The Christian life, concerned with both spirituality and doctrine, aims not at rationally defensible truth but at life-transforming love. Greater understanding of the truth will not settle the restlessness in a human spirit; only the redemptive power of relationship with God can calm the soul. The crux of Kierkegaard's presentation of Christianity is not that doctrine is unimportant, but that it is ultimately insufficient for a life lived in relationship with God. In Contemporary with (...) Christ, Joshua Cockayne explores the Christian spiritual life with Søren Kierkegaard as his guide and analytic theology as his key tool of engagement. Cockayne contends that the Christian life is second-personal: it seeks encounter with a personal God. As Kierkegaard describes, God invites us to live on the most intimate terms with God. Cockayne argues that this vision of Christian spirituality is deeply practical because it advocates for a certain way of acting and existing. This approach to the Christian life moves from first-reflection, whereby one acquires objective knowledge, to second-reflection, whereby one attains deeper self-understanding, which fortifies one's relationship with God. Individuals encounter Christ through traditional practices: prayer, the Eucharist, and the reading of Scripture. However, experiences of suffering and mortality that mirror Christ's own passion also enliven this life of encounter. Spiritual progress comes through a reorientation of one's will, desire, and self-knowledge. Such progress must ultimately serve the goal of drawing close to God through Christ's presence. Engaging philosophy, theology, and psychology, Cockayne invites us to join in a conversation with Kierkegaard and explore how the spiritual disciplines provide opportunities for relationship with God by becoming contemporary with Christ. --C. Stephen Evans, University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Baylor University. (shrink)

Sex robots are humanoid robots with artificial intelligence, designed to interact sexually with humans. They have received much attention in recent discussions about technology, human relationships and the future of human sexuality. Based on available evidence so far, this outlook aims to give tentative answers to two fundamental questions surrounding the topic of human–robot intimate relationships. First, whether intelligent humanoid robots are technologically ready to be our intimate partners. Second, whether humans are ready to accept the (...) idea of developing intimate relationships with robots, and how far we have engaged and will engage in such activity. We highlight the importance of a scientific transdisciplinary approach to the study of human sexuality in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This article examines the blesser phenomenon in South Africa, which gained rapid popularity in 2016. A large body of research exists that reveals that transactional sex is a significant theme within the phenomenon of blesser and blessee relationships. Scholarship has demonstrated that transactional sex has contributed to an increase in human immunodeficiency virus infection rates, especially amongst women aged 15–24 years, as well as a concerning increase in teenage pregnancy. Whilst these are dire realities of blesser–blessee relationships, the one that (...) is most concerning in the current climate in South Africa is the increase in gender-based violence, intimate partner violence and femicide. Therefore, this article concerns itself primarily with this epidemic as it seeks to demonstrate how the blesser phenomenon contributes to GBV and IPV. Blessees are the young women in the blesser–blessee relationships who experience trauma and shame because of the violence and abuse inflicted on them by the older male blessers. The article argues that the church should be seen to be taking decisive action in addressing the scourge of GBV and IPV. The narrative approach is used to give the blessees the opportunity to share their stories. By applying the techniques of narrative therapy, positive deconstruction and the art of holy listening, the study reaches its key outcome: to offer to the church a framework for a pastoral care and healing methodology to help our sisters in Christ to experience healing and to move from shame to self-worth.Contribution: The Blesser phenomen has never been dealt with in theology, especially from the African perspective. Both sides of the problem need pastoral care. The major issue is where do we begin? I started, pastorally working with the blessee, who is in relationship with an older man. The main question that could be pastorally followed is, why pursue an older man for provision? This is a major pastoral issue, especially in poor communities. The younger women are in need of finance, in order to complete their studies and eke out a living. Beside the Covid 19 pandemic, this is the second major issue affecting black townships. (shrink)

Planar cell polarity (PCP)‐signaling and associated tissue polarization are evolutionarily conserved. A well documented feature of PCP‐signaling in vertebrates is its link to centriole/cilia positioning, although the relationship of PCP and ciliogenesis is still debated. A recent report in Drosophila established that Frizzled (Fz)‐PCP core signaling has an instructive input to polarized centriole positioning in non‐ciliated Drosophila wing epithelia as a PCP read‐out. Here, we review the impact of this observation in the context of recent descriptions of the (...) class='Hi'>relationship(s) of core Fz‐PCP signaling and cilia/centriole positioning in epithelial and non‐epithelial cells. All existing data are consistent with a model where Fz‐PCP signaling functions upstream of centriole/cilia positioning, independent of ciliogenesis. The combined data sets indicate that the Fz‐Dsh PCP complex is instructive for centriole/ciliary positioning via an actin‐based mechanism. Thereby, centriole/cilia/centrosome positioning can be considered an evolutionarily conserved readout and common downstream effect of PCP‐signaling from flies to mammals. (shrink)

This article explores the role of contract law inintimate relationships, focussing on tacit or onlypartially express agreements rather than expressprenuptial or cohabitation contracts. It welcomes theembrace of relational contract theory by feminist andgay and lesbian commentators, but argues that keydifferences between commercial and intimaterelationships need further analysis if the potentialof relational theory in cases of informal agreement isto be realised. The first difference is that,while commercial contracts can draw on the context ofa contracting community as a source of norms to (...) fillgaps in agreement, there is no equivalent source ofnorms for intimate relationships. The seconddifference is that, although relational theory entailsthe attenuation of self interest in commercialcontracts, in intimate relationships the sense inwhich self interest is attenuated is quite different,with the result that concepts such as cooperation andaltruism have different meanings. The result of thesedifferences is that, in some intimate relationships,there will be informal understandings falling short ofbargain, which will be unenforceable – under bothorthodox contract law and more relationalinterpretations of it. It is argued that many suchinformal agreements are distinguishable from mostgratuitous promises because they are characterised bya degree of reciprocity between the parties. Thepossibility of the law of contract recognising suchnon bargain agreements based on reciprocity isexplored, and it is argued that the enforcement ofsuch agreements represents a less distorting legalresponse than that available through the use ofpromissory estoppel. (shrink)

This article argues that individuals paradigms have predominated social scientific explanations for gendered behavior in intimate relationships but that a microstructural paradigm adds necessary additional information. The results of a study designed to test the relative strengths of individualist and microstructural explanations for “mothering behavior” are presented. The microstructural hypothesis is that single fathers will adopt parental behavior that more closely resembles that of women who mother than that of married fathers. Parenting behaviors of single fathers, single mothers, married (...) parents with mothers at home, and married two-paycheck couples are compared. Overall, the hypothesis is supported. The article ends with a discussion of the implications of the microstructural perspective for social change in a feminist direction. (shrink)

BackgroundWe examine the incidence of medical tribunal decisions and disciplinary actions (DAs) against healthcare professionals (HCPs). In addition, we studied whether an intimate relationship between an HCP and patient as part of the medical tribunal decision is associated with an increased likelihood of disciplinary actions.MethodsWe conducted a nationwide cohort analysis on the downloadable medical tribunal decisions from a medical disciplinary tribunal in the Netherlands from 2010 to 2017.ResultsWe found that 117 (2.8%) of the 4,046 medical tribunal decisions (...) involved an alleged intimate relationship between an HCP and patient. In these medical tribunal decisions the likelihood of a disciplinary action was significantly increased (odds ratio [OR] 12.97, 95% Confidence Interval [95% CI] 7.11–23.64). In addition, we found that nurses and psychiatrists are more frequently accused of and receive disciplinary actions due to intimate relationships than other HCP groups.ConclusionsWe found a limited number of medical tribunal decisions involving an intimate relationship. Especially given the total number of medical tribunal decisions and the number of yearly HCP-patient interactions, the number appears small. Furthermore, an alleged intimate relationship or inappropriate sexual conduct is associated with an increased likelihood of disciplinary action. Future research should obtain statistics on the number of intimate relationships that actually start between HCPs and patients. (shrink)

Intimate relationships such as love and friendship involve familiar patterns of vulnerability. Loving someone renders one susceptible to distress and sorrow when the beloved is harmed and when the loving relationship is impaired. The distinctive kind of vulnerability bound up with intimate relationships also presents an opportunity for wrongful exploitation: for one participant to unfairly use, take advantage of, the other. In the case of commercial exploitation (e.g., exploitation of sweatshop workers), the remedy typically involves either (...) preventing those in the relevant positions of power from taking advantage of the vulnerability of the powerless or removing the vulnerabilities of those in the relevant positions of powerlessness. I argue there are there limits to the application of these two strategies in the intimate relationship context, and I consider what (if anything) might guard against the possibility of exploitation in intimate relationships. (shrink)

Union with Christ was a key doctrine for second-generation Reformed theologian Girolamo Zanchi. As a Thomist, Zanchi shared similar elements with Thomas Aquinas in his understanding of salvation as participatio, but his understanding of union with Christ differed with regard to the difference between infused and imputed righteousness. Unlike Aquinas’s doctrine of infused righteousness, Zanchi argued for imputed righteousness, which was both the foundation for one’s justification in this life as well as appearing before (...) the divine bar at the final judgment. Zanchi’s doctrine of union with Christ has the utmost significance for personal eschatology and the judgment believers undergo at the great assize, insights that are worth retrieving for a clear understanding of the relationship between justification and the final judgement. (shrink)

This essay argues that the fundamental premise of Aristotle’s political philosophy is that free citizens are those who rule and are ruled in turn. The virtuous community sustains a mean between these two dimensions of political life, and the decadent regime errs by excess or deficiency from this ideal. Aristotle sees the production and exercise of law as essential to preserve the continuity of the arrangements between citizens. In the production of law, the process of ruling together is best exemplified, (...) and, at the same time, the citizens give themselves over to be ruled by the principles that have been laid down. Since living well is carried out in the realm of the political, we have to learn how to express our life in relationship to the whole that is shared with others. The life of law is achieved when the citizens become lawful. (shrink)

Forming long-term intimate relationships constitutes an important aspect of human nature. Within the context of an evolutionary theoretical framework, the current research has attempted to investigate what motivates people to keep an intimate relationship. Using a combination of qualitative research methods in a sample of 131 Greek-speaking participants, 58 reasons that motivated individuals to keep their intimate relationship were identified. Using quantitative research methods in a sample of 789 Greek-speaking participants who were in an (...) class='Hi'>intimate relationship, these reasons were classified in nine broad factors and two broader domains. Having a supporting and compatible partner with whom one shares similar goals, and with whom one has good sex and a strong emotional attachment, were rated among the most important factors motivating participants to keep their relationship. Moreover, as indicated by the domain means, participants were more strongly motivated to keep their intimate relationship if their partners had desirable attributes, such as providing them with support, and less so by their own attributes, such as fear of loneliness. Significant effects of sex, age, marital status, presence of children, and years in a relationship were found for several factors. (shrink)

In this article Carol Christ illustrates the ways in which process philosophy offers dynamic alternatives to dualistic habits of thought. She highlights how the Goddess is the most relational in the process and therefore the most sympathetic to the unfolding of the universe and those who inhabit it, human and non-human alike. Change she asserts is good, indeed divine, a statement in bold contrast to the Western tradition which attempts to fix and control all things. The individual and her (...) relationship to the environment becomes an active process, with neither reduced to mere things, and both ever changing in relationship. The article offers a resounding challenge to those still stuck in dualistic metaphysics and the world that springs from them. (shrink)

What happens when men and women feel powerful in intimate relationships? When does power corrupt and when does it lead to positive consequences, such as increased sensitivity to others' needs, personal growth, and social responsibility? This book offers anyone interested in such questions a clear and accessible depiction of the effects of social power, based on cutting-edge theory and research. The book starts with a general discussion on the ways power influences individuals. The role of one's personality, goals, (...) and culture seem to play a decisive role in whether power leads to benevolent or malevolent consequences. Some effects of power are more intuitively understood (e.g., taking from or contributing to a common resource, or aggressive responses in parents who feel powerless), while other effects regard much more surprising phenomena (e.g., self-fulfilling prophecies, stopping an annoying fan, or forgiveness for a transgression). Following the description of this social-psychological mechanism, The Power to Care discusses the cultural and developmental circumstances in which power is experienced. Culturally acquired gender-roles, experiencing racism, egoistic vs. altruistic motivations, and defensive tendencies - all influence what men and women want in intimate relationships, and the way power can motivate them to attain their goals. These circumstances may explain the gender differences found in the results of three experiments, described in Chapter 4. In these experiments, men and women in long-term, intimate relationships reacted differently to a temporary sense of power, in terms of their tendency to self-focus, take the perspective of others, and objectify their relationship partners.In the last section, The Power to Care discusses the seemingly contradictory beliefs of professionals and laymen alike, that power corrupts, but that the empowerment processes yields positive results. In this section, the role of power and empowerment processes is discussed, mainly in macro-level interventions, in intimate partner violence (for both victims and perpetrators), overcoming addiction, and in policy practice (e.g., in court verdicts regarding cases of post-divorce relocation of custodial parents). (shrink)

Teresa of Avila, writing in the 16th century when ideas of holiness often excluded women and lay people, developed a radically inclusive understanding of holiness as friendship with Christ. Her idea also allowed for degrees of holiness, from those who completed only the necessary church requirements of confession and absolution all the way up to those who had a friendship that was modelled upon the relationship in the Song of Songs. It was a definition of holiness applicable (...) to men and women, clergy, members of religious orders, and lay people. In addition, her understanding of holiness did not distinguish the holiness of ordinary lay people from that of the great saints of previous generations, for friendship with Christ was open to all. (shrink)

In this paper, I take inspiration from some themes in Ann Murphy’s recent book, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, especially her argument that philosophy’s identity and relation to itself depends on an intimate relationship with that which is designated as not itself, the latter of which is a potential source of shame that calls for some form of response. I argue that this shame is particularly acute in regard to the natural sciences, which have gone on in (...) various ways to distance themselves from their progenitor discipline and to achieve both agreement and technical progress in a way that could never be said of philosophy. I trace out some of the reactions to this shame that have dominated in the twentieth century and been a factor in the so-called analytic-continental ‘divide’. The options here are many and varied, but they range from cannibalism, scientific naturalism, or some kind of irenic separatism about methods or domains such that science and philosophy do not encroach upon the territory of each other. My aims here are mainly diagnostic, but I will indicate where I think that certain responses to this shame are unproductive and unhelpful, with divergent weaknesses associated with the traditions that have come to be labelled ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ respectively. My tacit suggestion, then, is that philosophy needs to become post-analytic and meta-continental, but I will also briefly criticize some recent efforts to do precisely this in what is sometimes called the ‘scientific turn’ in contemporary continental philosophy. (shrink)

In this chapter we examine the relationship between biological information, the key biological concept of specificity, and recent philosophical work on causation. We begin by showing how talk of information in the molecular biosciences grew out of efforts to understand the sources of biological specificity. We then introduce the idea of ‘causal specificity’ from recent work on causation in philosophy, and our own, information theoretic measure of causal specificity. Biological specificity, we argue, is simple the causal specificity of certain (...) biological processes. This, we suggest, means that causal relationships in biology are ‘informational’ relationships simply when they are highly specific relationships. Biological information can be identified with the storage, transmission and exercise of biological specificity. It has been argued that causal relationships should not be regarded as informational relationship unless they are ‘arbitrary’. We argue that, whilst arbitrariness is an important feature of many causal relationships in living systems, it should not be used in this way to delimit biological information. Finally, we argue that biological specificity, and hence biological information, is not confined to nucleic acids but distributed among a wide range of entities and processes. (shrink)

It has long been claimed that moral judgements are dominated by reason. In recent years, however, the tide has turned. Many psychologists and philosophers now hold the view that there is a close empirical association between moral judgements and emotions. In particular, they claim that emotions (1) co-occur with moral judgements, (2) causally influence moral judgements, (3) are causally sufficient for moral judgements, and (4) are causally necessary for moral judgements. At first sight these hypotheses seem well-supported. In this (...) paper I show, however, that appearances are deceiving. If one considers the relevant scientific studies in detail, one finds that in many interpretations the above hypotheses are either not supported or even contradicted by the available evidence. This conclusion is significant both for our understanding of moral judgements qua empirical phenomena and for normative ethics and metaethics. (shrink)

Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book explores the emerging topics and rapid technological developments of robotics and artificial intelligence through the lens of the evolving role of sex robots, and how they should best be designed to serve human needs. An international panel of authors provides the most up-to-date, evidence-based empirical research on the potential sexual applications of artificial intelligence. Early chapters discuss the objections to sexual activity with robots while also providing a counterargument to each objection. Subsequent chapters (...) present the implications of robot sex as well as the security and data privacy issues associated with sexual interactions with artificial intelligence. The book concludes with a chapter highlighting the importance of a scientific, multidisciplinary approach to the study of human - robot sexuality. Topics featured in this book include: The Sexual Interaction Illusion Model. The personal companion system, Harmony, designed by RealbotixTM. An exposition of the challenges of personal data control and protection when dealing with artificial intelligence. The current and future technological possibilities of projecting three-dimensional holograms. Expert discussion notes from an international workshop on the topic. AI Love You will be of interest to academic researchers in psychology, robotics, ethics, medical science, sociology, gender studies as well as clinicians, policy makers, and the business sector. (shrink)

Commonly referred to as “cougars,” women who date younger men are often imagined as sexually assertive women who actively seek out and seduce younger men, therefore challenging major pillars of the traditional heterosexual dating script. Drawing on 55 semi-structured interviews with women aged 30-60 who date younger men, I explore the relationship formation process women experienced with younger men with the intent of shedding light on women’s behavior in that context. I found that, contrary to common (...) cultural representations of “cougars,” very few women depicted themselves as seductresses who pursued younger men, with younger men passively waiting to be courted. However, the tendency to present oneself as having played a rather passive role during the relationship formation process was more pronounced among participants over 40 than among 30-something women. I argue that in the context of age-hypogamous dating, women’s ability/desire to renegotiate the gendered script for relationship formation is constrained by the common cultural discourse indicating that a woman’s worth declines with age, as well as by the cultural discomfort toward older women’s sexuality. (shrink)

In this article the authors1 approach material and symbolic violence through transdisciplinary readings of theoretical debates, fiction and empirical narratives. They make use of the concept of turning points which disrupt dichotomous and static categorizations of victim and survivor, and their association with passivity and agency respectively. In situations of violence, turning points represent temporality instead of timelessness, dialogism instead of monologism, multilayering rather than any fixed identity. The authors draw on the theorists Bakhtin and Certeau, whose work highlights (...) the significance of meaning-making between self and other. They analyse empirical and fictional narratives to understand the creation of dialogic spaces, a space that both subordinates and subverts. Pointing to the procedural nature of turning points within the everyday, the authors argue that women, despite the pain and trauma, are neither just a victim nor just a survivor in a violent relationship. (shrink)

In what circumstances, if any, are intimate relationships between faculty members and students at the same academic institution morally permissible? Relationships can be sexual without the involvement of any intimate romantic feelings, or romantic without any sexual intimacy. By "intimate relationships" I mean those involving either kind of intimacy. Since adult humans should normally be allowed to choose with whom they have intimate relationships, the burden of proof is on the person who would restrict faculty-student (...) relationships to show why they are morally wrong. Although none of my main arguments depend on the gender of the faculty member and student, we need to bear in mind that the vast majority of such relationships occur between male faculty and female students. Gender inequalities in our society are likely to exacerbate the concerns that I discuss in section 2a about female students' ability to give fully voluntary consent to intimate relationships with male professors, and these inequalities also create the danger, which I discuss in section 3, that such relationships may perpetuate negative stereotypes about women. (shrink)

As part of the social distancing measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19, many university courses were moved online. There is an assumption that online teaching limits opportunities for fostering interpersonal relationships and students’ satisfaction of the basic need for relatedness – reflected by experiencing meaningful interpersonal connections and belonging – which are considered important prerequisites for student motivation and vitality. In educational settings, an important factor affecting students’ relatedness satisfaction is the teachers’ behavior. Although research suggests that relatedness satisfaction (...) may be impaired in online education settings, to date no study has assessed how university lecturers’ relatedness support might be associated with student relatedness satisfaction and therefore, student motivation and vitality. This study tested this mediating relationship using data collected during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also investigated whether the relations were moderated by a high affiliation motive which reflects a dispositional wish for positive and warm relationships. The possible importance of the communication channel selected by the lecturers and the format of a class were also investigated. In a sample of N = 337 students, we tested our hypotheses using structural equation model. Results confirmed mediation, but not moderation. The use of video chat seems to facilitate the provision of relatedness support but our data did not show that the format of a class was associated with relatedness. Our findings indicate that both teaching behavior and the technical format used to deliver lectures play important roles in student experiences with online classes. The results are discussed in light of other research conducted during the pandemic. (shrink)

This article is based on a research project drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews (N=61) and data from a survey (N=628) of young people and parents belonging to the five largest ethnic minority groups in Denmark. The theoretical framework combines conceptualisations about conflict and the family with theories about modernisation/individualisation and discrimination effects. The dominating tendencies in the inter-generational relationships between young people and their parents on the subject of the young people’s intimate partnership formation are analysed and discussed. (...) The ethic minority youth and parents’ reflections on the ethnic majority partnership formation patterns are delineated. The analyses indicate that r elationships between young people and parents on the issue of intimate partnership formation can be cooperative or in opposition. This is contrary to the widespread discourse about serious conflicts between generations. Thus the article criticises the reductionistic conception of partnership formation being a question of either-or processes, i.e. own choice or parental choice, and appeals for broad concepts which include both-and processes, i.e. own choice and parental accept. (shrink)

This is a review and critical commentary on Michael Plaxton's 2015 book, Implied Consent and Sexual Assault, in which he proposes that the legal definition of sexual consent be amended to permit sexual partners to define the terms and conditions of sexual consent in accordance with private "normative commitments" between themselves. The proposed "reform" is intended to permit an individual to agree to be a party to sexual activity that would otherwise constitute sexual assault under Canadian law. For reasons (...) explained in the review, this reviewer concludes that Plaxton's proposal and the rationale he presents in support of its adoption are unpersuasive. (shrink)

This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in studying more and more complex mental processes, and in (...) particular as researchers focus on what they term `the social brain', a potential paradox arises from the commitment to the straightforward location of brain function and recognition of the more distributed and intersubjective nature of the objects of their study. Consequently, in order to elicit specific mental activities, such as empathy, the scientists inevitably employ a range of socially based resources, which includes establishing a personal relationship with the volunteers. The scientists themselves see this as ensuring that they can trust that the volunteers will participate in the ways intended. But in contrast, the article argues that the central feature is actually the creation of a sense of intimacy, which serves to align the expectations and experiences of volunteer and researcher. Yet, while this relationship is necessary in order to ensure the required mental state is generated, during the experiment itself a great deal of work is then done to ensure it can be excluded from the final conceptualization of mental activity. (shrink)

The anthropology of Colin E. Gunton begins with the Trinity and specifically, the person of Christ. From trinitarian persons, Gunton deduces the ontological definition of what it means to be a person, that is, a being in relationship and in distinction, or ‘free relatedness’. To be a person is to be in the image of the personal God, which is christological language, for it is Christ who bears the image of God in its fullness. As the (...) true image bearer, Christ’s humanity is paradigmatic of what it means to be in relationship: with God, with the world and with other human persons. Gunton’s christology is also thoroughly pneumatological, borrowing Irenaeus’ metaphor of God’s ‘two hands in the world’: The Son and the Spirit. Not only do the Son and the Spirit mediate God’s presence to creation according to Irenaeus, but Gunton builds on this metaphor to include the Spirit’s mediation of the eternal Son to the Father as well as the Incarnate Son to humanity. The Spirit also reshapes humanity to be in the image of Christ, through his relationships with God, with the world and with other human persons. This is an eschatological project, for in this reshaping, the creation is recreated toward its teleological perfection. The article concludes with a potential direction for future study within Gunton’s christological anthropology. To conceive what it means to be human theologically, Gunton insists that we must look to Christ’s own person. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus by Andrew Hofer, O.P.Lewis AyresChrist in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus. By Andrew Hofer, O.P. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xi + 270. $105.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-19-968194-5.Fr. Andrew Hofer has written a cleverly conceived treatise on Gregory Nazianzen, one whose main focus is Gregory’s vision of his own life (and the life of (...) Christians more generally) as both imitatio Christi and participatio Christi. Hofer grounds his account of this imitatio and participatio in Gregory’s core dogmatic account of the person of Christ. The book thus offers us a study, focusing on one central author, of the ways in which a Nicene Christology could shape and stimulate (as well as be shaped and stimulated by) an account of the Christian life.The first chapter is an extended meditation on the nature of the “word” in Gregory. Here, Hofer begins by exploring how Gregory situates himself in the ancient battle—or at least the ancient literary topos of such a battle—between philosophy and rhetoric. Not surprisingly, Hofer emphasizes that Gregory sees himself as a philosopher, but one for whom the Christian life offers the true form of a philosophical life. The discussion then turns toward ways in which Gregory sees the Scriptures as providing a basis for discussing and modeling virtually all aspects of the Christian life. Hofer offers a little discussion of the manner in which Gregory adapts ancient rhetorical traditions of, for example, the paradeigma (see 44), but these debts are acknowledged mostly en passant.The second chapter takes us to the heart of the book and does an excellent job of setting up the author’s theme. Considering Gregory’s poetic auto-biographical [End Page 314] writing, Hofer argues that Gregory not only “blends Christ into the troubles, fears, and joys of his own life” but that he also “makes present the baptismal mysteries of one’s life immersed in Christ’s life” (56). In chapter 5, this extra dimension will receive a foundation in an account of the ways in which Gregory sees Christians drawn into the very events of Christ’s life (156-60, commenting particularly on Gregory’s Or. 40). There, Hofer emphasizes that Christ’s life is itself “a mimesis of ours” (160), creating realities that may be models for ours, models into which we are then drawn. But, in chapter 2 itself, Hofer’s main concern is to show the sheer variety of ways in which Gregory interweaves the scriptural account of Christ’s life and ministry with his own. This complex set of reference styles is termed Gregory’s “autobiographical Christology.”Chapter 3 pursues this agenda by turning to the ways in which Gregory uses the terminology of “mixture” to describe Christ—and to describe Christ’s relationship to Christians. It is this chapter that Stanley Hauerwas, were he endorsing the book, would say is “worth the price of the book alone.” Two things are particularly noteworthy. The first is the helpful discussion of the philosophical traditions that lie behind the terms Gregory uses. Hofer wishes us to take seriously traditions of thought on this theme that run between Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias, rather than to place most weight on the Stoic tradition. Hofer advocates for his thesis in a sensitive fashion, emphasizing the difficulty in distinguishing distinct traditions in late antiquity. Second, there is much to be learned from the manner in which Hofer stretches discussion of Christ himself as “mixture” so that it provides insight into Gregory’s account of the Christian’s relationship with Christ.Chapter 4 follows a similar pattern, showing that a discussion of Christ’s person in Gregory’s writings (in this case, the famous sequence epp. 101, 102, and 202) has repercussions for wider themes. This chapter is less successful, in large part because of the sheer scale of the exercise attempted by Hofer. The largest section of the chapter (123-47) offers an extended discussion of Gregory’s ep. 101. This famous letter gives an extended critique of Christological error. Hofer begins by situating... (shrink)

The best philosophy of science during the last generation has been highly historical; and the best history of science, highly philosophical. No one has better exemplified this intimate relationship between history and philosophy than has Robert E. Butts in his work. Through out his numerous writings, science, its philosophy, and its history have been treated as a seamless web. The result has been a body of work that is sensitive in its conception, ambitious in its scope, and illuminat (...) ing in its execution. Not only has his work opened new paths of inquiry, but his enthusiasm for the discipline, his encouragement of others (particularly students and younger colleagues), and his tireless efforts to build an international community of scholars, have stimulated the growth of HPS throughout Europe and North America. Many of the essays in this volume reflect that influence. Our title, of course, is deliberately ambiguous. The essays herein are by colleagues and former students, all of us wishing to honour an intimate friend. Happy Birthday, Bob! IX INTRODUCTION The essays herein cover a variety of concerns: from Descartes to reduction, from Galileo to gambling, from Freud's psychoanalysis to Kant's thing-in-itself. But under this diversity there is an approach common to them all. Things are largely done with a concern for and a sensitivity to historical matters (including contemporary history, of course). (shrink)

Spiritual insecurity among African Christians is a huge challenge. The insecurity among other things arises from African people’s former traditional African ancestral world view of ancestral veneration. The ancestors promote or hinder African Christians’ reliance on Christ because they have presupposedly acquired the supernatural power that enables them to provide diagnoses and solutions to life challenges. The inherent problem in the ancestral world view, however, is that the ancestors are both respected and feared by their descendants because they can (...) either bless or harm depending on the state of the relationship between the surviving human beings and the ancestors. The basis of the unpredictable influence of ancestors lies in the fact that they are considered as human beings who carry their human qualities to the spiritual world. In light of this situation, one constructive approach that can be advanced to address the challenges of African Christians’ spiritual insecurity is a proper understanding of Christ as a sinless representative of humanity. This approach maintains that healing and coping with life within the challenge of African spirituality in the context of threatening life issues can be addressed by an appropriate understanding of Christ’s sinlessness. The article argues for the foundational status of Christ as a sinless representative of humanity as the controlling framework. In doing so, Christ’s sinlessness and the sinfulness of natural ancestors are juxtaposed to compare the two ontologies in order to draw some pastoral guidelines for African Christians. This approach pays close attention to the factors and mindset that sustain people who adhere to ancestral worship and assess them through a lens of Christology focusing on Christ’s sinlessness as an exemplary doctrine. (shrink)

The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children's upbringing. Family Values provides a major new theoretical account of the morality and politics of the family, telling us why the family is valuable, who has the right to parent, and what rights parents should—and should not—have over their children. Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift argue that parent-child relationships produce (...) the "familial relationship goods" that people need to flourish. Children's healthy development depends on intimate relationships with authoritative adults, while the distinctive joys and challenges of parenting are part of a fulfilling life for adults. Yet the relationships that make these goods possible have little to do with biology, and do not require the extensive rights that parents currently enjoy. Challenging some of our most commonly held beliefs about the family, Brighouse and Swift explain why a child's interest in autonomy severely limits parents' right to shape their children's values, and why parents have no fundamental right to confer wealth or advantage on their children. Family Values reaffirms the vital importance of the family as a social institution while challenging its role in the reproduction of social inequality and carefully balancing the interests of parents and children. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar a semântica da palavra Eros dentro da tradição cristã. Limita-se a algumas dessas significações. A reflexão mostra a limitação dessa expressão na língua portuguesa. Seu significado é muito mais rico na língua grega. Se a tradição cristã carregou esta palavra de forma negativa, outros Padres leram-na em sintonia com Ágape e com outros significados. A relação mística a interpreta como uma relação “erótica” entre homem e Deus. Esta intimidade procura explicar o aspecto do desejo (...) de Deus e da relação mútua entre aquele que ama e o amado, que tem sua raiz na busca mais íntima da humanidade. Negar por preconceitos palavras carregadas de desejos não divinos e nem dignos da humanidade, como na Antigüidade, é reduzir demais seu campo semântico na história. Esta palavra reflete o amor da alma para com Deus numa perspectiva mística, assume variações significativas, dentre tantas, como o amor de Jesus Cristo, como sinônimas de Ágape, do amor de Deus para com os homens, como amor individual ligado a Deus, o Eros como virtude e como castidade. A compreensão das dimensões do amor se realiza na capacidade de ver que todas elas são positivas e importantes para obtermos o equilíbrio da vida humana, numa harmonia destas dimensões constitutivas e importantes para a vida. Palavras-chave: Eros; Patrística; Amor; Alma; Mística; Virtude; Castidade e Ágape. ABSTRACT This article aims at demonstrating the semantics of the term Eros in Christian tradition, pointing out the limitations of the term in Portuguese. The scope of its meaning is much wider in Greek. If Christian tradition has charged the word with a negative feature, other priests have read it in tune with Agape and other meanings. The mystical perspective interprets it as an ‘erotic’ relationship between man and God. Such intimacy attempts to explain God’s desire and the mutual relation between the one who loves and the beloved, rooted in mankind’s most intimate longing. To deny, on account of prejudice, words charged with non-divine desires unworthy of humanity, as happened in antiquity, is to reduce their semantic field in history. That word reflects the soul’s love for God in a mystical perspective and assumes meaningful variations, among which Christ’s love, ‘Agape’ or God’s love for men, and individual love connected with God: ‘Eros’ as virtue and chastity. The comprehension of the dimensions of love takes place in the capacity to realize that they are all positive and relevant to human life’s balance, in the harmony of those dimensions that constitute life. Key words: Eros; Patristics; Love; Soul; The mystical; Virtue; Chastity; Agape. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:One Parable, Two Interpretations:Pope Francis and William Langland on the Good Samaritan*Sheryl OvermyerInterpretations of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) focus on its theology, ethics, ecclesiology, and even moral psychology. The parable has much to say regarding holiness. It treats how to become holy and distinct acts of holiness, the exemplar of holiness, and the reality and effects of sin. In the history of interpretation, the parable (...) is taken to offer a model of the relationship between the fallen man and grace, the devil and the garment of virtue, the law and love, Christ and the Church. In short, the parable allegorizes salvation history.1I focus conversation about this parable through two interpretations-Pope Francis's Fratelli Tutti [FT], promulgated October 3, 2020, and William Langland's Piers Plowman [PP] circulating circa 1380. Some might hold that Francis's interpretation of the parable is ethical while Langland's is theological.2 Both interpretations of the parable are works of moral theology that intimate distinct understandings of what it means to embody [End Page 541] the Gospel and answer the universal call to holiness. In this essay, I outline the parable of the Good Samaritan as treated in Fratelli Tutti and Piers Plowman (first section), compare the major figures of the parable (second section), and compare their visions of charity (third section). In sum, I argue the encyclical sidelines crucial elements in the medieval figuration of the parable. Pope Francis elides critical issues of sin, agency, Christology, and the Church traditionally associated with this parable—all center on the Samaritan as Christ.Two Interpretations in OutlineFratelli Tutti's Parable of the Good SamaritanPope Francis's third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, is unique in its genre. The encyclical includes all brothers and sisters in its scope of fraternity and social friendship and is addressed to all (§1). The inspiration for the encyclical includes St. Francis's visit to the Sultan some eight hundred years ago and the 2019 Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, a statement signed by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. Indeed, the joint document plays a critical role in the encyclical, sharing a common framework of a doctrine of creation and doctrine of God (FT §5). Because Pope Francis includes all of humanity in the audience of this encyclical and its sources of inspiration are broadly humanitarian, it is fair to raise a question about distinctively Catholic elements to the encyclical.The encyclical chapter devoted to the parable of the Good Samaritan (chapter 2 [§§56–86], treating Luke 10:25–37) intensifies these theological questions. Just as the encyclical is "addressed to all people of good will, regardless of religious convictions," likewise the parable is of universal relevance as it "is one that any of us can relate to and find challenging" (§56). Francis's interpretation of the parable encapsulates Fratelli Tutti's themes.The subject of the parable is, according to Pope Francis, the age-old problem of neighborly love (§57).3 The parable involves several figures: the wounded man lying on the wayside, the robbers, the passers-by, and the Samaritan.4 The wounded are the subject of the encyclical's first chapter. Francis characterizes the wounded as those members of weaker and poorer regions whom the global economy exploits; the poor, disabled, and elderly [End Page 542] who seem no longer useful; children, women, and men of all ages who live under contemporary forms of slavery such as trafficking; and victims of economically driven violence including war, terrorist attacks, and racial and religious persecution (§§§ 12, 18, 24–25). Francis admits that we feel like the wounded, "helpless because our institutions are neglected and lack resources, or simply serve the interests of a few" (§76). However, the primary identification of the wounded focuses on those pushed to the margins by profit-driven economic, technologically progressive, politically divisive, dehumanizing global forces (§76 briefly suggests our identification with the injured man).The parable of the Good Samaritan brings these vast forces to bear our everyday relationships—we all experience an interior struggle when we encounter anyone who suffers (§69... (shrink)

Christophe Gripon | : La figure biblique érotisée de la Sagesse Éternelle et son lien avec Christ a amené certains hommes à percevoir Christ dans son reflet féminin et à vivre une relation érotique avec Lui/Elle. La dualité entre deux pôles antinomiques de Christ, l’un pleinement masculin et l’autre pleinement féminin, pourrait être abordée dans une approche apophatique de la tension entre deux pôles opposés, aux antipodes d’une asexualisation de Christ. Reconnaître ainsi le reflet féminin de (...) Christ pourrait contribuer à Le/La rendre plus « aimable » pour les hommes et participer au débat concernant une théologie spirituelle qui tienne compte de l’importance du désir érotique dans la relation à Christ. | : The eroticized biblical figure of Eternal Wisdom and its link with Christ has led some men to perceive Christ in his female reflection and to live an erotic relation with He/She. The duality between two paradoxical poles of Christ, one fully male and the other fully female, could be addressed in an apophatic approach of the tension between two opposite poles, the antipodes of an asexualisation of Christ. Thus recognizing the female reflection of Christ could contribute to make Him/Her more “attractive” for men and to take part in the debate about a spiritual theology which takes into account the importance of sensual attraction in the relationship with Christ. (shrink)

This article theorises the relationship between 1970s US Third World queer and feminist movements and Latin American anti-imperialist revolutions of the late twentieth century. I focus upon the historically occluded relationships between Third World feminists and queers in Chile and the United States throughout the transition to neoliberalism. My archive includes June Jordan’s little-known writings on Chile, the writings of Audre Lorde, and, primarily, a 1973 Third World feminist poetry reading staged in San Francisco shortly after the Pinochet coup. (...) By assembling this unconventional archive, I intervene into the domestication of US anti-racist queer, black and feminist of colour politics. I argue for the profoundly internationalist foundation of these formations. I work to re-animate a moment when the affective economies of anti-colonial ‘global revolution’ opened up space for the imagination of joint struggle – allowing a visceral sense of struggle’s urgency and vitality in ways that have since been partially eclipsed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concept of ‘intimate citizenship’ stresses the right of people to choose how they organize their personal lives and claim identities. Support and interest groups are seen as playing an important role in the pursuit of recognition for these intimate choices, by elaborating visible and positive cultures that invade broader public spheres. Most studies on intimate citizenship take into consideration the exclusions these groups encounter when negotiating their differences with society at large. However, much less (...) attention is paid to the ways in which these groups internalize the surrounding ideologies, identity categories and hierarchies that pervade society and constrain their recognition as full citizens. In contrast, this paper aims to emphasize the reproduction of otherness within alternative spheres of life, and to reveal the ambiguities and complexities involved in their dialectic relationship with society at large. To address this issue, the paper focuses on the role that ‘adoption cultures’ of Flemish adoptive parents with children from Ethiopia play in the pursuit of being recognized as ‘proper’ families and full citizens. The ethnographic research among adoptive parents and adoption professionals shows a defensive discourse and action that aims at empowering against potential problems, as well as a tendency to other the adoptive child by pathologizing its non‐normativity. By showing the strong embeddedness of adoptive families' practices of familial and cultural construction in larger cultural frames of selfing and othering, characterized by biologism and nativism, one begins to understand the limits of their capacity to realize full citizenship. (shrink)

The article begins with the gospels’ admonition to take up one's cross and asks how Christians might understand Christ's work on the cross so that we might better imitate or participate in it. Using tools from recent advances in literary analysis and systematic theology, the article attempts to provide some answer to this question. It considers contemporary feminist and liberation theologians’ criticism of the common but problematic interpretation of Christ's cross, what is often called ‘substitutionary penal atonement.’ (...) It compares this with Anselm's atonement theory of satisfaction and Bernard Lonergan's and René Girard's analysis of the cross as a communication of love that invites others into loving relationship. With these interpretations of Christ's work, it concludes with some thoughts on how Christians might take up their own daily crosses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:258 Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Mei-Hua Chen and Hong-zen Wang Flexible Intimacies in the Global Intimate Economy: Evidence from Taiwan’s Cross-Border Marriages When Lin Ping was interviewed by the first author of this article at a detention center in the southern city of Tainan, Taiwan, in September 2006, she was forty-three. At that time, she had been married to a Taiwanese (...) man for five years and had successfully obtained a permit for employment at a factory, earning NT$27,000 a month for working ten hours a day. However, before having obtained the work permit, Lin managed to find jobs in informal sectors as a cleaner, a care worker, and a stall vendor’s helper, earning NT$15,000 a month. By the time of our interview, Lin had gone to work at a brothel because she could not put up with her husband anymore. Lin’s husband is twenty years older than she is and, as she described their relationship, the huge age gap makes communication between the couple difficult. They fought often and fiercely. During those fights, Lin’s husband would threaten to divorce her and to not renew her application for residency, which would result in her immediate deportation to China. This did happen once when Lin’s husband refused to renew her work permit. As a result, Lin overstayed her visa and lost her job at the factory. Being thus unemployed, Lin had to dip into her savings and risked going into debt. Her dire financial situation caused her anxiety. Losing the regular income provided by her factory job meant not only having nothing to live on but also being unable to send money back home to China. Given that her marriage failed to provide her the work permit she needed, Lin wanted to leave her husband Mei-Hua Chen and Hong-zen Wang 259 and “go out” for her own good. When asked what she thinks of the stigma attached to commercial sex, Lin replied, “I need to be able to feed myself first. But if you don’t have a work permit and a job, it [sex work] is the only way out. So, I thought I would do it.” She continued: “Once I had the money, I would be able to run a small business such as a noodle stall or selling steam dumplings.” Lin Ping’s stories serve to sketch out the interconnectedness between cross-border sex work and cross-border marriage. As her experiences show, cross-border sex work and marriage tend to overlap in certain spheres; however, they are more often than not conceptualized as two separate institutions. Both are grouped under already dichotomized migratory categories such as marriage migrants and economic migrants, real marriage and fake marriage, legal workers and workers without permits, and legal and illegal migrants, etc. Such dichotomization downplays the fact that many marriage migrants, like economic migrants, invest great economic interests in cross-border marriages; it also downplays the fact that migrant sex workers might also be involved in having intimate relationships with someone. Apart from the entanglement of monetary exchange and intimacy, cross-border marriage and cross-border sex work are also parts of a global intimate economy in which the Global North appropriates southern women’s reproductive and intimate labor. Seen in this light, it becomes urgent to theorize how women from the South manage to survive in the global intimate economy by shifting between cross-border marriage and cross-border sex work in the North. Admittedly, such a Global North-and-South framework fits awkwardly when it comes to understanding Taiwan’s situation because economic development is the sole barometer used to define the North and the South, and economically, Taiwan should be in the North camp. Politically, however, due to the majority of nations not recognizing its sovereignty, Taiwan is much more peripheral than most southern countries, let alone China. Therefore, compared to countries in Southeast Asia, Taiwan is economically North but politically South. This semi-peripheral position in the North-South framework, in our view, makes Taiwan a unique case to theorize the global intimate economy. As a tactic... (shrink)

This work aims to understand how a subject can be sentimentally and intimately self-realized by having a relationship with other people through computer technologies. We will analyze the relations binding together the subjects when their “presence” and “interactions” are digitally mediated thanks to a phenomenological analysis. In the first part, we will highlight the differences of using digital devices instead of having face-to-face meetings, especially in virtual worlds. In the second part, we will focus on how other digital (...) devices differently mediate the relation between the subjects, and so we will show how some technologies like teledildo provide elements close to the ones we find in a face-to-face meeting while other technologies like virtual realities do not. (shrink)

John Chrysostom’s De sacerdotio offers a reordering of social relationships that can be seen in comparison with the life and writings of Gregory of Nazianzus.Chrysostom understands that the priest’s relationship with Christ carries the priest above the laws of relationship governing earthly society, such as in friendship and family. By emphasizing the priesthood’s transcendent character even further than what Gregory had done, Chrysostom frees the priest from the pressures of constricting social laws so that the (...) priest may live according to Christ alone. Chrysostom’s dialogue thus prepares us to encounter his own ministry, known by both admirers and detractors for flagrant disregard of elite society’s expectations. (shrink)

This paper posits that the writings of Hélène Cixous convey a remarkable intimacy, firstly in the representation of love, with its relationship to knowledge and time; and, secondly, in the relationship her texts create with the reader. Cixous’s use of her life, from the publication of her dreams to the life events which are the creative impetus for texts such as The Book of Promethea and The Day I Wasn’t There inform a discussion of the figures (...) of the lover, the dead child, and that of the brother, his interdiction against appearing in her texts, and the ethical dimension this produces for the reader. Finally, the implications of Cixous’s imbrication of literature, dreaming, writing and life is considered as a gesture of intimacy which opens a possibility for radically reconceiving our usual separation of these realms of experience. (shrink)

A renewed focus on the role of interpersonal relationships in the cultivation of religious sensibilities is emerging in the study of religion. Matthew Ryan Robinson addresses this question in his study of Friedrich Schleiermacher's notion of "free sociability." In Schleiermacher's ethics, the human person is formed in and consists of intimate, tightly interconnecting relationships with others. Schleiermacher describes this sociability as a natural tendency prompted by experiences of physical and existential limitation that lead one to look to others (...) to complete one's experience. But this experience of incompleteness and orientation to "the completion of humanity" also constitute the fundamental structure of religion in Schleiermacher's theory of religion as orientation to "the universe and the relationship of humanity to it." Thus, Schleiermacher not only presents sociability as basic to human nature, but also as inherently religious - and, potentially, redemptive. What making such a claim means and the implications it raises are central considerations of this study of Schleiermacher's ethics, theory of religion and ecclesiology. (shrink)

In this article, we conceptualize the under investigated and under theorized relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and business responsibility. As an urgent social issue, IPV—understood as abuse of power within the context of an intimate partner relationship, mainly perpetrated by men and involving a pattern of behavior—has been studied for decades in many disciplines. A less common yet vital research perspective is to examine IPV as it relates to the business and to ask how organizations (...) should engage with IPV. In response to this question, we contribute a framework drawing from two distinctions in the business responsibility scholarship: the assumed role of the organization (responsibility to the firm/market; responsibility to the broader socio-political-economic environment); and the second focused on the approach to conceptualizing ethics (justice/fairness; ethics of care). Thus, we explicate four approaches to business responsibility and IPV, which serve the purposes of mapping three selected contributions, identifying limitations of these approaches, and opening up future research opportunities. (shrink)

Modernist literature of the early to mid-twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic is replete with examples of a particular kind of relationship with objects, namely, the touching, collecting, and grasping of small, often highly personal, and ostensibly quotidian objects. From John’s glass collection in Woolf’s “Solid Objects,” Peter Walsh’s stroking of his pocket-knife in Mrs. Dalloway, Miriam’s frenzied absorption with flowers in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, to Laura’s fiddling of her glass menagerie in Tennessee (...) Williams’s eponymous play, fidgeting in modernist literature and drama reveals a particular tendency of not just characters’ possession of things but also their possession by things. This phenomenon, I argue, allows characters to practice care as they withdraw from oppressive narratives of normalcy and (economic and biological) productivity, challenging their exclusionary and othering configurations. My paper looks at fidgeting in The Glass Menagerie as a part of this larger ideological and haptic orientation in modernist literature. The care invested by Laura in her intimate relationship with these “playthings” allows her to intercept not only male narrativizing forces and articulation of herself but also the rhetoric of productivity that circulates both within the play and in the larger economic backdrop of post-depression America. My paper attempts to foreground these objects of care in our readings of the play and modernist texts in general and, in so doing, highlight their importance as lenses of analysis that render visible alternate forms of agency and resistance. Lastly, it attempts to reframe fidgeting as an act of embodied refusal, evoking the radical potential of refusal within feminist and disability studies. (shrink)

In the Buddhist ethical traditions, equanimity along with love, compassion, and sympathetic joy form what are called the four boundless qualities, which are affective states one cultivates for moral and spiritual development. But there is a sense in which equanimity seems very unlike the three others: love, compassion, and sympathetic joy all imply an emotional investment in others, whereas equanimity seems to imply an absence of such investment. This observation has provoked debate as to how to properly understand the (...) relationship between equanimity and the other three qualities. In this paper, I propose that equanimity - like love, compassion, and sympathetic joy - is itself a virtue of good intimate relationships and not in conflict with such virtues. (shrink)

Making good moral choices should not be difficult, says Fr. Al McBride in this thoughtful book. In Christ Our Compass, he focuses on the moral teachings of the Church as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Part Three, Life in Christ), emphasizing throughout that at the heart of these teachings is the love of God for humankind. Above all, a deep sense of joy and grace is woven throughout the course of this book. The book guides (...) with a gentle hand in discussing topics such as sin and moral sense; family values; medical and moral issues; war; the death penalty; sexuality; honesty; grace and joy; the Church as teacher; and the Beatitudes. It offers contemporary examples of situations where moral choices were made, pointing out the relationship of actions taken to the teachings of the Church. It touches on the Ten Commandments as cornerstones of a moral life, while encouraging consideration of the Great Commandment as the guidestar in our choices. Christ Our Compass is a practical, faith-filled look at living rightly. It will be of great benefit to all who seek to live a Christian life guided by the compassionate example of Jesus and teachings of the Catholic Church. (shrink)

This article examines the question of whether universities and colleges should attempt to ban all student-faculty relationships, as many have tried to do. It argues that, because adults have a fundamental right to engage in intimate relationships without interference, supporters of relationship bans must meet a high standard in defending them. But outright bans on such relationships cannot meet this standard. Though the desire to create a secure environment for students is legitimate and important, it cannot be shown (...) that relationship bans are necessary or proportional means of doing so. Besides being a violation of the rights of the people involved, relationship bans have a negative impact on the larger university community. The argument is not a defense of such relationships per se. Romantic interactions between students and faculty are invariably complicated and perilous, and should be approached with caution. (shrink)

Love is a universal experience that most people desire. A serious, long-term, and stigmatized illness makes entering and maintaining close relationships difficult, however. Ten persons, who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and lived with their illness for between years and decades of their lifetimes, shared their stories. They reported how the illness has influenced their emotional experiences regarding love and their intimate relationship experiences. We present here a qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological analysis (IPA) of their narratives. This (...) analysis has been done with an explicit intention to give voice to the patient’s perspective. The results highlight how illness adjustment and hospitalizations have an alienating effect on relationships through stigmatization and self-stigmatization; how illness creates psychological obstacles to love, such as diminished trust toward oneself and others; and how long-term patients experience practical difficulties in creating and sustaining relationships, such as poverty. Moreover, we show how patients experience changes in sexuality and the risks involved in it, and discuss possible coping strategies from their perspectives. (shrink)

Within the framework of 'Temporalities and the Urban Fabric: Co-Producing Liminal Spaces in Transitional Epochs,' this rigorous examination unravels the multilayered nuances of temporality and its intimate relationship with urban spaces in times of transition. The research delineates the intricate interplay between public exhibitions, urban realms, and socio-political paradigms, particularly within the dynamic settings of the metropolitan entities of Houston and Amsterdam. These cities, as epitomes of temporal urban flux, become fertile grounds for exploring the ephemeral essence (...) of liminal spaces and their transformative manifestations. By weaving together diverse academic domains – from Design Computation and Fabrication to Urban Communities and Spatial Justice – this study underscores the symbiotic fusion of Augmented Reality (AR) and Gamification within the broader canvas of urban temporalities. Crucially, the research accentuates the transformative potential of Extended Reality (XR) in augmenting the theoretical and methodological contours of urban studies within these transitional epochs. (shrink)

The joy of intimacy--with yourself, with others, and with the whole universe. The long-awaited first book from a prominent modern American Zen teacher. For Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, intimacy is what Zen practice is all about: the realization of the essential lack of distinction between self and other that inevitably leads to wisdom and compassionate action. She approaches the practice of intimacy beginning at its most basic level--the intimacy with ourselves that is the essential first step. (...) She then shows how to bring intimacy into our relationships with others, starting with those dearest to us and moving on to those who don't seem dear at all. She then shows how to grow in intimacy so that we include everyone around us, all of society, the whole world and all the beings it contains. Each chapter is accompanied by practices she uses with her students at the Village Zendo for manifesting intimacy in our lives. (shrink)