pro-democracy movements interact with emancipatory strands of Islam, Christianity, Igbo Judaism, and animism. In the context of Nigerian radicalism, even expressly pro-capitalist art theory performs a radical social function by stressing the African’s right to make universal statements (Olu Oguibe) in its de facto defiance of the neo-colony. As these different strands of protest meet, ethnic uprisings (amongst them IPOB) find ways to establish common cause with social radicalism, posing a composite threat to the prebendalist oligarchy that rules and oppresses the country via a militarised neoliberalism. (shrink)

Academic productivity is realized through resources obtained from professional networks in which scientists are embedded. Using a national survey of academic faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields across multiple institution types, we examine how the structure of professional networks affects scholarly productivity and how those effects may differ by race, ethnicity, and gender. We find that network size masks important differences in composition. Using negative binomial regression, we find that both the size and composition of professional (...) networks affect scientific productivity, but bigger is not always better. We find that instrumental networks increase scholarly productivity, while advice networks reduce it. There are important interactive effects that are masked by modeling only direct effects. We find that white men are especially advantaged by instrumental networks, and women are especially advantaged by advice networks. (shrink)

The aim of this academic symposium was to provide an answer to the question whether “youth quotas” offer a solution to changes in age demographics and a looming gerontocracy. Based on the premise that young people have the potential to act as change agents, especially with regard to ecological sustainability, it was our aim to stimulate a societal discussion and to raise public awareness on the topic of youth quotas, whilst providing the discussion with a scientific basis. The question of (...) a power shift between generations is already discussed in many facets in the literature. Many commentators state that a shift is already visible and that the problem requires careful political management. In light of this, the implementation of youth quotas could be a possible method of protecting the interests of younger generations in politics and beyond. The symposium was investigating a topic that is greatly under-researched. Some key questions to be addressed at the symposium were: Should youth quotas be limited to the political arena or should they also be implemented in other fields? Can youth quotas ensure that a greater sense of urgency is applied to the problem-solving process of future concerns like global warming? Can young people really be relied upon to represent the interests of the young generation as a whole, or will they just follow their own individual interests? Are youth quotas in general an effective instrument to strengthen the rights of the young generation or do we need other and more effective instruments? Intense debates arose over the question of whether or not youth quotas are an effective means to strengthen the rights of future generations. Some junior researchers suggested that young people can be thought of as the “trustees of posterity” as they tend to be fiercer defenders of long-termist policies, especially regarding the environment, since the environmental crisis will have a more concrete impact on their lifespan. But other speakers rejected the causality that young people will have a stronger determination to solve future problems, or will necessarily add a new “young” perspective in the epistemic process of finding solutions to future problems. The indication of these latter speakers was that environmental issues are not the top priority of young people. Regarding the composition of party lists, one speaker pointed to the problem of legitimacy in the outcome of an election. The positive discrimination of youth within a societal group has to be justified because other groups could feel disadvantaged by the implementation of such a strong instrument. Some speakers challenged the analogy of youth quotas to quotas for women or ethnic minorities, because women and ethnic minorities can’t change their status whereas today’s young people, in the normal course of life, will be old in the future. This means that the disadvantage of a person in his or her young age is just temporal. Generational effects were pitted against age effects in this context. Some experts pointed to alternatives to youth quotas. In their view, lowering the voting age and better political education in schools, especially, would produce better results. Another proposed strategy was the implementation of proxy votes for the parents. A vote at the end of the symposium sparked interesting results. Although several reservations were noted, most of the speakers voted for the implementation of youth quotas. All speakers voted for lowering the voting age. The conclusion reached by this academic symposium was that a package of measures is required to give adequate answers to demographic change. Youth quotas could be part of this package. The organisers planned to publish the outcomes of the symposium in an anthology : Youth Quotas and other Efficient Forms of Youth Participation in Ageing Societies. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer). (shrink)

This article argues that an adequately historicized and politicized understanding of the women's movement in Nepal (or elsewhere) requires a detailed examination of the construction of the gendered subject herself in the complex geo-political space of the emergent (Nepali) nation state. In turn, this unravelling of the gendered subject in Nepal serves to reinforce the premise that the representation of ‘the Nepali Woman’ as a single over-arching category is a contemporary construction, which has been achieved at the expense of consistently (...) effacing the historically prior multiple and contested ethnic/caste identities taken by thrust upon women in what is now the new Nepal. The ‘natural’ goal of the women's movement since post-1990 Nepal to achieve a (single) feminist agenda has become part of the problem, as it can only be achieved at the expense of respecting the radical diversity and difference that is covered over by the ‘theoretical fiction’ of the unified nation of Nepal. The main important players, whether it be the women from mainstream political parties, or the women of the NGO world or the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), have all contributed to excluding and silencing radical diversity in the name of expediency and elite power brokering. Moreover, it is argued that the contours of this composite discourse continue to be shaped by the international aid industry in Nepal, where ‘development’ is not merely the epistemic link between Nepal and the ‘West’, it is also the locus classicus of generic apolitical consciousness-less Nepali woman whose cause is taken up by scholar and activist alike. (shrink)

Covering a timely topic, which is more and more frequently in the news, this book offers vignettes that will sharpen the reader's ability to recognize and respond to difficult situations sparked by identity differences among faculty, staff, and students in college and university settings. The authors provide a systematic guide to addressing interpersonal conflicts that arise out of issues of identity difference, both for individuals and for campus work teams who provide direct service to students. Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher (...) Education empowers readers to diagnose diversity flashpoint situations and positively address them without creating defensiveness and barriers to dialogue. The authors include an overview of the changing ethnic, racial, and gender composition of students in higher education in the United States and the major trends in campus responses to the changing student population. They offer an approach to creating higher education environments that welcome people of all cultural characteristics and promote civility on campus. The book is founded on the authors' research on diversity flashpoints in higher education for which they interviewed a national sample of student affairs professionals. The authors identified uncomfortable interpersonal situations with faculty members in which the discomfort arose from student identity difference. This process led to the formulation of strategies for using vignettes in professional development sessions. (shrink)

Covering a timely topic, which is more and more frequently in the news, this book offers vignettes that will sharpen the reader's ability to recognize and respond to difficult situations sparked by identity differences among faculty, staff, and students in college and university settings. The authors provide a systematic guide to addressing interpersonal conflicts that arise out of issues of identity difference, both for individuals and for campus work teams who provide direct service to students. Managing Diversity Flashpoints in Higher (...) Education empowers readers to diagnose diversity flashpoint situations and positively address them without creating defensiveness and barriers to dialogue. The authors include an overview of the changing ethnic, racial, and gender composition of students in higher education in the United States and the major trends in campus responses to the changing student population. They offer an approach to creating higher education environments that welcome people of all cultural characteristics and promote civility on campus. The book is founded on the authors' research on diversity flashpoints in higher education for which they interviewed a national sample of student affairs professionals. The authors identified uncomfortable interpersonal situations with faculty members in which the discomfort arose from student identity difference. This process led to the formulation of strategies for using vignettes in professional development sessions. (shrink)

The object of the study is the continuous preservation of the multi-genre Cossack folk song, which represents a key purpose in the implementation of the preservation of the traditional mentality at the present stage. The subject of this work is the immanent complexes of traditional song culture in the folklore heritage. The purpose of this study is to structure the issue of the cultural interrelation of the ethnic canvas of the Kuban Cossack folk songs, in the originality of the (...) genesis of the vocal and performing specifics of modern creativity. When discovering the fundamental foundations of the vocal performance of the Cossack song, special attention is paid to the study of the folklore primary sources of the Kuban folklorists, V.G.Zakharchenko, A.D.Bigdai, G.M.Kontsevich. Along with this, an expert assessment of the characteristics of the Kuban Cossack folk song according to the genre classification component is an important feature of the performance of vocal samples today. The theoretical basis is in an analytical approach to the peculiarities of the performance of a local source from the point of view of substantiating the scientific nature of the subject under consideration according to the functionally oriented elements of the report: traditions, traditional manner of performance, interpretation of the text, song melody. Methodological basis: components of the study of the local singing tradition, modernization of folklore song documents, the method of consistency-the genre diversity of Cossack performance. The author's approach to the correlation of musical sources as methodological characteristics of the Kuban Cossack singing traditions has been developed. We test the proposed system when working with archival documents, in the diagnosis of song samples recorded from informants. The key aspect is the musicological analysis of the musical collections of Kuban Cossack folk songs from the point of view of the continuously developing, multifaceted changing performing skills of the soloist and choir. The author takes into account the introduced model of performing Cossack songs since the resettlement of the Black Sea Cossacks, who brought the baggage of multi-genre sources and eventually introduced the Kuban folk singing art. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the author's analytical systematization of authentic song compositions recorded by folklorists, in the analysis of multi-genre Kuban Cossack sources (selectively) for further active performance on stage. The specific directions of performance according to characteristic song genres are determined: historical, military, everyday, marching, lyrical, wedding, ceremonial, round dance, comic. The reproduced orientation of the nature of the continuous preservation of folklore sources in the revised performance interpretation of Cossack vocal works gives rise to significant broadcasting opportunities today. (shrink)

Resumo: O presente artigo analisa a composição étnico-racial dos programas de pós-graduação brasileiros da área de filosofia. O propósito é identificar as características gerais da área e analisar os dados disponíveis sobre as declarações de cor/raça em seus mestrados e doutorados. Espera-se que essas análises sejam úteis para a discussão e proposição de ações afirmativas em tais programas. O resultado obtido evidenciou que negros estão largamente sub-representados na pós-graduação em filosofia. Com efeito, a área é atualmente entre as humanidades a (...) de maior concentração de estudantes declarados brancos. Isto posto, o estudo especula possíveis causas e consequências dessa situação, procurando encontrar caminhos para o enfrentamento efetivo do racismo acadêmico. Palavras-chave: Desigualdades Raciais; Perfil Discente; Racismo Acadêmico. Black People in Philosophy Graduate Programs in Brazil Abstract: The present paper analyzes the ethnic-racial composition of Brazilian graduate programs in the field of philosophy. Its purpose is to identify the general characteristics of the field, and to analyze the available data on color/race in its master’s and doctoral programs. It is hoped that these analyzes will be useful for the discussion and proposition of affirmative actions in such programs. The result obtained showed that blacks are largely underrepresented in Brazilian philosophy graduate schools. Indeed, the field is currently the one with the highest concentration of students declared to be white among all the human sciences in Brazil. With that being said, the study speculates on possible causes and consequences of that situation, seeking to find ways to effectively confront academic racism. Keywords: Racial Inequalities; Student Profile; Academic Racism. Schwarze Menschen an Graduiertenprogrammen für Philosophie in Brasilien Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert die ethnisch-rassische Zusammensetzung brasilianischer Graduiertenprogramme im Bereich Philosophie. Sein Zweck ist es, die allgemeinen Merkmale des Fachgebiets zu identifizieren und die verfügbaren Daten zu Farbe/Rasse in seinen Master- und Doktoratsprogrammen zu analysieren. Es ist zu hoffen, dass diese Analysen für die Diskussion und den Vorschlag von Maßnahmen positiver Diskriminierung in solchen Programmen nützlich sein werden. Das hier erreichte Ergebnis zeigte, dass Schwarze in den brasilianischen Graduiertenkollegs stark unterrepräsentiert sind. In der Tat ist das Fachgebiet derzeit dasjenige unter allen Humanwissenschaften in Brasilien mit der höchsten Konzentration von Studenten, die als weiß deklariert werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund spekuliert diese Studie über mögliche Ursachen und Folgen dieser Situation und versucht, Wege zu finden, um akademischem Rassismus wirksam entgegenzutreten. Schlüsselwörter: Rassenungleichheiten; Studierendenprofil; Akademischer Rassismus. Data de registro: 16/06/2022 Data de aceite: 26/10/2022. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:F/Actual Knowing:Putting Facts and Values in PlaceHolmes Rolston III (bio)Knowing needs to be actualized, an act of ours, yet also a discovery of what is actually, factually there. In place ourselves, we manage some awareness of other places. Agents in our knowing, we co-respond, and this emplaces us. But we humans have powers of dis-placement too, of taking up, whether empathetically or objectively, the situations of others, other humans, (...) sometimes others than humans. How do our facts depend on our acts? Do we humans always put in place, or sometimes find put, placed there before us, what we variously value on Earth?To put this provocatively: We need to "green" our beliefs; but every educated person knows that nothing out there is really "green." "Seeing green" is an interaction experience. Perhaps this perceptual experience is a model for the whole: all of our human concepts and percepts color up the world. This is true alike of facts and of values, discoveries and evaluations. Such knowing might be well enough placed, but it is always and only "placed." Our geographical position controls our epistemic composition. Epistemology is inevitably anthropocentric; we are always located in the center of our knowing.But what if the "green" we see is mostly chlorophyll? Photosynthesis is not something we can see at all. In place on Earth, we humans breathe oxygen and would die in minutes without it; we depend on photosynthesis at the foundation of our food chains. We know our own respiratory [End Page 137] and trophic interactions with the plants, and this not simply at the native range experiences of breathing and eating. We have figured out the oxygen/carbon-dioxide/water cycles taking place at molecular levels.Now it seems, however, that we are discovering ourselves placed where the facts are bigger than our acts, including our respiratory (and perceptual) interactions; these extend systemically and are hardly anthropocentric. Epistemologically, we have more to evaluate. "Greening" our belief, environmentally grounding it, will require knowing and appropriately respecting these vital life processes—of which we are a part, but which also are "in place" and "take place" apart from us.1. Embodied, Knowledgeable PersonsWhatever knowledge we gain has to "come through" at our native range. That seems uncontroversial, but what are the implications? Knowledge is relative to our location, our embodiment, our size, our terrestrial habitat. This situation constricts, it may be claimed, what can "come through." Mark Johnson concludes: "Our consciousness and rationality are tied to our bodily orientations and interactions in and with our environment. Our embodiment is essential to who we are, to what meaning is, and to our ability to draw rational inferences and to be creative." He urges us to "put the body back into the mind," that is, epistemologically, to become aware of how the body is there, willy-nilly (1987, xxxviii, xxxvi). Joining with George Lakoff, he claims: "Reason, even in its most abstract form, makes use of, rather than transcends, our animal nature" (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 4).Katherine Hayles continues: "To be incorporated within a different body would be to live in a different world." She features "interactivity" and explains:Interactivity foregrounds rather than obscures the importance of embodiment. In the interaction model, the body does more than provide a biological support system for the mind. Interaction is possible only because we are embodied, and the precise conditions of our embodiment have everything to do with the nature of those interactions. The range and nature of sensory stimuli available to us, the contexts that affect how those sensory stimuli achieve meaning, the habituated movements and postures that we learn through culture and that are encoded for gender, ethnicity, and class—all affect how learning takes place and how the world comes into being for us.(1995, 56) [End Page 138]All this seems true, if one means that with reincarnation our native range experiences would be different. Wolves have keen noses and with them they experience, if you like, a different world. But the survival value of wolf noses, a situated knowledge for them, is equally true for humans, wolves, and elk, because all three... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:F/Actual Knowing:Putting Facts and Values in PlaceHolmes Rolston III (bio)Knowing needs to be actualized, an act of ours, yet also a discovery of what is actually, factually there. In place ourselves, we manage some awareness of other places. Agents in our knowing, we co-respond, and this emplaces us. But we humans have powers of dis-placement too, of taking up, whether empathetically or objectively, the situations of others, other humans, (...) sometimes others than humans. How do our facts depend on our acts? Do we humans always put in place, or sometimes find put, placed there before us, what we variously value on Earth?To put this provocatively: We need to "green" our beliefs; but every educated person knows that nothing out there is really "green." "Seeing green" is an interaction experience. Perhaps this perceptual experience is a model for the whole: all of our human concepts and percepts color up the world. This is true alike of facts and of values, discoveries and evaluations. Such knowing might be well enough placed, but it is always and only "placed." Our geographical position controls our epistemic composition. Epistemology is inevitably anthropocentric; we are always located in the center of our knowing.But what if the "green" we see is mostly chlorophyll? Photosynthesis is not something we can see at all. In place on Earth, we humans breathe oxygen and would die in minutes without it; we depend on photosynthesis at the foundation of our food chains. We know our own respiratory [End Page 137] and trophic interactions with the plants, and this not simply at the native range experiences of breathing and eating. We have figured out the oxygen/carbon-dioxide/water cycles taking place at molecular levels.Now it seems, however, that we are discovering ourselves placed where the facts are bigger than our acts, including our respiratory (and perceptual) interactions; these extend systemically and are hardly anthropocentric. Epistemologically, we have more to evaluate. "Greening" our belief, environmentally grounding it, will require knowing and appropriately respecting these vital life processes—of which we are a part, but which also are "in place" and "take place" apart from us.1. Embodied, Knowledgeable PersonsWhatever knowledge we gain has to "come through" at our native range. That seems uncontroversial, but what are the implications? Knowledge is relative to our location, our embodiment, our size, our terrestrial habitat. This situation constricts, it may be claimed, what can "come through." Mark Johnson concludes: "Our consciousness and rationality are tied to our bodily orientations and interactions in and with our environment. Our embodiment is essential to who we are, to what meaning is, and to our ability to draw rational inferences and to be creative." He urges us to "put the body back into the mind," that is, epistemologically, to become aware of how the body is there, willy-nilly (1987, xxxviii, xxxvi). Joining with George Lakoff, he claims: "Reason, even in its most abstract form, makes use of, rather than transcends, our animal nature" (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 4).Katherine Hayles continues: "To be incorporated within a different body would be to live in a different world." She features "interactivity" and explains:Interactivity foregrounds rather than obscures the importance of embodiment. In the interaction model, the body does more than provide a biological support system for the mind. Interaction is possible only because we are embodied, and the precise conditions of our embodiment have everything to do with the nature of those interactions. The range and nature of sensory stimuli available to us, the contexts that affect how those sensory stimuli achieve meaning, the habituated movements and postures that we learn through culture and that are encoded for gender, ethnicity, and class—all affect how learning takes place and how the world comes into being for us.(1995, 56) [End Page 138]All this seems true, if one means that with reincarnation our native range experiences would be different. Wolves have keen noses and with them they experience, if you like, a different world. But the survival value of wolf noses, a situated knowledge for them, is equally true for humans, wolves, and elk, because all three... (shrink)

The 4th century CE was definitive for Early Christianity as there emerged an imperial orthodoxy establishment. This was the inception of an era of a Christian polity characterised by symbiotic ties between the imperial establishment and a developing charismatic political Christianity. The established narrative is one overshadowed by the Byzantine influence even in Africa through Alexandria and Carthage. There were, however, dynamics that conceived an African Christian polity, by extension Ethiopian Christianity posed relevance as a complexly diverse Christian political entity. (...) The investigation reviewed 4th-century CE Christianity with regard to the influence of an African Christian polity and, additionally, how it was implied upon relations with the imperial orthodox establishment. Ethiopia became the case in consideration. This was established through descriptive research using document analysis to formulate literature reviews. The development of a Christian political matrix was a dominant feature of Early Christianity, especially after the emergence of a mutual enterprise under imperial orthodoxy. The formative manner of the political characteristic of ecclesiastical leadership was composite to the council resolutions and expansion policy. Inadvertently, the thin line between imperial geopolitical policy and custody of Christendom diminished. Ethiopia intrinsically saw the development of its own Christian political entity, one that curtailed the challenges of ethnic enculturation and schism between charisma and hierarchy. Perceivably, the complexity of the religious political matrix of Ethiopia as derived from its interaction with Byzantine Rome, Alexandria and the Arabian Peninsula was the source for its prolonged existence, thereby establishing basis for further investigation. (shrink)

This chapter examines the rabbinic Judaism from the Palestinian context. It suggests that it is not possible to provide any unambiguous framework which will offer clues to the context, or contexts, in which the extraordinary corpus of rabbinic works was composed. It concludes that the composition of the rabbinic literature could only take place in a society marked by a complex interplay of beliefs, ethnic identities and languages and identifies the most common points of reference in Jewish religious (...) writing. (shrink)