Book Review: \u3ci\u3eDancing Bodies of Devotion: Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam\u3c/i\u3e

Book review of Dancing Bodies of Devotion: Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam. By Katherine C. Zubko. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014, xvii + 251 pages

Book Review: Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity in India

A review of Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity in India edited by Rowena Robinson and Joseph Marianus Kujur

Response to Rambachan\u27s The Advaita Worldview and Thatamanil\u27s The Immanent Divine

In light of postcolonial and feminist criticism, it has become good form for scholars to locate themselves with regard to their subject matter by laying out their values and presuppositions to the extent possible. Because supposedly objective or neutral scholarship often reflects hegemonic interests, this practice ideally brings self-awareness about the discourses we carry into the hermeneutical process. Postcolonial discourse since Edward Said\u27s Orientalism (1978) instructs that if Western academics are to continue representing the so-called East, they must at least acknowledge the dominance of Western and Christian presuppositions in this scholarly tradition

Book Review: \u3ci\u3eReligious Understandings of a Good Death in Hospice and Palliative Care.\u3c/i\u3e

Book review of, Religious Understandings of a Good Death in Hospice and Palliative Care. by Harold Coward and Kelli I. Stajduhar, eds

Book Review:\u3cem\u3eAgainst Dogmatism: Dwelling in Faith and Doubt\u3c/em\u3e

Book Review of Against Dogmatism: Dwelling in Faith and Doubt. Madhuri M. Yadlapati. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013, 204 pp

DIRECT PRODUCE PROFIT FOR SMALL AND INTERMEDIATE SIZE GROCERY RETAILERS

Direct product profit (DPP) is a retailing tool used to analyze product sales performance. Although the concept is over 20 years old, its widespread use in grocery stores is a fairly recent phenomena. A product's DPP is calculated as its adjusted gross margin less its direct selling costs, which normally include transportation, warehousing, and retailing or store costs. A product's DPP and sales volume classifies it in one of four categories to assist in merchandising options. Fifteen small and intermediate size grocery retailers cooperated with a study of produce DPP. Based on weekly produce sales, the stores were separated into three groups. As store group produce sales increased, produce adjusted gross margin and DPP increased. Based on produce sales volume and DPP level, various merchandising strategies are suggested.Agribusiness,

Ask Me No Questions and I’ll Tell You No Lies: The First Amendments and Falsehoods in Ballot Question Campaigns

American voters have come to expect exaggeration, distortion, and mudslinging in political campaigns, but do campaigners have a First Amendment right to blatantly lie—to simply make up false statistics and “facts”? A recent appellate court suggests that lying is permissible in initiative and referendum campaigns. However, providing constitutional protection for such statements undermines the most compelling justification for the right to free speech: preservation of enlightened self-government. Voters cannot be expected to govern wisely or in accordance with their consciences when they are subjected to a barrage of lies. The Supreme Court already recognizes discrete areas where free speech rights are curtailed because of significant personal or public interests in protecting reputations, consumer choices, and governmental processes. Likewise, the Court should recognize that falsehoods told with actual malice in ballot campaigns are exempt from First Amendment protection

Aesthetics in Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Framework

ALMOST a decade ago, I saw something extraordinary at an academic conference. The presenter, Katherine Zubko, who is also the respondent for this group of essays, stepped from behind her podium and demonstrated a series of dance postures to illustrate how Christian dancers have quite literally incorporated a mantra from Hindu scripture into their own devotion.1 Something similar happened again, at an annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, only this time the dancer was on a stage in full performance apparel for a recital. The performer, Francis Barboza, has spent his career innovating Christian-themed dance numbers in the classical Indian dance form Bharata Natyam.2 As Zubko’s book, Dancing Bodies of Devotion, brilliantly illustrates, this dance form has become an important site for interreligious encounter.3 Such performances not only illustrate the dialogue between religions; they also embody it. And in making this dialogue palpable to an audience, they absorb receptive audience members into the site of the exchange

Author Response

I am humbled and honored by the engagement of these four scholars, all of whom have significantly influenced my thinking. Francis Clooney\u27s pioneering work first interested me in the practice of comparative reading. Lance Nelson\u27s reflections on the ecological implications of a non-dualism provided a springboard for much of chapter three. Laurel Schneider\u27s radical push toward multiplicity has challenged my constructive thinking. Conversations with Brad Bannon, a new dialogue partner, have generated new springs of insight. I am grateful to each of them for the gift of their response to Dualities. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Society of Hindu-Christian Studies, and especially to John Thatamanil, who was the impetus behind the panel and also presided at it