Religious beliefs influence the making of war and war-making influences religious belief, but religion is not a cause of war. That would be the general conclusion one can take from this work by Arn...

Addressing the dramatic situation of migrants and refugees in the Euro-Mediterranean and Euro-British space, Étienne Balibar mobilizes and questions the Marxist theoretical legacy, in particular the “law of population” and the “general law of capitalist accumulation”. Introducing the notion of “absolute capitalism” – the idea that there is no longer any existing alternative economic system to capitalism –, Balibar focuses on the violence inherent to new regimes of mobility and immobility in migration and migratory politics, focusing on borders, exploitation (...) and the segmentation of the labour-force. Contrary to traditional Marxist analysis, absolute capitalism, according to Balibar, is not characterized by stability and self-regulation, but by financial and political instability which, due to a severely limited capacity for control and restraint of violence, opens up for extreme violence. (shrink)

Although the tension which Christianity, in continuance with the Sache Jesu, first displayed with its surrounding culture, gradually conformed to the predominate culture of the ancient Mediterranean world, probably to avoid further conflict, it seems that the author of 1 Peter, despite my preference for a later dating, was set on maintaining this tension. 1 Peter employs a 'revolutionary subordination'. When the author of 1 Peter urges wives to be submissive or slaves to obey their masters, he is (...) not perpetuating normative conservatism. Rather, wives and slaves as followers of Christ were to subvert injustice the same way Jesus did. Wives therefore do not submit to their non-believing husbands because they buy in to society's evaluation of them as inferior to their male counterparts. Rather, wives can submit to their non-believing husbands because they are triumphant in Christ and therefore emancipated moral agents, who may win over their non-believing husbands by their moral and godly conduct. (shrink)

This book offers an impressive collection of contributions on the epistemology of international biolaw and its applications, both in the legal and ethical fields. Bringing together works by some of the world’s most prominent experts on biolaw and bioethics, it constitutes a paradigmatic text in its field. In addition to exploring various ideologies and philosophies, including European, American and Mediterranean biolaw traditions, it addresses controversial topics straight from today’s headlines, such as genetic editing, the dual-use dilemma, and neurocognitive enhancement. (...) The book encourages readers to think objectively and impartially in order to resolve the ethical and juridical dilemmas that stem from biotechnological empowerment and biomedical techniques. Accordingly, it offers a valuable resource for courses on biolaw, law, bioethics, and biomedical research, as well as courses that discuss law and the biosciences at different professional levels, e.g. in the courts, biomedical industry, pharmacological companies and the public space in general. (shrink)

Summary In a much-quoted passage of the “Natural History”, Pliny describes several wine press mechanisms. This description is of great historical importance, since it is the only such textual description of a vitally important class of technologies used for the production throughout the Roman Empire of both wine and olive oil, dietary staples in the ancient Mediterranean. Pliny’s text has been quoted and used as the basis for discussions of Roman farming and technological history for many decades. Yet it (...) has never been properly understood in the light of related and recently published archaeological evidence, and close attention has never been paid to developing a precise translation, or to Pliny’s painstaking grammatical construction and word choices. A thorough and critical re-examination of the text reveals that modern scholars have routinely misinterpreted Pliny’s account of ancient press technology. In this paper, a new translation is offered, which more accurately aligns with archaeological and ethnographic evidence and which attempts to strip away the layers of modern interpretation, to rediscover previously ignored or misunderstood elements, and to restore the original sense of Pliny’s passage. (shrink)

This book is the first complete study of the translations of Machiavelli's Prince made in Europe and the Mediterranean countries during the period from the sixteenth to the first half of the nineteenth century: the first, unpublished French translation by Jacques de Vintimille (1546), the first Latin translation by Silvestro Tegli (1560), as well as the first translations in Dutch (1615), German (1692), Swedish (1757) and Arabic (1824). The first translation produced in (...) Spain - dated somewhere between the end of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century - remained in manuscript form, while there was a second vernacular Spanish version around 1680. The situation in Great Britain was different from the rest of Europe, as it could boast four manuscript translations by the end of the sixteenth century. (shrink)

Current discussions about education suggest that a transformative pedagogy that goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge and skills is needed. However, there is no agreement as to the inputs needed for a correct development of the educational model. In this sense, we can identify the presence of two different approaches to human and social capital which embody distinct educational worldviews. On the one hand, the ‘Marketable Human Capital’ or ‘Personal Culture’ approach, and on the other hand, the ‘Non-Marketable Human Capital’ (...) or ‘Civic Culture’ approach. The first, which is linked to mainstream economic theory, sees education as any stock of knowledge that contributes to an improvement in the productivity of the worker and individual well-being. The second, which is rooted in the Mediterranean tradition of political thought, highlights the role of civic virtues, reciprocity, and public action within the educational process and its influence on public happiness. In this article, we analyse these connections in order to introduce the eighteenth-century Mediterranean tradition of economic thought into discussions about human and social capital theories and the role of education in them. Focusing on education through these prisms, national and international agendas must be reoriented towards the integral development of people to include broader global debates. (shrink)

This essay explores the narratives of Claudio Magris and Amin Maalouf as a literature of identity, memory and testimony that seeks to foster social justice, dialogue and inclusivity in twenty-first-century Europe and the Mediterranean. In On Identity (Les Identités meurtrières, 1998) Maalouf investigates individual and collective identities, their elusive and treacherous dynamics, through a reflection that encompasses the Levant, the north-south Mediterranean divide and its endless permutations. Similarly, Magris’s fictional characters occupy liminal worlds in which identities (...) contaminate, overlap, and often dissolve, while exclusivist belonging reveals itself as a deceptive chimera. In Blindly (Alla cieca, 2006), Magris explores the legacy of twentieth-century destructive identitarian myths and presents an alternative history that derives from inhabiting alterity, in a process that makes his characters privileged interpreters of the past, often brothers and sisters of the subversive castaways of history. Maalouf’s Balthasar’s Odyssey (Le Périple de Baldassare, 2000) spans the Middle East and Europe and scrutinizes their respective fault lines and connective tissues that solicit transcultural and composite approaches to identity. Balthasar records his permanent alterity by unceasingly questioning and adapting his own perception of the self in an ever-changing world, at a time of impending catastrophe. From the vantage point of Mitteleuropa, Mediterranean Europe, and the Levant, considered not as independent geopolitical entities, but as interconnected, rhizomatic geopolitical networks, the works of Maalouf and Magris emphasize the need to give voice to “other” accounts of history, to question our identitarian assumptions and to nurture the European project, a fragile, but irreplaceable possibility for a shared future. (shrink)

This paper discusses Croatian maritime pilgrimages by searching for their sources in the prehistoric Mediterranean context. From the first search for the sacred, different and the other, from the prehistoric hierophanies and human being’s attempts to explain the mysterious Cosmos through their endeavour to respond to the unknown and give an order to the Chaos – we encounter a human being who travels searching for answers. The human being, as a part of the community, through cosmogonies, and then (...) theophanies, explains the creation of the world and tries to give meaning to the reality surrounding him. This modus of travel and pilgrimage to the sacred and divine continues through the historical period in three great monotheistic religions that are born and spread in the Mediterranean: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Mediterranean is a space of travels and travellers, intersections of thoughts, philosophies and religions. From late antiquity through the Middle Ages to the Modern Ages, the Mediterranean is the intersection of pilgrims from all directions. This paper describes pilgrimages and pilgrims who travelled from the Croatian coast to Loreto and Assisi in the 18th century. Based on 16,000 documents of Croatian Maritime Regesta of the 18th century vol. I–III, a total of 303 pilgrimages to Loreto and Assisi have been found, attesting to 2,513 pilgrims travelling, mostly in large and organized groups of up to 80 people, from the east coast of the Adriatic – from Umag in the north to Boka Kotorska in the south – to these old and Croatian believers well-known sanctuaries. Croatian maritime pilgrimages, therefore, have undeniable Mediterranean roots and an incredible continuity of tens of thousands of years. (shrink)

This essay outlines the kinds of evidence available (and not available) for studies of ancient Mediterranean pandemics, the scholarship on the subject so far, and some reflections on the relationship between the two. The focus is on the three largescale epidemic episodes that have attracted the most scholarly attention: the “Plague of Athens” in the fifth century BCE; the “Antonine Plague,” which spread across the Roman Empire in the late second century CE; and the “Justinianic Plague,” which (...) first engulfed the Mediterranean in the sixth century CE. All present considerable evidential challenges. There are traditional resources and the rich remains of ancient medical writings, but we also now have at our disposal new archaeological and genetic evidence. The research questions on these pandemics must be expanded beyond asking what disease was implicated and what political and economic impact its Mediterranean outbreaks had, sometimes within quite a restricted geographical area. Interdisciplinary research will be required to answer these wider enquiries fully. All the salient disciplines need to be involved, with due attention to their methodologies, if the field is to move forward and make the most of its resources. (shrink)

This article explores the interpretive dimensions of Luke 12:13-21 within the landscape of the first-century world and how it relates to the democratic South African context. The question that drives this reading is two-fold: (1) How would this parable be understood by the early Jesus movement in the first-century Mediterranean context? In the light of socio-economic, religious, and political context of the day? What did they hear from what Jesus said through this parable? (2) similarly, (...) what are we hearing from this same parable in today’s society, in the light of our own socio-economic, religious and political landscape? I suggest analysing this parable through Mazamisa’s dialectica reconciliae and Mosala’s historical-materialistic lenses, which might reveal profound insights into the nation’s post-1994 journey of reconstruction and development of South Africa and the liberation of the black child, in a government led by another black child. The passage’s warnings against materialism and its call to be ‘rich towards God’ resonate with South Africa’s pursuit of social justice and equitable wealth distribution. It mirrors concerns over land reform and responsible inheritance, aligning with the principles of Ubuntu that emphasize collective well-being. The text’s emphasis on spiritual values contributes to discussions on fostering a cohesive national identity amid religious diversity. It underscores the importance of transparent governance and accountability, addressing wealth disparities, and confronting poverty. This exploration offers a compelling synthesis, suggesting how Luke 12:13-21 can guide South Africa in forging a just, inclusive, and spiritually grounded democratic society.Contribution: This study explores the interpretive dimensions of Luke 12:13-21 within the context of the first-century world and its relevance to South Africa, offering profound insights into post-1994 reconstruction and development, social justice, equitable wealth distribution, collective well-being, national identity, wealth disparities, and poverty, ultimately guiding South Africa towards a just, inclusive, and spiritually grounded democratic society. (shrink)

This first volume of the new Brill series "Ancient Philosophy & Religion" offers analyses of Platonic philosophy and piety, the emergence of a common religio-philosophical discourse in Antiquity, the place of Jesus among ancient philosophers, and responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.

Tabitha and Cornelius, imaginary persons based on characters in Acts, occupy two different places in the first-century Mediterranean world. In hearing Luke's gospel-story, how would each construe the figure of Jesus? The social location of each would play a crucial role as each "builds" the character of Jesus in dialogue with Luke's story.

Utilizing social rhetorical criticism and social cultural texture, this exegetical analysis of John 4 examines the transformational interaction of Jesus and a Samaritan woman. Previous research focuses on the woman’s demographic profile without fully investigating the significance of relational demography in the context of first century Mediterranean culture. This analysis of the social cultural texture of John 4 presents a model for Christian leadership that crosses gender, race, and geographic barriers and capitalizes on the benefits of relational (...) demography for organizational success. (shrink)

Located astride the shipping routes linking southern Asia Minor with the coasts of Syria and Palestine and Egypt, the island of Cyprus has always been regarded as a stepping stone of the cultural and economic communications interconnecting different areas of the eastern half of the Mediterranean. Politically this role has been first enhanced during the Hellenistic, Roman and then in the early medieval period when in the seventh century Cyprus acquired an important role as military Byzantine stronghold. (...) Economically, the significance of Cyprus in the passage from the late antiquity to the early middle ages benefitted from its essential role as hub along the eastern tax-spine through which Egypt fed Constantinople and along the long-distance trade-routes based upon the sea-movement of luxury goods. This multifunctional role of Cyprus as a bridge between different regions of the eastern Mediterranean can be further assessed through the analysis of the numismatic material. Here, indeed, the study of the coins and coinage yielded by the archaeological excavations in urban centres like Salamis-Constantia, Paphos-Saranda Kolones, and Kourion should be paired with both the reassessment of the publication of the old Cypriot hoards and stray finds and the recent studies on the so-called Arab-Byzantine coinage found both in Cyprus and in the closer Syria-Palestine region. The examination of this material allows to develop a different interpretative scheme than the one traditionally adopted to interpret the fate of Cyprus after the Muslim raids and the occupation of Syria and Palestine. Cyprus and its cities were still frequented in the passage from late antiquity to the early middle ages, preserving a variable but still traceable degree of monetary economy including Byzantine emissions and Arab specimens, inferring the maintenance of political, commercial and cultural relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Umayyad Caliphate. (shrink)

The great plague in London in 1665 was the last in a series of epidemics that had begun with the Black Death in the 14th century. Plagues continued elsewhere in Europe into the 18th century, but after 1679 no cases of plague were reported in England at all. The disease seemed to have disappeared. How could that be explained? The purpose of this paper is to discover when contemporaries began to think that plague had gone for good, and (...) why they thought that had happened. The paper falls into two parts. The first concentrates on the decade of the 1720s, when plague was expected to come from Marseilles and never arrived. In the space of a few months there was fierce and concentrated public debate about a new Quarantine Act to be enforced if an epidemic developed, much of it arguing that the Act was unnecessary because plague was plainly not contagious at all. It depended wholly on local environments, and in England they had been improving ever since the Great Fire of London. The second part of the paper takes the story forward into the later 18th century, when there was no longer much dispute that plague was indeed contagious, but it was confidently supposed that England now enjoyed the double protection of further environmental improvement at home combined with effective quarantine of shipping abroad, especially in the Mediterranean. Over the century, contending explanations for plague were debated, interpretations of the past disputed and sometimes falsified, and expectations and ambitions for the future remodelled, because one epidemic threat had disappeared for good. (shrink)

“Poder sem solidariedade” tem como objetivo abordar um texto emblemático do Novo Testamento, isto é, Marcos 10,32-45 com as ferramentas teóricas da teologia bíblica e da teoria foucaultiana a respeito do poder. A metodologia utilizada é de ordem bibliográfica, a partir do diálogo com textos específicos que exploram o texto de Marcos, a sociedade mediterrânea do primeiro século e textos específicos de Foucault sobre o poder. Percebe-se conclusivamente que ao mesmo tempo em que os discípulos de Jesus procuram reproduzir as (...) relações de poder, Jesus propõe um contra-discurso a fim de vislumbrar o poder como solidariedade a favor da comunidade. A intervenção de Jesus introduzirá um discurso de renúncia à aspiração ao poder assim como uma opção fundamental pelo serviço e pela solidariedade. Diante de dois modelos de concepção e prática do poder veremos uma proposta de inversão dos valores que vigoravam em uma sociedade marcada visceralmente pelas ambições. O jogo do poder também estava presente na comunidade de Jesus e seus discípulos procuravam reproduzir aquilo que já era comum ao tecido social. Palavras-chave : Poder. Autoridade. Cristianismo. Sociedade. Domínio.“Powers without solidarity” aims to address an emblematic text of the New Testament - Mark 10.32-45 - by using the theoretical tools of biblical theology and Foucault's theory about power. The methodology used is bibliographic out of a dialogue with specific texts that explore the text of Mark, the first-century Mediterranean society and specific texts by Foucault on power. It can be conclusively seen that while the disciples of Jesus seek to reproduce power relations, Jesus proposes a counter-discourse in order to view the power as solidarity in benefit of his community. Jesus´ intervention will introduce a speech that disclaims the aspiration to power and offers a fundamental option for service and solidarity. Given these two models of conception and practice of power, we can see a proposal that reverses the values ​​that prevailed in a society viscerally marked by ambition. The power game was also present in Jesus´ community and his disciples tried to reproduce what was already common to the social culture. Keywords : Power. Authority. Christianity. Society. Domain. (shrink)

In the first centuries BCE and CE, Roman wall painters frequently placed representations of works of art, especially panel paintings, within their own mural compositions. Nathaniel B. Jones argues that the depiction of panel painting within mural ensembles functioned as a meta-pictorial reflection on the practice and status of painting itself. This phenomenon provides crucial visual evidence for both the reception of Greek culture and the interconnected ethical and aesthetic values of art in the Roman world. Roman meta-pictures, this (...) book reveals, not only navigated social debates on the production and consumption of art, but also created space on the Roman wall for new modes of expression relating to pictorial genres, the role of medium in artistic practice, and the history of painting. Richly illustrated, the volume will be important for anyone interested in the social, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of artworks, in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond. (shrink)

The parables of Jesus have historically been attributed with a plethora of interpretations. The first hearers of the parables of Jesus had native (emic) knowledge of the social realities embedded in the parables told by Jesus, that is, cultural scripts present in the parables that might not be apparent to modern readers. Because of this, the modern reader of a parable might not be aware of all the different cultural scripts in a given parable, especially if these scripts are (...) not specifically mentioned or explained by the gospel narrators. Using the parable of the Prodigal Son as an example, this study argues that there are voices in the parable most probably heard by its first hearers that modern hearers might not be aware of. These ‘muted’ voices not heard by modern readers of the parables often include the voices of women and other minority figures. In this study, a case is made for the possible value that a ‘realistic reading’ of familial parables could bring to the interpretation of the parables.Contribution: It is suggested that this reading can contribute to feminist biblical scholarship’s deconstruction and reconstruction of gender paradigms of Christian theology if the voices of women are ‘exhumed’ from or ‘unhidden’ within, patriarchal and androcentric texts. (shrink)

The famous early fragment (B1 D-K) of Anaximander, Greek thinker of the sixth century B.C.E., was transmitted to us by Byzantine Alexandrian authors of the sixth century C.E.: the pagan Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and the Monophysite Christian to whose earlier Physics commentary Simplicius was replying, John Philoponus. When these commentators were writing, the Mediterranean world was polarized by the Monophysite-Chalcedonian theological controversy. First Philoponus adduced some of Anaximander’s words in his argument for (...) a single principle of the universe, in keeping with his own theological position. Then Simplicius gave a fuller form of the text, reproving Philoponus for what he considered “uncultured” Christian views. This transmission tells us something about Byzantine theological attitudes as well as preserving archaic philosophical formulations. (shrink)

This article is a review of Ilham Khuri-Makdisi’s bookThe Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Capitalism, 1860–1914. I argue that this book is a valuable contribution to historiographies of the Left in the Middle East, a field that remains under-represented given the importance of labour to the nationalist movements as well as broader worker-activism in the region throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I review the main debates of the book, and raise critical questions about aspects that (...) could have been probed further, among them the questions of imperialism and race in contexts such as Egypt and Lebanon, and the relationship between workers and the radical intellectuals discussed throughout the book. (shrink)

This article sketches the broad outlines of Matthew's ironic portrayal of children, examining first the 'lower level' of the narrative and then the 'upper level' of the narrative. When viewed from the 'lower level' of Matthew's narrative, the everyday circumstances of children reflect the nurture of their parents as well as significant challenges: debilitating physical conditions, serious illnesses, military violence and premature childhood death. In addition, children occupy the lowest rung on the 1st-century Mediterranean social ladder, a (...) status they share with slaves. But on the 'upper level' of his narrative, from the 'God's-eye' perspective, Matthew turns everyday reality for children on its head in ironic fashion. Emmanuel, the 'God who is with us', appears as a 'child' who has just 'been born' and who exhibits all the powerlessness and vulnerability of such a 'child'. In a violent showdown between 'King Herod' and the one 'who has been born king of the Jews', it is Herod, the powerful ruler, who dies, while the vulnerable 'child' ends up safely in Nazareth. Throughout his ministry, Jesus heals children along with adults. To the apparent chagrin of his disciples, Jesus lays hands on children in an act of blessing. He commends the messianic praises of children, in contrast to the outrage of the Jewish leadership. Moreover, Jesus proclaims that it is 'to such as these [children] that the kingdom of heaven belongs'. (shrink)

Late antique Alexandria is much better known than the early Islamic city. To be fully appreciated, the transition must be contextualized against the full range of Afro-Eurasiatic commercial and intellectual life. The Alexandrian schools ‘harmonized’ Hippocrates and Galen, Plato and Aristotle. They also catalyzed Christian theology especially during the controversies before and after the Council of Chalcedon (451) that tore the Church apart and set the stage for the emergence of Islam. Alexandrian cultural dissemination down to the seventh century (...) is here studied especially through evidence for the city’s libraries and book trade, together with the impact of its educational curriculum from Iran to Canterbury. After the Arab conquest, Alexandria turned into a frontier city and lost its economic and political role. But it became a city of the mind whose conceptual legacy fertilized not only Greek scholarship at Constantinople, but also Arabic science and philosophy thanks to the eighth- to ninth-century Baghdadi translation movement. Alexandria emanated occult energies too, thanks to the Pharos as variously misunderstood by Arabic writers, or the relics of its Christian saints, not least the Evangelist Mark, surreptitiously translated to Venice in 828-29. Study of the astral sciences too - astronomy but also astrology - was fertilized from Alexandria, as far afield as India and perhaps China as well as Syria, Baghdad and Constantinople. Egypt’s revival by the Fatimids, who founded Cairo in 961, had little impact on Alexandria until about the end of the eleventh century when, for a time, the city attracted Sunni scholars from as far away as Spain or Iran, while commerce benefited from the rise of the Italian merchant republics and the beginning of the Crusades. While the early caliphate had united a vast zone from Afghanistan to the Atlantic, the eleventh century saw a reemergence of late antique distinctions between the Iranian plateau, Syro-Mesopotamia, and the two Mediterranean basins. Alexandria was one of the points where these worlds intersected, though sub-Saharan Africa, to which it formally belonged, remained largely beyond its horizon until the twentieth century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Medical Tourism:Crossing Borders to Access Health CareHarriet Hutson Gray (bio) and Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Traveling abroad for one's health has a long history for the upper social classes who sought spas, mineral baths, innovative therapies, and the fair climate of the Mediterranean as destinations to improve their health. The newest trend in the first decade of the twenty-first century has the middle class traveling from (...) developed countries to those with emerging economies to avoid treatment delays, prohibitive costs for life-saving procedures, or simply high costs for elective surgery. Others leave to have access to assisted suicide in countries that have legalized it: Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. This new era of globalization in health care has arrived without the benefit of international standards, government oversight, or ethical and legal review.Howard Staab, a self-employed carpenter from North Carolina, flew to India for his medically necessary heart surgery, scheduled a side trip to the Taj Mahal, and returned home to work in North Carolina. He spent a total of less than $10,000, instead of the $200,000 required from the local hospital (I, Milstein and Smith 2006).At first blush, the outsourcing of medical care to India seems to be a particular solution for a particular problem. However, the particularity of Mr. Staab is not unique. His experience is emblematic of those patients in the United States with a medical need for major and elective procedures, but who also must bear the total cost of these procedures. These middle-class, under-insured Americans go abroad.In tandem with increasingly aggressive marketing campaigns, American hospitals and companies have begun to leverage their connections in Asia to grow the medical tourism business into a major economic force. What are the consequences of this?Several authors point to the effect on the host country's population, particularly the poor, to be pushed farther down the queue to receive adequate, affordable care. Resources are applied to the foreign trade instead of building the local [End Page 193] medical infrastructure. Another potential problem is the obligation of the home-country physician to provide follow-up care. What are the legal ramifications when the procedure was illegal to begin with? Are there opportunities for redress for medical errors?These factors may be converging into a "perfect storm" for health care in the U.S., in which the potential participation of the major insurance companies in promoting offshore care will be the tipping point in the precarious structure that represents the economic currents in health care. Third-party administrators and self-funded employers may be on the cutting edge in 2009 by providing incentives to employees to travel overseas for care.I. Economic ConsiderationsConnell, John. Medical Tourism: Sea, Sun, Sand and... Surgery. Tourism Management 27: 1093–1100, 2006.As evidence of the interest of traditional tour operators in this newer twist on the industry, the author explores medical tourism as an element of the growth of world tourism. In promoting medical tourism, he urges consideration of such issues as the privatization of health care, the foundational role of technology, and uneven access to health resources.Dunn, Philip. Medical Tourism Takes Flight. H and HN: Hospitals and Health Networks: 40–44, November 2007.Writing for U.S. health care executives, Dunn emphasizes that the reality of medical tourism competes with the local medical center for patients and their insurance dollars in a significant way. He examines the possibility that U.S. insurance plans soon may offer to pay for what is currently a cash only business and that the economic impact to the local medical center could be significant or even devastating.Frontiers of Health Services Management [Selected Articles] 24 (2), Winter 2007.In "Managing Healthcare Services in the Global Marketplace" (pp. 3–18), Bruce J. Fried and Dean M. Harris consider legal, ethical, and financial implications of the international workforce. In "Globalization of Health Care" (pp. 19–30), Lynn Schroth and Ruthy Khawahja point out that the transfer of comprehensive management expertise and intellectual property from U.S. medical centers to international sites is driving the success of collaboration between U.S. and foreign health care centers. In "Is... (shrink)

Does cultural diversity lead to a want of respect, intolerance, and violence? Is religious culture in Islamic or other states tending towards a territorial imperative, denying any democracy a chance? Is globalization threatening value, identity and meaning? In the wake of 9/11, war on the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq, the lingering Israeli–Palestinian tension, and what appear to be re-discovered genres of brutality—such as suicide bombings, beheadings, the wanton destruction of churches and other temples—this article teases out some historical and (...) philosophical contexts in an attempt to assuage contemporary uncertainties. Distinguishing between the Mediterranean and the Middle East as two different realities, the article discusses how seemingly bewildering new theses and premises in a post-war, post-colonial, post-communist world may be read and possibly reconciled during the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Taking inspiration from the legal doctrine of the freedom of the seas, this paper makes the case for No Borders. To do so, it revisits Grotius’s arguments for the freedom of the seas. Analysis of contemporary bordering practices in the Mediterranean Sea reveals the weakness of what appears to be Grotius’s most plausible argument, namely that the ocean cannot be occupied and should therefore be free. While Grotius’s argument for the freedom of the seas based on the idea of (...) divinely sanctioned sociability is clearly problematic for the twenty-first century, the paper retools it by shifting from theology to ontology with a turn to Deleuze and Guattari, and Nancy. The resultant argument, based on Nancy’s idea of being-in-common, not only justifies the freedom of the seas, but also more radically calls for an end to exclusionary political communities and their borders. (shrink)

How should emotions figure in scientific practice? I begin by distinguishing three broad answers to this question, ranging from pessimistic to optimistic. Confirmation bias and motivated numeracy lead us to cast a jaundiced eye on the role of emotions in scientific inquiry. However, reflection on the essential motivating role of emotions in geniuses makes it less clear that science should be evacuated of emotion. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism to articulate a twenty-first century epistemology of science (...) that recognizes the necessity of emotion to inquiry but aims to manage the biases that emotions can introduce. Twenty-first century perspectivism is both social and (temporally) distal, helping it to overcome a paradox of self-critical inquiry. (shrink)

The early twenty-first century will be remembered as a time of constant crisis. These crises have created repeated global states of emergency, revealing gaps, and inadequacies in social protection systems worldwide. Alongside these crises, and as a response to them, social protection has grown into a paradigm of global governance. This development is also noticeable in the practices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. At the heart of all social protection policies is the protection of (...) vulnerable groups. Crises create new vulnerabilities and deteriorate the situation of those already vulnerable. The article explores the social protection endorsement of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund through the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. It shows how crises have fueled their social protection endorsement, making protection of vulnerable groups a central outspoken policy preference. The article asks whether the policies adopted in response to the pandemic confirm their social protection commitment and what challenges remain. (shrink)

Moral foundations theory (MFT) proposes the existence of innate psychological systems, which would have been subjected to selective forces over the course of evolution. One approach for evaluating MFT, therefore, is to consider the proposed psychological foundations in relation to the reconstructed Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. This study draws upon ethnographic data on nomadic forager societies to evaluate MFT. Moral foundations theory receives support only regarding the Caring/harm and Fairness/cheating foundations but not regarding the proposed Loyalty/betrayal and Authority/subversion foundations. These (...) latter two proposed foundations would seem to reflect the historical classic assumptions of modernity, involving self-interest, competition, individualism, hierarchy, authority and so forth. Studying the ethical dimensions of nomadic forager societies can highlight our biases about the foundations of morality, some of which may be steeped in particularist Western political and social traditions. Some recent developments from cosmopolitanism are discussed as an alternative evolving worldview that parallels nomadic forager ethos. (shrink)

A lively and accessible history of Modernism, _The First Moderns_ is filled with portraits of genius, and intellectual breakthroughs, that richly evoke the _fin-de-siècle_ atmosphere of Paris, Vienna, St. Louis, and St. Petersburg. William Everdell offers readers an invigorating look at the unfolding of an age. "This exceptionally wide-ranging history is chock-a-block with anecdotes, factoids, odd juxtapositions, and useful insights. Most impressive.... For anyone interested in learning about late 19th- and early 20th- century imaginative thought, this engagingly written (...) book is a good place to start."—_Washington Post Book World_ "_The First Moderns_ brilliantly maps the beginning of a path at whose end loom as many diasporas as there are men."—Frederic Morton, _The Los Angeles Times Book Review_ "In this truly exciting study of the origins of modernist thought, poet and teacher Everdell roams freely across disciplinary lines.... A brilliant book that will prove useful to scholars and generalists for years to come; enthusiastically recommended."—_Library Journal_, starred review "Everdell has performed a rare service for his readers. Dispelling much of the current nonsense about 'postmodernism,' this book belongs on the very short list of profound works of cultural analysis."—_Booklist_ "Innovative and impressive... [Everdell] has written a marvelous, erudite, and readable study."-Mark Bevir, _Spectator_ "A richly eclectic history of the dawn of a new era in painting, music, literature, mathematics, physics, genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy."—Margaret Wertheim, _New Scientist_ "[Everdell] has himself recombined the parts of our era's intellectual history in new and startling ways, shedding light for which the reader of _The First Moderns_ will be eternally grateful."—Hugh Kenner, _The New York Times Book Review_ "Everdell shows how the idea of "modernity" arose before the First World War by telling the stories of heroes such as T. S. Eliot, Max Planck, and Georges Serault with such a lively eye for detail, irony, and ambiance that you feel as if you're reliving those miraculous years."—Jon Spayde, _Utne Reader_. (shrink)

It is argued that the conventional descriptions of chemical bonds as covalent, ionic, metallic, and Van der Waals are compromising the usefulness of quantum mechanics in the synthesis and design of new molecules and materials. Parallels are drawn between the state of chemistry now and when the idea that phlogiston was an element impeded the development of chemistry. Overcoming the current obstacles will require new methods to describe molecular structure and bonding, just as new concepts were needed before the phlogiston (...) theory could be set aside. (shrink)

In the Ancient world poverty was a visible and common phenomenon. According to estimations 9 out of 10 persons lived close to the subsistence level or below it. There was no middle class. The state did not show much concern for the poor. Inequality and disability to improve one's social status were based on honour and shame, culture and religion. In order to understand the activity of Jesus and the early Jesus movement in Galilee, it is essential to know the (...) social and economic context where he and his followers came. The principal literary source in first-century Galilee is Josephus, who provides a very incomplete glimpse of the political and economic character of the Galilee and his account is both tendentious and self-serving. There is no consensus among the scholars on the conditions of ordinary people in Galilee at the time of Jesus and the early Jesus movement. The evidence can be interpreted either so that first-century Galilee was peaceful and people had somewhat better times economically because of the large building projects, or just the opposite - the building projects demanded a lot more taxes and forced labour and made life even more difficult. In this article it is argued that the latter conditions explain better the birth and rapid increase of the early Jesus movement in Galilee. (shrink)

A lively and accessible history of Modernism, _The First Moderns_ is filled with portraits of genius, and intellectual breakthroughs, that richly evoke the _fin-de-siècle_ atmosphere of Paris, Vienna, St. Louis, and St. Petersburg. William Everdell offers readers an invigorating look at the unfolding of an age. "This exceptionally wide-ranging history is chock-a-block with anecdotes, factoids, odd juxtapositions, and useful insights. Most impressive.... For anyone interested in learning about late 19th- and early 20th- century imaginative thought, this engagingly written (...) book is a good place to start."—_Washington Post Book World_ "_The First Moderns_ brilliantly maps the beginning of a path at whose end loom as many diasporas as there are men."—Frederic Morton, _The Los Angeles Times Book Review_ "In this truly exciting study of the origins of modernist thought, poet and teacher Everdell roams freely across disciplinary lines.... A brilliant book that will prove useful to scholars and generalists for years to come; enthusiastically recommended."—_Library Journal_, starred review "Everdell has performed a rare service for his readers. Dispelling much of the current nonsense about 'postmodernism,' this book belongs on the very short list of profound works of cultural analysis."—_Booklist_ "Innovative and impressive... [Everdell] has written a marvelous, erudite, and readable study."-Mark Bevir, _Spectator_ "A richly eclectic history of the dawn of a new era in painting, music, literature, mathematics, physics, genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry and philosophy."—Margaret Wertheim, _New Scientist_ "[Everdell] has himself recombined the parts of our era's intellectual history in new and startling ways, shedding light for which the reader of _The First Moderns_ will be eternally grateful."—Hugh Kenner, _The New York Times Book Review_ "Everdell shows how the idea of "modernity" arose before the First World War by telling the stories of heroes such as T. S. Eliot, Max Planck, and Georges Serault with such a lively eye for detail, irony, and ambiance that you feel as if you're reliving those miraculous years."—Jon Spayde, _Utne Reader_. (shrink)

In the last 25 years increased violence against Black Americans by police and white vigilantes has led to a resurgence in lynching discourse. This article examines two strains of twenty-first century lynching discourse in America with attention to questions of historical erasure and racial appropriation. The move from justificatory discourses of lynching to rhetoric stigmatizing its practice led to two distinct discursive forms: a rhetoric of memorialization that reads Black women as part of the lynching archive and a (...) rhetoric of white aggrievement and victimhood that leverages the moral authority of Black trauma to evade justice. By mapping the shift from justificatory discourses of lynching and rhetoric professing its ‘end’ to discourse memorializing victims and rhetoric professing lynching’s persistence, this article illumines how the term lynching circulates in the twenty-first century American discourse. (shrink)

Current debates about liberal education have distracted us from responding intelligently to the growth and dominance of professional preparation programs. In 1828, the Yale faculty, confronted with similar circumstances, developed what may be the last widely influential philosophy of liberal education. It gives us a starting point, as does Plato's Republic. Democracy and the knowledge-based economy require us to articulate a new philosophy of liberal education. Using Kantian terminology, I argue that, whereas the basic purpose of professional preparation is to (...) produce heteronomous behavior, the purpose of liberal education should be the development of autonomous individuals. (shrink)

Au 1er siècle av. J.-C. Aristote fit l’objet d’une étude textuelle intense. Cette étude mena à terme à une appropriation des outils conceptuels élaborés dans ses écrits. Dans le cas de Xénarchus, les outils pertinents concernèrent la théorie aristotélicienne du mouvement, avec un accent mis sur les concepts de lieu naturel et de mouvement naturel. Xénarchus remania la théorie aristotélicienne du mouvement de manière à rendre superflu le corps céleste simple. Sans nier que certaines de ses opinions doivent être comprises (...) à la lumière des débats de la philosophie hellénistique tardive, je prétends que sa façon de lire présuppose une distanciation par rapport à Aristote qui est caractéristique de la philosophie post-hellénistique. (shrink)