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Hope: What is it? How do we get it? Is it part of being human? Is it something that carries us through hard times? Is it something illusory? This book, which stems from the 4th Inter-Disciplinary.net conference on Hope: Probing the Boundaries held in September 2008 at Mansfield College in Oxford, England, explores all of these questions and many more. As a truly inter-disciplinary venture, this book approaches the theme of hope from the point of view of the philosophical, theological, political, literary, psychological, and sociological and presents hope not just as an abstract theme to be pondered but as an aspect of human living and thinking that has a profound impact on our lives. The conclusions reached in each chapter demonstrate the variety of ways in which hope is conceived as well as the tensions inherent in any discussion of the benefits of hope and the intricacies in dealing with hope on a theoretical and a practical level. This book is perfect for anyone wondering where hope fits into our lives during these troubling times.
The contemporary study of spirituality encompasses a wide range of interests, often founded on inter- and multidisciplinary approaches.
Based on presentations made at the conference entitled Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship held in July 2006 at Oxford, UK, 14 papers consider environmental concerns against their social contexts. Contributors address theories in environmental management as they pertain to society and to orientations in "perverse" ecologies, the framework of sustainability, including voluntary agreements and incentives, class and conflict in environmental governance, including the uses of effective conflict, information management including the public debate on genetic modification and the differences between experts and laymen, environmental activism, education, including environmental education in a course on ethics and international development, and the effects of free trade, corporate capitalism, and empowerment of professionals, on sustainability and international environmental law.
Even as Canadian universities suggest their gender issues have largely been resolved, many women in academia tell a different story. Systemic discrimination, the underrepresentation of women in more senior and lucrative roles, and the belief that gender-related concerns will simply self-correct with greater representation add up to a serious gender problem. Although these issues are widely acknowledged, reliable data is elusive. Glass Ceilings and Ivory Towers fills this research gap with a cross-disciplinary, data-driven investigation of gender inequality in Canadian universities. Research presented in this book reveals, for example, that women are more likely to hold sessional teaching positions and to face difficulties obtaining funding. They are also poorly represented at the upper echelons of the professoriate and must contend with a gender pay gap that widens as they move up the ranks. Contributors consider the daily grind of academic life, social, structural, and systemic challenges, and the gendered dynamics of university leadership, all with an eye to laying the groundwork for practical and meaningful institutional change.
This volume offers new and fascinating insights into some of the most urgent and relevant dimensions of violence in our time. Specialists from a broad range of disciplines explore some of the reasons and ways in which humans choose to harm one another. The two sections of the book engage a common theme, namely how ideological constructions influence, facilitate, and shape the understanding of our own involvement in violence. Whilst the first section focuses on one specific form of violence, namely genocide, the second explores our construction of violent images: verbally, visually, aurally, legally, socially, imaginally. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the multi-faceted and complex dimensions of violence in our contemporary, global world.
The 6th Global Conference: Making Sense of Dying and Death held in Salzburg, Austria in October and November, 2008 is a component of the Inter-Disciplinary.Net's Probing the Boundaries project. The project's purpose is to create working 'encounter' groups between people of differing perspectives, disciplines, professions, vocations and contexts.A
Dying and death are topics of deep humane concern for many people in a variety of circumstances and contexts. However, they are not discussed to any great extent or with sufficient focus in order to gain knowledge and understanding of their major features and aspects. The present volume is an attempt to bridge the undesirable gap between what should be known and understood about dying and death and what is easily accessible. Included in the present volume are chapters arranged in three sections. First, there are chapters on aspects of dying, written by people who have professional experience and personal insights into the nature of the processes at work and the ways it should be treated. Secondly, there are chapters on assisted death (Euthanasia) that illuminate the practices involved in the professional assistance given to persons who suffer from an incurable illness and who do not want their painful life to be medically extended. Thirdly, there are chapters on mourning, examined in a variety of cultural contexts. These provide insights for different ways of maintaining the presence of the dead in the life of the living: “life in the hearts”.
California roll, Chinese take-out, American-made kimchi, dogmeat, monosodium glutamate, SPAM—all are examples of what Robert Ji-Song Ku calls “dubious” foods. Strongly associated with Asian and Asian American gastronomy, they are commonly understood as ersatz, depraved, or simply bad. In Dubious Gastronomy, Ku contends that these foods share a spiritual fellowship with Asians in the United States in that the Asian presence, be it culinary or corporeal, is often considered watered-down, counterfeit, or debased manifestations of the “real thing.” The American expression of Asianness is defined as doubly inauthentic—as insufficiently Asian and unreliably American when measured again...
This truly international book brings together authors from different regions of the world including North America, South Africa, Europe, Iran and Russia all of whom are concerned with aspects of the challenges involved in the expansion of higher education, both in student numbers and areas of study. Some are concerned about the loss of guiding principles which steered university education for centuries. The traditional purposes of higher education have come under such pressure that we have achieved “conflicting models of the university” (Claes) and “ambiguity” in regard to teaching and research (Simons et al). For others, the problems are at a different stage. Contributions from Sout...