Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning.

We examined the impact of training-induced improvements in self-regulation, operationalized in terms of response inhibition, on longitudinal changes in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning. Data were collected from participants undergoing 3 months of intensive meditation training in an isolated retreat setting (Retreat 1) and a wait-list control group that later underwent identical training (Retreat 2). A 32-min response inhibition task (RIT) was designed to assess sustained self-regulatory control. Adaptive functioning (AF) was operationalized as a single latent factor underlying self-report measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, mindfulness, ego resilience, empathy, the five major personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), diffi-culties in emotion regulation, depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being. Participants in Retreat 1 improved in RIT performance and AF over time whereas the controls did not. The control participants later also improved on both dimensions during their own retreat (Retreat 2). These improved levels of RIT performance and AF were sustained in follow-up assessments conducted approximately 5 months after the training. Longitudinal dynamic models with combined data from both retreats showed that improvement in RIT performance during training influenced the change in AF over time, which is consistent with a key claim in the Buddhist literature that enhanced capacity for self-regulation is an important precursor of changes in emotional well-being

The Control of Biblical Meaning : Canon as Semiotic Mechanism

Harrisburgxi, 259 p.; 25 c

Golden Oldies

George Aichele reviews:Shimon Bar-Efrats Narrative Art in the Bible (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series; 70. London: T&T Clark International; 2004. pp. 295. ISBN0567084957). And;Philip Daviess Whose Bible Is It Anyway? (Second edition. London: T&T Clark International; 2004. pp. 159. ISBN: 0567080730)

Book review of Patton and Protevis Between Deleuze and Derrida

This is a book review of Between Deleuze and Derrida, edited by Paul Patton and John Protevi (Continuum Books, London, 2003. ISBN: 0-8264-5973-0)

Simulating Christ: luke and John, and the canonical control of meaning

I examine the effect that the 'synopsis' between the gospels of Luke and John have on the New Testament's intertextual construction of 'Jesus Christ'. I draw particularly on the theories of Deleuze and of Barthes. I conclude that Luke and John, in combination with the letters of Paul, form a simulacrum of Christ that overwhelms and absorbs any divergences that may appear in the other gospels. This in turn plays a large part in defining the Christian 'Gospel' as a theological/ideological construct