Why Jews quote

Interest in the phenomenon of quotation as a feature of culture has never been greater. Recent works by Regier (2010), Morson (2011) and Finnegan (2011) offer many important insights into a practice notable both for its ubiquity and yet for its specificity. In this essay I want to consider one of the oldest and most diverse of world cultures from the perspective of quotation. While debates abound as to whether the "cultures of the Jews"2 can be regarded integrally, this essay will suggest that the act of quotation both in literary and oral settings is a constant in Jewish cultural creativity throughout the ages. By attempting to delineate some of the key functions of quotation in these various Jewish contexts, some contribution to the understanding of what is arguably a "universal human propensity" (Finnegan 2011:11) may be made./

Numerate Life for Whom? A Non-book-review of John Allen Paulos’s A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours

A common, widespread view on the field of mathematics entails that “mathematics is dry as dust [and] as exciting as a telephone book” (Davis & Hersh, 1981, p. 169), and that the professional mathematician is merely “a kind of calculator” (Krull, 1987, p. 48). Even more provocatively, mathematics is conceived by many of the general public as a “deadend” discipline in which all questions have already been answered, where nothing worthwhile is left for further investigation (Movshovitz-Hadar, 2008). However, mathematics is an active, growing, open-ended field – a fact which can be illustrated, amongst others, by the exponential growth in the number of new articles that are published per year (Dunne, 2019). Furthermore, the common perception of the subject by the people who are working within the field – the mathematicians themselves – is that mathematical work is creative in nature and often driven by its intrinsic aesthetic dimension (e.g., Brinkmann & Sriraman, 2009; Gadanidis, 2012; Sinclair, 2004)

Contemporary Jewish homiletics: some key components

This article deals with the derasha, the Jewish sermon and offers an inventory of the key dimensions of the Jewish sermon as practiced today and in the past from a reformed Jewish perspective. It shows its connection to the particular moment, its functions (further distinguished as contextual, intentional, educational, and symbolic), its message, sources, structure, and the techniques involved in its delivery and gives a brief example of one of the author’s own derashot from July 2015

In Search of Abraham Joshua Heschel

2017 Judaic Studies Scholar-in-Residence Rabbi Michael Marmur, PhD. Mandel Provost, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, author of Abraham Johnson Heschel and the Sources of Wonder.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/bennettcenter-posters/1347/thumbnail.jp

Superhydrophobic surfaces: a model approach to predict contact angle and surface energy of soil particles

Wettability of soil affects a wide variety of processes including infiltration, preferential flow and surface runoff. The problem of determining contact angles and surface energy of powders, such as soil particles, remains unsolved. So far, several theories and approaches have been proposed, but formulation of surface and interfacial free energy, as regards its components, is still a very debatable issue. In the present study, the general problem of the interpretation of contact angles and surface free energy on chemically heterogeneous and rough soil particle surfaces is evaluated by a reformulation of the Cassie-Baxter equation, assuming that the particles are attached on to a plane and rigid surface. Compared with common approaches, our model considers a roughness factor that depends on the Young’s Law contact angle determined by the surface chemistry. Results of the model are discussed and compared with independent contact angle measurements using the Sessile Drop and the Wilhelmy Plate methods. Based on contact angle data, the critical surface tension of the grains were determined by the method proposed by Zisman. Experiments were made with glass beads and three soil materials ranging from sand to clay. Soil particles were coated with different loadings of dichlorodimethylsilane (DCDMS) to vary the wettability. Varying the solid surface tension using DCDMS treatments provided pure water-wetting behaviours ranging from wettable to extremely hydrophobic, with contact angles > 150°. Results showed that the critical surface energy measured on grains with the highest DCDMS loadings was similar to the surface energy measured independently on ideal DCDMS-coated smooth glass plates, except for the clay soil. Contact angles measured on plane surfaces were related to contact angles measured on rough grain surfaces using the new model based on the combined Cassie-Baxter Wenzel equation, which takes into account the particle packing density on the sample surface

Public relations in print: a study and profile of public relations-generated news stories that appear in Delaware Valley daily newspapers

The purpose of this study was to examine public relations practice\u27s impact on journalism throughout the Delaware Valley through analysis of journalistic attitudes about public relations and the success of public relations practice on publicity for Rowan University. The study analyzed the results of a regional survey given to editors and reporters at 25 daily newspapers throughout the Delaware Valley. The study also included an analysis of publicity gained by Rowan University through its Office of University Relations over a two-month period. The study found that although a majority of Delaware Valley daily newspaper editors and reporters see public relations practitioners as an asset and resource to their profession, they do not feel that these resources play a major role in news formation. In contrast, the second study, an analysis of publicity gained by Rowan University, found that a majority of information released through the Office of University Relations was used as a resource in daily publication news formation. The study shows a disconnect between the attitudes of Delaware Valley daily print media journalists and the reality of a University Relations office\u27s publicity impact over a two-month period