Toward a Holistic, Intercultural, and Polyphonic Perspective on Health Care: A Brief Prologue to the Paper Titled “Understanding the Personalistic Aspects of Jola Ethnomedicine.”

As a prologue to the paper titled “Understanding the Personalistic Aspects of Jola Ethnomedicine,” the present essay provides a brief anthropologico-philosophical reflection, starting with classic Roman philosopher Seneca and his dictum that “each passing day we die,” and continuing on to the profound existential questions pondered by more contemporary thinkers, including Heidegger and Levinas, about life, death, being, time, totality, and infinity. These agonically deep questions are intimately related to the universal human angst about health, illness, and death and the seeking of a restoration to a functional corporal and mental harmony and well-being through various means and methods, whether based on traditional religious or mythical beliefs and practices or on more modern medical practices. This essay also provides a diachronic philological analysis of the evolution of the word “health” in various languages and its age- old semantic connections to the idea of the “holly” and the “sacred.” These semantic roots lead the author to define health as a “holistic, cosmic, integral, and sacred state of dynamic harmony.

Fire in the Soul of Zurga: Bizet\u27s The Pearl Fishers and Male Sati

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. Although in recent years Georges Bizet’s “other” opera, Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), has been performed on occasion, scant attention has been paid to it, compared to his world-renowned masterpiece Carmen. Even those who are not avowed opera goers have at least heard of the Habañera (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle) and more so, the ever-popular Toreador Song. Bizet penned The Pearl Fishers at age 25, and enthusiasts of this early work praise the “freshness of inspiration” which contributes to its “perennial success.” (9). The Pearl Fishers takes place on a “wild, arid beach on the island of Ceylon [modern-day Sri Lanka]” (10), where bold divers brave death every year (18). It is a French Orientalist opera, as is Carmen, although there is not yet the mezzo-soprano to embody the “exotic” seductress (in the case of Carmen, the Andalusian Gypsy). We only have the pure coloratura soprano, the opposite end of the narrow spectrum allotted to female characters who do not come from “our” world. The late Dr. Edward Said bases his main argument on the distinction between “our” world and the inaccessible “Orient”: “Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is – and does not merely represent – a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world” (12)

Addressing Cultural Pluralism from an Evangelical Christian Perspective

The complex issues surrounding cultural pluralism are rapidly turning the public square into a battlefield that divides our country. As Charles Haynes summarized, “At issue for this nation, as for much of the world, is the simple but profound question that runs through modern experience: How will we live with our deepest differences?” (Haynes, 1994). At a time when many citizens of our diverse nation have become disillusioned with the motto e pluribus unum, the Christian higher education community deals with issues involving race, ethnicity, and gender through a variety of responses ranging from isolationism to unqualified inclusion. Evangelical institutions of higher learning are not new to the discussion of multiculturalism. They have rather a rich history of commitment to living out Christ’s commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mk 12:31) regarding each other through the unity of faith in Christ (Gal 3:28). This paper addresses the historical context for understanding cultural pluralism together with the scriptural and religious imperatives for engaging Christian and secular audiences on this issue. It identifies several of the issues surrounding cultural pluralism faced by evangelicals today, while also developing criteria for celebrating and confronting pluralism. Finally, it articulates strategies for pursuing common ground in the public arena and discusses implications for Christian higher education in addressing cultural pluralism within and beyond the college classroom

Spartan Daily, June 12, 1941

Volume 29, Issue 158https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/3320/thumbnail.jp

Женское лидерство в педагогическом образовании: ответ на вызов времени

Автор статьи на примере Алтайского государственного гуманитарно-педагогического университета им. В. М. Шукшина показывает особенности деятельности и развития образовательного заведения под руководством женщины

Guareschi\u27s Mondo Piccolo and the Sacrality of Conscience

This study adopts a Christian hermeneutic to explore sacred themes in several of the 346 Don Camillo short stories that Giovannino Guareschi wrote between 1946 and 1966. Such a critical approach may seem non-traditional to use in analyzing a post-World War II, twentieth-century author. And yet, Guareschi defies convention in many ways beyond his profession as a journalist, humorist and popular author: he openly opposed the anti-clerical and Marxist literary establishment; defined himself as an anti-intellectual; and, as a layperson, he wrote unromantically about matters of faith. Especially as editor of the immensely popular weekly newspaper Candido, he had the perfect forum to reach millions of readers who shared his Christian values and were not part of the intellectual elite. To be sure, Don Camillo stories delight and earn frequent smiles and giggles, but the narrative action in best of them powerfully echoes Jesus of Nazareth’s call to conversion and forgiveness through the way characters heed their consciences

Tuning Out Hell's Harpists

The Culture of Suicide Bombing in Hamas, the Role of Sacred Values, and the Limits of Rational Choice

On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy

Lexicon entry on Kant's Essay "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.