Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an exceptional document preserved at the Louvre Museum under the mark MAO 2098. The manuscript is a calligraphic genealogical scroll relating to the Ḫwāğas, members of a Sufi Naqšbandi lineage of East Turkestan which was extremely powerful during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Striving to join the dots literally as well as figuratively, I propose to read the šağara in several different ways. Most obviously, the text provides some limited new information (...) on members of the Āfāqi branch of the Ḫwāğa family. At the same time, we can read the text as a communicative device serving to advance two intertwined social practices: family strategies and the construction of power. Produced within a forum of competition with other aristocratic households, prestigious Sufi lineages in particular, the scroll serves to highlight both the Šarīfian origin of the family and the hereditary succession of its spiritual leaders. At the same time, the manuscript’s remarkable aesthetic qualities served to impress upon those who saw in it the numinous force of the Ḫwāğas’ supernatural authority. (shrink)

1. Shizen -- 2. Chisei -- 3. Chitsujo -- 4. Jikan -- 5. Bi.

Inmunhak iran muŏt in'ga (T'onghap ŭi inmunhak, 2009) -- Tungji ŭi ch'ŏrhak (2010) -- Chonjae wa p'yohyŏn (2010) -- Mallarŭme ka mal hanŭn 'idea' ŭi kaenyŏm (Sorŭbon Taehakkyo paksa nonmun) -- P'ol Palleri e issŏsŏ chisŏng kwa hyŏnsil kwaŭi pyŏnjŭngpŏp ŭrosŏŭi si (Sŏul Taehakkyo sŏksa nonmun).

Ch'ŏrhak iran muŏt in'ga (1976) -- Hyŏnsanghak kwa punsŏk ch'ŏrhak (1977) -- Inyŏm kwa chilli, kŭrigo todŏk.

By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn ʻAlī Yazdī (d.1454), this book presents a holistic view of intellectual life in fifteenth century Iran. İlker Evrim Binbaş argues that the intellectuals in this period formed informal networks which transcended political and linguistic boundaries, and spanned an area from the western fringes of the Ottoman State to bustling late medieval metropolises such as Cairo, Shiraz, and Samarkand. The network included an Ottoman revolutionary, a Mamluk (...) prophet, and a Timurid occultist, as well as physicians, astronomers, devotees of the secret sciences, and those political figures who believed that the network was a force to be taken seriously. Also discussing the formation of an early modern Islamicate republic of letters, this book offers fresh insights on the study of intellectual history beyond the limitations imposed by nationalist methodologies, established genres, and recognized literary traditions. (shrink)

This book offers a critical survey of the origins of liberalism. It challenges the widely-held belief among philosophers that liberalism developed in opposition to religion. Beginning with the Protestant Reformation, it illustrates how Christian thinkers reinterpreted Christianity and used a set of biblical presuppositions from their reinterpretations to develop the first liberal ideas, starting a process that culminates in the birth of the first systematic liberal political philosophy in the writings of a Christian philosopher, John Locke. -/- Foreworded by Michael (...) A. Gillespie, the author of The Theological Origins of Modernity, this book explains how the Protestant Reformation, covenant theology, anti-trinitarianism, and medieval Christian natural law theories formed the foundations of liberalism. Thus, the main argument of this book is that liberalism is better understood as a socio-political project of theistic rationalism, a radical reinterpretation of Christianity that emerged in the post-Reformation and early modern period. (shrink)

Intended for high school and college students studying ancient Greece and Rome as part of a larger world history curriculum, this book's coverage of key wars and battles; important leaders, armies, organizations, and weapons; and other aspects of conflict will enable readers to better understand the complex role warfare played in ancient Western civilization.