The article is a comparative analysis of the philosophy of the Russian Religious Renaissance and the views of Marian Zdziechowski (1861–1938), a Polish religious thinker, historian of ideas, and historian of literature. Zdziechowski was also an expert on and promoter of Russian religious thought. As a thinker, he was influenced by it and attempted to cope with the same problems that were plaguing the Russians: the Bolshevik revolution, the decline of Christian religion and culture, and the imminent (...) catastrophe of the whole civilization. The paper describes the affinities between Zdziechowski and the Russian thinkers in detail, yet its main task is to grasp the differences between them, i.e., the distinctive features of Zdziechowski’s thought. The conclusion is that Zdziechowski, who—in contrast to the Russians—was not interested in the recent currents of Western philosophy, as a critic of historical Christianity and an eschatological thinker was less radical than the Russians, but as a philosopher of history he turns out to be a greater pessimist. An important part of the analysis is confrontation of literary styles typical for the Polish thinker and the Russians. A specific feature of Zdziechowski was his tendency to express his own views not in a straightforward manner, but rather by commenting and reconstructing other authors’ ideas. (shrink)

The name of Gerhard PODSKALSKY is well known to all Byzantinists and his works on Russian Christianity and theology (988–1237) and Greek theology (1453–1821) published by Beck in 1982 and 1988 respectively have become classic works of reference. Since both Bulgaria and Serbia were the Empire's immediate neighbours and at various times integral parts of the Byzantine Empire this book is of greater importance for the Byzantinist than the previous two and without any doubt it will find a place (...) in every scholar's library. In his preface the author stresses (p. VII) that the book has been written with Western scholars in mind and for this reason he not only gives brief summaries of the contents of all original Slav works but also lists translations in Western languages of the works discussed, which makes the book invaluable for scholars who do not have a working knowledge of Slavonic and modern Slav languages. (shrink)

The review covers scholarly publications devoted to the philosophy of Hermann Cohen, the head of the Marburg School of Neo­Kantianism, written by Russ­ ian researchers in the period between 2000 and 2023. Although Cohen commanded unquestioned authorityamong Russian philosophers of his time — among them some followers and pupils — there was no systematic and substantive study of his work in pre­revolutionary Russia. The review below attempts to show the evidentgrowth of interest in Cohen’s philosophy in the last quarter (...) of the century. The teaching of the German philosopher who lived and worked in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries still attracts lively in- terest among Russian philosophers today. Witness the multiple monographs, articles and reports focusing on Cohen’s theory of cognition, his ethics and aesthetics, the search for convergences between the Christian religion and the Judaic tradition, the concept of the philosophy of culture, the relationship between morality and law and many other issues. The review pays particular attention to the works on the reception of Cohen’s philosophy in Russia, as well as previously unpublished translations and archive materials which were part of the scholarly discourse of his time but remained unpublished and then forgotten. The interest of modern Russ­ ian scholars in the work of Cohen does not only point to his importance for the history of philosophy, but attests to the relevance of his ideas whose potential has yet to be fully revealed. The review may serve as a guide to the published literature on Cohen for the students of his philosophy and for all those interested in Neo­Kantianism in general, thereby contributing to the development of such a field in philosophy as Cohen studies. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to identify early and recent Pentecostal studies in the West and to highlight the main difference between them. Today there are more than 250 million Pentecostals in the world, and together with the charismatic movement there are more than 500 million. Having begun to spread in the 20th century, the movement claims to be the fastest growing religious phenomenon in human history. In attempts to interpret the phenomenon of the movement's growth, there have been (...) several gradually emerging approaches: explaining the origin of the movement as supernaturally "coming from heaven"; searching for the origins of Pentecostalism in other Christian movements; presenting the emergence of the movement as the result of social and psychological factors such as poverty, marginalization, and the desire to escape from modern society; and the multicultural approach. The paper analyzes the works of Western historians and theologians of Pentecostalism since the second half of the 20th century. The result shows a turning point between early and late studies, namely that late studies aim to revise the history and include participants in the movement around the world, not just in North America, explore the contribution to the development of the movement of local ministers who have long remained in the shadow of Western missionaries, emphasize the diversity of ideologies and social influences that have shaped the movement. It also highlights three major contemporary areas of research: historical, characterized by studies of Pentecostalism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; theological, focusing on the development and shaping of theoretical theology as a result of the movement's institutionalization; and religious studies, practiced primarily from the perspective of the sociology of religion. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the Orthodox Christianity’s approach to war. Christians of other denomination have developed an elaborate theory of war, so-called “Just War Theory” (JWT), which has also been accepted by non-Christians and even secular thinkers regarding the nature and justification of war. A vast literature has been produced in a dire attempt to render perfect the world by insisting on the claim that war is the act of punishment for breaking the law. The result is an (...) epistemological ease from which everything seems evident in advance including who is right and who at fault, who is and who is not favored by God. By removing from war an essential feature – that it is a form of conflict – JWT takes away the concept of reciprocity and introduces an in advance declared inequality which enables removal of uncertainty about the war’s outcome. In Orthodox Christianity, the situation is different. With still live debate whether to persevere or abandon original Christian pacifism, for Orthodox Christianity, war is always a combination of cataclysm and temptation and far less Manichean than anything present in JWT. The aim of war is peace; but, however necessary, justice is an insufficient condition for justification. The difference between “justness” and “justification” is preserved through the uncertainty whom God, at war’s end, loves more, because both victors and vanquished remain and continue to be in His grace. Losing a war, as such, does not turn the vanquished into criminals, nor does victory give the vanquisher the right of revenge for defending oneself. The latter approach to war has significant potentialities: preserving the distinction of ius ad bellum and ius in bello, preserving reciprocity, mutual respect and trust, impossibility of incrimination of war per se, the possibility of honorable defeat, etc. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the Christian discourse of the English TV series «Robin of Sherwood» (1984–1986). As a methodological basis for the scientific work, a philosophical-hermeneutic approach is used, presented, in particular, in the works of W. Dilthey, H.-G. Gadamer and M.M. Bakhtin. The most important structure of understanding is the principle of the «hermeneutic circle», which assumes that the text as a whole is understood through each of its parts, and the part through the whole. In (...) addition, understanding arises in the process of «dialogical cognition», a dialogue between the author, as well as the text as a subject, and the reader (viewer). The content of the series «Robin of Sherwood» is analyzed in the specific historical conditions of the 1980s. This is a period of growing social and cultural protest caused in Europe and the United States by the policy of neoconservatism and the reduction of social guarantees. Many phenomena previously classified as counterculture are becoming fashionable and becoming mainstream, including the legacy of paganism, pre-Christian mysticism and mythology. The article shows that the creators of the series intended to present Robin Hood not only as a leader of social or national resistance, but also as a defender of the ancient pagan religion against the new, Christian. An analysis is given of episodes from the first two seasons of the film, which trace criticism of the Christian church as an institution, as well as specific monks and clergy. In the third season, the critical pathos towards the church practically disappears. However, the author comes to the conclusion that it is the first two seasons that demonstrate the development of the moral consciousness of the characters from pagan to Christian, and Christian discourse is present in the film text, perhaps contrary to the original intention of its creators. There is also a reception of the Christian discourse of the series in the Russian and, more broadly, Russian-language literary Internet space, which is reflected in discussions on relevant literary and historical forums, as well as in works of fan literature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:After the Future. The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian CultureDmitry KhaninAfter the Future. The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture, by Mikhail Epstein; translated with an introduction by Anessa Miller-Pogacar; xvi & 394 pp. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.Mikhail Epstein, a renowned Soviet critic—his books in Russian include Paradoxes of the New (1988) and Faith and Image: The (...) Religious Subconscious in [End Page 508] Twentieth Century Russian Culture (1994)—emigrated to the U.S. in 1988. After the Future is the first collection of his major essays (written from 1986 to 1991) in English translation. It begins with the article “New Currents in Russian Poetry: Conceptualism, Metarealism, and Presentism,” which first introduced to the Soviet reader a group of postmodernist poets, just coming out (with the advent of glasnost) from the literary underground. Other articles (“Avant-Garde Art and Religion,” “After the Future: On the New Consciousness in Literature”), though first published in Russian literary journals, were shipped to Russia from “the other shore” (to use Alexander Herzen’s description of emigre writers’ whereabouts vis-à-vis their homeland). The latest studies (“Relativistic Patterns in Totalitarian Thinking: The Linguistic Games of Soviet Ideology,” “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Postmodernism”) were not only sent from the other shore but apparently produced for the other shore. Instead of analyzing the recent Russian literary crop and emerging aesthetic sensibilities, Epstein focuses on Russian historic experience in its entirety, which he somewhat didactically clarifies for the foreign reader.Despite its shifting perspectives, After the Future features a distinctive approach toward Russian postmodernism, its bona fide subject matter. Following Jean Baudrillard, Epstein defines postmodernism as simulation (“the production of reality as a series of plausible copies”) that engenders some new hyperreality and in so doing supplants “reality itself, which then becomes irrecoverable” (p. 189). The originality of Epstein’s position lies, however, in his claim that Russia as a historic and cultural entity is a postmodernist phenomenon in its own right that simulates and masterminds reality. Epstein’s claim that postmodernism is ingrained in Russian tradition is pitted specifically against those who doubt that Russia is ready to enjoy its own postmodernist bash since (contrary to the West) it never went through prior modernist phases. To prove that Russia foreshadowed postmodernism, Epstein draws on a number of historic illustrations. He cites the forceful adoption of Christianity under Prince Vladimir in 988, Peter the Great’s building of Petersburg in the “Finnish swamp” and Prince Potemkin’s infamous make-up villages as examples of the Russian tendency to forfeit the status quo for the sake of trumped-up, ersatz realities.However, Epstein’s arguments to the effect that Russia, and not the West, is the birthplace of postmodernism are not very convincing since (in accordance with his own premise) other countries can claim such a dubious distinction as well. (“Russia is the motherland of elephants”—the Russians joke about claims by zealous patriots that all great discoveries were known in their country before they appeared elsewhere.) Elsewhere, the building of the Chinese wall and the ensuing Chinese policies of isolationism, draconian enclosures of peasant land in England that led to a speedy transition to capitalism, drastic economic and social reforms after the French Revolution, and the racist policies of the Third Reich were just as arbitrary, and yet transformative of prior realities, as any of [End Page 509] Russia’s most foolhardy experiments. Ironically, Epstein’s claim that Russia is the motherland of postmodernism harks back to the turn-of-the-century controversy as to whether it is pertinent to apply Marxist theory to rustic Russia. Lenin argued that Russia can claim Marxism as its own because all of its long-suffering history was an anticipation of Marxism and leading toward it. Epstein analogously contends that there is a special, indigenous Russian route to postmodernism, a statement that evokes similar pronouncements ingrained in Russian philosophical tradition: Epstein’s thesis that Russia is “irreal” reminds one of Peter Chaadaev’s contention that Russia does not have a history; his idea that Russia is on the threshold of a cultural synthesis with the... (shrink)

In Transcendent Love: Dostoevsky and the Search for a Global Ethic, Leonard G. Friesen ranges widely across Dostoevsky's stories, novels, journalism, notebooks, and correspondence to demonstrate how Dostoevsky engaged with ethical issues in his times and how those same issues continue to be relevant to today's ethical debates. Friesen contends that the Russian ethical voice, in particular Dostoevsky's voice, deserves careful consideration in an increasingly global discussion of moral philosophy and the ethical life. Friesen challenges the view that contemporary (...) liberalism provides a religiously neutral foundation for a global ethic. He argues instead that Dostoevsky has much to offer when it comes to the search for a global ethic, an ethic that for Dostoevsky was necessarily grounded in a Christian concept of an active, extravagant, and transcendent love. Friesen also investigates Dostoevsky's response to those who claimed that contemporary European trends, most evident in the rising secularization of nineteenth-century society, provided a more viable foundation for a global ethic than one grounded in the One, whom Doestoevsky called simply "the Russian Christ." Throughout, Friesen captures a sense of the depth and sheer loveliness of Dostoevsky's canon. Dostoevsky was, after all, someone who believed that the ethical life was sublimely beautiful, even as it recklessly embraced suffering and unreasonably forgave others. The book will appeal to both students and scholars of Russian literature and history, comparative ethics, global ethics, and cultural studies, and togeneral readers with an interest in Dostoevsky. "Others have written about Dostoevsky's ethics, but I am not aware of any single-authored, sustained attempt to make the case for Dostoevsky's 'transcendent love' as part of a larger discussion of a global ethic. Moreover, Leonard Friesen presents his case in an engaging and highly accessible form. He believes passionately that Dostoevsky is deeply relevant to the discussion; his commitment rings through the pages and draws the reader in. In this way, his essay makes an original contribution to Dostoevsky studies that will appeal to scholars in a variety of disciplines and to educated lay readers with ethical concerns about the path of modernity, as well as to the many fans of Dostoevsky's work." --Russell Hillier, Providence College. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theory in the “Post” Era: A Vocabulary for the 21st-Century Conceptual Commons ed. by Alexandru Matei, Christian Moraru and Andrei TerianLaura Elena Savu WalkerMatei, Alexandru, Christian Moraru, and Andrei Terian, editors. Theory in the “Post” Era: A Vocabulary for the 21st-Century Conceptual Commons. Bloomsbury, 2021. 376pp.Far from “mourning” the demise of theory, this timely and thoughtfully curated essay collection testifies to its “renewed vitality,” its compelling (...) presence “across fields, domains of life, and geocultural boundaries,” and its power to build an ever-expanding world community of practioners who are forming what has come to be known as a “theory commons” (ix). As the collection’s editors point out, theory’s new lease on life hinges on ensuring both the democratic workings of this “world discourse formation” (1) and on the responsible theorizing of the very notion of community in “a world threatened by all kinds of anti-communal actions and reactions, from runaway globalization to exacerbated tribalism and tunnel-vision politics” (x). Working on the margins, specifically, out of a Romanian “lab” called The Critical Theory Institute (CTI), which opened its doors in early 2000, the contributors seek to revise the “standard history of theory,” one whose “Western origins, authority, and cultural compass ” strike them as “exceedingly reductive” (3). This project of geotheoretical repositioning and recalibration aims to recast theory as a “quintessentially cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, trans- and intercontinental undertaking” (4). As such, it carries on the project, launched in a previous volume, Romanian Literature as World Literature (2018), of fashioning an alternative to the nation-state paradigm that has long shaped literary and intellectual histories. In both of these works, Romanian critics and theorists have tuned into a wide range of voices, and tapped into a shared conceptual and methodological apparatus—itself the product of “an ethno-linguistic medley of traditions” (8). This approach informs what editors see as the “epoch-making” (17) discursive paradigm that has taken shape in globally networked post-Cold War societies (17), a viral model of cultural influence that fosters an ontology of “contact, contagion, of infection, dissemination, and horizontal accumulation” (15).To give us a sense of theory’s complex genealogy and evolution, the editors reference the Bulgarian critic Galin Tihanov, who has attributed [End Page 122] important developments in contemporary theory to the achievements of theorists (Nikolai Trubetskoi, Roman Jakobson, Vladimir Propp, and Georg Lukács) and schools of thought (Russian Formalism and the Prague Linguistic Circle). In “Traveling Theory” (1983) and “Traveling Theory Reconsidered” (2000), Edward Said called attention to the migratory nature of contributions made, for instance, by Georg Lukács, whose theories moved across different European locales in this period. Since then, contemporary theory has branched out to integrate the travels and travails of scholars affiliated with theory labs located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and last, but not least, Romania (10).Theory in the “Post” Era highlights five characteristics that distinguish theory in the “post” era from earlier forms: 1) It has a “reluctantly epoch-alist” thrust (19; original italics), which assumes that the “post” lexicon entails “rupture, discontinuity, and opposition” (19), radical departures, tentative claims, provisional conclusions, and ex-centric perspectives; 2) it adopts a “self-reflexive and experimental” (20; original italics) stance in which theorists invoke inherited approaches or invent new ones; 3) it introduces a “transdisciplinary” (21; original italics) scope that allows authors to interrogate the foundations, aims, and methods of theoretical discourse and practice across several knowledge domains, from which they “borrow whole vocabularies and toolkits” (21); 4) it is “nationally, transnationally, and ecologically affiliative” (20) in ways that allow theorists to “think with others at a distance” (21) about global issues; and 5) it is programmatic, placing critical and theoretical concerns in the service of “the ethical, the political, and the communal” (22). Organized around three main themes (“Aesthetics,” “Temporalities,” and “Critical Modes”), the essays juxtapose discussions of pivotal historical events and cultural phenomena with literary analyses of Romantic era “classics,” modernist experiments, and postmodern works of the post-Communist era, a corpus that includes, but is not limited to, landmark works of national culture that are now part of a fast-expanding planetary... (shrink)

It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, were preserved because they were taken up in the Christian tradition. But the story of how this process of reception and appropriation took place has never been systematically research. In this book the author first examines how Philo's works are related to the New Testament and the earliest Chritian writing, and then how they were used by Greek and Latin church fathers up to 400 c.e., (...) with special attention to the contributions of Clement, Origen, Didymus, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augstine. Philo in Early Christian Literature is a valuable guide to the state of scholarly research on a subject that has thus far been investigated in a rather piecemeal fashion. (shrink)

In recent years the term "dialogue" has taken on a special nuance and, in the literature, usually refers to specially organized gatherings between Marxists and Christians. Intense arguments rage around the "dialogue." An extensive literature contains the most diverse explanations of its origins and content, objectives and possible outcomes. An attempt "on the run" to smash through this picket fence of judgments and single out some "rational core" is hardly promising in the final analysis. Another path is required, reconstructing the (...) very mechanism of the appearance of various evaluations out of some initial material, independent of the opinions of the theorists of the "dialogue." There appears to be no need for recourse to the history of the "dialogue," which is sufficiently known. Let us cite only certain factors. (shrink)

The early work of Mikhail Bakhtin is notable for its emphasis on questions in ethics and philosophy. Focusing on these early writings, though also informed by Bakhtin's later works of the early 1970s, the authors in this volume explore the human and prosaic dimensions of ethical and moral dilemmas, whether in the philosophical concerns of the Young Hegelians, the iconography and implicit doctrine of Christian redemption in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in testimonial accounts of political martyrs in Latin America, (...) or in the nationalist features of Russian Village Prose. Incorporating a variety of disciplinary backgrounds into their essays, including theater arts, philosophy, history, women's studies, Latin American literature, and Russian literature, the authors take Bakhtin's ethics, as articulated in his writings of 1919-1929, and extend them into areas of thought that themselves enter into fruitful dialogue with his theoretical positions, endeavoring at all times to remain cognizant of both Russian and Western views of Bakhtin. The essayists' interactions attest to the productivity of any thoughtful encounter with Bakhtin's work and to the transformational nature of his work's impact on the myriad disciplines that it affects. Bakhtin's thought exerted a profound, systemic influence on many areas of knowledge as they have been configured in the twentieth century and, as this volume amply demonstrates, promises to do the same for the twenty-first. (shrink)

In this article, we link Russia’s discourse on traditional values with the global culture wars by showing that the Russian traditional values discourse owes much of its content and strategic formulation to the global culture wars. Going back much further than the recent elaborations of the Kremlin, we look at the origins of debates about public values inside Russia from the period of the perestroika, when Russian actors were socialized into the reality of culture wars by Western activists (...) approaching post-soviet societies with a missionary zeal. The article reconstructs the emergence of the discourse of traditional values inside Russia and points out its hybrid nature as a mix of notions about Russian culture, religion and history and Western Christian Right ideas. Based on documents, literature and qualitative empirical research with moral conservative actors in and outside Russia, we show that the traditional values around which Russia’s leadership has built its anti-Western national security doctrine actually mirrors the global dynamics of the culture wars. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of some 400 passages on music from early Christian literature - New Testament to c. 450 AD - newly translated from the original Greek, Latin, and Syriac. As there are no musical sources of the period, music historians must rely upon remarks about music in literary sources to gain some knowledge of early Christian liturgical music. This volume makes a large and representative collection of the material conveniently available. The passages are arranged chronologically (...) and regionally in eleven chapters with brief commentary. An introduction sets out the major subjects and themes of the original source material. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering (...) a hidden intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

This paper discusses two recent books by Vicki Müller-Lüneschloß on Schelling's Stuttgart Private Lectures.

Peter Chaadaev (1794-1856) is rightfully considered to be one of the forerunners of modern Russian philosophy. There is a famous scene from his life that may help us to understand both his own thought as well as the whole subsequent tradition of Russian religious philosophy. When Chaadaev finished his studies of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, he crossed out the title on the cover and wrote beneath it Apologete adamitischer Vernunft (An Apology for Adamic Reason). Russian religious (...) philosophy was supposed to be a critique of such secular reason. In this book we seek a contemporary interpretation of Chaadaev's thought and its influence. Our authors, including such scholars as Andrzej Walicki and Boris Tarasov, investigate his views on religion, society, history, politics, and Russian fate. Chaadaev turns out to be a crucial figure who continues to influence Russian religious philosophy to this day. ""Nicolas Berdiaev credited Chaadaev with 'the awakening of independent original Russian thought.' Indeed, his main themes have ever since been at the center of Russian philosophy. As a Christian philosopher Chaadaev cherished love of truth over love of fatherland, which, he said, 'feeds national hatreds' and 'sometimes covers the earth with mourning.' This volume is an important contribution to the study of his enduring legacy, for Russia and the world."" --Randall A. Poole, Professor of History, College of St. Scholastica ""Modern Russian religious thought begins with Chaadaev. While his output was small, its impact was far-reaching. Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Herzen, Soloviev, Berdiaev and many others were indebted to Chaadaev in one way or another. He merits the careful attention the authors of this volume devote to him."" --Paul Valliere, Professor Emeritus, Butler University Artur Mrowczyński-Van Allen is Professor at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient and Instituto de Filosofia ""Edith Stein,"" Granada, Spain. He is the author of Between the Icon and the Idol: The Human Person and the Modern State in Russian Literature and Thought (Cascade, 2013). Teresa Obolevitch is Professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland. Recently she published La philosophie religieuse russe (2014) in French and Semen Frank: Shtrikhi k portretu filosofa in Russian (2017). Pawel Rojek is Assistant Lecturer at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with thoughts for further research.

Based on the concept of shareholder primacy, many scholars have argued that it is more important for businesses to earn profits for their shareholders than to provide benefits to society at large. Corporate social responsibility is often regarded as an investment that comes at the expense of shareholders. In contrast, research analyzing the connections between the equity ownership structure of a company and its level of CSR engagement suggests that CSR offers benefits to shareholders that go beyond direct financial returns (...) from investments. This study provides a comprehensive review and systematic assessment of theoretical considerations and approaches regarding different forms of equity ownership and their relationships to CSR, and it discusses the relevant benefits and motivations of shareholders. The perceived value of these CSR benefits varies among different types of shareholders, as they assign unequal values to short-term financial or to rather long-term CSR benefits. Based on a literature sample of 146 publications, this review demonstrates central problems inherent in previous analyses. Given the ambiguous and partially contradictory findings of prior research, this study identifies potential moderating influences that help clarify empirical evidence. A contingency approach is suggested in future research, as this can help resolve the problem of contradictory empirical findings and theoretical arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEffects of metaphorical framing of political issues on opinion have been studied widely by two approaches: a critical-discourse approach and a response-elicitation approach. The current article reports a systematic literature review that examines whether these approaches report converging or diverging effects. We compared CDA and REA on the metaphorical frames that were studied and their reported effects. Results show that the CDA frames are typically more negative, nonfictional, and extreme than REA frames. Reported effects in CDA and REA studies differ (...) in terms of presence, directionality, and strength, with CDA typically reporting strong effects in line with the frame, compared to REA. These differences in effects can be explained by the different frame characteristics. However, differences in the methods applied by CDA and REA could be responsible for these differences as well. In all, we conclude that the research field is fragmented on the impact of metaphors in politics. (shrink)

The writings of the Church Fathers form a distinct body of literature that shaped the early church and built upon the doctrinal foundations of Christianity established within the New Testament. Christian literature in the period c.100–c.400 constitutes one of the most influential textual oeuvres of any religion. Written mainly in Greek, Latin and Syriac, Patristic literature emanated from all parts of the early Christian world and helped to extend its boundaries. The History offers a systematic account of that (...) literature and its setting. The works of individual writers in shaping the various genres of Christian literature is considered, alongside three general essays, covering distinct periods in the development of Christian literature, which survey the social, cultural and doctrinal context within which Christian literature arose and was used by Christians. This is a landmark reference book for scholars and students alike. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 96 Heft: 1 Seiten: 183-217.

Lists of personified virtues in ancient Jewish and Christian texts offer remote intellectual anticipations of names and structural configurations of later kabbalistic sefirot. These parallels indicate that various Jewish-oriented Christian sources preserved and mediated some traditions that later came to circulate in Jewish kabbalistic circles.