The Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor as a Basis for Ecological and Humanitarian Ethics

This paper explores the cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor and its relevance for contemporary ethics. It takes as it’s starting point two papers on Maximus’ cosmology and environmental ethics (Bordeianu, 2009; Munteanu, 2010) and from there argues that we can not consider environmental ethics in isolation from other ethical issues. This, as both Ware and Keselopoulos have also pointed out, is because the environmental crisis is actually a crisis in the human heart and in human attitudes toward everything about us. The paper goes through some key areas in Maximus’ cosmology according to his own formula of creation – movement – rest and considers at each stage the implications of this theology for the way the human should be living and treating other beings. The main sources for this exploration are Ambiguum 7, Ambiguum 41, and The Mystagogia with especial focus on the doctrine of the logoi and the divisions of nature. The paper concludes that Bordeianu and Munteanu are right to consider Maximus’ theology to be of ecological relevance, but that this relevance comes from the radical ethical statement being made about human activity. Maximus’ theology points the human toward becoming in the likeness of Christ who unites heaven and earth through love. The love of Christ when considered in an ethical context stands as a formidable challenge to current attitudes and institutions that advocate the exploitation and destruction of human or non-human creation

Wicked intense: the grammaticalization of wicked and other intensifiers in New Hampshire

This article presents a synchronic study of wicked and other intensifiers in Southern New Hampshire. Two sets of data were collected: one from the social media website Twitter, and the other from spoken casual interviews conducted by students at the University of New Hampshire. In all, more than 9000 intensifiable adjectives and verbs were collected, with rates of 22 and 24 per cent intensification for the Twitter and spoken data, respectively. The first goal of this paper is to show that one intensifier in particular, wicked, is in the process of grammaticalizing through the mechanisms of desemanticization and extension. The second goal of the paper is to provide an overview of the current system of intensifiers in New Hampshire

To Each According to their Needs: Anarchist Praxis as a Resource for Byzantine Theological Ethics

I argue that anarchist ideas for organising human communities could be a useful practical resource for Christian ethics. I demonstrate this firstly by introducing the main theological ideas underlying Maximus the Confessor’s ethics, a theologian respected and important in a number of Christian denominations. I compare practical similarities in the way in which ‘love’ and ‘well-being’ are interpreted as the telos of Maximus and Peter Kropotkin’s ethics respectively. I further highlight these similarities by demonstrating them in action when it comes attitudes towards property. I consequently suggest that there are enough similarities in practical aims, for Kropotkin’s ideas for human organising to be useful to Christian ethicists

Library and information science publishing : global open access

Brief article describing E-LIS, an open access repository for library and information science material in a range of formats and languages. E-LIS was set up in 2003 with initial funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, in line with the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) and Eprints movements, and based on Open Archive Initiative (OAI) standards

Cyberstalking in the United Kingdom: an analysis of the ECHO Pilot Survey

An Analysis of the ECHO Pilot SurveyNetwork for Surviving Stalking is internationally recognised as the leading Registered Charity in the United Kingdom dedicated to supporting victims of stalking, free of cost or commercial gain. It aims to provide support to victims, potential victims and others affected by stalking or harassment throughout the UK, to raise awareness of the subject and to provide information about stalking and harassment to professionals, relevant agencies and the public. As we have moved into an age of electronic information and communication, stalkers have found new, more effective and efficient means to perpetrate their malicious acts; stalkers have become Cyberstalkers. Cyberstalking has become somewhat of an epidemic stretching across the globe. Network for Surviving Stalking began to notice that an increasing number of people searching for support were being stalked or harassed online, making the charity concerned as to the prevalence, nature and impact of cyberstalking. The charity commissioned a team of researchers and together developed an online questionnaire to establish answers to these questions. This report provides an analysis of the responses to the questionnaire

Shifting Landscapes: The Effects of Male Out-Migration on Food Security and Food Sovereignty in Rural Nepal

Rural Nepal is experiencing rapid demographic changes, significantly impacting the socioeconomic and agricultural landscape of these areas. Growing percentages of the male population are migrating out of the country in search of better livelihood opportunities. This is largely a result of poor development processes and governmental policies that have failed to create adequate domestic livelihood opportunities and incentives to work in agriculture, as well as changing ideas on what it means to be successful, spurred by globalization. Further, dominant neoliberal ideology and the commercialization of agriculture is decreasing the profitability of agriculture, making migration a lucrative option. Due to out-migration, rural areas are experiencing serious labor shortages, therefore impacting food security and food sovereignty. When men migrate, remittances allow for short-term food security, however declining agency over what and how crops are farmed due to the de-intensification of farming practices is eroding food sovereignty. Further, while short-term food security for some may be achieved, it is due to a reliance on cheap imported food that is dangerous and unsustainable. This impacts people of varying castes and exacerbates the vulnerability of both migrating and non-migrating families. This may lead to serious nation-wide consequences in the future