Health disparities education is an integral and required part of medical professional training, and yet existing curricula often fail to effectively denaturalize injustice or empower learners to advocate for change. We discuss a novel collaborative intervention that weds the health humanities to the field of health equity. We draw from the health humanities an intentional focus retraining provider imaginations by centering patient narratives; from the field of health equity, we draw the linkage between stigmatized social identities and health disparities. We (...) describe a longitudinal health equity curriculum for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship in Memphis, Tennessee, to give trainees exposure to the concept of structural violence and how it affects clinical care. The curriculum was developed in partnership with humanities and social sciences faculty who staff a Health Equity academic program at a small liberal arts college in Memphis. This curriculum has been implemented for the past four years in support of 22 hospice and palliative medicine fellows. Group debriefs and a mixed methods survey have revealed widespread and lasting impact towards understanding health equity concepts, enhanced communication and treatment of patients, and empowerment to address the broader needs and policies affecting patients and the communities in which they live. Ultimately, we model an educational initiative that integrates equity across the full scope of healthcare practice and equips learners with skills for sustaining compassionate practices, focusing on equity-oriented, person-centered care across the full scope of healthcare practice. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Behavior and mind: The roots of modern psychology by Howard Rachlin . There is an important story about causality in psychology that needs to be told. It is a story which was once well told and widely understood during the Hellenic era, but a number of influential forces in our culture have conspired since then to sweep this story into a dark corner of our intellectual warehouse. In recent centuries, this story has been retrieved from its corner (...) only rarely, and then it has been interpreted in a manner both unnatural to its originators and uncongenial to modern scientists. Authentic reconstructions of this story regarding causes and their effects began to re-emerge in the second half of the twentieth century among biologists and physicists, but it is still rarely heard in psychology. Rachlin's new book, however, tells this story as one of the central themes of the narrative. For this, if for no other reason, this is a book that should be read and carefully considered by all psychologists. The story alluded to is generally called "teleology," and it received its first full treatment by Aristotle in the fourth century before the Christian era. Rachlin delineates these origins, traces them carefully to the present day and develops a persuasive argument for the value and significance of this story for any complete psychological science. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This article assesses the importance of the biblical book of Daniel in the first four Islamic centuries, focusing in particular on the legendary materials contained in Daniel 1–6. The article is divided into three sections. In the first section the treatments of Daniel 1–6 in Isrāʾīliyyāt works are examined, and it is shown that summaries of Daniel 1–6 in these works display evidence of oral transmission. Additionally, it is shown that some authors’ familiarity with Daniel legends led them to insert (...) this character into “biblical” narratives that do not otherwise relate to him. In the second section it is argued that Daniel’s exploits were so widely known that they served as a sort of yardstick for judging the relative importance of some other “heroic” figures who are described in classical Islamic sources. In the third section it is postulated that the introductory sections of Ibn Hishām’s Sīra consciously relate stories with Danielic associations in order to bring the Sīra into line with the Christian Gospels. (shrink)

This is a review article of Gog and Magog in Early Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam’s Quest for Alexander’s Wall. By Emeri van Donzel and Andrea Schmidt. Brill’s Inner Asian Library, vol. 22. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. xx + 271. $147; and Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation and the ‘Abbāsid Empire. By Travis Zadeh. Library of Middle East History, vol. 27. London: i. B. tauris, 2011. Pp. xiv + 316. £59.50, $99.

This article addresses key concepts pertaining to Adab on the one hand and Abbasid administrative practices on the other, by focusing on an unpublished work that straddles both themes. It is shown that Arabic works on both Adab and bureaucracy are difficult to isolate and categorise conclusively as both genres were receptive to diverse flavourings, be they of an ornamental nr of a strictly practical nature. Although the article adopts a comparative approach to these issues, detailed attention is paid to (...) the character of the particular work under discussion and its author. (shrink)

This article seeks to reconsider the meaning of the phrase al-shayṭān al-rajīm. It surveys the controversy surrounding the meaning of rajīm in this context and argues two points: first, that by the time the phrase was employed in the Qurʾan its original meaning had been forgotten, and second, that the original meaning of the term was related to Satan’s role as a heavenly accuser.

…behind the diversity of discoveries [in molecular biology] moved a unity, a constant direction of change, the development of the concept of biological specificity.In his landmark book Evolution by Gene Duplication, geneticist Susumu Ohno pointed out that whereas most evolutionary developments represent adjustments to past challenges and mutations, two unique systems had evolved to deal with future challenges: the immune response and neural memory functions. He named these two evolutionary modes after the Titan brothers of Greek mythology: “standard” evolutionary developments (...) were named for rearward-looking Epimetheus, and “anticipatory” evolutionary mechanisms for foresighted Prometheus (Ohno 1976; Ohno et.. (shrink)

This article aims to contextualize a short Qurʾānic passage – Q 30:2‒5 – with reference to Jewish and Christian materials that have not hitherto been deployed for this purpose. The article builds on the findings of recent scholarship, which reads this passage eschatologically rather than historically, and argues that there are, in fact, two texts that require contextualization: 1) The Qurʾānic verses themselves (which refer only to the fate of “the Romans”); and 2) The early exegetical traditions on these verses (...) (which often add “the Persians” to the eschatological drama). Furthermore, it is argued that the Biblical book of Daniel, and its interpretation in late antiquity, contributed both to the verses themselves and to their exegesis. (shrink)

Some 2300 years ago, Hellenic Philosophy had already produced some rather sophisticated theories of human psychological functioning as well as most of the broad theoretical controversies which characterize the contemporary psychological stage. Democritus, for example, had put forth a theory of thinking and action which emphasized the physiological components of the person and looked to immediate environmental antecedents as explanations for what we did. Plato, by contrast, insisted upon the formal rule-governed characteristics of human thinking as basic to intellect and (...) denied the possibility that these could be acquired piecemeal through experience with environmental events. Nor would he accept the relevance of physiological descriptions for answering psychological questions. The following centuries have witnessed both the intensification of these controversies and their proliferation into new scientific and societal spheres, as intellectual fashions have favored now one and then another theoretic orientation. A resolution to many such controversies was proposed by Aristotle in the course of formulating his developmental and teleological doctrine of Man, and the logic of this mode of resolution still has great relevance today for the evaluation of psychological theories. In Aristotle's account, a new approach to the concept of causality evolved, an approach that paid special attention to how the term "causes" should be applied to biological events. Moreover, this approach to causality was highly successful in integrating biological phenomena with an understanding of the nature of causes for psychological phenomena. The explication of this account demonstrated that "why" explanations and "how" explanations of action could and should be used concurrently and also demonstrated that many psychological controversies were based on pseudo-issues. This approach, and particularly its relevance to developmental psychology, will be outlined here. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This article seeks to contribute to our understanding of a short Qurʾānic passage, Q 85:4‒10, which concerns the fate of the enigmatic Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd. It is argued that the ‘eschatological’ and ‘historical’ readings of this passage, which have generally been taken to be mutually exclusive options for its interpretation, are both indispensable for a full contextualization of the verses in question. Furthermore, regarding the historical reading of the passage, it is argued that the verses refer to the events recorded in (...) Daniel 3, rather than to the Martyrs of Najrān episode that most exegetes (and many modern scholars) opt for. Finally, a new etymology for the word Ukhdūd is proposed. (shrink)