Holidays and Traditions

Postcard from Marquesa Dixon, during the Linfield College Semester Abroad Program at the University of Nottingham in Englan

Acquiring Universal Values through a Particular Tradition: A Perspective on Judaism and Modern Pluralism

Religious traditions can be sources of values and attitudes supporting the liberal polity in ways that political theorizing and conceptions of public reason often fail to recognize. moreover, religious traditions can give support through the ways reason is crucial to their self-understanding. one understanding of Judaism is examined as an example. Also, the particularism of traditions can encourage commitment to universally valid values and ideals. reason’s role in Judaism and other religious traditions makes possible constructive interaction between those traditions and between religious and secular thought. exclusion of religiously grounded considerations from the discourse and deliberations of liberal polities can be counterproductively illiberal

Critique [of Chicano Ethnicity and Aging by Marvin A. Lewis]

Lewis\u27s article presents a creative and exciting approach for understanding the importance elderly people have not only in the family but in the community as well. He blends literary personification, cultural integration, and social science strategies for illustrating Chicano traditions and their relationships to the aging process. Literary works involving curandero/curandera and abuelo/abuela folk traditions depict reverance [reverence], honor, power, and prestige as engaging qualities inherited by the elderly. Lewis\u27s analysis of Anaya\u27s Bless Me Ultima and Santiago\u27s Famous All Over Town illustrate the congruence folk traditions have with the positive aspects of the aging process. By using literature to illustrate how cultural traditions are transmitted, Lewis shows social scientists the importance of creative fiction in rendering accurate, realistic portraits of people

Controlling the influence of stereotypes on one’s thoughts (Preprint title: Controlling implicit bias: Insights from a public health perspective)

Research on reducing or controlling implicit bias has been characterized by a tension between the two goals of reducing lingering intergroup disparities and gaining insight into human cognition. The tension between these two goals has created two distinct research traditions, each of which is characterized by different research questions, methods, and ultimate goals. We argue that the divisions between these research traditions are more apparent than real and that the two research traditions could be synergistic. We attempt to integrate the two traditions by arguing that implicit bias, and the disparities it is presumed to cause, is a public health problem. Based on this perspective, we identify shortcomings in our current knowledge of controlling implicit bias and provide a set of recommendations for future research

Book Review: Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought

Meeting of Minds: Intellectual and Religious Interaction in East Asian Traditions of Thought, a volume of eleven essays written in honor of Wing-tsit Chan and William Theodore de Bary, proposes to explore how Confucian and Neo-Confucian traditions have responded to and have influenced other traditions (Buddhist, Taoist, folk, Japanese nativist, and so on) in China and Japan. The essays are arranged first geographically (seven articles on China precede four on Japan) and then roughly chronologically. All essays, save one, describe Sung or post-Sung developments. A few sentences per essay must suffice in this review. [excerpt