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  Christianity without God

  Daniel C. Maguire

  Christianity without an omnipotent god, without a divine savior, without an afterlife? In this bold and hopeful book, theologian Daniel C. Maguire writes that traditional, supernatural aspects of Christianity can be comforting, but are increasingly questionable. A century of scholarly research has not been supportive of the dogmatic triad of personal god, incarnate savior, and life after death. Demonstrating that these beliefs have questionable roots in historical traditions, Maguire argues for a return to that brilliant and revolutionary moral epic of the Hebrew and Christian Bible. Rescued from god, Christianity can offer a realistic global ethic to heal a planet sinking under the effects of our ungrateful mismanagement.

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  America's Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace

  James Marten

  James Tanner may be the most famous person in nineteenth-century America that no one has heard of. During his service in the Union army, he lost the lower third of both his legs and afterward had to reinvent himself. After a brush with fame as the stenographer taking down testimony a few feet away from the dying President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Tanner eventually became one of the best-known men in Gilded Age America. He was a highly placed Republican operative, a popular Grand Army of the Republic speaker, an entrepreneur, and a celebrity. He earned fame and at least temporary fortune as “Corporal Tanner,” but most Americans would simply have known him as “The Corporal.” Yet virtually no one—not even historians of the Civil War and Gilded Age—knows him today.

  America’s Corporal rectifies this startling gap in our understanding of the decades that followed the Civil War. Drawing on a variety of primary sources including memoirs, lectures, newspapers, pension files, veterans’ organization records, poetry, and political cartoons, James Marten brings Tanner’s life and character into focus and shows what it meant to be a veteran— especially a disabled veteran—in an era that at first worshipped the saviors of the Union but then found ambiguity in their political power and insistence on collecting ever-larger pensions. This biography serves as an examination of the dynamics of disability, the culture and politics of the Gilded Age, and the aftereffects of the Civil War, including the philosophical and psychological changes that it prompted.

  The book explores the sometimes corrupt, often gridlocked, but always entertaining politics of the era, from Tanner’s days as tax collector in Brooklyn through his short-lived appointment as commissioner of pensions (one of the biggest jobs in the federal government of the 1880s). Marten provides a vivid case study of a classic Gilded Age entrepreneur who could never make enough money. America’s Corporal is a reflection on the creation of celebrity—and of its ultimate failure to preserve the memory of a man who represented so many of the experiences and assumptions of the Gilded Age.

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  Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

  James Marten

  In the decades after the Civil War, urbanization, industrialization, and immigration marked the start of the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic growth but also social upheaval. Reformers responded to the social and economic chaos with a “search for order,” as famously described by historian Robert Wiebe. Most reformers agreed that one of the nation’s top priorities should be its children and youth, who, they believed, suffered more from the disorder plaguing the rapidly growing nation than any other group. Children and Youth during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era explores both nineteenth century conditions that led Progressives to their search for order and some of the solutions applied to children and youth in the context of that search. Edited by renowned scholar of children’s history James Marten, the collection of eleven essays offers case studies relevant to educational reform, child labor laws, underage marriage, and recreation for children, among others. Including important primary documents produced by children themselves, the essays in this volume foreground the role that youth played in exerting agency over their own lives and in contesting the policies that sought to protect and control them.

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  Without Metaphor, No Saving God: Theology after Cognitive Linguistics

  Robert Masson

  Studies of conceptual and neural mapping in cognitive linguistics, while posing a fundamental challenge for religious belief, also suggest new ways of understanding how people conceptualize God and make theological inferences. This book, inspired by that research and attentive to the distinctive insights of Christian theology, elaborates an innovative explanation of God-talk, better able to credibly address confusion and controversies that trouble the church, academic theology, and broader culture. The first part analyzes both cognitive linguistics’ challenge to standard theological depictions of metaphorical, analogous, symbolic, and literal language, and the discipline’s promise for providing a more satisfactory account. The second half examines six case studies to illustrate how clarifying the conceptual mapping in God-talk and theological inferences provides a powerful tool for advancing religious understanding. The illustrations include the hypothesis that religion is an epiphenomenon of evolution, the so-called “new atheism,” Black theology, and controversies between theologians and Church authorities.

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  Human Rights: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

  Michael U. Mbanaso and Chima J. Korieh

  Human Rights: A Cross-Cultural Perspective addresses the effects of recent global transformations in broadening and strengthening the discourses on human rights. The end of the Cold War and increasing demands for democratization across the developing world accelerated interest among civil society groups, activists, academics, and human rights groups in broadening and strengthening the concept of universal human rights. today, and across cultures around the globe, local human rights groups are pressing demands beyond the narrow confines of human rights to include: child rights; women rights; the rights of indigenous populations; the rights of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities; the rights to shelter and a healthy environment; and economic and social justice. The book explores some of the challenges that have frustrated efforts to realize the ideals and the implementation of human rights as stated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human Rights: A Cross-Cultural Perspective crosses a multitude of disciplines and locations but the theme of human rights remains relevant today as ever.

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  The Violence of Care

  Sameena A. Mulla

  Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Drawing on four years of participatory research in a Baltimore emergency room, Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. Taking an approach developed at the intersection of medical and legal anthropology, she analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addressing the needs of sexual assault victims as patients. Mulla argues that blending the work of care and forensic investigation into a single intervention shapes how victims of violence understand their own suffering, recovery, and access to justice—in short, what it means to be a “victim”. As nurses race the clock to preserve biological evidence, institutional practices, technologies, and even state requirements for documentation undermine the way in which they are able to offer psychological and physical care. Yet most of the evidence they collect never reaches the courtroom and does little to increase the number of guilty verdicts. Mulla illustrates the violence of care with painstaking detail, illuminating why victims continue to experience what many call “secondary rape” during forensic intervention, even as forensic nursing is increasingly professionalized. Revictimization can occur even at the hands of conscientious nurses, simply because they are governed by institutional requirements that shape their practices. The Violence of Care challenges the uncritical adoption of forensic practice in sexual assault intervention and post-rape care, showing how forensic intervention profoundly impacts the experiences of violence, justice, healing and recovery for victims of rape and sexual assault.

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  Danny Yukon and the Secrets of the Amazing Lamp

  Pamela Hill Nettleton

  Danny Yukon and the Secrets of the Amazing Lamp is the story of a young boy who overcomes the loss of his father —a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan. As a result of the tragedy, Danny becomes mute. At night, his dreams are haunted by a ferocious tiger. It is not until his uncle gives Danny an amazing lamp—and teaches him how to meditate— that he learns the key to his powers lies within.

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  African Catholicism and Hermeneutics of Culture

  Joseph Ogbonnaya

  The study of Christianity in the non-Western world reveals a demographic shift in the center of Christianity from the Northern Hemisphere to the South. But the contradictory aspect of the massive African conversion to Christian faith is the grinding poverty level in Africa. This condition raises important theological and ecclesiological questions that demand urgent answers. Therefore, the research objectives of this book are to examine African Catholicism's involvement in human promotion and to seek a new way of theologizing Christianity that moves sub-Saharan African peoples to action against the massive injustices that keep them poor. Drawing on Africae Munus, the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of the Second African Synod (2011), and Bernard Lonergan's notion of culture, African Catholicism and Hermeneutics of Culture argues that to truly be "the spiritual 'lung' of humanity," African Catholicism must appropriate the Christian message to transform African attitudes and personhood and so foster a self-reliant commitment to integral African development.

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  Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics: Conversations in the World Church

  Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator

  New vistas and voices are emerging in feminist thought that trace new directions and seek to rephrase the central questions of feminist discourse. Characteristic of this growth is the re-location of issues from the global North to include voices from the global South. This volume highlights the changing face and color of feminist theological discourse, recognizes innovative research in the field, and facilitates a global conversation among feminists engaged in theological ethics in the world church.

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  Theological Reimagination: Conversations on Church, Religion, and Society in Africa

  Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator

  Conversations on Church, Religion, and Society in Africa --- This book presents the conversations of African theologians on issues that shape these three institutions: Church, religion and society. Their conversations pivot on reimagination, that creates alternative worlds of meaning and purpose that embody God's self-revelation in innovative and creative ways.

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  Perspectives on the Intersection of Multiculturalism and Positive Psychology

  Jennifer Teramoto Pedrotti and Lisa M. Edwards

  • The first comprehensive book addressing the intersection of positive psychology and multiculturalism with a focus on diverse populations within the United States
  • Review of current theory and research about positive psychological constructs within a cultural context in addition to applications for various areas of practice
  • Offers a broad and inclusive discussion of various aspects of identity and positive psychology

  This book provides the first comprehensive collection of topics that lie within the intersection of positive psychology and multicultural issues. Written by leaders in the field and using a broad definition of culture (including race, ethnicity, socioeconomic or social class status, disability status, religion/spirituality, sexual orientation, and gender), this book reviews relevant research, theory, and suggestions for practice and highlights the importance of considering context within a strengths-based framework. Beginning with a history of the intersection of multiculturalism and positive psychology and issues related to measurement and methodology, the volume proceeds to specific examples of current research in multiple areas of cultural identity. Finally, domains (e.g., school, work, psychotherapy) in which the findings of this work can be applied are described, as are directions for future theory and research in this area.

  This volume is aimed at students, scholars, and practitioners across several fields including multicultural psychology, positive psychology, counseling and clinical psychology, school psychology, social psychology, as well as marriage and family counseling, and social work. It will serve as an important reference to any who are interested in learning about the intersection of positive psychology and multiculturalism.

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  Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology

  Nancy E. Snow

  Though virtue ethics is enjoying a resurgence, the topic of virtue cultivation has been largely neglected by philosophers. This volume remedies this gap, featuring mostly new essays, commissioned for this collection, by philosophers, theologians, and psychologists at the forefront of research into virtue. Each contribution focuses on some aspect of virtue development, either by highlighting virtue cultivation within distinctive traditions of ethical or religious thought, or by taking a developmental perspective to yield fresh insights into criticisms of virtue ethics, or by examining the science that explains virtue development. The essays by Russell and Driver investigate virtue cultivation or problems associated with it from Aristotelian and utilitarian perspectives. Slote addresses virtue development from the sentimentalist standpoint. Swanton and Cureton and Hill explore self-improvement, the former with an eye to offering solutions to critiques of virtue ethics, the latter from a Kantian ethical vantage point. Slingerland examines contemporary psychology as well as virtue development in the Confucian tradition to counter situationist criticisms of virtue ethics. Flanagan, Bucar, and Herdt examine how virtue is cultivated in the Buddhist, Islamic, and Christian traditions, respectively. Narvaez, Thompson, and McAdams offer descriptive insights from psychology into virtue development. The result is a collection of extremely creative essays that not only fills the current gap but also promises to stimulate new work on a philosophically neglected yet vital topic.

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  Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era

  Peter Staudenmaier

  The relationship between Nazism and occultism has been an object of fascination and speculation for decades. Peter Staudenmaier’s Between Occultism and Nazism provides a detailed historical examination centered on the anthroposophist movement founded by Rudolf Steiner. Its surprising findings reveal a remarkable level of Nazi support for Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming, and other anthroposophist initiatives, even as Nazi officials attempted to suppress occult tendencies. The book also includes an analysis of anthroposophist involvement in the racial policies of Fascist Italy. Based on extensive archival research, this study offers rich material on controversial questions about the nature of esoteric spirituality and alternative cultural ideals and their political resonance.

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  Aesthetics of Everyday Life: East and West

  Liu Yuedi and Curtis Carter

  As a new trend in aesthetics appearing concurrently in the West and the East in the last ten years, the aesthetics of everyday life points to a growing diversification among existing methodologies for pursuing aesthetics, alongside the shift from art-based aesthetics. The cultural diversity manifest in global aesthetics offers common ground for the collaborative efforts of aesthetics in both the West and the East. Given the rapidly growing interest and its potential for attracting new audiences extending beyond the more narrowly focused traditions of twentieth-century analytic and environmental aesthetics, it stands to command its own share of attention in the future of aesthetic studies.

  The aesthetics of everyday life has become a stream of thought with a global ambition. This interest has led to numerous systematic and in-depth works on this topic, some of which were conducted by the authors represented in this volume. A salient feature of this book is that it not only represents the recent developments of the aesthetics of everyday life in the West, but also highlights the interaction between scholars in the West and the East on this topic. Thus, the project is a contribution toward mutual progress in the collaboration between Western and Eastern aesthetics. What distinguishes this book from other anthologies and monographs on this topic is that it reconstructs the aesthetics of everyday life through cultural dialogue between the West and the East, with a view to building a new form of aesthetics of everyday life, as seen from a global perspective.

  At present, the aesthetics of everyday life as a newly emergent approach to aesthetics may encounter skepticism among aestheticians accustomed to the rigors of analytic philosophers who prefer to discuss aesthetics at the level of abstract concepts and argument, and who tolerate the particulars of experience mainly as illustrations. But, there is no reason to abandon the pursuit of the aesthetics of everyday life in the face of such objections. On the contrary, there are many benefits to gain in bringing aesthetics to bear on a wider sphere of human life, made possible through efforts to show the relevance of aesthetics to a broader range of human actions.

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  Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party

  Julia R. Azari, Lara M. Brown, and Zim G. Nwokora

  Throughout their time in office, American presidents are often forced to choose between leading the nation and leading their party. In an earlier time when the major parties were less polarized, this leadership dilemma, while challenging, was not nearly as vexing as it is today. American presidents now find themselves with little room to maneuver, compelled to serve the Constitution on the one hand and yet caught within bitter partisan disputes and large numbers of unaffiliated voters on the other. The contributors to this volume investigate how recent presidents have navigated these increasingly rocky political waters. Focusing on campaign strategy, presidential rhetoric, relations with Congress, domestic and foreign policy, The Presidential Leadership Dilemma presents a wide-ranging, detailed, and fascinating study of how contemporary presidents face the challenge at the heart of every presidency.

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  Probabilistic Models for Dynamical Systems

  Haym Benaroya, Seon Mi Han, and Mark L. Nagurka

  Now in its second edition, Probabilistic Models for Dynamical Systems expands on the subject of probability theory. Written as an extension to its predecessor, this revised version introduces students to the randomness in variables and time dependent functions, and allows them to solve governing equations.

  • Introduces probabilistic modeling and explores applications in a wide range of engineering fields
  • Identifies and draws on specialized texts and papers published in the literature
  • Develops the theoretical underpinnings and covers approximation methods and numerical methods
  • Presents material relevant to students in various engineering disciplines as well as professionals in the field

  This book provides a suitable resource for self-study and can be used as an all-inclusive introduction to probability for engineering. It presents basic concepts, presents history and insight, and highlights applied probability in a practical manner. With updated information, this edition includes new sections, problems, applications, and examples. Biographical summaries spotlight relevant historical figures, providing life sketches, their contributions, relevant quotes, and what makes them noteworthy. A new chapter on control and mechatronics, and over 300 illustrations rounds out the coverage.

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  Assessing Evidence in a Postmodern World

  Bonnie Brennen

  In contemporary society, the nature of reality is continually challenged and each day there are new examples illustrating that perception has become reality. This book collection considers how researchers might evaluate evidence when truth claims can no longer be made. The authors address issues of perception, evidence, reality and postmodernism from a variety of different backgrounds including history, ethics, cultural studies, law and social science.

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  Contradictions

  Bonnie Brennen

  The prologue for the powerful novel Contradictions begins on November 9, 1938 in Berlin, Germany, on the afternoon before Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The story flashes forward to 1980, when Rachel, a young Jewish woman at the beginning of her academic career and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, has recently been hired as the first female assistant professor of American history at a prominent East Coast university. Eric, a sociology professor with a penchant for smart young women, is serving as her mentor, guiding Rachel's research agenda and helping her understand the dynamics of the academic community. As Rachel's personal relationship with Eric grows, she begins to come to terms with her religious and cultural past. The recounting of a brutal rape serves as a metaphorical relationship to the Holocaust and its continued impact on Jewish life. Contradictions challenges the power of narrative to remake history, ultimately questioning the role of memory and storytelling in our understandings of the past. Bonnie Brennen is currently the Nieman Professor of Journalism at Marquette University in Milwaukee. "Throughout my childhood, my family struggled to deal with the aftermath of the Holocaust." She has written six academic books on aspects of cultural history and media studies. This is her first novel

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  The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology

  John B. Davis

  Bringing together a collection of leading contributors to this new methodological thinking, the authors explain how it differs from the past and point towards further concerns and future issues. The recent research programs explored include behavioral and experimental economics, neuroeconomics, new welfare theory, happiness and subjective well-being research, geographical economics, complexity and computational economics, agent-based modeling, evolutionary thinking, macroeconomics and Keynesianism after the crisis, and new thinking about the status of the economics profession and the role of the media in economics.

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  The Economics of Social Institutions

  John B. Davis and Asimina Christoforou

  The economics of social institutions has been a well-established research field for over a century, one that continues to expand and to develop new areas of investigation. Here Professor Davis and Dr Christoforou bring together in one easily accessible volume the most significant contributions by leading figures in this area. The volume provides a comprehensive review of the origins and development of the economics of social institutions and addresses the main theoretical and policy concerns that have occupied scholars and researchers.

  With an insightful original introduction by the editors, this collection is a key resource which will make an invaluable contribution to advancing future thinking in this evolving area of study.

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  Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan Vol. 24

  Robert Doran

  Continuing where Volume 23 left off, Volume 24 of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan traces the background to Lonergan’s notion of functional specialization as it emerges in his Latin courses and seminars on method.

  This volume contains editorial reports based on Lonergan’s handwritten notes for two courses in 1963, both entitled “Method in Theology.” Also included is the lecture “De Notione Structurae,” dating from 1964, along with an English translation on facing pages.

  Together with Volumes 22 and 23, Early Works on Theological Method 3 provides readers with a thorough presentation of the data on Lonergan’s development through the 1960s as he worked out what became the classic book Method in Theology (1972).

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  German Immigrants, Race, and Citizenship in the Civil War Era

  Alison Clark Efford

  This study of Civil War–era politics explores how German immigrants influenced the rise and fall of white commitment to African-American rights. Intertwining developments in Europe and North America, Alison Clark Efford describes how the presence of naturalized citizens affected the status of former slaves and identifies 1870 as a crucial turning point. That year, the Franco-Prussian War prompted German immigrants to reevaluate the liberal nationalism underpinning African-American suffrage. Throughout the period, the newcomers’ approach to race, ethnicity, gender, and political economy shaped American citizenship law.

  • Recreates the German-language debate in the United States based on a range of under-utilized sources
  • Provides a transnational history of the Civil War era, intertwining developments in North America and Europe
  • Integrates ethnic construction and naturalization into an interpretation of race and citizenship

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  Afro-Cuban Theatre of the Diaspora: Critical Essays

  Armando González-Pérez

  Afro-Cuban Theatre of the Diaspora: Critical Essays complements Black Presence: Cuban Theatre of the Diaspora, a critical anthology edited as well by Armando González-Pérez (Betania: Madrid, 1999). This thoughtfully crafted and insightful book on Afro-Cuban theater in exile as well as his critical anthology has an essential glossary of African and Afro-Cuban terms which facilitates the reading of the texts studies. With the exception of Leandro Soto, whose dramatic work is represented visually without a textual support, the authors studied in this new volume are: Matías Montes Huidobro, Pedro R. Monge Rafuls, José Corrales and Manuel Pereiras García, Raúl de Cárdenas, Héctor Santiago, Manuel Martín Jr. and Dolores Prida.

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  Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics: A Systems Approach

  Stephen J. Guastello

  Although still true to its original focus on the person–machine interface, the field of human factors psychology (ergonomics) has expanded to include stress research, accident analysis and prevention, and nonlinear dynamical systems theory (how systems change over time), human group dynamics, and environmental psychology. Reflecting new developments in the field, Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics: A Systems Approach, Second Edition addresses a wide range of human factors and ergonomics principles found in conventional and twenty-first century technologies and environments. Based on the author’s thirty years of experience, the text emphasizes fundamental concepts, systems thinking, the changing nature of the person-machine interface, and the dynamics of systems as they change over time.

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  The Web of Violence: Exploring Connections Among Different Forms of Interpersonal Violence and Abuse

  Sherry L. Hamby and John H. Grych

  There is an increasing appreciation of the interconnections among all forms of violence. These interconnections have critical implications for conducting research that can produce valid conclusions about the causes and consequences of abuse, maltreatment, and trauma. The accumulated data on co-occurrence also provide strong evidence that prevention and intervention should be organized around the full context of individuals’ experiences, not narrowly defined subtypes of violence. Managing the flood of new research and practice innovations is a challenge, however. New means of communication and integration are needed to meet this challenge, and the Web of Violence is intended to contribute to this process by serving as a concise overview of the conceptual and empirical work that form a basis for understanding the interconnections across forms of violence throughout the lifespan. It also offers ideas and directions for prevention, intervention, and public policy.

  A number of initiatives are emerging to integrate the findings on co-occurrence into research and action. The American Psychological Association established a new journal, Psychology of Violence, which is a forum for research on all types of violence. Sherry Hamby is the founding editor and John Grych is associate editor and co-editor of a special issue on the co-occurrence of violence in 2012. Dr. Hamby also is a co-investigator of the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), which has drawn attention to polyvictimization. Polyvictimization is a focus of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Defending Childhood Initiative and has recently been featured in calls for grant proposals by the Office of Victims of Crime and National Institutes for Justice.