By Name United, By Sex Divided: A Brief Analysis of the Current Crisis Facing the Anglican Communion

The current controversies in relation to homosexuality - which emanated from the western quarters but quickly engulfed the entire Anglican Communion - highlight two significant issues. In our view, the first issue, regarding the 'religious citizenship' of lesbian and gay Christians, is generally a western concern. The second issue pertaining to the prospect of the disintegration of the Anglican Communion, however, needs to be examined within a global context. On the first issue, we argue that, since the contemporary western religious landscape (and society in general) prioritizes the authority of the self rather than that of religious institution/tradition, the traditional religious discourse that marginalizes lesbian and gay Christians is undermined by an increasingly sophisticated reverse discourse. This reverse discourse, equipped with lesbian and gay affirming theology and documentation of lived experiences, also converges with contemporary cultural (secular) discourse of human rights and personal liberty, which values social diversity, including sexual difference. We believe that the social and political currency of the reverse discourse will proliferate, thus eclipsing the traditional discourse that appears increasingly out of step with contemporary western socio-cultural reality. On the second issue, we welcome the heightened significance and relevance of (local) culture and Christianity in the debate. We argue that the decentralization (i.e. de-westernization) of the Anglican Communion should be welcomed, for there are various versions of Christianity, the conception and practice of which are closely informed by local cultures. Thus, to force the production of a unified Anglican response to moral or social issues that are differently defined across cultures may prove counter-productive.Anglican; Belief; Christian; Church; Gay; Homosexuality; Identity; Lesbian; Priest

Role of color in face recognition

One of the key challenges in face perception lies in determining the contribution of different cues to face identification. In this study, we focus on the role of color cues. Although color appears to be a salient attribute of faces, past research has suggested that it confers little recognition advantage for identifying people. Here we report experimental results suggesting that color cues do play a role in face recognition and their contribution becomes evident when shape cues are degraded. Under such conditions, recognition performance with color images is significantly better than that with grayscale images. Our experimental results also indicate that the contribution of color may lie not so much in providing diagnostic cues to identity as in aiding low-level image-analysis processes such as segmentation

"Along the Wings of a Tornado": the Aerial Aesthetics of Frank Hurley in Palestine

In 1917 the Australian photographer Frank Hurley, renowned in Australia and Europe as an aesthete for his theatrical photographs of Antarctica, was commissioned as Australia's official First World War photographer. His tour encompassed France, Belgium, and finally Palestine where he, more concerned with visual experimentation than historical documentary, experimented first with color and then aerial photography. Hurley occupied a contested role on the battlefield as an artist engaged in wartime. His blending of artistic techniques with military technologies during the Palestine campaign, at the dawn of aerial imaging, represented a significant moment in the history of photography, and lays bare many of the ethical complexities that concern contemporary aerial images that are synonymous with power and control

Defining Classical Tenor Saxophone: performer identity, performance practice and contemporary repertoire

The tenor saxophone has gained prominence as a classical instrument for composers and performers during the last four decades. Interest in the instrument has inspired the creation of innovative works and tenor saxophonists are charged with preparing these works for performance. Performing new repertoire has impacted the way in which the classical tenor saxophonists explore the musical potential of their instrument and their role in a larger sense. The aim of this study is to identify important works in the contemporary classical tenor saxophone repertoire, establish how performers approach these works, and discover their perceptions of the instrument. Twenty-two professional saxophonists from Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States of America completed a questionnaire in which they identified significant contemporary classical tenor saxophone works and explained why the works were important to the instrument’s modern repertoire. Twelve saxophonists then participated in an interview in which they explored their perceptions of classical tenor saxophone performance, and gave insights into their experiences studying, performing and teaching the most significant repertoire. Three key works written between 1986 and 2011 were identified, all of which utilised the tenor saxophone’s extensive musical and technical capabilities. These works were all written in a contemporary style and featured strong influences from jazz/pop music. Saxophonists regarded the tenor saxophone as a versatile instrument remarkably suited to the classical idiom and unique in the saxophone family. These professionals employed novel technical and musical approaches in their performance of the contemporary tenor saxophone repertoire to create successful and authentic interpretations. They explained their common perceptions of the instrument and shared a collective musical identity as classical tenor saxophonists

Uniquely positioned? Lived experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual Asian muslims in Britain

This paper highlights some of my reflections on the data drawn from an empirical research project entitled A Minority within a Minority: British Non- heterosexual Muslims, conducted in 2001 and 2002. Specifically, the project explored three dimensions of the lived experiences of non-heterosexual (specifically lesbian, gay, and bisexual; Hereinafter ‘LGB’ ) Muslims who are primarily of South Asian origin. These dimensions are (a) individual/cognitive (e.g. how they reconciled their sexuality with religious faith, given the pervasive censure of homosexuality); (b) interpersonal (e.g. how they managed social relationships with potentially stigmatising social audiences such as family members, kin, and their ethnic/religious community); and (c) intergroup (e.g. how they managed social relationships with potentially supportive social audiences such as the broader LGB community which is predominantly ‘white’ and secular). The 42 participants (20 women and 22 men) – recruited primarily through support groups, LGB Press and personal networks – were interviewed individually for about two hours. In addition, two focus group interviews were conducted. Most of the sample lived in Greater London, and the vast majority were under the age of 30, and highly educated (for more details about the research methodology and the sample, see Yip 2003). Owing to space I shall only highlight some prominent empirical and theoretical issues here, with references to more detailed discussions I have offered elsewhere.AsiaPacifiQueer Network, Australian National Universit

Classification of Stellar Spectra with LLE

We investigate the use of dimensionality reduction techniques for the classification of stellar spectra selected from the SDSS. Using local linear embedding (LLE), a technique that preserves the local (and possibly non-linear) structure within high dimensional data sets, we show that the majority of stellar spectra can be represented as a one dimensional sequence within a three dimensional space. The position along this sequence is highly correlated with spectral temperature. Deviations from this "stellar locus" are indicative of spectra with strong emission lines (including misclassified galaxies) or broad absorption lines (e.g. Carbon stars). Based on this analysis, we propose a hierarchical classification scheme using LLE that progressively identifies and classifies stellar spectra in a manner that requires no feature extraction and that can reproduce the classic MK classifications to an accuracy of one type.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures; accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

The gendering of heterosexual religious young adults’ imagined futures

This article draws from a mixed-methods project that examined religion, youth, gender, and sexuality among young women and men aged between 18 and 25, from various religious traditions, and living in the UK. It charts how unmarried heterosexuals imagined their future lives in relation to marriage and parenthood. We deploy conceptual literature on ‘imagined future’, which is under-used in the sociology of religion, to explore what difference, if any, religious belonging makes to the futures the participants imagined. We assert that religion is part of their cultural tapestry, which broadly informed their values and actions. In other words, religion, as a component of culture, provides a ‘tool kit’ which they used in imagining futures that they deemed meaningful. This article contributes significantly to literature on gender and religious cultures and imagined future, highlighting the complex and interweaving role religion played in the way young adults in this study imagined their future gendered lives

Queer Spiritual Spaces

Drawn from extensive, new and rich empirical research across the UK, Canada and USA, Queer Spiritual Spaces investigates the contemporary socio-cultural practices of belief, by those who have historically been, and continue to be, excluded or derided by mainstream religions and alternative spiritualities. As the first monograph to be directly informed by 'queer' subjectivities whilst dealing with divergent spiritualities on an international scale, this book explores the recently emerging innovative spaces and integrative practices of queer spiritualities. Its breadth of coverage and keen critical engagement mean it will serve as a theoretically fertile, comprehensive entry point for any scholar wishing to explore the queer spiritual spaces of the twenty-first century